History of women in business.

Women have always worked, but society has not always equally valued their work and that of men. The advent of the American Industrial Revolution brought an ever-increasing compartmentalization of social life. Women and men who worked side by side on the farm in an agrarian culture became separated in a manufacturing-oriented society. Women stayed home and tended to child rearing and domestic responsibilities while men went to the city or factory to seek wage labor. The gender separation of the private sphere, or home life, from the public sphere, or working world, was not an equal division of labor. Male wage labor and public work was accorded greater value and direct compensation. In economic terms, men’s work had exchange value because the money earned could be used to purchase goods. Away from public view, child care and housework became devalued and were not financially compensated. In economic terms, this work had use value but not exchange value. These economic realities were rooted in lingering beliefs about the proper roles for men and women in Western culture. The Cult of True Womanhood, a social belief that dominated the nineteenth century, regarded women as too moral and pure to participate in the harsh, competitive realities of the business world.