Womens Role In World War I - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 8 Words: 2489 Downloads: 5 Date added: 2019/05/17 Category History Essay Level High school Tags: War Essay World War 1 Essay Did you like this example? Womens roles in World War I were limited because of the gender roles constructed in society at the time. In support of this, Janet Lee, who wrote The First Aid Nursing Yeomanry provides information on womens roles around the time of World War I and demonstrates the stereotypes that were present. Lee says that at the end of the nineteenth century women were considered passive, submissive, emotional, and self-sacrificing which led to their assumed inferiority at the time (Lee 144). Another scholar, Einav Rabinovitch-Fox, who wrote New Women in Early Twentieth Century, talks about the various female identities and how they changed with the progression of womens movements. Fox describes that by the turn of the nineteenth century, womens movements began to grow, including the rise of the Gibson Girl. The Gibson girl was a new image of female identity. This idealistic, slim, white woman, was often depicted engaging in leisure activities such as sports, or other outdoor activities. This was an improvement in the image of women at the time because it gave them more freedoms which allowed for the possibility that their long held domestic images were malleable after all. This newfound identity would pave the path for women to transform what women might negotiate for themselves as they sought to enter the public world (Lee 140). Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Womens Role In World War I" essay for you Create order With the onset of World War I, men leaving for war left job positions open to be filled by women. With this, women were able to take on more positions in the homefront while simultaneously allowing for an expansion of roles in the military, through ideals of womanhood and womens unique nurturing and civilising qualities [which] supported claims for equality and civil rights (Vining and Hacker 335). Women were able to take on roles of care in the war as ambulance drivers and nurses, which is depicted in Radclyffe Halls short story Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself (1934). Additionally, some women who werent able to take on these roles instead supported the war effort in a different way, as is illustrated in I Sit and I Sew (1918) by Alice Moore Dunbar- Nelson. Even though this progression seemed to be a major advancement for women, men would not relinquish the power they held in society. Men had long held the positions of control and were able to make most of the decisions surrounding laws that worked to maintain their power. The state, composed of majority of men, did not want to allow women to enter the war because it would send a message that they were acknowledging womens rights as citizens, and therefore their ability to make decisions that would affect all of society. Considering the stigma that women were passive and emotional they were certainly not seen fit to make these types of decisions. Nevertheless, womens movements were advancing their agenda with the onset of the political New Woman. Unlike the previous ideal of womanhood associated with the Gibson Girl, the New Woman was mainly associated with the growing influence of women in politics and reform movements, especially the struggle for womens rights (Fox 6). Fictional wom en such as Miss Ogilvy and the woman in the poem I Sit and I Sew countered the social constructs of gender by contributing to the war effort despite attempts to hold them back. I argue that their contributions allowed them to challenge their traditional roles but did not allow for a complete revision of gender in society. In a poem written by Wilfred Owen in 1921, called Dulce Et Decorum Est the atrocities that occurred during World War I are described. World War I saw the onset of both trench and chemical warfare making it one of the most gruesome wars in history. With the onset of new technology enabling less soldiers to be on the front today, we often forget those who stood on the ground fighting with all of the brutalities of earlier methods of warfare. Because of this, poems that describe war, such as Dulce Et Decorum Est are important because they give the reader some insight on the experiences of war, including details of the chemical warfare: Gas! GAS! Quick-boys! An ecstasy of fumbling/ Fitting the clumsy helmets on just in time, but someone was yelling out and stumbling/And floundering like a man in fire of lime (ll. 9-12). In this quote, Owen describes the chaos of war, and his own experiences seeing men dying. Women in the home front were much aware of what was going on with the war and wanted to help fight. The fictional character Miss Ogilvy demonstrates proof of this in the short story Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself. Miss Ogilvy struggles with the social constructs present at the time, keeping her from fighting alongside her equal male counterparts. She describes how she felt not being allowed to take part in the war, how she wished to go up to the front-line trenches, she wished to be actually under fire, she informed the harassed officials (Hall 11). This quote tells the reader of Miss Ogilvys passion to fight in the war, not caring how gruesome it might be. Miss Ogilvy counters ideals of femininity at the time by demonstrating the very image of [women] as soldier[s].was fundamentally disturbing to wartime definitions of both femininity and masculinity (Watson 2004, 57) (Lee 145). Allowing women to enter the war whilst simultaneously enforcing concepts of femininity at the time, threatened both male and female ideas of gender roles. On one hand, men were considered brave for facing the brutalities of war and Womens military service disrupted the logic that only men were sacrificed as combatants, therefore only men might qualify for political citizenship (Lee 142). By allowing females, who were not considered functional outside of their domestic ability, to engage in the same acts that men were, it takes away from mens perceived