by Industrialization has driven society’s expansion, powering mass production and refinement of products to support expanding populations while creating affordable goods and services for those who wouldn’t be otherwise able to access them. We have seen the rise of generic medicines, cheaper housing, affordable clothing, and available automobiles. Industrialization has lowered production costs on products that lower class people had always been shut off from by a price barrier. Of course, while industrialization has made all of these things available, it has also brought about a rigid and well-defined system of gender roles that ultimately gave all the power to the man of the house while simultaneously confining women to the kitchens and the ironing boards. While this proved detrimental to women and their rights, it is by industrialization at a later point that they gained new rights.
The standard 9 to 5, while a normalizing and welcoming schedule for many, set a timer on the day for many women – with their partners away at work at jobs “only suitable for men,” we can see women tasked with an endless cycle of menial chores and tasks to ensure every day begins and ends well, only for it to start again the next day. Women became solely housekeepers and cooks, while men were off to provide for their families. This frame of “protector” and “provider” only ensured and cemented their dominance, placing women on the bottom rung in any situation – they were the “benefactors” and the “dependants.”
This same view is what lands men on the draft leaving the women at home once more, except… there was no schedule. For most of the major wars, the draft was nigh all encompassing. Most all of the young and middle aged men were gone, leaving women to wait at home, and so wait they did. As time passed, and in no small isolated incident, women left their homes – they took up jobs and responsibilities beyond their kitchens and pantries to support their families. They were hired by the factories and the businesses to keep them up and running while they faced a shortage of man-power they hadn’t seen since their inception. This saw the industrialization of women. This was the rise to power and toppling of the patriarchy that gave the room needed for women to take more than they had ever been given.
Once men came back from war, the cat was out of the proverbial bag – woman had left the household, and they had proven that they were every bit as capable as men in the workforce. While most did end up returning to the homestead, they had proven they were capable and that their opportunities existed beyond the range in the kitchen. This effect was solidified by their years in the workforce, and even if they gave up their jobs, the point had been made all the same. With their return to more traditional gender roles, it would seem as if all hope were lost for the future of equalizing opportunities for people of all genders, the effect remained, imprinted on that generation, and the one that followed.