After the Civil War, women took up prominent roles in reforms movements. During this period, women had already known that their role would be needed in the society to bring about change. Women started taking up prominent roles in reforms movement, first because of the rapid economic growth the region was experiencing at that time. Economic growth established middle-class women who mostly led the reformers. These women worked outside their homes for wages. Women had known that they faced discrimination because all they could do is sit in their homesteads and wait for their husbands to come back home, this changed and women started taking up roles that they were not used to (Barnett, 2010). Feminism pioneers cleared the path for other women for further reforms and changed the society’s view of women.
The second cause of the rising numbers of women’s role in reforms movement was the wave of Protestant revivalism commonly called the second great awakening. The protestant revivalism was a religious movement that encouraged women to stand up and fight against issues of drunkenness and the ban of slavery on the society. Abolish of slavery provided a significant link at the center of the story women reformers. Women established the Women’s Rights Movement. Its manifesto included the abolishment of slavery (Barnett, 2010).
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Another shift referred to as the cult of true womanhood. They believed that men and women have different natures and different influences. Women were assumed weaker but innately moral than men were. The ideology that men ruled their homes, the world, politics, and commerce, was an ideology that the Women’s Rights advocates protested and rebelled against that idea. They urged that their superiority in morality could earn them involvement in reform movements. This was a fact since the middle-class women were well educated and wanted to apply their intelligence outside their homes (Barnett, 2010).
References
Barnett, B. M. (2010). Invisible Southern Black Women Leaders In The Civil Rights Movement. Gender and Society Journal , 41-56.
