Song Character Analysis Worksheet - The University of North ...
Song Character Analysis Worksheet - The University of North ...
Song Character Analysis Worksheet - The University of North ...
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members <strong>of</strong> the women’s movement, including Rosa Mayreder, a leading crusader for a<br />
l<strong>of</strong>tier morality in women’s issues. She argued that the emerging promiscuity <strong>of</strong> the<br />
1890s did not reflect gender equality but a step down to masculine morality, which was<br />
ultimately a threat to women. 23<br />
<strong>The</strong> “Woman Question” in American society at the turn <strong>of</strong> the century explored<br />
these same stereotypes <strong>of</strong> moral degeneration in terms <strong>of</strong> emancipation. As early as<br />
1871, Catharine Beecher addressed the Christian Women <strong>of</strong> America with an appeal for<br />
mothers to influence their families and bring about a more moral nation. She opposed the<br />
suffragist movement because she felt that it would expose women to the corruption <strong>of</strong><br />
contemporary politics and debase their character. 24 By the 1890s, the stereotype <strong>of</strong><br />
woman as a seductress became a social expectation. <strong>The</strong> previous glorification <strong>of</strong><br />
motherhood also had degenerated. In literature and opinion papers the mother was now<br />
depicted as “overly protective and rigidly moralistic.” 25<br />
<strong>The</strong> feminist <strong>of</strong> the 1890s was represented by Charles Dana Gibson’s illustrations<br />
featured in Life magazine, the “Gibson Girl.” This “new woman” put aside the corsets <strong>of</strong><br />
Victorian dress and domestic expectations for a freer style <strong>of</strong> fashion and a civic sense <strong>of</strong><br />
family responsibility. <strong>The</strong> home was still the fortress <strong>of</strong> moral education and character,<br />
but now women extended their influence beyond its sphere by implementing ideas <strong>of</strong><br />
reform in the public sphere through their husbands. <strong>The</strong> new market <strong>of</strong> women’s<br />
23 Anderson, 128.<br />
24 S. Jay Kleinberg, Women in the United States, 1830-1945 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers<br />
<strong>University</strong> Press, 1999), 178.<br />
25 Lucy M. Freibert, “Images <strong>of</strong> Women in American Literature” in Women’s Studies<br />
Encyclopedia, ed. Helen Tierney (Greenwood Press, 2002).<br />
43