Outline: Varieties of Late-19th-Century Women’s Experiences

Pages 824-835

*In general, women remained in positions of economic dependence and legal inferiority (whatever the social class)…

  1. Social Disabilities Confronted by All Women
  1. Women and Property
  1. married women could not own property in their own names

1)upon marriage, women lost any property that they owned or might inherit or earn (to their husband)

2)women’s legal identity was subsumed in their husband’s (e.g., a theft of a woman’s purse was a theft of her husband’s property)

  1. Limited Reform during the last quarter of the century

1)Married Women’s Property Act (Great Britain 1882): allowed married women to own property in their own right

2)still, this was the exception, not the rule

  1. Family Law
  2. legal codes required wives to “give obedience” to their husbands
  3. divorces were difficult for women

1)double standard (much easier for men)

2)offenses like adultery and cruelty were the only ways women could get divorces

  1. authority of husbands extended to children
  2. both contraception and abortion were illegal until well into the 20th century
  1. Educational Barriers
  2. throughout the 19th century, women had less access to education than men
  3. often, the education that was available was inferior to that available to men
  4. limited reform during the latter part of the 19th century

1)university and professional education became available to women

2)degree of access varied from country to country

3)the absence of a system of private or public secondary education for women prevented most from taking advantage of this opportunity

  1. women who pioneered in the professions faced grave social obstacles, personal humiliation, and outright bigotry

1)challenged the clear separation of life into male and female spheres that had emerged in middle-class social life during the 19th century

2)many men (and women for that matter) saw a real conflict between family responsibility and feminism

3)nevertheless, teaching at the elementary level was seen as a “female job”

a)this became the professional haven of women

b)these women were trained at institutions, not universities

  1. New Employment Patterns for Women
  1. Availability of New Jobs
  1. the emergence of corporations, expansion of governmental bureaucracies, and the vast growth of retail stores opened new employment opportunities for women
  2. most of these jobs, however, required low-level skills and involved minimal training
  3. occupied primarily by unmarried women and widows
  4. wages were typically very low (Why was this ironic?)
  1. Withdrawal from the Labor Force
  1. upon marriage, a woman normally withdrew from the labor force…Why?

1)real wages were higher for men…less need for a second income

2)men were living longer…less of a chance women would be thrust into the labor force

3)needed to stay home and take care of the children

4)middle-class expectations

  1. the more prosperous a working class family became, the less involved in employment its women were supposed to be
  1. Working-class women
  2. they were typically exploited
  3. in essence, they were treated as casual workers, even though the women who worked needed to support themselves
  4. Poverty and Prostitution
  1. typically, there were many more women seeking employment than there were jobs (even when they did work, they did not make enough to live)
  2. this was a major cause of the large number of prostitutes in late-19th-century cities
  3. on the Continent, prostitution was generally legalized and was subject to governmental and municipal regulations
  1. Women of the Middle Class
  2. unlike the poor working-class women, middle-class women participated in the vast expansion of consumerism and domestic comfort that marked the end of the 19th century and the early-20th century
  3. The Cult of Domesticity: middle-class women did not work…they became limited to the roles of wife and mother…Why?
  1. the home came to be seen as the center of virtue, children, and the proper life
  2. the wife was largely in charge of the household…this included all domestic management and child care
  3. Religious and Charitable Activities
  1. women were expected to attend mass and assure the religious instruction of their children (strongly supported by the Catholic church)
  2. middle-class women administered charity--they were judged qualified because of their presumed innate spirituality and their capacity to instill domestic personal discipline
  3. Sexuality and Family Size
  1. studies show that middle-class women were far more sexually active than once thought
  2. during the latter half of the 19th century, small family size among the middle class became the norm…Why?

1)new contraceptive devices became available

2)husbands and wives wanted to enjoy a higher standard of living

  1. The Rise of Political Feminism
  1. Obstacles to Achieving Equality
  1. Women were often reluctant to support feminist causes…
  2. some women were very sensitive to their class and economic interests (middle-class women did not want to rock the boat)
  3. others subordinated feminist political issues to national unity and nationalistic patriotism
  4. still, others would not support particular feminist organizations because of differences over tactics

1)working-class and middle-class women could not cooperate

2)Roman Catholic feminists could not agree with radical secularist feminists

  1. could not agree on what goals were most important
  1. Intellectual and Political Tools of the Feminist Movement
  1. Mary Wollstonecraft (The Vindication of the Rights of Woman—1792): applied the revolutionary doctrines of the rights of man to the predicament of the members of her own sex
  2. John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor (The Subjection of Women—1869): applied the logic of liberal freedom to the position of women (the inferior role assigned to women was inefficient and wasteful)
  3. socialist criticism of capitalism often included a harsh indictment of the social and economic position to which women had been relegated
  1. Votes for Women in Britain
  1. Millicent Fawcett: led the moderate National Union of Woman’s Suffrage Societies--believed Parliament would grant women the vote only when convinced that they would be respectable and responsible in their political activity
  2. Emmeline Pankhurst: led the much more radical Women’s Social and Political Union (“suffragettes”)

1)lobbied publicly and privately for the extension of the vote to women for several years

2)by 1910, they turned to violent tactics such as arson and sabotage of postal boxes

  1. Only in 1918, and then as a result to their contribution to the war effort, did some British women receive the right to vote
  1. Political Feminism on the Continent: less advanced that the British women’s movement
  1. France

1)government did not grant French women the right to vote until after WWII

2)National Council of French Women (CNFF): formed in 1901, it was organized among upper middle-class women, but did not support the vote for women for several years

  1. Germany

1)Union of German Women’s Organization (BDFK)

a)founded in 1894, it did not support a call for the right to vote until 1902

b)more concerned with improving women’s social conditions, their access to education, and their right to other protections

2)German Socialist Democratic Party: supported women’s suffrage, but was so disdained by the German authorities and German Roman Catholics that this support only drew suspicion to woman suffrage

3)Women received the right to vote in 1918 under the WeimarRepublic

  1. Jewish Emancipation: During the late-18th-century and throughout the 19th century, Jews were emancipated from the ghettos

*Emancipation was frequently limited or partially repealed with changes in rulers or governments…

  1. Differing Degrees of Citizenship: the emancipation moved at different paces in different countries
  1. Austria: in 1782, Joseph II issued a decree that placed the Jews of his empire under more or less the same laws as Christians
  2. France: in 1789, the National Assembly recognized the Jews as French citizens
  3. Eastern Europe: emancipation was much slower and much less complete
  1. Russia: until WWI, Jews were treated as aliens under Russian rule
  2. pogroms: organized riots against Jewish neighborhoods and villages
  1. Broadened Opportunities: after the revolutions of 1848, European Jews saw a general improvement in their situation that lasted for several decades
  1. the new found security began to erode during the last two decades of the 19th century
  1. Jewish bankers were blamed for the economic stagnation of the decade
  2. organized anti-Semitism erupted in Germany during the 1880’s
  1. these new developments gave rise to the birth of Zionism (movement to form a separate Jewish state)