Women's Role In The Civil War Essay

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How does women and children’s roles as supporters and soldiers affect their lives?

Women and children enhanced the view of the Civil War during the mid- 19th century through their use of medical attention, active supportiveness, and soldier service that changed the viewpoint of their lives.

Although women were not apart of the war, they were given the roles as nurses, supporters, and soldiers. As said in the journal of African American Women During The Civil War, women were used as a benefit of “free labor” in which they were assigned to military duties that resulted in“less or no pay” (Addams, 2). This primarily shows that women were being used to work in the labor force, so that the war does not suffer from the lack of resource and
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An example of one affect was when “women were raped-- often in the presence of their spouses, parents, or other family members-- to humiliate and terrorize members of particular ethnic groups” (Kumar,11). This shows that due to women being in the war, they were often mistreated to show that women did not have a permanent mark and to destroy their characteristics by humiliating them. Women wanted to be in the war to work as a soldier, but they had to “drastically alter their attitudes and their lives” (Zeinert, 27). This shows that in order for women to present themselves on the field, they had to display themselves as men. Since women were not apart of the war, they were not given the opportunity to have freedom due to them being “chaperoned by a male relative, usually a husband or brother, to protect their reputations”(Zeinert, 21). This shows how women were given limited access to the areas they were to remain because they did not want women to lose their characteristics of a woman, which is to maintain their roles. During the Civil War, women could not be soldiers, as a result they would change their outer appearance that soon caused them to be punished for their harsh

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