braveness. On the other hand, it allowed women to demonstrate their capabilities in handling the same brutalities that men had always been glorified for, and thus supported womens movements towards equality. Women like Miss Ogilvy countered the stigmas by directly participating in the war. Miss Ogilvy formed an ambulance unit, which saw as much of the battle as those on the frontline without the same recognition. According to scholars Margaret Vining and Barton C. Hacker, in an article entitled From Camp Follower to Lady in Uniform, women in the late 1800s continued to push the bounds on what they were allowed to do in war and began forming organizations such as the Red Cross and others, that sought to include all classes of women, providing them with more leadership opportunities. Their increased roles raised to a new level the debate over the proper role of women in modern democratic society (Vining and Hacker 362). Real women, such as Vining and Hacker discuss, and fictional women like Miss Ogilvy set an example for women to follow, sparking the thought process that if one woman could do it, so could another. Radclyffe Hall provides evidence of this in Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself when she describes how Miss Ogilvy went to London and it was really surprising how many cropped heads had suddenly appeared as if it were out of space; how many Miss Ogilvies, losing their shyness had come forward, asserting their right to serve, asserting their claim to attention (12). This quote tells the reader that there were many women who thought the same way Miss Ogilvy did, and with numbers comes more strength. According to the article by Vining and Hacker, because women were so well organized on their own, when the war did begin, they took on active roles in the American Red Cross, which was one of the most far-reaching relief organizations during the war with eight million female volunteers. Because women were set up when the war began, men had no choice but to accept their help, allowing women to take some of the control that men had previously held. Contributions of women such as Miss Ogilvy and others like her allowed for a group of women to come together and push the bounds on what men would permit them to do. Women who were not able to help with the war effort in this way, seemed to have lesser involvement; in reality their influence made just as much of an impact to countering ideas of femininity as those who were directly involved. Some women seemed to be subdued in the roles society had provided; however, a quiet revolution was brewing in their minds. In the poem I Sit and I Sew by Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson, the narrator dreams of being allowed to participate in the war but is not able to because of the societal constructs that chain her to domestic duties. The speaker describes how she is forced to stay at home, which was common at the time because of the middle-class ideal of femininity inherited from the Victorian era [that] might locate respectable womanhood in the leisured activities of the domestic household and see it as unnatural for women to function outside this sphere (Lee 140). In the poem, the woman dreams of joining war but is constrained by gender roles and must sew, The little useless seem, the idle patch (Dunbar-Nelson 15-16). The monotony of the womans task causes her to question why she cant do the same things that men are allowed to do in terms of war. Questioning her own roles shows that she is no longer agreeing with them. Men recognized that once women started a movement, they would continue to push their agendas until their results of equal status were conceived, and wanted to keep them from actively trying to achieve this goal by keeping them busy with other things, such as sewing, knitting or gardening. The men keeping them oppressed did not realize that despite their hands being occupied, their minds were busy with plans and thoughts of war. Men did not consider their thoughts because of the belief that thinking of battle might invoke a passive and emotional response in women. Dunbar-Nelson describes wasted fields, and writhing grotesque things/ Once men. ( ll. 10-11). Because she conveys war in this way, it shows that the speaker does not glorify war. Just like Miss Ogilvy, she knows exactly what she would be getting into by joining the war. This is an attitude of nationality that men did not support women having. Enabling them to have this mindset would only reinforce the womens movements about equal rights because it would [instill] women with a sense of duty to society and nation (Vining and Hacker 359). This thought would threaten the existing structure of power because it implies that women will fight for what they want at all costs instead of being repressed as they once had been. The woman in I Sit and I Sew had this mindset and although she does not get to join the war effort in the poem, her contribution of thoughts helped make an impact on the minds of women around her, helping to further the growing movement of womens rights. However, both texts seem to imply that although their contributions were significant, society was never comple tely changed. In Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself there is a moment when the story shifts, and Miss Ogilvy travels back in time and becomes a male Neanderthal who has a female partner. During this chunk of the story, there is a battle going on between the two tribes. This portion is different from the rest of the tale because it exaggerates the gender roles present in Miss Ogilvys society. Halls use of gender swapping seems to imply the exact opposite of what Miss Ogilvy counters throughout the rest of the story. The Neanderthal man (Miss Ogilvy) refers to the female partner as his small berry(Hall 29), implying that she is weak and fragile, a stereotype of women during Miss Ogilvys time. Miss Ogilvy finds herself in the position of power she has craved all along. Finally able to fight and attain power in this fictional society, something which she was never able to achieve in her real world. Miss Ogilvys fantasy shows her as