What can be seen is a woman receiving orders at the same time she is being criticized without being analized her work. With a total loss of hope by her attitude towards her teacher and a desk that is in favor of the man who uses what is in his hands, letting her without all possible opportunities and hopes. I cannot agree with this, during those times,after the Declaration of the rights of woman and of the female citizen in September 1791, they wanted rights for social and political equality. Which required the liberty of expression and one of that media is writing. What I see here is a play, a drama were something that is serious and needs a huge important and courage from part of people is seeing as something impossible and denigrated. Which truly was the reality of women that only really changed after the WWI and WWII because most men dissappear but still is an image were Women are only holding on to other people's commentaries of oppression. They do not perceive women's ideas, only use their eyes to comment. A total lost of work and efforts, that is thrown to a deepness with a color similar to the image.

Question: 
If women fight for rights and still is not complete the journey, however most tell as if now is equal. Why most women with important roles in history are still replaced by men with less importance nowadays?

Unlike this, women today have more rights than before. Today they are allowed to participate in politics, have social and legal rights. Moreover, they no longer have to depend on a man as they can go out and get their own job and earn an income on their own without the need for a man to take care of it. Also, women currently do not have any obligation to have children or to limit themselves to only working around the house, since they are free to choose what they want to do with their bodies and what duties they do. Based on this, we can say that times have changed and that the treatment of women and the way society worked in the past does not resemble the way things work today. This is why, today, women have many more rights and the treatment towards them has changed drastically if we compare it with the 19th century.

Based on this image, I can clearly verify how the facts of the treatment of women in the 19th century are true, since the image shows a woman who is at home with her children and a man is yelling and attacking them verbally. From my point of view, I do not agree with what happens in the image and with the treatment that women were given in the 19th century, since it does not seem fair to me that women are treated less than men and are considered as weak and less capable beings when in fact they have the same abilities and skills to perform a job as much as men. On the other hand, I do not agree with what is seen in the image, since no human being should be attacked or verbally abused in their own home and in this case, the woman cannot defend herself or say walk about it simply fact of being considered an "inferior" and submissive being.. However, we can notice the similarity of the facts and the work in the picture.

Question:
How do you think women did to cope with the emotional abuse they suffered from society and from men in their own home?

What is a drama play?
Drama is a genre in literature, its a script that narrates a play and has actors which play a different role and characters. It is often designed and developed for theatrical portrayal. Its purpose is to entertain and educate the audience. The person that writes the drama is known as a dramatist or playwright. Some examples of drama in literature are: ''Hamlet'' by Willian Shakespeare or ''Oedipus Rex'' by Sophocles.

Women of the 19th Century

Women in the 19th century were living in a social inequality, at the beginning they enjoyed few legal, political or social rights, but it wasn't enough. For example they could not vote or have control over personal property after marriage. Women were expected to serve and remain subservient to their fathers or husbands, their role was to take care of children and run the household well. In the Victorian Age there was a gender polarization in which women were expected to observe strictly defined areas of housework and moral responsibility, and in the last two-thirds of this century, women increasingly resisted these restrictions.

 

Realism is a kind of representation that shows things in the real and correct way, and the fact that we have to accept it and live knowing it.

Women in 19th were very categorized by the society, until the point to could not be equal with a man, women were discriminated and limited in many rights, for example to vote. They also were accustomed to work in home chores, caring for the kids, basically homebound, others were farmers, and many others were seamstresses. Some women can hardly receive an education, it was very difficult and rare to educate a woman, because it was seen as an offense and a subversion.

We can see in this picture some women doing one of the few jobs that they can do, seamstress. We can see the demotivation of the picture because of the faces of the women, I personally disagree with this because, even though women were paid for these works, probably the amount of money for that labor was minimum, and considering that they had their work choices limited it’s was not fair and just for them.

QUESTION

Why do you think women's work choices were very limited in the 19^th?

We have to considerate that various famous plays where written during the period of realism, which was a theatrical style in the 19th century that aimed to reflect actual life on stage. Real people in ordinary settings, dealing with common difficulties (according to the time in which the work was written), were explored and spoken about by the Realism theatre.

One of the most famous plays was written on 1882, called Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen. This play is very significant, especially because it deals with important issues and one of those is about the role of women at the time. On the 19th century women were seen to be physically weaker than men but morally superior to males, making women best suited to domestic life. They worked in industries, as domestic servants for wealthy families, or in family enterprises. Many women worked from home, completing clothing and shoes for manufacturers, doing laundry, or preparing snacks to sell in the market or on the streets. 

In the picture we can observe how women has to work in textile mills throughout the nineteenth century. During this period women quickly came together to demand better working conditions and remuneration. We can infer with the context investigated women start working on the mills for a variety of reasons in the early years:  to take advantage of the educational possibilities available in Lowell, or to augment their family's income. With this I do not agree since the women who started working were also underage girls. I consider that at that age worrying about the family finances or seeing how they helped their male brothers only because they deserved an excellent education are very stressful situations, meanwhile many of those girls did not even have an education. 

