Women’s Roles

Amanda Zhao1-10-13Period 5

Timeline: Acts By and Affecting Women1803: Parliament passes the first British abortion law, prohibiting abortion after quickening.

1804: The Napoleonic Code of France considers women—like criminals, children, and the insane—to be legal minors. A woman's husband controls her property and, in the case of divorce, gets the children.

1813: In England, Elizabeth Fry advocates reform of Newgate Prison, in which 300 women and children are housed under appalling conditions.

1821: Colombian women gain the right to attend university.

1834: In Lowell, Massachusetts, women mill workers stage a successful strike to reverse a 25 percent cut in their pay.

1837: Victoria ascends the throne of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

Timeline Continued1840: Female delegates are refused admittance to the World's Anti-Slavery Convention in London. This event leads Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton to call the first women's rights convention.

1844: The English Factory Act establishes the 12-hour workday for female factory workers.

1845: Swedish women win equal rights of inheritance.

1848: The Seneca Falls Convention is held and launches the woman suffrage movement in the United States. The document produced is the Declaration of Sentiments, patterned after the Declaration of Independence.

1854: Florence Nightingale begins nursing casualties during the Crimean War and effectively establishes nursing as a profession for women. Her efforts help reduce the death rate from combat injuries from 42 percent to 2.2 percent.

Britannica. "Timeline: Through the Centuries." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 13 Jan. 2013. <http://www.britannica.com/women/timeline?tocId=9404138>.

Attitudes Toward Women (Before)• Before (pre-1800s):

– Agrarian family view makes basis of women’s role• Women’s duties in domestic home duties

(ex. cleaning, cooking), raising children• Major role: giving birth to children

(breeders)– Women belonged to the home; men in

outside, harsh world– Women’s mind tender, supportive, simple,

and virtuous

“Women…are something like children: the more they show their need of support, the more engaging they are.”

- Mrs. John Sandford, The Other Oppressed

Attitudes Towards Women (Later)

• Later (Early to mid-1800s)– Greater industrialization during the Industrial

Revolution -> greater urbanization -> women begin working outside household more in factories/mills

• Women working for pay gradually lessens attitudes of social subordination towards women

– More wealthy women become centers of cultivated circles, BUT

• Still excluded from politics and business• Still responsible for domestic duties (unless hire

servants)• Still viewed as delicate, virtuous, idle

Women in the Family• Women play important roles: a wife and a mother• As a wife:

– Complement her husband, and be supportive of his interests (ex. comfort for troubles, enforce his principles)

– Do domestic duties: serve food, cleaning, washing and mending clothes – make household comfortable for husband

– Be pious, humble, submissive, supportive

• As a mother:– Proper raising of child: education, care, character (especially in middle class)

• Women’s importance in domestics cause difficulties for greater female education:– Opponents believe education detract from practical knowledge needed for

housewives

• Ex. Motherhood stressed in women’s magazines and other writings:– Parisian Journal des Femmes, Lady’s Home Journal, Godey’s Ladybook, The

Ladies’ Pocket Book of Etiquette (published in 1840)

The Underclass• Greatly impoverished women;

made up the lowest of the social ladder

• Lacked education and acceptable jobs – Depended mostly on relief

organizations and charity– Ex. England’s Society for the Diffusion

of Useful Knowledge (founded 1826) The Society of St. Vincent de Paul

(founded 1835)

• Some resort to prostitution for income:– Unrespectable profession; dirty lifestyle– Great increase in prostitutes in cities in

19th century:• London: 9,000 to 80,000 registered

prostitutes

The Working Class• Low social standing• Professions included: factory workers, domestic service,

agricultural laborers (employment necessary for family survival)– Laborious work hours with modest/little income and inheritance

• Women factory workers:– Some begin working at ages of 8-12– Lifestyle of long work days, poor health, poor sanitation– Excluded from higher paying jobs (ex. mule-spinning reserved

for males in textile factories)– Mainly worked in the textile industry (cotton, flax, silk): made up

most of the workers• Ex. Textile factories in Manchester and Leeds

– Also employed in factories for manufacturing pottery and paper

Britain Factory Workers in 1833: Females as a Percent of the WorkforceIndustry Ages 12 and

underAges 13-20 Ages 21+ All Ages

Cotton 51.8 65.0 52.2 58.0

Wool 38.6 46.2 37.7 40.9

Flax 54.8 77.3 59.5 67.4

Silk 74.3 84.3 71.3 78.1

Lace 38.7 57.4 16.6 36.5

Potteries 38.1 46.9 27.1 29.4

Dyehouse 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

Glass 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

Paper - 100.0 39.2 53.6

Whole Sample

52.8 66.4 48.0 56.8

Click here for more women workers statistics! Burnette, Joyce. "Women Workers in the British Industrial Revolution." Economic History Services. EH.Net, 5 Feb.

