Women began the revolutionary era almost completely confined to the domestic sphere. Traditional views of femininity prevailed, although some women slowly began to exercise more political consciousness. However, women were still only at the beginning of their politicization, in the years preceding greater recognition of domestic work.

Building up to the American Revolution, “women were by and large excluded from politics” (Lewis 2002, 87). Their never-ending commitments to the domestic sphere prevented any potential efforts to break out of traditional roles. Pre-revolutionary women were confined by the many obligations they had to their children and husband, along with “a set of mental restrictions that defined the ways they thought about themselves and their sex as a whole” (Norton 1980, 111). Additionally, their lack of awareness of “legal language and an unfamiliarity with the details of transactions concerning property” made women wholly dependent on the men in their life” (Norton 1980, 6).

Women were classified by their femininity and their “‘pure, tender, delicate, irritable, affectionate, flexible, and patient'” qualities (Norton 1980, 112). Their soft, subordinate nature was further reinforced by “including [women] in statutes covering wards and minors” classifying them as dependents and protecting them as such under the law (Gundersen and Gampel 1982, 119). Women, in their subservience to their husbands and families, were to “maintain no identity separate from that of her male-defined family” (Norton 1980, 5). Additionally, the highest goal a woman could aspire to was the notable housewife with “sterling housewifery talents” (Norton 1980, 5).

Despite all their restrictions, women were beginning to step out of their traditional roles. They were growing in power “as representatives for absent husbands” in economic spheres, “as managers of family businesses when husbands were present, and as operators of their own businesses” giving them greater public visibility (Gundersen and Gampel 1982, 129). As conflict with the British swelled, women became more important as “boycotters, sodliers, and political writers” (Hicks 2005, 266).

Revolutionaries began to realize the importance of women to their cause. Without enlisting women, revolutionaries could not call for boycotts of the scale they hoped for, so “women were called upon explicitly to increase their production, particularly of cloth” (Lewis 2002, 85). This marked the beginning of the homespun movement which, along with boycotts, drew women into the Revolution.

The homespun movement was directly tied with boycotts, as it allowed for boycotts of British-made clothing. Women also participated in tea and other food boycotts, including food riots, and saw their participation as political action (Lewis 2002, 85). Republican ideals encouraged an avoidance of “‘luxury,’ which suggested that women’s domestic production could lead to the moral regeneration of the American people” giving women a power and purpose through their domestic actions that they previously hadn’t had (Lewis 2002, 84).