Download or read book Deviance and Respectability in Women of the American West written by Victoria Sheppard and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The respectable woman of the West did not necessarily meet Eastern standards of the ideal woman... In the nineteenth century, gender roles established well-defined boundaries in order for men and women to maintain respectability."-- [P.1] "Frontier life was basically a family enterprise. Each unit needed to be able to function independently without the help of other people. This isolation from outside help often necessitated women crossing over into the male-dominated sphere, performing unladylike chores thereby changing the scope for what was tolerable for women in the West...The blurring of original gender roles due to necessity was a fundamental issue in the West. Women had to learn to be self-sufficient which entailed them doing work or acting in ways originally considered unfeminine or unladylike. "--[P. 12]