Gender Roles In Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's The Ways Of Her Household

Women’s role in the domestic sphere, up until very recently, has been burned into the minds of the American psyche as being something that is natural and to be expected. Women’s roles in society have constantly been shown in a negative light, particularly using religion to bring women down to a level where the patriarchal society can look down upon them and control them. Women have been shown to be feeble, weak, and less and moral than men. Women were presented as needing to be reeled in, tamed, and brought up to the standards of society. The three readings I have chosen to discuss all discuss women’s roles in American society and the way society perceives them, but through three completely perspectives.
In Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s “The Ways of Her Household”, the author takes a look at women’s domestic roles as a way of displaying the immensely difficult and crucial work that women of the colonial age performed in their only sphere of influence: the home. Ulrich describes in detail the …show more content…
Interestingly, the women are displayed in all three readings in an economic view. The Ulrich reading provides a look at women in a positive and appreciative way that displays the woman as being economic contributors and tireless workers in their community. The article on witchcraft displays the treatment of women as a threat to the economic balance of patriarchal power and that society would go to such extremes as to accuse and try women of witchcraft just to keep them from receiving any economic gains. The document on domestic relations describes in legal detail all of the ways that women were prevented by the government from being economically independent or stable. This document sees women in an extremely sexist and discriminating viewpoint that is an excellent view into the value systems that existed in colonial American