Month: September 2020

I was deeply horrified while reading Chapter 7 of PHUS. Zinn discusses the process of Indian removal for white occupancy in the 1800s. The main reason for this removal was to expand white American territory to allow more farming, new cities, and an overall larger United States. This was done with very little concern for human life and deep-rooted culture. Jefferson proposed that they would abandon hunting and many of their traditions, and this would lead them to “civilization”. The Indian tribes were seen as obstacles that needed to be removed in order to expand looking for money and success. There was extensive bribery, manipulation, and force used to move the tribes off of their own land. I thought a very powerful portion of the chapter was the description of what removal meant to the Indians. They had a very deep bond with the land and a spiritual connection with their ancestors who had been buried there. They also wanted the white Americans to treat them as they would want to be treated, and to remember that they faced very similar circumstances when they faced persecution in Europe which led them to the New World. However, none of their pleas or proposed treaties never fully accepted. 

I was very surprised to learn about the horrific actions done by Andrew Jackson because I had learned about him as the hero of the War of 1812 and the President of the United States. He is rarely described as a slaveholder and “exterminator of Indians” (130). He initiated the killings of thousands, burnings of villages, and horrible treatment of Indian peoples before and during his presidency. As soon as Jackson became President, laws were made that gave states rule over Indians in their territories, so they were subject to militia and state laws without a right to vote or testify in court. Indians were not “forced” to leave but people made it very difficult to want to stay on that land. I think that the history of indigenous peoples in the colonial period of America and post independence of America has gone unspoken and unknown throughout history and it is important that these truths be told. 

I thought all of the readings tied in together to tell a very interesting story about the history of the oppression and rebellion of women in America. While I have always been aware of the low-level status women held in earlier societies, it was alarming to have my memory refreshed on the specifics of how unequal women were treated. One thing that stuck out to me was the fact that, although situations and conditions have definitely improved, a lot of the same general themes and categories of oppression are still very prevelant in today’s society. Women’s worth is often determined based on their marriage status and whether or not they have children, evidenced by the fact that most gynecologists refuse to perform tubal ligation on women in their twenties and thirties, claiming that they could change their minds and want children in the future, or marry someone who wants children. Additionally, the problem of women being paid less than men for doing the same job still remains at large today, not to mention that America is still one of the few developed countries that does not provide women paid maternity leave. Although women have made tremendous progress in the past few centuries, it is still painfully obvious to see that a lot of these old attitudes die hard.

Despite this, I enjoyed reading about ways women rebelled against the inferior status imposed on them and found strength and solidarity through different means. One story in particular that I found interesting was the “coffee party” – the spin-off of the Boston tea party in which women forced a man overpricing coffee to give up the keys to his store so they could take all the coffee for themselves. Additionally, the story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Seneca Falls Convention reminds us that women have always been strong, perserverant, and capable, and women now have more resources than ever before to continue to fight for equality. Although it is sometimes difficult to grapple with the blatant inequalities in our society, reading the stories of strong and determined women is a great reminder of the strength we possess and the goals we can achieve.

Upon reading “The Intimately Oppressed,” I was faced with anger, as I have been with all the other chapters in this book. I thought it was very interesting that this chapter came after the chapters about enslavement, so the comparison could’ve been made about being a woman and a slave. It is funny that I always knew that women were seen as property as were slaves and never made that connection, and I assume most people haven’t. The idea of using “biology” to justify treating people as inferior is what disgusts me the most though. Most of the time when I learned about feminism, and the feminism movement, it referred to the 1900s so it was what I was expecting from these readings, but I was surprised to see a form of rebellion or the slightest appreciation of women of the 1800s, who I had never heard of.

Anne Bradstreet was someone who’s poetry was beautiful and spoke about things that pertained to women. Her poem “To My Dear and Loving Husband” was a type of poem only women could relate to, and as I read it I kept trying to analyze it as sarcasm, but I actually do think she loves her husband, which says something about the times we live in today versus the times she lived in. Although Bradstreet was important in the sense that she was the first woman published, Wheatley actually surprised me the most. As I read about her, I was very surprised that she was able to accomplish what she did within her given circumstances. When I read her poetry, it felt more emotional and rawer, like good poetry is, and it actually made me feel something.

