Traditional Role Of Women In America Essay

Before the Depression, a woman's traditional role was to be a homemaker. Working outside the home, and providing for herself was unknown to people living in the nineteenth century. The Great Depression changed the traditional role of woman in the United States because women were entering the workforce to provide for their children and families. Given the desperate economic conditions, females needed to support themselves and their families by accumulating an income. Men were no longer the only breadwinners of a family, and unfortunately there were still people who were resilient to the change.

As the country was changing economically, the social change in society seemed inevitable. This transition was not a bad one, in fact it was a …show more content…
Just as Alice Stone did, the First Lady of the United States, Eleanor Roosevelt did as well. She wrote about her subtle attempts to enforce change in America when regarding a woman's role in society. For her, approaching the subject was a challenge in itself because of the difference in basic values amongst people. Eleanor Roosevelt is a prime example of a women defying a precedent set by societies standards. In This I Remember, she writes, “ As time went by, I found that people no longer considered me a mouthpiece for my husband but realized that I had a viewpoint of my own with which he might not at all agree.” Being the wife of one of the most powerful men in the world, the First Lady often felt like she was living in her husband's shadow. It became easy to feel like a puppet when her opinions weren’t taken seriously and valued. She was not alone in this feeling, it was a common inkling amongst all women in America. This did not stop her from voicing her beliefs and expressing concern of the lack of opportunity for women. Eleanor Roosevelt granted hope for a more equal future , but she also influenced her husband, President Roosevelt to include women in his plan for a rehabilitated