When and where did gender segregation begin?

Answer 1

When Did Southern Segregation Begin?
Readings Selected and Introduced by John David Smith In 1954 the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Educationbranded the "separate but equal" principle a fallacy, thereby undermining the legal foundation of the Jim Crow South. The following year, C. Vann Woodward published The Strange Career of Jim Crow. Woodward’s book can be read as a companion piece to the Supreme Court case; contrary to the claims of many southern whites (and most historians of the South), Woodward argued that segregation was not deeply rooted in southern history but rather was a modern innovation of the New South, one which replaced a postwar environment characterized more by relative fluidity than by rigid separation in racial relations. Woodward’s thesis was innovative, if not unprecedented. Strange Career both raised immediate implications—if Jim Crow was a creature of law rather than custom, then laws could destroy it—and established itself as the thesis by which all others would be forced to measure themselves. As John David Smith makes clear, Woodward has always had critics as well as disciples. In his introduction to When Did Southern Segregation Begin?, Smith presents a brief history of Jim Crow as well as its historiography. By perusing the historical studies that follow, students will enter into the debate over the origins of the racial policies that have done so much to shape American history since Emancipation. Fittingly, excerpts from Strange Career constitute the first selection. Woodward draws upon the observations of visitors to the South in the 1870s and 1880s who often express surprise at the lack of racial separation and hostility. (What do such observations suggest about race relations in the North at that time?) Woodward then offers reasons for the imposition of a rigid system of legal segregation beginning in the 1890s. Are these reasons specific to southern society, or do they reflect national concerns as well? Students should consult their other course readings for contemporaneous historical developments and consider the ways such developments might help to explain the establishment of southern Jim Crow legislation. What impact did the Populist movement have on southern race relations? Did the rapidly proliferating Jim Crow laws of the early twentieth century represent a distinct, regional category of racial legislation, or can they be seen more generally as products of progressivism? To pose a question dear to his critics, how does Woodward use such terms as "Jim Crow" and "segregation," and how does his definition of these terms influence his argument? An excerpt from Joel Williamson’s work on South Carolina during Reconstruction suggests how careful historians need be in defining their terms. Williamson was one of the first historians to take issue with the Woodward thesis; in this selection, he argues that racial separation by custom (de facto segregation) was typical well before the establishment of legally codified (de jure) segregation. Once the forced contact between whites and freed blacks of the antebellum plantation system was abolished, what types of racial separation occurred, according to Williamson? To what extent was such separation voluntary rather than coerced? In this connection, students might consider the enthusiasm with which former slaves established their own separate churches, the desire among many freedmen to reside away from the gaze of local whites, and the increasing tendency of South Carolina whites to withdraw from institutions that failed to enforce a de facto color line. Does Williamson’s piece suggest that Jim Crow legislation followed "naturally" from an earlier, customary separation of races? Woodward would concede that de facto racial separation and discrimination existed prior to the mania for Jim Crow laws, but how, or whether, one developed from the other remains an open question. Edward L. Ayers argues that the rise of Jim Crow was more attributable to structural developments than to purposeful racism, as is suggested by his claim that "most of the debates about race relations focused on the railroads of the New South." Ayers, like Woodward, emphasizes a postwar period of flux in race relations. How did rapid industrialization in the New South (and particularly the belated spread of railways) change forms of interaction between southern blacks and whites? Why were first-class rail cars so often the sites of racial antagonism, and why was racial animosity so often directed at well-dressed black men and women? Asking such questions will not only generate debate about the rise of Jim Crow but will also allow students to consider the interaction of race and class in the New South. Barbara Y. Welke adds gender to the analytical mix in her study of the development of railway segregation policies, noting that segregation of the sexes was common on rail lines prior to racial segregation. Did sexual segregation serve as the legal model for its racial counterpart? What does Welke’s examination of court cases based on railroad common law tell us about southern conceptions of womanhood and about the potential for black women to be defined by gender rather than racial standards? (How did the status of "white womanhood" in the South serve as a pretext for white coercion—including extralegal coercion—of black men?) What role did railroad corporations play in the establishment of the "separate but equal" doctrine eventually used to constitutionally justify southern segregation—and why were the companies typically displeased by the prospect of segregating their trains? Woodward’s work alludes to "forgotten alternatives" to legal segregation. One of his critics, Howard N. Rabinowitz, focuses upon what he takes to be the most obvious alternative, arguing that segregation supplanted racial exclusion rather than integration. Further, Rabinowitz claims that the majority of southern whites would have preferred to continue and to extend exclusionary policies, had laws and constitutional amendments issuing from congressional reconstruction not precluded that option. Does examination of the many public and private facilities that excluded blacks prior to Plessy v. Fergusonchange the way students perceive either the impact of Reconstruction or the implications of the "separate but equal" legal doctrine? How did African Americans attempt to shape this process themselves, to their own ends? Students might consider Rabinowitz’s analysis of black boycotts against southern streetcar lines (a presentiment of the Montgomery Bus Boycott?) or examine his evidence that blacks tended not to seek integration any more than whites did, but rather sought facilities of equal quality and, whenever possible, control over them. The emphasis on racial oppression that justly characterizes historical studies of Jim Crow should not blind students to the ways in which African Americans attempted to derive benefits from segregation. Leon F. Litwack reminds readers, however, that at bottom Jim Crow was a means of keeping southern blacks "in their place." According to Litwack, why did de jure segregation spread so rapidly around the turn of the twentieth century? What was the influence of a younger generation of blacks, who had never known slavery and struck many whites as unduly assertive, contrary to white notions of "racial etiquette"? Litwack also analyzes the ideal of southern white womanhood; does gender form as central a component in his explanation of Jim Crow as in Welke’s? Litwack’s piece offers many examples of Jim Crow as it was applied to a wide variety of arenas of social interaction. From the vantage point of the present, many of these examples will strike readers as patently absurd—and appropriately so. Whatever view students take of C. Vann Woodward’s thesis, they will likely agree that Jim Crow’s was a strange career indeed.

Answer 2

I don't think it really just started per se, but has been around. It has been existent from the beginning of time. It may stem from a primal instinct to distrust anyone who doesn't look familiar, and thus is not a member of your "pack", but that's merely a theory.

Answer 3

at the beginning of our country - the people in power spread Propaganda to keep the white slaves from socializing with the black slaves (lest they join forces and gain power to fight those who took advantage of them) and it grew from there to the ingrained problems we suffer today.

Answer 4

As long as we can track........

Thousands of years ago our ancestors had to go hunting and had to plant crops to eat. The men were strnger and could do more work, while the women were slightly weaker because they had a bigger role in reproduction. Because of the fact that men could do more work they were considered to be "worth more" than women. So while the men were praised for doing work such as farming and hunting, women were considered worthless and looked after the house and the children and gave birth. And so this went on until now so most people now kinda have a sexist perception