Chapter 3 Blog

1.) The colonial family was very traditional--from everything from how they treated women to the way their children were expected to behave towards their parents. Women were not allowed to make business transactions. They can only own businesses that were directly related to homemaking--morphing their homes into an inn or restaurant, or baking and selling goods such as chocolate and mustard. In contrast, American Indians valued women over men--they owned the homes and commanded respect. For African Americans, however, both men and women were supressed from slavery. In the 1800's it was estimated that the average black family's (due to slavery) father was very emasculated causing the mother to take on a higher role in caring for children and taking care of their home. Many women were heads of the household because "their husband had died or had been sold to another family for enslavement." Also important to mention, although many people saw African American men as "powerless" to society, they were able to be role models for their sons growing up. The women were not excused from beatings--not even pregnant women. A depression was dug in the ground to protect the fetus from the woman's punishment, and often times nursing mothers were beaten so badly that milk from their breasts were dispelled all over themselves. Mexican Americans didn't face slavery as badly as African Americans, but they did have their land (and therefore, their way of making money) seized from them by the government. Also, if they were illegal immigrants, they were basically forced into slave labor--jobs with minimal pay. They could not complain or they would lose thier job and soon be deported back to Mexico. With such poverty, they often formed bonds with their extended family to live together with. This helped economically, and allowed them to share household responsibilities that the working family members could not handle due to the difficulty of their jobs and the long shifts they were forced to take on. Despite all of this, males still remained the heads of the households, and women were often pushed to the side and told to either work, clean, or care for their children. This is machismo. Even in children, boys had much more freedom than girls did. Wives were expected to remain virgins until the time came around to produce a child, but men were allowed to have affairs. This double standard in Mexican culture is present in more than one generation. In European immigrant houselholds as well, the cult of domesticity was taking over. Every woman was expected to have the house cleaned and the dinner cooked by the time the husband arrived home. Soon however, these extreme traditional views began to change. In the 1800s, boys started recieving names different than that of their fathers, children were allowed to play more than they were required to work, and they were allowed my freedom in decision making. They could choose who they wanted to marry, and when. Equal rights for all--children, women, and minorities--were finally appearing. Immigrants, though, were still being pushed aside by the "natives" of the country. The family's whose ancestors had been in America for very long, received higher paying jobs, better working conditions, and easier labor than immigrants. Slowly though, they too gained equality as well. The modern American family arose in 1830 according to research. "Courtships became more open, marriages based on affection, and parents paid their children more attention." Later in the twentieth century, the compassionate family arose. It had much more affection worked into its core, and is very relateable to the type of family we all have today. When the Great Depression struck, everything began unravelling. Husbands abandoned their families to find work, and mothers often times committed suicide because of the stress of caring for her children without any money or food to give to them. Children began dropping out of school to help care for siblings and find work to help support their families.

2.) I learned that during the Great Depression, white men had it easiest--women and minorities and children were given the worst jobs and less pay. Where a company paid a man $5 for a job, they only paid a woman $3. The hypocrisy of this was very surprising.

3.) Do you think that it was right that the government fired women that were married during the depression because they had a husband they could financially rely on instead of firing single woman who had no one they could rely on?

Also, the impact of television on the Middle East: they appear to have one main television channel: METV. Middle Eastern Television is a Christian television channel that forces its views on mostly Muslim countries. This definitely affects their perspective of Western culture. It appears as if all of Westerners wish to push the "correct" religion onto them, while in reality, this is not at all the case.

Lastly, polygamy is not illegal federaly; however, it is illegal in all fifty states. In Utah and Colorado, as long as the families are not overtly public about polygamy, there are no repercussions. The marriage is not considered "avid," but they are not sentenced to jail or other punishments.

--Bonnie Noel