Sociology Essay: Women's Struggles in the South during Reconstruction

This sociology essay delves into the experiences of women in the American South, spanning from the Reconstruction period following the Civil War through the Second Wave of Feminism in the 1960s. The essay analyzes the impact of the Civil War and Reconstruction on women's rights, highlighting the limitations and setbacks faced despite initial hopes for progress. It explores the evolving challenges and struggles of women, particularly African-American women, during the Reconstruction era. The essay examines the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s, including the Second Wave Feminism, and how these movements addressed issues of gender, race, and class, including the intersectionality of these factors. It also discusses the internal divisions within feminist movements and the varying experiences of women from different backgrounds. The essay concludes by emphasizing the complexities of women's experiences and the ongoing pursuit of equality and recognition.

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SOCIOLOGY
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Introduction
American history textbooks and public history sites of the eastern United States are
supplied with fact and fiction in relation to the American Civil War (1861-1865) (O’Reilly
2015). The Shenandoah Valley region of Virginia, in the Northwestern part of the state, for
instance perceived its share of conflict and argument as well as the presence of significant
military leaders during the war. According to Hughes and Tripp (2015), over the past two
decades, Shenandoah Valley region of Virginia has adopted the showing and understanding of
African-American historical narration. Several scholars have shed light on the African-American
study by exploring periodical accounts of African-American women in the Reconstruction period
in the Shenandoah Valley. Furthermore, Giddings (2014) has noted that during the
Reconstruction period, certain racist depictions of African American women materialized on
documented commercials, billboards and postcards indulged in promoting a false and
romanticized representation of the Blacks in the South. The aim of the essay is to evaluate the
experiences of women in the South by shedding light on struggles of women during
Reconstruction period till Second Wave Feminism.
Discussion
Brophy and Thie (2016) have noted that this particular region perceived women who
show liberation and women seek self-regulation upon the surrender of the South in the Civil
War. Comprehensive studies of Monnig (2018) have thrown light on situations of Black women
in the Valley during as well as subsequent to periods of enslavement, experienced slavery and
freedom from diverse regions in the South at diverse perspectives. As a result, the dominant
paradigms as well as mythologies of outsized plantation primarily supervised by single white

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patriarchs do not satisfactorily explain underlying factors of slave history occurred in America. It
is vital to noted that such inadequate explanation further rejects African American women the
society which they deserve and disregard their importance as historical actors.
Impact of Reconstruction and War on Women’s Right in the South
The Civil War and the subsequent Reconstruction period significantly impacted women’s
movement. According to Brophy and Thie (2016), Civil War opened avenues outside the
domestic realm. These avenues further raised anticipations of activists’ in such a way that it
elevated a belief that women can get hold of the franchise in the repercussion of the war.
However, on the other hand, the scenario overturned itself. According to Draga Alexandru
(2016), advocates of the extension of voting rights discovered that their needs and objectives
would be forfeited or surrendered to political expediency. Likewise to the African-Americans
who had found that their enfranchisement would fail to effectuate subsequent to the Civil War
unless it would act advantageous to the strategy of the ruling elite.
At this juncture, women gathered knowledge that their assertions and arguments to
suffrage would be denied. Such a denial, as per the view of King (2016) would arise as offering
women with the rights to vote would fail to support welfare of the ones who regulated the
national government. Consequently, women's loyalty and nationalism and interest for the war
initiative were not regarded as a means to right and liberation from a subordinated status.
Comprehensive studies of Terjesen, Aguilera and Lorenz (2015) have noted that when
reconstruction initiated it became evident to suffragists that the voting right mainly served as a
form of gratitude for the initiatives taken by American women. Additionally, for these advocates,
the voting right also served as a correct settlement to political associates who had performed