2010. Web. 13 Jan. 2013. <http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/burnette.women.workers.britain>.

The Middle Class• More women work for pay in 19th century:

– Ex. Lower-Middle Class: often operate small shops, are governesses, or are ladies’ companions

– Also: writing (ex. Elizabeth Gaskell, Bronte)

• Domestic role becomes major part of life– In addition to being wife and mother, assumes virtuous values, piousness,

and elegant dress in household

– Most important in maintaining calm in household

• Charities (ex. Sisters of Mercy, Franciscan Sisters of the Poor)– Participated greatly in charity and good works

– Campaigned for sanitation, piousness, temperance

– Provided soup and bread, supported impoverished

– Participated in running nurseries, schools, and hostels

The Upper Class• Mainly assumed domestic

roles:– Was virtuous, elegant,

fashionable, idle– Often had domestic servants to

provide housekeeping

• Centers of cultivated, social circles

• Participated in charities, social works as a reasonable pastime

• Marriage important part of upbringing:– Marry for acquisition of property

and social alliances

Women and Marriage• Marriage considered important obligation of women

– Especially middle class– Singles considered spinsters; pitied and held in contempt

• However, single women more legally independent than married:– Ex. In England: could own property, pay taxes, can vote in local parish– Vs. married woman: rights to property and inheritance go to husband

• Middle and upper class often marry for social mobility, merging of estates, money– Women play critical role– Lower classes often do not marry with such motives

• Marriage laws made divorce for women difficult:– Men just needed to prove wife’s adultery– Women must prove: adultery and other marital issues (ex. incest, rape,

abuse)– Only until later reforms increased divorce rate

• Ex. Matrimonial Causes Act in England of 1857: established secular divorce courts

The effect of the restrictions on women’s divorce can be seen in this graph.Not until later reforms did the rate of female divorces increased.

Office for National Statistics. Rate of Marriages and Divorces in England and Wales, 1862-2008. Digital image. Significance. Blackwell Publishing, n.d. Web. 13 Jan. 2013. <http://www.significancemagazine.org/details/webexclusive/1345767/Getting-hitched--marriage- and-divorce-in-the-21st-century.html>.

Women in Romanticism• Romantic movement provided opportunity for women for

expression in writing and the arts• Romantics also wanted couples to be led by warm

emotions, not rigid rituals formed by Bourgeois

• Women included:– Madame de Staël: works on German thinkers, such as

Concerning Germany (1810) introduced Romanticism to France – Ann Radcliffe: English author who wrote romantic, gothic works;

wrote The Romance of the Forest (1791)– Charlotte Smith: Poet and novelist; wrote compilation of sonnets

in Elegiac Poems (1784)– Anne Seymour Damer: English sculptor of the early

Romanticism movement

Women in Romanticism

Anne Seymour Damer

Madame de Staël

Ann Radcliffe

Charlotte Smith

Women Rulers and Political Figures

• Queen Victoria: – Queen of England that ascended throne 1837– Reign brought glory and power to England; monarch during the

Crimean War

• Duchess of Berry:– Son was legitimist’s claim (supported Bourbons) to throne during

the July Monarchy (1830s) in France– 1832: attempted to start an uprising against monarchy

• Isabella:– Daughter and planned successor of King Ferdinand VII of Spain– Rule opposed by Don Carlos and Carlists – supported autocracy

and Spanish Catholicism’s claims– Eventually became Queen Isabella II of Spain in 1843

Queen Victoria

Duchess of Berry

Queen Isabella II

Women Feminists• 19th century experienced numerous feminist works

supporting the emancipation of women:• Harriet Taylor (1807–1858 )

– Advocate for education and rights for women– Influence more often seen in works of friend and second

husband, John Stuart Mill• Mill had advocated for emancipation of women• Influenced work: “The Enfranchisement of Women” (1851)

• Anna Wheeler (1785-1848)– With friend William Thompson, wrote feminist treatise:

• Appeal of One Half the Human Race, WOMEN, Against the Pretensions of the Other Half, MEN, to Retain Them in Political, and Thence in Civil and Domestic Slavery; in reply to a paragraph of Mrs. Mill’s Celebrated "Article on Government" (1825)

• Catherine Barmby – Wrote "Demand for the Emancipation of Woman, Politically and

Socially" (1843)– Led way of feminist writings in the 1840s (more on feminism)

Harriet Taylor

Anna Wheeler

“Were I but capable of interpreting to the world one half the great thoughts and noble feelings which are buried in her [Harriet Taylor] grave, I should be the medium of a greater benefit to it, than is ever likely to arise from anything that I can write, unprompted and unassisted by her all but unrivalled wisdom.”

—J. S. Mill

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