If you asked most people to describe southern women, you would most likely hear the phrase, “Southern Belle”. The image conjures up soft-spoken manners, hoopskirts, and mint juleps on a sprawling front porch. It paints a pretty picture of the Old South and romanticizes the lives of southern women, however it is a label that excludes the bulk of these women and in turn, hinders them even in modern times. For the select few who did and still do fit the “Southern Belle” label, their lives have been far from the picturesque ideal created by pop culture. Then there are the majority of women of the South for whom the social class of the “Southern Belle” was never obtainable, and are still subject to the consequences of the title. Beyond this, the …show more content…
Still subjected to the “southern belle” ideal, some of these dutiful women are so entwined in the persona that they fight against gaining more rights for themselves in order to maintain their female identity and allow men to keep their status as protector. This can be seen during the 1970’s and 1980’s when Gladys Tillett tried to promote the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment in North Carolina. While some of her adversaries were men such as infamous senator Jesse Helms and Sam Ervin, there was another group strong fighting against the ratification, “a militant phalanx of anti-ERA southern white women”. Their argument was that the ERA “seemed to devalue women’s God-ordained place as mothers and homemakers” and would “let men off the hook as providers and protectors and that women would be forced to become breadwinners, and even soldiers” (Walker, et al. 77-78). Like some modern “Southern Belles” wanting to be beholden to their husbands, once again it was the women holding themselves back, because having equal rights would threatened the deeply ingrained idea that southern women should be devoted to the home and protected by their