High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The American Revolution took place after England placed the 7 Coercive or Intolerable Acts laws in order in the colonies. This included closing the port of New York, extending the boundary of Quebec to the Ohio River, limiting self government in the Mississippi River, ordering colonists to provide housing for more troops, and allowing British officials to be tried for crimes in England instead of the colonies. The Americans responded by forming the Continental Congress and fighting with the French armies. However, the war would not have been able to progress as it did without any widespread ideological as well as material support throughout the American colonies by both male and female inhabitants. While formal politics did not include women, ordinary domestic behaviors became charged with political significance as women confronted the Revolution, as a war that permeated all aspects of political, civil and domestic life. Acts such as drinking British tea or ordering clothes from England that before were everyday activities demonstrated Colonial opposition during the years leading up to and during the war. Although the war raised the question of whether or not a woman could be a Patriot autonomously, that is, maintain a political identity, women across separate colonies demonstrated that they could. Support was best expressed through traditional female occupations: those that took place in arenas where they were already readily accepted such as the home, the domestic economy, and their husband’s or father’s businesses. Women participated by boycotting British goods, producing goods for soldiers, spying on the British, following armies as they marched, washing and cooking for the soldiers, delivering secret messages, and fighting disguised as men.