Gender Roles During Wars - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 3 Words: 787 Downloads: 2 Date added: 2019/04/11 Category History Essay Level High school Tags: Cold War Essay War Essay Did you like this example? A role or behavior learned by a person as appropriate to their gender which is determined by the prevailing cultural norms is called a gender role. Both men and women have been told how to behave, dress, and how to present oneself to the public. An example of gender roles in society is women are supposed to be feminine, graceful, polite, nurturing, emotional, take care of kids, cook, clean; while men are supposed to be muscular, aggressive, tall, take care of finances, do repairs. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Gender Roles During Wars" essay for you Create order These are gender roles that society puts on us, but these gender roles are also considered stereotypical. With this day in age nobody really follows these gender roles. There are many men who take care of kids, cook, clean, are nurses, and much more, just like there are women who do repairs, finances, are muscular, etc. While Im are talking about gender roles, I want to talk about gender roles during the great depression and the cold war, before I do that heres a quick summary about the Great Depression and the Cold War. The Great Depression was known as the worst economic downturn in the history of the industrialized world, lasting from the stock market crash of 1929 to 1939. The stock market crashed in 1929, which cause millions of investors on Wall Street into a state of terror. Companies started to lay off their employers, consumers started to stop spending and investing into things which caused industrial output to decline. As for the cold war it happened during World War 2. As allies, the United States and the Soviet Union fought against the axis powers together, but along the way their relationship began to turn sour. As the Americans were already aware about Russia being a communist country, they were more worried about Russias leader, Joseph Stalin, and his oppressive ruling. As for the Russians, they hold a grudge against Americans not only for the deaths of millions and millions of Russians due to their late entry to World War 2, but also because Americans refused to treat the USSR as part of the international community. With both the Great Depression and the Cold War how did it effect gender roles during that time and were there any similarities between them. Reaching its lowest point in history the Great Depression caused over 15 million Americans became unemployed as well as half of the countrys banks failed. But what caused the Great Depression. Well as the U.S. economy started to increase swiftly it caused the nations total wealth to triple between 1920-1929 causing this period in history to be labeled the Roaring Twenties. In NYC there was a stock market in the middle of Wall Street at the New York stock exchange. The stock market was where you could see all types of people such as multimillionaires to janitors, and even cooks pour all their savings into stocks. Due to everyone pouring their savings into stocks the stock market noticed a speedy change which caused it to reach its peak in 1929 of August. As an outcome, unemployment started to increase, compared to their real value stock prices increased, as well as productions started to decline. On top of that banks had an overabundance of substantial loans that couldnt be dissolved, plummeting food prices and dry spells were affecting agriculture sectors, employment salaries were cut-rate, and buyers debt increased in size. In the summer of 1929, the U.S. economy infiltrated a vague recession as a result of products being unsold, consumers slowly stopped making purchases, and stocks continued to grow. October 24, 1929, the stock market crashed as many had feared. Known as Black Thursday many investors were selling their shares in which it made a record 12.9 million of shares being traded that day. On October 29, 1929 also known as Black Tuesday another panic brushed Wall Street causing 16 million shares being exchanged, and millions being worthless. Investors were slaughtered entirely for when they purchased stocks on margin. As buyers trust began to disappear because of the crash, many occupations started to release their employees due to lack of production. The ones who were still employed struggled with payments and power. Those who were forced to pay with credit eventually ended up in debt, which made the number of foreclosures and repossessions to increase. Although President Hoover tried to reassure everyone that the catastrophe their facing would eventually pass, the matter only got worst over the course of the next three years causing the number of 4 million Americans who were looking for work in 1930 to rise to 6 million in 1931. Homelessness and soup kitchen became extremely common throguhtout America. Even farmers were forced to leave their crops to rot because they could no longer afford to harvest them, so that left people starving.