As I write this, right after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I have a deeper appreciation for Zinn’s writing about women’s history, and all the women he mentioned. Ginsburg was someone who was so greatly credited for women’s rights, and someone who fought so hard and changed so much for the benefit of women, that this assignment being assigned right after her death is almost eerie. It feels so closely connected and so relevant at the same time.

The chapter “The Intimately Oppressed” details the immense oppression women faced throughout the history of the United States and exposes the lack of emphasis on the lives and legacies of women in our country’s history books. Zinn’s description of the unjust treatment of women throughout our history was very eye-opening and horrific to learn about. 

Ever since women first arrived in the United States on the Mayflower, women have been faced with unequal treatment, which unfortunately still occurs to this day. Zinn reveals the unjust actions of male colonists towards women in Colonial America within the chapter. For example, Zinne explains that males acquired the, “absolute possession of [their] wives personal property” (107) and viewed their family “…as a patriarchal sovereignty in which [they were] both a king and priest” (108). I was disgusted to learn the way in which male colonists asserted their control over women. Unfortunately, male colonists’ behavior toward women set the precedent for the unequal treatment of women for many centuries to come. For example, in the 19th and century women were not given equal opportunity to get jobs in comparison to men and instead were typically responsible for household work and raising their families children. Zinn described this fact by claiming that women were “separate but equal” (114) as their household work was equally as important to their husbands job, but separate and different. Furthermore, women were not given the right to vote until 1919.

Zinn’s exploration of “The Intimately Oppressed” is something that I’ve never really encountered in much depth when learning about history. The roles and experiences of women in American history have always been mentioned in my education, but only as an afterthought, whereas Zinn pays hommage to the collective American woman through his examination of her experience as chattel. He offers certain points of historical context that I had never been fully aware of; though it’s always been clear to me that the first European settlers in the colonies were men, it never occurred to me how women were later brought to the colonies. Like indentured servants, some women were shipped to the colonies in bulk, the cost of their travel becoming a debt they subsequently owed to their newfound male “masters,” which they paid in the form of housework, submission, and sexual exploitation.

In reflection of my lack of prior knowledge about this transportation of English women to the colonies, I’d like to speak on the issue of intersectionality for women of color. I was more surprised about the early commodification of white women than I’ve ever been on the topic of commodification of enslaved black women. While discussion of the commodification of black lives through slavery is often approached somewhat casually, made to be normalized through our education, I feel that history fears to reflect on the experiences of white women as plainly. This is not at all to say that the conditions faced by white women in the colonies were comparable to those of enslaved and free black women, that could not be any further from the truth. However, I feel like history’s nonchalant approach at discussing slavery and hesitant approach at discussing gender disparities is indicative of a gross normalization of the exploitation of black women in our history. When history is quicker and less apologetic in admitting its denial of humanity to black women than that of white women, I think that it reflects on America’s continual prioritization of the livelihood of white women over that of black women and other women of color. It seems to me almost as if the writers of our history are more ashamed to admit that white women were oppressed than they are to admit to the (far, far worse) oppression of black women. If the discussion of slavery is more commonplace and not as frequently given the same emotional weight as the idea of white gender inequality, what does that say about our country’s continual dehumanization of black women?

I do appreciate that Zinn explores the exploitation of enslaved black women in this chapter. He includes a quote from a formerly enslaved woman named Linda Brent who refers to her fifteenth year as “a sad epoch” in her life as a slave, the start of a season of sexual abuse and exploitation for her. These are the same words Dr. Daina Ramey Berry uses to describe the onset of puberty in her book The Price for Their Pound of Flesh, which discusses the commodification of enslaved black people through different periods of life. The sexual exploitation of women in bondage is morally unfathomable. At the onset of puberty, enslaved women were commonly sexually abused by their enslavers, forced to have sex with male slaves in the practice of “breeding,” and exploited for the purposes of objectification as well as medical research. In fact, the field of gynecology actually emerged from the practice of evaluating enslaved women’s reproductive health to determine their appraisal values in the domestic slave trade. Additionally, certain enslaved women up for auction were categorized as “fancies,” meaning that they were especially sexually attractive and bought with the primary purpose of being exploited for sex. These are horrors that white women in our history never faced and that seem to get less emphasis in the discussion of gender disparities as an aspect of our history’s normalized commodification of black women.