the ultimate contributor to the war by allowing her to be a male who dominates over females, and thus gaining not only the status to fight on the front line but also to make decisions concerning others. Miss Ogilvys ideal mate being the exact stereotype that she is fighting against seems to suggest that women will never gain any real power simply because they are women. Only the changing of sex into a male will allow them to achieve power in society. Hall could have portrayed Miss Ogilvys fantasy as a changing society in which women are allowed to fight and men are those that are stereotyped as weak. Because she did not do so, it shows that both Hall and the fictional character Miss Ogilvy believe that their status as women in society makes them eternally doomed to succumb to a power complex that will not change. Similarly, in the Dunbar-Nelson poem I Sit and I Sew although the woman imagines herself in battle, she remains confined to the domestic duties that she is unable to escape. Both Dunbar-Nelson and Hall seem to suggest that although women are able to make contributions to the changing of society, they fail to alter it completely. These texts challenge stereotypes of the time by placing the characters in contexts that dont agree with their predetermined gender roles, but they fail to bring forward a changing of society. Ultimately, the reader learns that fighting for a cause you truly believe in can only get you so far. Miss Ogilvy winds up dead by the end of her fantasy, and never returns to her real world. This proposes that the only way for her to escape the bounds of society is to disappear permanently, offering no resolution to the changing of gender roles. This is an issue that carries on decades after the war ended. Gender roles that were established before the nineteenth century have lasting impacts on what women are able to do in society today. Societal constructs created in the past, influence what jobs women are able to attain, pay they receive and many other aspects. Fictional characters like Miss Ogilvy and the woman in I Sit and I Sew demonstrate the ongoing battle to achieve equal status that women faced in the past and are still relevant in the present. Miss Ogilvy and the woman in I Sit and I Sew as well as real nineteenth century women, showed how their contributions to World War I challenged typical gender roles of society at the time. The poem and short story fail to bring forward a changing of society, showing that the battle for gender revision in society has not been won. Women are still faced with this issue today and will continue to fight modern ideas of gender construction just as those before them.

Descriptive Essay About Vacation - 1188 Words

As our children were growing older, we realized this year was probably our last vacation with all of our kids. As such my husband, Mike and I decided to take our kids and our dog by canoe and kayak almost 200 miles down the mighty Makenzie River. Jennifer aged 17, Shelly 13, and Ricky 9, prepared for a week without phones, stores, or television. Our plan was to canoe from Fort Simpson to Wrigley. Wrigley was the end of the road after the Mackenzie Highway. It would be an incredible family adventure. We loaded camp equipment, a canoe, a single and a two person kayak into two vehicles. The drive was long. It was 1600 kms down the road before we encountered the first set of several waterfalls the Northwest Territories has to offer.†¦show more content†¦Before our departure, we treated ourselves to breakfast at the local hotel. It was a wakeup call to the lack of availability of many things we take for granted in the south. 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Bourdieu and social class within the educational system Free Essays

The subject of social class within the educational system seems to be the elephant in the room. Issues of race, gender, discrimination and making safe places are addressed constantly within the pedagogy yet we ignore the realities of social stratification, especially when it comes to the classroom and the curriculum we are expected to teach. According to Bourdieu, the education systems of western societies function in such a way as to legitimatize class inequalities (Bourdieu, 1977). We will write a custom essay sample on Bourdieu and social class within the educational system or any similar topic only for you Order Now Success in the education system is enhanced by the possession of cultural capital (which is etermined the dominate culture) and Lower-class pupils do not, in general, possess these traits. Bourdieu then supposes that the failure of the majority of these pupils is inevitable. This, he postulates, explains class inequalities in educational attainment. , For Bourdieu, educational credentials help to reproduce and legitimatize social inequalities, as higher-class individuals are seen to deserve their place in the social structure. Place in the social structure is not pre determined and education often is a factor in the upward mobility in SES. Muller and his team describe cross-national imilarities and differences in the two steps in which education intervenes in the process of intergenerational class mobility: the link between class of origin and educational credentials attained, and between these credentials and class position allocated to (Muller et al. , 1989). They conclude that the patterns of association between class origin and education, and between education and class destinations are similar across the nine nations. However, the strength of these associations demonstrates cross-national variations. This paper is one of the first comparative tudies of social mobility, which used the data sets collected in the early 1970s from nine European countries investigated in Comparative Analysis of Social Mobility in Industrial Nations (CASMIN) project. Nevertheless, this article supports FJG hypothesis which argues that class origin inequalities in relative mobility chances will be roughly constant across nations . Social mobility, class and education is further explored through a longitudinal study conducted by Johnson, Brett Deary (2009). They proposed