In the late nineteenth century women lodgers, alone in the city, epitomized the purity of endangered woman-hood; in the early twentieth century the same women were among the first "respectable" women broadcast as happy sexual objects.

Jeanne Meyerowitz
About This Quote

In the late nineteenth century, women lodgers in the city were portrayed as pure and innocent because they were alone in the city. In the early twentieth century, these same women were broadcast as happy sexual objects because they were alone with their man. The difference between these two groups of women was that one group was pure, while the other group was not. "Woman" itself became a social construct that told what it meant to be a woman at that point in time.

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