Today’s Zinn chapter on the gender struggles in the United States and the subsequent poems by two iconic female American poets, Anne Bradstreet and Phillis Wheatley, clearly demonstrated how gender inequality is an ongoing issue in our nation since its inception. Howard Zinn begins by talking about the impossible standards that women were held to in the colonial era. The men were always right and whatever they did was wrong. Men wrote literature directed at women to put these sexist beliefs in their heads, like in Advice to a Daughter. Women were taught to be seen but not heard, and always be subservient to their husbands, masters, or fathers. However, this construct, unlike others we studied, cannot be bypassed. Women in the upper class still face sexism like women in the lower class. Their lives are of better quality, but their rights are the same. They are treated as objects and never asked about their own opinion on anything.

It was so rare for women to have published literature because of the public disregard for women’s opinions. The poems of Bradstreet and Wheatley were of utmost importance to the transition to women having more rights and an equal say. When men across the world were able to read the published poems of women and actually hear their ideas for the first time, they saw them as equals and not inferiors for the first time. Their poems provoked conversation and were relatable to the present time. They were widely revered across America and England despite initial backlash about publishing women’s literature, especially black women’s literature in the case of Phillis Wheatley. The work of these great American poets encouraged other women to speak their minds and fight for the rights they deserve. The famous Seneca Falls Convention was the first major step in fighting for women’s suffrage, something that wouldn’t be achieved until 1920. Only a few short years after that in 1933, A woman named Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born. In this new society where Women could finally participate in the government, she worked her way to the top of the judicial system in America and became a Supreme Court Justice. Her career as a Supreme Court Justice was catalyzed by the powerful women before her who fought for gender equality since the first women landed in the colonies. RBG’s lifelong career in politics and law and her work against gender discrimination will truly be remembered for centuries to come.

I was in shock reading Howard Zinn’s “The Intimately Oppressed.” Coming from an all-girls middle and high school, I thought that I had learned most of what there was to learn about women’s oppression but I was wrong. Although there are still some inequalities between women and men in society today it is nothing compared to what was going on in the past. Zinn compares the treatment of women and slaves to each other and this shows the level of disrespect that women had. Women and slaves were even looked at as being biologically inferior to men. This made me wonder if black men treated their wives just as bad as white men. Were white men the only ones who looked at women as property? 

Women did rebel against the discrimination they faced. On page 109 Zinn writes that John Winthrop described Anne Hutchinson as “‘a woman of a haughty and fierce carriage, of a nimble wit and active spirit, and a very voluble tongue, more bold than a man, though in understanding and judgement, inferior to many women” (Zinn, 109). Zinn uses this quote by John Winthrop to show how certain women used their voices to stand up for themselves. Women like these are the reason that we now have more rights. Anne Hutchinson ended up being banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony because she was threatening to men and society as a whole.

Howard Zinn’s chapter, ” The Ultimately Oppressed,” really shows the gender inequality in the 18th and 19th centuries, and how it is based on culture, status, and race. We learned about women and how they were treated, but I never knew they were treated this bad. What surprised me was Zinn talking about how women from Native American tribes were treated with the same amount of respect as men. While white and black women were mistreated frequently and were basically used for child making purposes or as a sex slave. Sojourner Truth was a name that I had heard about from past history lessons, but I never learned everything she had to go through. She worked the fields and would get lashed when punished, and had to watch all her kids get sold into slavery, all because she was a black woman and no one helped her because of that.

In this chapter, Zinn explains the mistreatment of woman as half the population being invisible. Women were objectified by men because of how they looked, this makes it seem like women were viewed as property instead of human by men. What is really crazy to me is how some of these men tried to justify their way of viewing women by using their religion. We still have some inequalities when it comes to gender today, but looking back at how women were treated throughout history it was a lot worse. But that does not mean women have to settle with how we are treated right now, it just means we have to do like the woman in history did, and fight for equality.