that social class of origin acts as ballast, restraining otherwise eritocratic social class movement, and that education is the primary means through which social class movement is both restrained and facilitated, thereby giving weight to Bourdieu’s theory of Cultural Reproduction. They conclude that parental social class attainment contributes to educational attainment, which in turn contributes to participant social class attainment, suggesting that educational attainment contributed to social class stability. Education is important to social mobility and, thus, appears to play a pivotal role in the association between ability and social class attainment. When looking at the relationship between ability and social class attainment, it is useful to also look at the different types of culture capital. Andersen and Hansen (201 1), for example, distinguish between two interpretations of cultural capital: â€Å"narrow’ and â€Å"broad. † The narrow interpretation refers a child’s exposure to ‘high cultural’ products or activities (Bourdieu’s concept ot objectified capital): tor example, having objects of art at home, or a tastefully furnished home, visits to the theatre or art museums, or playing the piano (p. 608). These signs of high culture may not mprove a student’s work in any objective way, but they are rewarded through subjectivity involved in assessing academic performance. The same is true of the broad interpretation of cultural capital, which is â€Å"general linguistic skills, habits, and knowledge, including cognitive skills,† which are â€Å"used in a strategic manner by individuals, who thereby may receive advantages or profits† (p. 608). This kind of cultural capital is passed from parents to children through school work (p. 608). Bourdieu’s description of educational capital encompasses this outlook. One of Andersen and Hansen (2011) implications in schools which supports Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital is that: â€Å"Students from classes with highest cultural capital will perform the best academically, on each horizontal level† (of social class) (p 611) This is often seen played out when looking at the Socio Economic Status schools. Bankston and Caldas (2009) examine how legal desegregation of American schools starting in the 1950s and 1960s was countered by de facto segregation due to â€Å"social class, residential patterns† and other forms of social marginalization. Since the verage socioeconomic status of a student population affects a school’s educational achievement levels, upper and middle class families eluded and hindered desegregation by moving to different school districts, suburban communities, by choosing private schools etc. Bourdieu’s concept of education through institutional capital sees education as a place where one acquires the skills to enter different positions within the labour force -and those positions in turn determines one’s socioeconomic status.. Bankstone and Caldas state that policy assumes that differences in educational achievements are caused by the concrete schools and in articular by its teaching staff. Schools are believed to determine socioeconomic conditions instead of the other way around. As educators, not only must we be aware that class differences are present in the classroom, but, perhaps, look for ways to minimize the gulf between classes and increase capital culture in those who do not possess as much as others. Technology may be one way to do this. There seems to be a push towards using new technologies in the classroom. Considering class inequality and cultural capital, an educational model that aims to bridge the divide by bringing students together to the ame level of technological proficiency would be desirable. Kapttzke (2000), following a case-study in an Australian school, concludes that integrating student- based projects using information technology is a way to bring students with tech sa’. n. y back from the brink of alienation. Kapitzke states that â€Å"teachers who ignore the texts, identities, skills and interests of the young do so at their own peril. † (p. 0) Faced with a growing techno-cultural capital gap, educators need to â€Å"view students as fellow explorers and co-workers† (p. 60) and possibly working on innovative rojects like revamping a school’s computer network. The student who led the project ended up teaching not only students but teachers too. Not only would cultural capital be affected, it is most likely that a student’s social capita l Conversely, a study done in Californian schools shows a different side of the story. Cuban (2001) and fellow researchers explored the paradox of high access to technology with low real use. This was explained by traditional constraints on teachers such as time and structure, as well as annoying deficiencies in the technologies, such as computer crashes, that limited teachers’ initiatives. The teachers stressed â€Å"that using computers in their classes made demands upon them that made their Job harder. † (p. 828) In the end, â€Å"inadequate time in the daily schedule to plan work together goes to the heart of teacher use of new technologies and their preferred teaching practices† (p. 28) and resulted in the teachers preferring traditional teacher-based discussions, lectures and activities supplemented with some time for technologies. Cuban and his colleagues believe that technology will never revolutionize the classroom; instead, â€Å"historical legacies of high schools in their chool structures and technological flaws will trump the slow revolution in teaching In conclusion, the Kapitzke article highlights an innovative practices† (p. 830 ). way of maximizing tech-sawy students’ cultural capital and thereby pushing for equality and integration. However, as the Cuban article points out, technology will likely be relegated to special projects when deemed appropriate by a teacher relying on various methodologies. While dynamic technologically innovative teaching methods have their place they are not the magic answer to solving cultural capital and class inequalities. How to cite Bourdieu and social class within the educational system, Papers