Life on the Plains provided both unique difficulties and opportunities for women.  For many women, relocating was not their choice.  They went because their husbands' chose to go.  This meant leaving their lives behind, extended family, friends, and the world they had known, for life on the Plains and the unknown.  It also meant completing their work in frontier conditions.  The frontier West, however, was more democratic than the East.  Women had opportunities for economic independence, even starting their own homesteads.  Frontier conditions often placed greater respect and importance on what was considered "woman's work," because women were seen as needed for the success for any homesteading venture.  The West was also more democratic in the political sense, with western states and territories giving women the right to vote long before the ratification of the 19th Amendment and women's suffrage. This webpage nicely summarizes this life  Your responsibility is to answer this question using historical evidence and understanding.  Based on your understanding of the lives of women working in eastern factories, was life on the frontier for women more difficult or less difficult than in the East?  Remember the key points:  women worked long hours in the factories in often dangerous conditions, were terribly underpaid, and had very little independence.  Eastern society also usually viewed women and their work as less important than men's.