Women were long considered naturally weaker than men, squeamish, and unable to perform work requiring muscular or intellectual development. In most preindustrial societies, for example, domestic chores were relegated to women, leaving "heavier" labor such as hunting and plowing to men. This ignored the fact that caring for children and doing such tasks as milking cows and washing clothes also required heavy, sustained labor. But physiological tests now suggest that women have a greater tolerance for pain, and statistics reveal that women live longer and more resistant to most diseases. legal status of women changed with the beginning of common law in England which permitted an unmarried woman to own a property, make a contract, sue and be sued and married woman giving up her maiden name and all her personal property was being in the absolute control of her husband, Equity law in England also stressed the importance of equal rights per early history. The western culture in the early year’s tradition was that, middle-class girls had to learn house chores like cooking, cleaning and basic things to care for their future homes from their mother’s as this was expected of her when she grew up. Tests made in the 1960s showed that the scholastic achievement of girls was higher in the early grades than in high school. The major reason given was that the girls' own expectations declined because neither their families nor their teachers expected them to prepare for a future other than that of marriage and motherhood. Formal education for girls/women has always been overlooked; however this trend has been changing in recent decades. It’s said in American history that girls in America used to learn to read and write at a dame school and could only attend master’s school for boys/men when there was room, which is usually during the summer as it was during that season that the boys / men worked. Towards the end of the 19th century women education numbers had gone up tremendously due to particular interest in women’s education and the rise of women’s admissions into colleges. By 1870 an average of one fifth of the student population was women.
Around the 19th century a number of women in colonial America earned a living by either being a seamstress or keeping boarding houses, whilst some held professional jobs like doctor, lawyer, preacher, and teacher/ tutor. The most acceptable occupation for women later on in this century was factory jobs, domestic work, writing and teaching. Between the 19th and 20th century medical practice was deemed appropriate profession for women, this caused a rise in the educational preparation for medicine and decreased early marriages and the bore of plenty children among young women, In spite of all this change, discrimination against women taking up these roles also arose. Per statistics by 1930 about 2 percent of all American lawyers and judges were women and by 1989 the numbers were about 22 percent. In 1930 there were almost no women engineers in the United States. In 1989 the proportion of women engineers was only 7.5 percent and by 1980s more than twice as many women as men taught in elementary and high schools and higher education. A notable 19th century woman is Queen Victoria, then Queen of United Kingdom. Her reign began after the death of her uncle William IV.One of the very first women to try Chloroform. During the birth of her eighth son, she experimented Chloroform with the help of an aesthetic and was very pleased with the pain free results. Members of the clergy spoke against the use of the drug that it was against their biblical teaching; Queen Victoria was still not moved by their comments and used it again for her ninth child. During her reign she doubled England in size and kept England free from war. Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to receive medical degree in the United States and UK Medical Register not only was she very much interesting in promoting the education of women in medicine in the United States but also a moral reformer. The urge to go into medicine was instilled into Elizabeth by a friend who was diagnosed with a painful disease, the said friend expressed that a female doctor would have made her treatment more smoothly and comfortable. Another influence on her decision to further in medicine was the association of abortionist which she saw to be very disrespectful to the values of female doctors. It is an acceptable fact that both women had plans of maintaining equal amount of power amongst women and men, backed by good morals and the “ I CAN DO “ attitude.
Helpful sites: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Rights_Amendment http://www.wic.org/misc/history.htm