Condition of Women
Women hold a banner that reads "No Self Respecting Woman Should Wish Or Work For The Success Of A Party That Ignores Her Sex. Susan B. Anthony, 1872" in front of the 1920 Republican Convention.
Throughout this module, you have been learning about the adverse conditions faced by various groups of people during the Realism era: soldiers, children, slaves, and women. By utilizing Realist elements, writers were able to draw attention to the social injustices enacted upon these groups as a way of forcing change. Realist writers, although they sometimes created fascinating fictional stories, always had a social agenda hiding behind their story lines. Kate Chopin and other female writers used the Realist literary form to display the inequity of women during this time period. They drew attention to the hopelessness many women of the time felt at not being able to control their own lives.