Gender Roles In Jill Lapore's Book Of Ages

In the Book of Ages, The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin, Jill Lapore argues that Jane Franklin faced challenges living according to gender roles imposed by the society of the day. In Jill Lapore’s, Book of Ages, Jill writes, “From our Infancy we are nurs’d up in Ignorance and Vanity,” Astell complained; girls’ “very Instructors are Froth and Emptiness.” Women were no better educated than the beasts: …” (Lapore, Book of Ages, 18). Jane Franklin could not go to public school because no public school in 18th century Boston admitted girls. Her brother Benjamin Franklin went to grammar school and studied Latin and Greek after a few years his dad pulled him out of school to help make Candles in the family business. Girls in the 18th century were
Linda Brent is expected to be a servant in the home during her enslavement and was a nurse afterward. Linda Brent recalls Dr. Flint commanding,” he announced his intention to take his youngest daughter, then four years old, to sleep in his apartment. It was necessary that a servant should sleep in the same room, to be on hand if the child stirred. I was selected for that office, and informed for what purpose that arrangement had been made…” (Jacobs, Incidents in the life of a Slave Girl, 22). Linda Brent had to be a maid /nurse and nanny to Dr. Flint’s daughter while simultaneously fighting off Dr. Flints sexual advances toward her to preserve her dignity and virtue. Social expectations of Ladies of the time stated women should not have sex until marriage, not sleep with another woman’s husband and should remain pure in thoughts and actions. Linda Brent tries to preserve her virtue from Dr. Flint like Jane does by marrying Edward but cannot because of her circumstances being a slave. When Linda meet a free man she loved the southern laws forbid her from marrying him. Jacobs writes,” But when I reflected that I was a slave, and that the laws gave no sanction to the marriage of such, my heart sank within me. My lover wanted to buy me; but I knew that Dr. Flint was too willful and arbitrary a man to consent to that arrangement.”(Jacobs, Incidents in the
Jane and Linda’s stories provide a much different view of history from a female perspective that is insightful and thought-provoking. Linda and Jane conformed to societal norms of preserving their virtue and dignity Jane by Marrying Edward Mecom, Linda by explaining why she had a baby out of wedlock to a married man to stave off Dr. Flints sexual advances. They protested their gender roles by learning to read and write and by working and being the breadwinners of their household. They both were extraordinarily tough women who raised their kids in difficult circumstances Brent in Slavery, Jane during the American Revolution with an absentee husband both had limited employment opportunities and found work as caregivers and candle makers. These extraordinarily tough and intellectually gifted women were born during a time when their talents and potential were squandered because of the prescribed gender roles of the