I find that the most important thing to take away from Zinn’s chapter, as well as the poetry, is the tendency of women to lead regardless of their oppressed nature in society. In early American society, it is clear that despite history’s overlooking, women still posed as leaders in capacities that transcended the laws and institutions that barred them from being public officials. We know that leaders don’t need an official title to be an impactful member of society. Anne Hutchinson, for example, led many to a kind of spiritual reckoning that begged for a deeper analysis of Puritanism and its restrictiveness. Her presence in Massachusetts court directly challenged the nature of gender roles in the world she lived in, and her subsequent move to Rhode Island made a certain statement that undoubtedly caused a shift in Puritan thinking. Lucy Stone’s involvement in the anti-slavery movement and her writings on the matter had enough influence in academia that she needed not carry an official public title. The women discussed in Zinn’s chapter are a testament to the fluidity of leadership in the public sphere: it does not necessarily respond to title, and in the case of women in history, it more likely responds to societal influence.

There are, however, multiple caveats to which women led, and why. Literacy and class hierarchies seem to carry a weight that was relatively unavoidable, in a way that men didn’t always have to let their downfalls stop them from becoming influential. Literacy determined any woman’s accessibility to becoming a leader, and class standing dictated how far their leadership extended into society. It is no surprise that those women who came from affluent backgrounds had a relatively easier time reaching a larger scope of people. Female leadership has always existed, no doubt, but I think that it would be an effective exercise to closely examine how societal barriers (not including legal, that is self-explanatory) kept more women out of leadership positions than men. Moreover, the concept of intersectionality on a broader historical scale might point to more answers about how and why women led.

Howard Zinn’s chapter, “The Ultimately Oppressed,” paints a sad picture of gender inequality in the 18th and 19th centuries. The treatment of women as lesser is rooted in the societal norms that our country was founded on. According to Zinn, “societies based on private property and competition, in which monogamous families became practical units for work and socialization, found it especially useful to establish this special status of women, something akin to a house slave in the matter of intimacy and oppression, and yet requiring, because of that intimacy, and long-term connection with children, a special patronization, which on occasion, especially in the face of a show of strength, could slip over into treatment as an equal” (Zinn 2245).

This arbitrary status of women in society was fluid at times. Notably, women held very different responsibilities during war time. During the American Revolution, women expanded their role in the economy, garnering influence in traditionally male-dominated sectors of life. For example, women held positions in newspapers, tanneries, taverns, and other skilled, middle-class industries that had previously been restricted to males. As a result, women received more education. Between 1780 and 1840, literacy among women doubled (2536). This educational growth led to a growing number of female teachers in primary schools. 

It also fueled female involvement in various political movements, including the antislavery and temperance movements. That said, the women who are mostly highly regarded for their involvement in political action came from privilege. This disparity was felt throughout the feminist movement; much of the progression that women received was disproportionately granted to the upper classes and there was very little trickle-down effect.

Significant progress was made in the struggle for gender equality, but this problem still persists today, in many respects. Women make up 4% of Fortune 500 company CEOs and hold 20% of elected positions, despite accounting for the majority of university students. Even female dominated industries such as the medical field and education are disproportionately male in leadership roles. Sadly, these disparities do not seem to be going away anytime soon.

I found this weekend’s readings from Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States as well as the poems and readings about both Anne Bradstreet and Phillis Wheatley to be very enlightening. While reading “The Intimately Oppressed” from A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn discussed how women were treated based upon culture, status, and race. He explained how women of other cultures such as Native American were often treated much better than the black and white women of the colonies. Specifically, Zinn talked about how women from Native America tribes such as the Zuñi tribe were not treated as equals to men; however, they were treated with the same amount of respect as a man. White women in the colonies were frequently mistreated and were often used for child-barring purposes or as a sex slave. On the other hand, black women in the colonies faced the greatest problems. Not only did they have to deal with slavery and racism, but they also had to deal with the same problems that white women faced. The only difference was that white women had the opportunity to fight a court case, if there was one regarding an immoral act, whereas women who were enslaved didn’t have the same opportunity. An excerpt said by Sojourner Truth on page 124 of A People’s History of the United States was very powerful. She talked about the problems that she had endured because she was black and because she was a women. She argued that with a man who claimed that “women need to be helped into carriages and lifted over ditches” even though she never received this treatment. In fact, she worked the fields, was punished “by the lash”, and watched most of her thirteen children get sold into slavery yet nobody helped her simply because she was black.