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efficiently during election. Nonetheless, Draga Alexandru (2016) has identified certain
dissatisfactory anticipations when leaders of the new Republican Party situated the welfare and
benefits of women as well as African-American men in zero-sum struggle and war. However, the
direct cause of this conflict depended on the issue whether the Reconstruction Amendments
would be implemented exclusively to liberate Black males or to liberate women as well.
According to Monnig (2018), the Republican strategy for maintaining regulation over the
national government had been consequential to new federal constitutional provisions which
related ‘male’ with citizenship and voting for the first time.
Furthermore, with the course of the Nineteenth Amendment, women witnessed that their
right to vote developed as a significant part of the constitutional framework (Hughes and Tripp
2015). Research conducted of Giddings (2014) have noted that the movement which had initiated
around ten decades demanded for liberation and freedom of women in order to achieve the
specific goal around which its activities had been significant for significant period. Draga
Alexandru (2016) has noted that women certainly had received the recognition of nominal
citizens and consequently began to implement their voting struggles in growing numbers.
Meanwhile, Lépinard (2014) has shed light on the subjugation and lower status received by
women as sex activities did not put an end even with recognized political liberation. Even though
significant number of women would engage into employment sector, very few would develop as
professionals.
Moreover, urban women received minimum education whereby women as a group would
still undergo critical sufferings, prejudice and discrimination in the form of private acts in civil
society in addition to reduced paying occupations and socialized gender roles. In addition to this,
Carpenter and Moore (2014) have mentioned that marriage and the family would continue to

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serve as conventional patriarchal institutions and woman's sphere principles would control
unchallenged through the social changes of the first half of the Twentieth Century in order to
restrict the actual actions and rights of average women. Moreover, the goal of putting an end to
gender bias and subordination would subversive in order to control its materializations until the
Second Wave of Feminism in the 1960’s (Terjesen, Aguilera and Lorenz 2015). At this peak of
discussion Rubio-Marín (2014) has shed light on one of the persistent questions which has been
critically concerning historians who attempted to investigate the nature and success of the
suffrage movement from Reconstruction period till the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment.
Such a problem has casted light on the processes and reasons which had not immediately been
achieved by the franchise rights that were lastly acquired.
Women’s Struggle to Connect in the 1960’s
The social movements of the 1960s and 1970s have extraordinary. Evans (2015) has
noted that radical youth movements appeared out of considerably conservative postwar period in
the United States. By the late 1960s and 1970s, the culture and politics of the radical social
movements underwent significant transformation. However, activists no longer shed light to the
ones in control in order to facilitate change. As per the studies of Cullen and Fischer (2014),
significant inactivity and incompetence of the government’s in response to the civil rights
movement in addition to the escalation of the war in Vietnam as well as increasing domination
and authoritarianism of these movements had provided knowledge and ideas to activists
regarding proper execution and implementation of power. At this juncture, Herr (2014) has noted
that it showed challenges for activists to be idealistic or hopeful, principally on the subject of
peaceful revolutionization. Drawing relevance to these factors, Abrams (2016) has noted that
optimism as a virtue significantly faded away as aggravation and dissatisfaction and

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consequently gave rise to apprehension and anger. Besides, ideas of discrepancy implied to the
condition that unity and cohesion between and within radical youth movements could no longer
be assumed. Thus, with the aim to efficiently cooperate on a political level, associations could no
longer presume that they shared parallel worldviews or posed agreement on strategies.
Furthermore, Carpenter and Moore (2014) in their studies have thrown light on
sufferings experienced by white feminists who faced forcible approach to cope with the existent
feelings and politics of African-American feminists regarding racism and discriminatory
resources. While, on the other side, prior to what feminist had assumed gender solidarity and
regarding simplicity of antiracism, feminists during the 1960’s were left with no choice but
further to seek for foundations of mutual interest. Several writings of scholars had incited the
Second Wave by revealing rural women’s significantly repressed discontent and frustration with
the hard work and segregation of permanent housework, child care and household chores in
predominant male households (Terjesen, Aguilera and Lorenz 2015). These highly dominant
male households revealed women’s position in a voluntary and unpaid housewife. At this
juncture, it is highly essential to note that cast light on the critical situations where most urban
working women in the 1960’s and 1970’s required additional time at home with their children
and perceived lives the lives of housewives to be highly beneficial and privileged. King (2016)
while studying challenges of women in second wave of feminism mentioned that urban working-
class women encountered prejudice and discrimination at their workplaces and further
experienced sufferings from the absence of familial benefits that would have made it achievable
to suppress a permanent job without causing immense adversity and suffering to their families.
On the other hand, rural Black women and women belonging to racially marginalized sections
who had been engaged in agricultural and domestic occupations experienced sufferings from the

