Women: You are living in year 1800 in the US. There are no rules or customs preventing women from working or voting. 95% of the human population still working in the agriculture sector. What job will you pursue? Describe your life?

TheSliceman · 2015-09-03T15:27:27+00:00

I would want to marry a sexy native man and join his tribe. I'd bring books on medicine and technology with me to teach my new family. Maybe I'd be able to convince them to flee as far west as possible, build a big fortress and hoard guns. We'd manifest our own destiny and make lots of half native babies.

chickenoverrice · 2015-09-03T13:09:34+00:00

Can you expound on what kind of jobs are available then, aside from farmhands, merchants and house/kids carer?

I'd like to be carpenter since I like getting handsy. Make things that are useful for your regular poor farming folks and/or make something pretty for the rich folks who can pay for what they want. I probably would marry and have kids because that's what'd be expected of me and I'm not opposed to it. But if I were making enough money, I'd hire nanny and maids to take care of house things. But this is all with my current cultural history.

If I were born then and not educated, who knows where I'd be. Have six kids, work as farmhand/housewife, lose a kid to accident, lose another to an illness I couldn't afford to pay doctor for, have a couple of grandkids and croak at 45 from something or another.

MrsPound111 · 2015-09-03T14:05:00+00:00

I'd be a housewife/homemaker. I'd still like to do that now. Spend my life making my husband happy and raise my children. Feminism gave me the choice to make that decision.

saltinado · 2015-09-03T13:29:32+00:00

Academia! I love it now and I could do some real damage in the 1800s. I would have loved to be working on their understanding of magnetism and electricity back then, crude as it was. I'm not really sure what my family life would be like, but given the times, it would probably involve some babies, given no birth control.

goatismycopilot · 2015-09-03T16:15:40+00:00

I think my life will be pretty shitty, I would likely be stuck on some subsistence farm or farm related job with a bunch of hungry kids many of whom likely did not make it out of childhood because of basic diseases. My partner if I had one would be some dude from the local village who said things like "woman, make my dinner" and I would go to bed exhausted every night and I would probably be illiterate and be forced to go to church on Sunday to pray to some other non existent dude who clearly did not give a fuck about me.

Then I would die.

belletaco · 2015-09-03T12:58:42+00:00

Probably a writer or teacher. It's the 1800s so im sure I'd be married, maybe pop out a kid. I'd hope to be married to a doctor because people died of all kinds of shit then so id want a chance.

historyhill · 2015-09-03T15:30:25+00:00

Are we exactly the same then as now? Because I would join a freakshow as a giant lady (6'2" is tall now, and it would have been even more so when the average height was shorter).

All joking aside, I think I round probably be living in a small town since urbanization is just beginning to really hit its stride. This would have been before the industrial revolution really took hold so my husband would probably be a farmer rather than an engineer. I would probably teach, because that's something I enjoy doing even now.

TheChemist158 · 2015-09-03T15:52:16+00:00

Would I actually get to pick a career to pursue? Because that wasn't a common thing back then. If I actually got to pick, I suppose being a blacksmith always seemed cool.

Edit: I could have my husband do all the chores. That'd work, while I'm away working the smithy.

[deleted] · 2015-09-03T15:55:47+00:00

Well given my family has a lucrative business...I would probably be married off to join two families together. Then I'd probably have a couple of kids, maybe die in labor who knows...ah the possibilities.

rapunzelly · 2015-09-03T16:32:43+00:00

In your scenario, I'd get married at the normal age to the guy I liked the best, have 2 or 3 kids, and breed horses as my main income while also raising other animals and crops for food.

veyron3003 · 2015-09-03T12:58:24+00:00

In 1800 I would have to wait 44 years before I could do what I really want.

I guess I'd be a teacher, or a milkmaid.

EDIT: It would suck, no electricity, no easy access to books, I definitely wouldn't be upper class so suck for me.

RobotPartsCorp · 2015-09-03T15:26:09+00:00

I would become a graphic artist for an advertising agency in Philidelphia or New York. It is close to what I do now except print, and it aligns with my interests and talent. I most likely would have gotten married to a similarly professional man with the same values and interests. I would die in my 30s of cervical cancer most likely, without the treatments we have today.