I also found the readings and poems by Anne Bradstreet to be very interesting. I thought that she was very fortunate that her father worked as a steward for the Earl of Lincoln, thus giving Anne the opportunity to read the library within the home. The amount of reading she did, paired with her father educating her allowed her to prosper both as a reader and as a writer. When coming to the colonies with her husband, she found the conditions to be horrendous. She ended up living in a one room home shared between her family and another. In addition to that, she managed look over her eight children, complete her domestic responsibilities, as well as continue writing poetry. What was most interesting about her poetry was that she used her own experiences as a source to base her writing off of. The poems To My Dear and Loving Husband as well as Before the Birth of One of Her Children were both based upon Anne Bradstreet’s real life experiences.

Another poet who used her personal experiences to spur ideas for her writing was Phillis Wheatley. She was a young girl who was purchased by the Wheatley family in Boston. The family who purchased her ended up educating her in various subjects. Like Anne Bradsteet, Phillis Wheatley used her personal experiences within her poetry. She wrote about coming over from Africa on a slave-ship and being a black women in America. What I thought was intriguing from the article that we read was that not only did the Wheatley family educate Phillis, but they also helped her pursue her dreams as a poet. They helped her post advertisements in the streets about her poetry and over time, she gained numerous subscribers. In fact, her poetry was a catalyst for the Anti-Slavery movement within the colonies. Overall, I found the Phillis’ life story to be most interesting simply because I don’t believe it was common for white families to educate and aid a black women during this time in the colonies.

Even though I feel I have learned a decent amount about the history of women’s oppression, reading the chapter “The Intimately Oppressed” in Howard Zinn’s A People’s History Of The United States made me feel as if I was hearing it all again for the first time. It will never not be shocking to me that women were treated so poorly and with such disrespect. Zinn explained it as being that half the population was invisible. Reading the quote from Julia Spruill when she says, “he was not entitled to inflict permanent injury or death on his wife” (Zinn 106) was horrifying. The fact that it needed to be outlined that it was not okay to kill your own wife is scary. Also something about that quote I found off putting was the word “permanent”, making it seem that types of injuries a husband could give to a wife that weren’t “permanent” were okay. 

Hearing about all of the details of women’s oppression makes me so thankful for the first female activists to stand up against this and rebel. Who knows what would have happened if there were never rebellions and protests for women’s rights. However, there are definitely still problems with gender inequality and there is still work to be done, making this history all still extremely relevant. In the last four years there have been plenty of feminists protests where women fight for their rights like wage gaps and their own bodies. I wonder if and when these (necessary) fights will ever stop. This is an issue with such deep roots, so can it truly ever be solved? Will there ever be a world where men aren’t seen as the most powerful and roles will be reversed?

On a side note, it is extremely coincidental that we are beginning to discuss gender inequality right after the passing of one of the most famous women’s equality activists, Ruth Bader Ginsberg. I am sure we will be hearing much about her legacy and how her death may affect us in the future, because she was a Supreme Court Justice.

In response to the material that focuses on gender inequality throughout history, I can see why Gender Essentialism was popular in the past and how this ideology is being perpetuated in today’s society. Zinn (1980) talks a lot about how women were objectified by their husbands because of their physical characteristics that these men sought to exploit for personal gain. For instance, when men looked at women, they saw them as their property, as servants, sex partners, companions, and as the mother of their children. This system of oppression was reinforced by men who imposed strict social standards and who passed laws to ensure that women would be kept in their place at all times. It is not surprising, then, that these same men used religion to justify their unjust system of inequality against women.

