Moving to the West in the US altered traditional expectations of women's roles in a number of ways:
On the western frontier, women performed many of the same tasks as men in settling the land. There was so much work to be done to establish a homestead, farm the land, etc, that women needed to assist in the physical labor.
Women were allowed to attend colleges because of the need to train teachers. As an example, what we know today as San Jose State University was first established as a "normal school" (teacher training college), in 1857. It had its first graduating class in 1862, and all 54 of those graduates were women. UCLA -- the University of California, Los Angeles, was also originally a "normal school" (teacher training college), established as a branch off the San Jose school. Many women were becoming much involved in the education field in the West.
Women also became doctors, lawyers, business owners, etc, in the West more readily than back East, because of the need for professionals in the Western territories.
Women were allowed to hold property in their own names in the West, and encouraged to do so as a way of increasing the land holdings of a family.
Because of women's expanding roles in the West, they also became much more involved politically in the newly established Western states. In 1890, Wyoming became a state--and the first state in the US that allowed women to vote. The next states to grant women the right to vote were also all Western states: Colorado in 1893), Utah and Idaho in 1896, Washington in 1910), California in 1911), and Oregon, Kansas, and Arizona in 1912.