MissPearl · 2015-09-03T16:21:26+00:00

You mean 1800 level technology, but complete egalitarianism and social mobility?

Practicer of the withdrawal method, happily married to a skilled tradesman (whitesmith) or clerk, whether Gentleman did his historical family trade or the 1800s version of his current job. Depending on which side of the family tree you climb, of course, the resources I'd have based on family ties would vary but we both have a branch that got off the farm pretty early. Shoemakers, etc... Gentleman descends from a long line of artisans.

Statistically though, based on my heritage, I could just as easily be shit poor, uneducated and non-landowning Eastern European tenant farmer or misc. British island scrapings. I suspect a lot of weaving and spinning, given the need for hands on textile work, as well as an early death due to childbirth, from sepsis even if my large pelvis would help.

If aliens came and planted the citizens of Purple, and our SOs/family into the estate of some aristocrat, most of us would be chasing chickens in crazy circles crying or scraping the earth for carrots.

dragoness_leclerq · 2015-09-03T14:10:49+00:00

Oh I'd no doubt be a brothel madam somewhere in the Indiana Territory as close to large swaths of single male laborers and gamblers as I could possibly get. I'd be unmarried with no children and largely independent.

Alternatively......

I'd be a lawyer at a small outfit somewhere in one of the larger cities, most probably Philadelphia or Boston. I'd be married to someone else in the field or something comparable, we'd have 1 or 2 children at most. Our combined incomes would be modest but we'd be able to at least afford a nanny to care for any child(ren) and live simply, yet comfortably.

[deleted] · 2015-09-03T13:09:23+00:00

Being a midwife and/or healer in that era always seemed really interesting to me. In the world you're describing, I'd be less likely to be labeled a witch so all the better!

I'd guess the 1800 equivalent of my husband's job would be a blacksmith or a craftsman? He'd have a shop and I'd keep house, consult patients there. At my age,I'd have older kids and toddlers so I'd likely let the older ones mind the young ones when I assisted with births or if I needed to see a patient at their home for some other reason.

[deleted] · 2015-09-03T12:42:02+00:00

If I was born in a lower social class , I imagine I would not have the education to pursue any career I would like . Even if I could indeed pursue a certain career ,become a doctor for example, I imagine there would be quite a lot of prejudice against the idea of a female doctor.

Anyway , if I was born in 1800 , I would probably end up being an old maid since I'm too mentally disturbed to become a good wife . I imagine I would probably be locked up in some sort of asylum or probably I'd have priests performing exorcisms on me.

[deleted] · 2015-09-03T17:46:49+00:00

Teacher or nun. Unmarried. It'd be difficult - we underestimate how much technology does for us, I think.

cats_or_get_out · 2015-09-03T19:42:46+00:00

I'd be one of those mean spinsters. I don't tolerate pregnancy well (severe postpartum depression), so I'd stay away from marriage and men.

I'd probably work in a library or as a teacher unless I had to take care of my ailing parents.

GridReXX · 2015-09-03T19:44:59+00:00

I'd probably practice sharp shooting in my spare time because can't trust no man or lady in these times. Herd sheep and fashion awesome woolen clothes. Marry a bootlegger. Because "cool!"

And if I'm not a slave, I'd be a groupie for Frederick Douglass and submit articles for his paper.

Maoist-Pussy · 2015-09-03T19:59:24+00:00

Obviously, I would become a zeppelin pilot.

rulenumber303 · 2015-09-03T20:59:25+00:00

Me as I am now with my current skills, but not allowed to do shit that overturns the timeline like invent all the useful stuff my modern self knows about? I can read, write, do maths, have a rudimentary understanding of classic book-keeping methods due to having taken a hotel front-desk course when I was younger, have good uncorrected eyesight and sew well and quickly by hand. To start, I want to make my way to a job in a small dressmakers shop in one of the larger (by then standards) cities and a tiny room (probably shared) in a boarding house. I think this is not unreasonable given my superior educational level for the era combined with near competency (I'm lacking some era specific skills I'm sure) that will very soon become competency in one of the manufacturing skills of the era.