As Dr. Bezio mentioned in her podcast, the intersections of class and gender also influenced the level of oppression women faced because the struggles that wealthy, white women faced were radically different from the struggles that poor, white women faced. For example, wealthy, white women had more freedom, opportunity, and time to deviate from traditional gender norms to explore their curiosities. On the other hand, poor, white women did not have the freedom,  opportunity, nor as much time as wealthy, white women because they had to learn how to not only manage their household but how to also perform well on their low-wage job, where they worked long hours and under harsh conditions. This comparison does not begin to consider the struggles that black women also faced during the 17^th century as slaves. In the early 19^th century, though, Zinn (1980) points out that the feminist movement grew in power as women- primarily, those in the middle-class- learned how to properly advocate for themselves and the causes they were passionate about. Women accomplished this goal by educating themselves on how to read and write better since society prohibited women from pursuing higher education.

On that note, the poems Anne Bradstreet and Phillis Wheatley wrote fascinated me. A common theme that I notice in Anne’s work is the zeal she has in wanting to end women’s submission to men because her identity as a devout Puritan conflicted with her gender identity as a woman. Although her religion urged her to only focus on her devotion to God, Anne was ready to start the conversation about things that most women weren’t supposed to discuss in colonial America, such as love and a commitment to other people than just solely God. Likewise, I was really interested in the story of Phillis Wheatley and the impact she had on the world. Her life as an African slave was uncommon and is not heard about in history when we examine the lives of African slaves from the 17^th to the 19^th century. What’s more than this is that she had her work published across Europe and North America while still being an African slave, in which her poem “On Being Brought from Africa to America” uses biblical allusions to appeal to the religious colonists in America to take action in abolishing slavery.

It is not surprising to me that women have been fighting for so long for their basic rights and recognition for all that they do. Women have never gotten the credit they deserve and it is crazy for me to think that this fact stems from the way women were viewed in society so long ago in the middle ages. In the book, Zinn compares the treatment of women to the treatment of slaves. Both groups were seen as inferior on so many levels, and were often sexually abused. It saddens me how much oppression women and slaves had to endure during these times in history. 

The fact that in these times men took credit for all the many accomplishments women achieved deeply upsets me. Women are not objects, but they have been treated as such since the early days of existence, and in some cases still today. Women in these times first belonged to their fathers, and then when they got married they belonged to their husbands. Beyond this, “Besides absolute possession of his wife’s personal property and a life estate in her lands, the husband took any other income that might be hers. He collected wages earned by her labor…” (Zinn 107). Despite this, I am proud that so many women stood up for themselves throughout history, and fought for their rights. Women such as Anne Bradstreet and Phillis Wheatley will forever be remembered for courageously sticking up for themselves and other women through their poetry.

Chapter 6 of PHOUS was quite interesting for me to read as a man, as I have never understood, or put thought into the difficulty and suffering that women endured through history, and even in modern-day life. Women are neglected in history. Similarly to how we have talked about the middle and lower classes in the upbringing of our country, very few women are talked about in history books even though they made up nearly half of the population, and raised and parented the men that are idolized in history books today.

As expected, Zinn did a good job telling the untold and undisclosed truths of history, and the first sentence is enough to understand the point of view that his text is coming from, “It is possible, reading standard histories, to forget half the population of the country.” Throughout this reading, I believe that I obtained more knowledge about women’s role in our country’s past than I did throughout my entire studies of history in prior schooling. In previous years, history classes focus on important male figures, significant battle dates, and outcomes of wars; never before have I encountered a piece of literature with such an intense focus on women, and it was quite enlightening. While it is wrong that women are neglected in history, it contributes to the narrative that we have deeply discussed in this class that states “history is about the victors.” Usually, the victors have been males, and there female counterparts (wives) are left in the shadows but may have played a significant role in their husband’s success. Typically, if women were ever discussed in history, it was the women who were wed to a prominent male figure that was discussed, but this chapter talked about the “less prominent” women, which was new.