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additional prejudice, inequality, thus consequential to severe hardship and lack of financial
resources. These forms of discrimination and prejudice had further resulted rural Black women
to be deprived of receiving Social Security. Brophy and Thie (2016) have noted that such an
exclusion and deprivation of Black women had been identified as one of the conditions
demanded by Southern lawmakers in exchange for voting for New Deal legislation.
Meanwhile, Giddings (2014) has claimed that not all women in 1960 had been engaged
to radical social movements. Many scholars particularly focused on the issue of violence against
women became significant realm of feminist movement where, Boston feminists could form
universal ground and pose agreements by establishing organized unraveled women’s shelters and
crisis centers in support of women who have been victims of rape. In the view of Draga
Alexandru (2016), the “Take Back the Night” demonstrations demanded safety and protection
for women at public areas. The Second Wave of Feminism witnessed susceptible women of
color and race to be in subjugated position and vulnerable to violence. These feminists had
attained ideas of procedures to work in amalgamation which would show respect to their
differences. Draga Alexandru (2016) has noted that white women recognized that they had to
raise the issue of racism in their individual communities and show implications that they would
never be able to end violence in opposition to women unless they respected and realized the
situation of women of color and pay reverence to leadership. It must be noted that in the
beginning of the Second Wave in the mid-’60s, several leftwing men in these various Sixties
organizations, such as SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee) fostered
patriarchal attitudes toward movement women, and further disregarded and mocked their
demands for utmost egalitarianism ( Cullen and Fischer 2014). However, these women did not
felt defeated and further established their own self-motivated movement. Such dynamism had led

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several male leftists in the range of components of the revolution by the embrace and support
equality and impartiality of women. Furthermore, Prügl (2015) has mentioned that socialist
feminists recognized that while their gender had positioned them at a highly subjugated position,
their class, ethnicities and race created privileges. Regardless, of such considerably complicated
understandings of race, ethnicity and class, white feminists tend to view women as an
unrecognized group chiefly subjugated by men. As a result, feminists in the 1960’s attempted to
operate at a political level on a twofold pathway in which one significantly emphasized gender
as the rationalization for subordination and suppression of women-by expressing in the phrase
“sisterhood is powerful’ (Terjesen, Aguilera and Lorenz 2015). On the other hand, the second
pathway shed light on gender which had failed to explain sufferings, critical experiences and
challenges of women reflecting to implication of that race and class.
Conclusion
On a concluding note, regardless of delight of harmony, women gradually recognized
differentiations in the group whereby the most immediate differentiation lied on sexual
preference. It is important to note that the racial learning curve which had its origin in the early
1960s tends to continues even in recent times. However, white as well as women-of-color
feminists learned the potentials of association and unifying as a group by identifying differences.
The essay shed light on the social movements of the 1960s as well as 1970s which tend to be
highly challenging to be pursued. However, it is essential to note that the significant
achievements which feminists had attained by the early 1980s draw huge relevance even in
recent times. Such achievements rely on proper recognition and paying respect to groups in
movements. Thus, activists must be organized to identify power gaps which are mainly based on

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race; class, gender, ethnicity as well as sexuality intend to separate society and divide
movements.

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