Women in Antebellum America Separation of Spheres & the Cult of True Womanhood

Intro Stuff Antebellum: “before war” Antebellum period of U. S. History: 1820-60 What’s going on? Industrialization Urbanization Immigration Westward Movement Rise of Slavery

Westward Expansion

Industrialization (See how it’s all Northeast)

Immigration

Slave Demographics

Slave Distribution

Change is Constant All countries are always changing. Nonetheless, the Antebellum period was a time of immense changes for the U. S. How people lived changed. Thus rules for how people lived changed. Gender rules changed Thus Women’s roles and the ideas about those roles changed

Separation of Spheres Industrialization and Urbanization meant that increasingly home and work became separate. Public Sphere: Where Waged work took place. Gendered Male. Men were in Charge of the Public Sphere. The Public Sphere was Active, Busy, Dangerous

Private Sphere: The HOME. Where unwaged work took place. Gendered Female The home became a place of REFUGE. A Safe and Gentle Place that provided men with a rest from the rigors of the Public Sphere. Women Belonged in the Private sphere because a woman’s job was to tend to men and children. To obey and submit to male needs.

Private Sphere became about Restriction: Evidenced in Women’s Fasions

Layers and Layers

The Kicker This ideology was “Sold” to the American public as NATURAL. Real women wanted to be in the home because it was ordained by God and Nature. Bad women could be found outside the home. Bad women were unnatural or sub-human. Slave Women & Poor working women fell into this category

The Cult of True Womanhood A 19th c. Gender Ideology about “how women were” that still has meaning today. Real Women were: 1. Passive/Submissive 2. Pious/Religious 3. Pure/Assexual 4. Domestic

1. Passive/Submissive Real women were submissive to men. Real women took pleasure in submitting to authority. Real women guided men by “gentle moral suasion” not force, argument or reason. An 1830s minister said: The power of a woman is in her dependence. A woman who gives up her dependence becomes unnatural.

2. Pious/Religous Real women were naturally more religious than men. Women had a better understanding of Morality than men. Women were naturally “GOOD” because of their superior understanding of morality. (This will lead to Female Moral Authority– more on that later!)

3. Domesticity 1. Real women were naturally domestic. They yearned to clean house and raise children. They were intended to by God Women who did not keep house for a man or have children were Unnatural Women.

How-To Manuals and Rising Domestic Standards

4. Purity Real Women were Pure. Sexually Pure. Remember Martha Ballard and Colonial Standards (like Witchcraft Lecture), where women were the Lusty Gender? As men could leave– go to cities or move west, rules about sex had to change. Rules about sex exist to ensure babies have two parents– one as a back-up.

So . . . Gradually, in early 1800s the message went out that women WERE NOT the Lusty Gender. Men were. Women abhorred Sex. As the morally pure gender they found it repulsive. As the submissive gender, they had sex only when compelled to by male or maternal needs.

Two Forms Before Marriage: Women were supposed to be virgins. AVOID SEX at all cost After Marriage: Women had to have sex to become mothers, but did so with the greatest reluctance and as little as possible. Female Sexual Pleasure was morally suspect. Female Masturbation was Invisible.

The Sexual Reality There was a lot of Birth Control Around in the 1800s. Here’s a Condom!

Cervical Caps (used with lemon juice or vinegar)

Medications & Pills

Douches

Contraceptive Sponges

The Point of all this Birth Control? There’s a wide gap between PRESCRIPTIVE BEHAVIOR (Rules about how people should act) & REALITY (how people really act)

Intra-Uterine Devices (IUDs) or Pessaries

And Abortions

Finis!