How Did The Industrial Revolution Affect Women's Role?

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The Changing Role of Women During the Industrial Revolution
Introduction
Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, there has been a notable change in the role of women in the society. This historical shift transformed women’s economic role with the gradual change of their workplaces where women were able to raise income for their households by working in shops and factories that were located outside their homes (Hudson). Before the industrial revolution, the role of women was limited due to their nature of child bearing and taking care of the children, which significantly affected their access to jobs located out of their homes. However, more and more women entered the workforce as supplementary workers following the pressing need of the economic situations during the industrial revolution (Roos 6). As Roos (8) explains, single women largely contributed to the productive functions of the families where they were born, widows worked where their self-employed husbands once worked, while the working-class women toiled in factories as well as in home cottages as their family needs demanded. This paper makes a case that the industrial revolution transformed the role of women from that of working in homes to a changed environment where they could seamlessly work in factories and shops to earn a living as the scale of production intensified.
In domestic economy, the scale of production was relatively small with the economic unit overlapping with that of the domestic one. As a consequence, main goal was mainly centered for the survival of the family or to produce goods that could be exchanged with other valuables (Roos 9). In such a setting, both men and women played a role in different tasks with women primarily contributing to items that could be used while men produced goods for exchange. This made men to have a greater status compared to women, but both were equally necessary for ...