The Roles of Women Changing Over Time

             Women in history were always suppressed and thought of as inferior to men. But then women in the middle ages in Europe started to have several different roles than they ever did in society. Common expected roles in society at first were things such as being a housewife, mother or becoming a nun. But then women started to branch out and start to do more intellectual activities. They began to draw, paint, read and other things beside housework. Female activities such as paintings grew stronger, from beginnings of painters such as Hildegard who created her representation of the divine in her works "Scivias" (Guerrilla Girls 26).  
             Going into the 19th century, women were beginning to get a name for themselves, but it wasn't as easily done. Many painters such as Gentileschi wanted to be known separately from their fathers from whom they had learned from and worked under their entire lives. In the 19th century, women also began to partake in photography since it was a new concept  and "there was no canon for them to be excluded from" (Guerrilla Girls 47). A woman painter, Rosa Bonheur gained much success from her painting, Ploughing in the Nivernais, as shown below. This started to be a change for the regular roles of women that were expected in that century. With women being recognized as being just as able as men, they started to do more jobs that men did such as  labor work. 
           The new roles of women in the 19th century and Renaissance changed what they wanted to paint and show to the world. Their everyday lives were affected as well since they were no longer just the housewives anymore. Bonheur for example, was bold enough to wear trousers, smoke in public  and keep her hair short like a man which was all considered too inappropriate for women long ago. Her artwork even shows it, in the same painting I mentioned earlier, she shows her boldness as well. It shows she is bold enough to paint animals such as oxen and just sit and observe at the man doing his job rather than being observed herself. For once, it was a different subject being painted rather than a woman being shown or just a portrait of any person. 
  

Ploughing in the Nivernais, Rosa Bonheur

           
       Women still had to face many challenges even though they were beginning to be more free than ever before. Paintings by women artists were considered "good for a woman", never just a good painting. In the 19th century woman could not even be the legal guardian of their own children or have a job without the permission of your husband. Although women could now become doctors and lawyers, being able for a woman to survive medical or law school was pretty much impossible. So even though women had new roles, it was hard to strive in these roles. Often academic offerings to men were still not free to women. Women were denied to the right to paint nudes of men but they could still be painted nude. 
         To show women were just as strong as men, in their artwork they showed how the struggles they faced would not stop them from doing anything.  The famous women artist, Elizabeth Thompson in the 19th century show how she remained strong. By choosing such bold topics to paint such as war and fighting, it showed not a thing could bring her down. In the painting, "Return from the Inkerman", she shows men as weak when returning from a battle. Depicting men as beaten down was a risky move, a woman showing men as lost and not superior for once when women are deemed to be the inferior ones. With women like Elizabeth and in the late 19th century is how the older society eventually started to progress, without bold move there would  be no change. 

Return from the Inkerman

      

The Guerrilla Girls' Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art. New York: Penguin, 1998. Print.