Westward Expansion Gender Analysis

Women were treated differently on the frontier from how they are treated today. There was almost a gender division between men and women. Men were the independent gender on the frontier and women were the ones who were dependent on them. On the frontier, women had certain roles that they had to follow in their home. Generally, they would work only inside the home as a “domestic house wife” while their husbands and sons worked on the farm outside, although there were occasions, which were slim to none, that the women would defy the typical roles that they were supposed to follow and would help outside in the fields. Women on the frontier did not have much of a status, often they were dependents of their husbands and were not, “worth mentioning in the conventional story of Westward Expansion” (Walsh, 242). It was extremely rare for a single man to run a farm on his own, they relied on women and children to help. Before moving to a farming area men would marry and start having children. Families ranged from five to ten children, occasionally more. The boys would work in the fields and the girls would be inside helping with the duties of the house. Women did a large of the cooking, cleaning, making and fixing clothes, and raising the children that were too …show more content…
Men are no longer the superiors or the ones that women are dependent on, in most cases. Today, women have the choice to have a job or not. They do not have to stay at home to take care of the family twenty-four seven, even though some people still see women as the care providers of the family. Women can do the “men’s work,” just as the men will do the women’s work as necessary. Both men and women can receive an equal education, they do not learn how to become a good housewife, both genders learn what they need to know to receive a good job. Over the years, gender roles changed and they have changed to become more