Judging a woman by her appearance became a social norm in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As women were not allowed to hold high or reputable positions, they often relied on their husbands to pay and bring in most of the bills and money. Such conditions often forced a young woman to struggle to find a husband, or better yet, it was in her best interest to find a husband. Modern literature was born in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. At the time, real women were thought to exhibit the following traits: piety, purity, submission, and domesticity (Welter). Not only were women criticizing each other, but so was the media. Women were also responsible for preserving their physical beauty. A woman could have had all the traits that made her a real woman, but if she lacked physical beauty, she was humiliated by society. The majority of modern American texts began to move away from the norms that held women to be weak and submissive, but they still viewed physical beauty as a trait that all women had to maintain and were obsessed with. At the time, women were oppressed and considered ineffective....