Madame C.J. Walker

            Since the early nineteenth and twentieth Century women have been demanding equality regarding education, the work force, legal rights, and not being treated as second-class citizens. Even, with the turn of the century woman still have to prove that they are capable of having a career, being a mother, and a wife. Historically, women have been portrayed as "Suzy" homemaker: raising children, maintaining a household, all the while submitting and supporting of the husband's career, goals, and desires. Women have be programmed to feel comfortable in the role of nurturer; however, there have been many women throughout history who have broken the societal mode and persevered against the conception that woman can't efficiently and productively function outside of the home. Mary Wollstonecraft set the pace in the early 1790's with her treaty Vindication of the rights of Women. She boldly contested the erroneous belief that women could not have roles in "traditionally male domains" (Mankiller, Mink, Navarro, Smith, & Steinem, 1998). Out of the Women's Movement emerged Victoria Claflin Woodhull the first woman to run for the Presidency. She established a Wall Street brokerage firm, as well as, a newspaper column that advocated women's right to equality. Woodhull later fled to England out of fear of gross retaliation regarding an article she published concerning the extramarital activities of a prominent Reverend (Edmonson, 1999). .
             Women have made sacrifices and are continuing to make tremendous progress in developing roles in the corporate/business world. While the men were overseas fighting the enemy during WWI, the U.S government compelled homemakers to enter the labor force and perform jobs that men traditionally held. Six million women entered the labor force and proved to be skilled competent workers, but as the war ended the men were given back their jobs and the women returned to the "Suzy Home Maker " status.