Throughout American history, women have been considered the inferior sex and have endured discrimination inflicted on them by men. In the period between 1780 and 1835 the United States underwent extensive social and economic changes that led to a change in the role of women, leading to the “cult of true womanhood.” Although the new “cult” limited women to the virtues of piety, purity, submission and domesticity, it also led to an increase in women's influence on the development of society. In “Bonds of Womanhood,” Nancy Cott focuses on the period from 1780 to 1835 to effectively illustrate how the changes that led to the “cult of true femininity” held women together through the creation of a separate, but even limiting women to ideologies that have become prominent with “true womanhood.” While I agree with Nancy Cott's argument, it would have been more effective if she had included politics as one of the main aspects of her argument. The “Bonds of Womanhood” emphasizes the historical transformations that occurred before the Victorian period, as it led to major changes in the role of women in the United States. The transition from an agrarian to an industrial economy led to the mass production of goods, including textiles; with the invention of power looms in 1814 young women were often employed outside the home to produce textiles, thus increasing their independence. However, along with industrialization came many social changes that affected women. Because working conditions in factories were atrocious, the home became a means of escape that pushed wives to create a pleasant home environment for their husbands. This ideology contributed to the publication of Mary Wollstonecraft's book Vindication of the Rights of Women: With strictures on Political and Moral topics, which is partly based on political inequality, and thus demonstrates how the "consciousness" of inequality of political rights in the Constitution America was the driving force of feminism. Therefore, by focusing on the influence of politics on women's lives in the post-revolutionary era, Cott would have been able to further support her thesis by providing a more in-depth explanation for the origin of feminism from “group consciousness”. that Nancy Cott's sources provide an interesting insight into the effects of the "woman's sphere" on the lives of middle-class white women in New England, her assumption that this "conception creates constraints or opportunities for all women" creates a substantial generalization.