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Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. Compare the rights of women in the late 19th century to women’s rights in the present day. What are 6-8 major differences between these two eras? What notable historical events happened in the 20th century that granted women more freedom?

Teaching Suggestion: This Short Answer question will provide discussion and teaching opportunities to help in contextualizing the novel’s theme What Women Can Really Do. Until the mid-to-late 20th century, women’s roles in American society were limited primarily to the private sphere: domestic duties, familial responsibilities, and chores and work typically associated with the home and family. Women’s career options and property ownership rights were limited during much of the 1800s; women could not vote until the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified in 1920. Women who wished to defy gender norms sometimes did so in secret; Emma is an example of such a woman, as she changed her appearance in order to join the armed forces. Although the 20th century saw formal change to such expectations, such as the suffrage movement in the early 1900s, the legalization of women in the military after World War II, and the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s, some traditional gender norms still exist in contemporary society.