–It was appalling how even when women were able to have a life outside of the household, not much change. As the reading notes, “young women’s expanded wage-earning role in New York did not translate into economic independence or control.” It seems as though before women were able to have the liberties seen today which includes managing their own money and being completely independent of a man in the sense that they can support their own self, women in the past seemed to have been pulled back before being able to trudge forward.

-When I read the sentiment of a Russian man saying, “Thank God, I’m not a woman.’ A girl wasn’t much,” I couldn’t believe a man of the time period could say such a thing. I understand that at the turn of the last century women didn’t have many rights but that doesn’t mean to be one was somehow bad. If it weren’t for the hard household labor of women, men wouldn’t have been able to function. It was the women who cleaned, cooked, did laundry, ironed and cared for the children while their husbands went out to work. If it is just trying for me to read the list, I can only imagine how it felt for a woman of the time period to do all of those pre-mentioned tasks.

-Did men of this time period even appreciate the work that their wives did for them and the entire family?

-Ashley Haynes