Failing that I guess I'd head to dairy farming on the outskirts of an urban centre and look to marry into a dairy farming family (given my age I'd be looking for a guy left widowed with dozen kids) or if you've let me take to the past assets equivalent in real terms to my current assets, I'd buy a small dairy farm. Dairying is what my ancestors down my mother's line did and it involves a fair amount of physical work and early mornings but seems a better life than scratching the ground subsistence style. Where there's increasing population there is demand for milk.

gaylooboil · 2015-09-03T21:34:44+00:00

I'm big on ancestry research. The majority of my ancestors are listed as being farmers. Some of the women had occupations such as innkeeper and dress maker. My grandmother grew up on sustenance farm. She'd care for the crops, do animals husbandry, slaughter animals, hunt, cook, clean, care for younger siblings, do whatever you need to to survive. Thats probably how I'd live.

[deleted] · 2015-09-03T23:54:09+00:00

Well, a hundred years ago my great granddaddy grew grapes and he had a decent life so I guess that wouldn't be so bad two hundred years ago. But if we're talking fantasy I want to be a cousin-fucking, moonshining, Appalachia criminal. I don't think they had those back then though...

Cactuar_Tamer · 2015-09-04T01:26:57+00:00

Lol, 1800? How do they feel about brown people in this hypothetical alternate history of yours? But whatever, supposing I wasn't literally enslaved...

Same as now, translator. I'll travel, translate stuff. Getting to "the Orient" will be a lot more of a headache but there are plenty of opportunities.

I still won't be having kids, and since this is 1800 I probably won't be getting married either because that's pretty much signing myself up for being owned as chattel. Maybe I'll live permanently with a lady friend as was done even in those days.

If you're asking me how I'll avoid pregnancy, they had lots of methods for that even back in those days, but honestly I probably just won't seek out sex with men. I mean, ideally I'd prefer to do so but if it would cause horrible consequences for my life then eh, I can do without.

ohblessyourheart · 2015-09-04T04:14:04+00:00

I would live...

A LIFE OF CRIME. OLD WEST SHOOT 'EM UP DON'T PLAY ME AT POKER SON YOU'LL BE SO BROKE YOUR KIDS'LL FEEL IT (along with polio). Smoking guns and smoking cigars, baby; I'd be a legend. They'd name a street after me somewhere after I died in a bank robbery shootout with my own lady love.

Life would be awesome, obviously. And dangerous. My family would be the trail of swooning old west lesbians I left in my wake.

Also I would be a pioneer and shoot bears. Obviously I would kill/clean/prepare meals over a fire or seduce lusty tavern wenches for easy food. My money comes from my life of crime and the roaring fur trade.

I'd lose a duel, probably, or be shot in my sleep by a jilted lover. I also probably cheat at cards. Also, there were herbal means of preventing pregnancy/ending pregnancy and have been for literally thousands of years, so whenever Wild Willy got fresh when I was too blasted from ale to give a shit, I wouldn't have a kid.

1800 me is awesome.

Polaritical · 2015-09-04T07:30:46+00:00

I have a SERIOUS issue with the scenerio you presented. You still assume women should take conventional womans roles. Women are perfectly capable of being physical until the late stages of pregnancy. Assuming they dont die, a few months to recover. After that, why should a woman be the caregiver to the children or keeper of the home? Maybe I want a house hubbie while I go earn the bacon.

I argue that the rhythm method and pullout combined gave a 19% failure rate. I also think if we're doing away with society arbitrary standard s, we'd be a lot more creative with sex. Why you gotta put your dick in my pussy all the time? Oral and anal all day.

I'd make a self sustaining homestead and be a local teacher/tutor or try to pick up a trade for extra income. I'd also probably marry a woman rather than a man. I think shed be more likely to be ok with my life plan than a man.

cynzia · 2015-09-15T17:39:44+00:00

What a stupid fucking scenario.

But i can answer that using my own ancestry. My family immigrated here from Russia. In Russia, women serfs worked out in the fields along side men. My female ancestors did that. They also had kids.

Also, look at slavery in the South. Women picked cotton right along side men.

Most people in the 19th century were poor. Only the leisure class avoided work in the field.

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