Finally, it was interesting to see Zinn’s use of foreign novels as a contributor to the narrative of the oppression of women during these times. There were occasions when a piece of literature written by a man was incorporated into the text to signify the maltreatment and poor perception that women faced in historical times, and I believe that made the text all the more significant and meaningful, to see how men wrote about women, and to see how wrong that was.

As I was going through the readings, what stuck out to me the most was how long women have been fighting for equal rights. For the most part, I believed the fight for gender equality to be a more modern concept (late 1800’s), I did not realize that women had been fighting for an equal say since they arrived in the New World. Before reading the latest chapter of PHUS, I would have never compared the treatment of women to the treatment of slaves. However, after learning the sad truth about their treatment and conditions, women were not far off.

Similar to slaves, women were essentially treated as property and their master was their husband. Anything they accomplished or earned was their husband’s achievement. I also found it interesting that men tried to censor the content women were allowed to intake. They would allow them to read books, but only the ones that cemented the teachings they wanted women to abide by. Thankfully there were brave women such as Anne Hutchinson, who fought for women’s rights knowing fully that she would be punished severely.

I really enjoyed these readings because it brought in women, who are historically the “other” sections in history books. I think that this is due to women being confined to the “domestic sphere” and their accomplishments were accredited to their husbands or unrecognized. Women were expected to be in charge of the household and raising and bearing children, and really did not the chance to expand into other work.

Anne Bradstreet and Phillis Wheatley did not go to school, but were educated by their father, and their slave master respectively. They are considered two brilliant poets whose words gave insight into their lives and beliefs. Yet, they were not originally published in the colonies, and both poets works were published in England.

Anne Bradstreet’s poems ranged from talking about the love of her husband, to the inevibility of death and the power of female leaders. Phillis Wheately fought racism through her poems and was considered an example of the intelligence of black people, used to further the abolition movement. Both women were religions and thier work referenced salvation, a common and important theme at the time.

Yet although these women are being talked about. They are commonly forgotten, Zinn says “invisable” in history. Women contributed more to society than what was expected of them, yet have no received recognition. It is 2020, and this is still a problem. Why are women considered extras in history books? Can this be changed? Inequality trends such as wage gap are still present. When women were forced into working in the industry with textiles they were paid almost nothing for their work. Today their is still a wage gap. While we have made progress, there is still a lot of work to be done. These themes are still extremely relevant.

In chapter 5 of PHUS, Zinn outlines the sad truth behind the oppression of women throughout the history of the United States. Zinn explains that “Women were expected to be subject to their husbands in all things” and were exploited and oppressed in basically all aspects of their lives. Men placed unrealistic expectations on women’s lives and told women to be passive. Men were expected to sin, but women were not. As a result of this oppression, women were able to create a sense of solidarity amongst each other and formed strong bonds. 

After reading this chapter I definitely felt a sense of discomfort. It’s so sad to think that women actually had to live in these conditions. They were not given the respect nor the opportunities that they deserved. As a woman, I often find myself taking advantage of the rights that women in history fought so hard to obtain. Although there has been improvement in the fight for equality for women, gender roles are still extremely prominent in society today. Women have faced new challenges in establishing themselves in the workforce and still being responsible for the majority of the work in their households. How long will it take to change the perceptions of gender roles? Will the roles ever truly balance out or be reversed?

After reading about the backgrounds and poetry of both Anne Bradstreet and Phillis Wheatly, I have reflected on the power of poetry. These two women both lived difficult lives, but somehow found solace in words. I was especially moved by Phillis Wheatly’s story because she seemed to overcome so much. Although I was confused on how she was educated and traveled to Europe for her poetry, but somehow was still enslaved and kept at arms distance from the family.

Additionally, I can understand the frustration from 20^th century critics of Black American literature because it seems that to a certain extent, she does not criticize slavery. In her poem On Being Brought from Africa to America she talks about educating people with Christian values and how she is grateful for that, but she did not criticize the fact that she was taken. I do not understand this, but she may have just been educated to believe this is ok. Another argument on why she didn’t speak out is that it was not safe to do so, or it would not have been well received by her audiences. I also agree somewhat with the article argued, that she used biblical allusions and her faith as a way to argue for abolition just more covertly.