Although women's aspirations were changing in the early 19^th century, their place within a patriarchal society remained unchanged. They didn't have any political influence. The number of job openings was quite restricted. Single women and widows were the most vulnerable because of social norms that connected female dependency on males. Even upper-middle-class women were condemned to follow their husbands' daily routines.

A drama is a depiction of events portrayed by actors and actresses of written dialogue. Some of its key features include: the characters (that engage an important role whether it's a minor role or a relevant role), the plot (which is made up of the exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and the resolution), the type of drama portrayed is an important feature because these tend to impact the plot of a play, and the language (if used beautifully it can truly cause an impact on the audience).

Literary realism is a movement that depicts reality as it is, it represents everyday experiences as they are, it uses archetypal characters (every day common men and women). It avoids dramatizing or romanticizing reality.

Women were considered to be best  suitable for domestic work, and weren't allowed to labour, while men were out working all day. Women were given education that prepared them for their domestic work, when a woman was too committed to “intellectual pursuits” they were looked down upon and were called blue stocking. Back then divorce was possible but it was a taboo, rarely couples would just separate but not legally. Society used to think that women wanted to get married just to have a baby, not to fulfill an emotional or sexual need. 

QUESTION:
How do you think that Ghosts and other ways of media that portrayed a change for women made other women from those times feel?

The image that I have found seems to encapsulate a happy family, and more specifically we can focus on the woman in this picture, where she looks to be in the opposite side of the door, meaning that she has spent the day in the house, taking care of the family, while the man of the family seems to be returning from his work to his home, which shows what the normal essence of the “perfect” image of a family was. I disagree completely about this point of view of the world, because as human beings we have different capacities, and things like gender should not stand in the way of our development

Write your thoughts on the pictures
Harrowing Portraits of “Disturbed” Women from 19th century asylum: This image shows a woman who was locked up in a Victorian asylum, they decided to locked her because she “suffered” from female hysteria and eating disorders, which leaves me shocked because instead of locking her in an asylum she should receive medical help for her eating problem and I am also surprised that one of the reasons is female hysteria since that is not a valid reason for her to be locked in that place, but I found out that female hysteria was considered a disease that only women could have and some of the symptoms were disobedience and impertinence.

Discuss, write whether you agree or disagree and why?
I disagree with this situation since this does not make sense, since this is not a real disease, but considering the century that they were in, we need to understand that if women did something that was different for society or behaved in the way they wanted and not following the rules of society, they were considered examples of people who should go to an asylum.

Do you think one person can be worth more than another?

I personally disagree with this statement,although some people do actively contribute more to society it doesn't mean they are “ better’.Everyone has the potential to be something great,however not everyone has the opportunity to fulfill their full potential and that's something that people can’t be used against them.It's not fair to judge someone solely based on their actions.Its impossible to know the full  context of everyone’s lives.In the 19th century the vast majority of scientist were men, this lead to people believing men were more important because men made most of the discoveries,but this is simply not fair and untrue.Women never had the chance to actually be able to use and fulfill their full potential  because up until the 19th century women were barred from higher education since men believed they were not even half as smart as they were.This was a decision made by men and for men,since that way they could keep women under their control.It wasn't until women had access to a proper education that they could prove themselves,starting with Marie Curie,who was the first woman to win a nobel prize,in 1903 and broke another record by being the first person to win a second Nobel,in 1911. The reason she is so famous isn't because she was the first female scientist,it was because she was the first female scientist to get full credit for her work,which is very disappointing to think about the wasted dreams and potential of all these women.

This is a list to reference just  how awful the treatment of women was in the 19th century:

As stated before,these were laws made by men and for men,that way they could keep total control of women to please themselves and have a happy life while women suffered.

A proof of this was the play “Ghosts” by Henrik Ibsen,this play was extremely controversial and criticized but not because it was bad or an inaccurate representation of women.It was hated because it showed the truth.Henrik displayed women as a  strong character,his female lead was a strong independent women who left her husband because he was a cheater,later on she returned to take his place as the head of the household. Needless to say,men were terrified.Ibsen showed the mold that society placed on women and broked it.Ghosts criticizes society as a whole and the ridiculous standards women have to live up to,despite not receiving anything in return.

Ibsen was warned multiple time to not release the play beacuase of how controversial it would be.It defied authorities and talked about topic like incest and euthanasia.It was ovwhelming for the poeple at the time,however it was neccesary.It was the wake up call people needed.

Ibsen said himself "It is reasonable to suppose that Ghosts will cause alarm in some circles; but so it must be. If it did not do so, it would not have been necessary to write it." The reception of the play was everything he expected and more.Not only was his own publisher embarrassed of the play, no theater wanted to play it.and it was even banned in some regions.The persecution towards Ibsen was so severe people started throwing rocks at his house wich forced him to move to another country.This aggressive reaction displayed the lack of acceptance within the the people in the 19th century.They were not ready to discuss about the severe problems within their society like religion,gender inequality and diseases.

It's a sad situation but it is what happened.Thankfully as a society we have made a lot of progress regarding freedom of speech and gender inequality but there's still some places in the world that need some progress to do before they can actually be free,the first step is to express yourself.