WOMEN IN THE 20TH AND 21ST CENTURIES

We in Year 9 are currently in the process of choosing our option subjects for GCSE and researching possible future careers. As we make our choices, we are comfortable in the thought that we can go down a series of routes and potentially take on a multitude of jobs which will suit our qualifications.

However, this has not always been the case and the career prospects of our female predecessors at St Paul’s and other schools at the beginning of the 1900’s would have been very limited. The evolution for women has been slow, but has brought us to where we are today – with choice and a say in decision-making processes.

At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the Twentieth Century, women had a very stereotypical role in British society. In the upper classes, rich parents wanted their daughters to marry wealthy young men. This meant they had to acquire such skills as keeping household accounts and dealing with servants. They would also have to sing, dance, play the piano and do embroidery. They were taught these skills by a combination of their mothers and their governess, who was employed by the family to teach the children in the household. In the lower classes, if married, they stayed at home to look after the children while their husband worked and brought in a weekly wage. If single, they did work which usually involved some form of service such as working as a waitress, cooking etc. Many young women were simply expected to get married and have children. In education, the emphasis was on learning skills for work, not on learning how to learn.The core curriculum was reading, writing and arithmetic (the 3 R’s).Boys were shown the tools they might need in manual jobs, and taught how to measure and calculate.Girls were taught to sew, knit and cook, ready for work as servants or wives and mothers.

(SLIDE OF ELIZABETH GARRETT ANDERSON) Towards the end of the 19th century, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson became the first lady to qualify to be a doctor (GP). She then faced huge obstacles making progress in her profession. Men would not go to her simply because she was female , whereas, women usually kept with the way it was done then - they continued seeing a male GP. It took years for Anderson to succeed, but eventually she won over her patients.

(SLIDE OF WOMEN IN EMPLOYMENT)

This table of employment gives an example of where women worked in1900

Type of employment / Number of women employed
Domestic Servants / 1,740,800
Teachers / 124,000
Nurses / 68,000
Doctors / 212
Architects / 2

The table clearly shows in which direction women were expected to go, should they have work. Many poorly educated young ladies simply worked for a large household as a servant. From here they could train to work in a kitchen but it is highly unlikely that they would have become the head of a kitchen as this was still the 'territory' of the male.

Even the figure for teachers is somewhat misleading as female teachers nearly all worked in junior or nursery schools. What we would now call secondary schools were staffed only by male teachers.

(SLIDE – QUEEN VICTORIA WITH QUOTATION)

For decades women's progress in British society was haunted by the words of Queen Victoria:

"Let women be what God intended, a helpmate for man, but with totally different duties and vocations."

Coming from the most famous woman in the world at the time, men in power used these words to hinder the advance women had made. By 1900, women had been granted some improvements in their lifestyle via the law courts - it was only in 1891 that women were told that they could not be forced to live with a man if they did not want to - but because nearly all women were reliant on their husbands for a source of money, many women lived in miserable marriages.

(SLIDE OF MILLICENT FAWCETT) In the later years of the nineteenth century, women wanted one very basic right - the right to vote – the right of suffrage. The original movement for women's political rights was a non-violent one lead by Millicent Fawcett. Her movement was called the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies. Fawcett believed in the power of change through persuasion. She argued that those women who had money and employed men as gardeners, cooks etc., were in the absurd position of not being able to vote yet those men employed in their employment did !! Another of Fawcett's arguments was that those women that worked paid the same level of tax as men who were employed, but the men could vote and the women could not.

However, Fawcett's arguments were not listened to and some men were less than polite when giving reasons as to why women should not vote :

"Political power in many large cities would chiefly be in the hands of young, ill-educated, giddy, and often ill-conducted (badly behaved) girls." Frederick Rylands (1896)

Such a reaction led to some women taking a more hard-line attitude and in 1903, the Women's Social and Political Union was created by Emmeline Pankhurst. (SLIDE OF EMMELINE PANKHURST) They became known as the Suffragettes. Their campaign took them into the twentieth century - a century that gave women over 30 years of age the right to vote in 1918 and allowed them to stand for Parliament as MP's in the same year. Finally in 1928, women were given the same political rights as men.

(SLIDE OF JOBS DONE BY WOMEN IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR) By the 1930’s women therefore were able to vote and stand for Parliament, but for many women their career opportunities were still limited. Before the Second World War, women were expected to be 'housewives' or perhaps to do certain 'women's jobs', such as nursing or being a domestic servant or shop assistant. The war changed the world of work for women forever. When men went to fight, women were called upon to fill their jobs, and this included many jobs that were previously thought of unsuitable for women. Jobs undertaken by women during the war included:

  • mechanics
  • engineers
  • pilots
  • Tank drivers
  • Building ships
  • Working in factories - making bombs and aircraft parts
  • Air raid wardens
  • Driving fire engines
  • Plumbers
  • Ambulance drivers
  • WRVS volunteers
  • Nurses

(SLIDE OF ‘WE CAN DO IT’ POSTER)

After the war, as happens frequently in conflicts around the world, women in Britain were seduced into thinking their place on or close to the front line would inevitably give them an equal share in the post war running of things. But they were wrong. The returning soldiers were to be given jobs and women again would keep the home fires burning. Yet again, womenfell into their old ways – leave school, find a job, find a husband, get married, start a family, leave the job and stay at home to look after the children. A significant number, though, had tasted the freedom of the new ways during the war years and yearned for the independence it had given them.

(SLIDE OF WOMEN’S LIBERATION MOVEMENT)

In the family, wives and mothers want.ed a renegotiation of the old order. They argued for a form of democracy in the home where rights and responsibilities would be equally shared. In the work place they wanted equal rights, equal opportunity and equal pay. To be a young woman in the late sixties and early seventies was unimaginably exciting. Feminist light bulbs, as the American author, Gloria Steinem described them, were coming on all over the place as women faced a problem and forced change. And the crucial question that has been most hotly debated has been what it means to be a woman. We've examined what we wear. Shall it be dungarees, trousers, long skirts, short skirts, lipstick, high heels, flatties? We've concluded anything goes. Should we shave our legs and armpits, be thin or fat. Conclusion? Whatever you want. Do we go out to work or stay at home and raise children? Whichever you choose. Can girls study maths and physics? Of course they can. In every arena, in every sphere women have attended to their kind and made a difference.

(POWERPOINT SLIDES OF 20TH CENTURY WOMEN WHO HAVE MADE A DIFFERENCE)

Beatrix Potter – first British woman to publish botanical drawings

Anita Roddick – founder of the Body Shop / against animal testing

Ida B. Wells- Barnett – campaigner for human rights

Rosa Parks – helped to launch civil rights movement in USA

Diana Princess of Wales – first British citizen to marry a royal heir in 300 years

Amelia Earhart – first woman aviator who attempted to fly around the world (unfortunately she didn’t manage it – she and her plane were lost somewhere near the Equator)

Eleanor Roosevelt - the first American president's wife to have a public life and a career

Anne Frank – demonstrated great courage

Mother Teresa – devoted herself to working with the poorest of the poor in Calcutta

Margaret Thatcher was Britain's first female prime minister in 1979, and first British prime minister in the twentieth century to win three consecutive terms.

Dame Ellen Patricia MacArthur, DBE (born 8 July1976) is an Englishsailor from Whatstandwell near Matlock in Derbyshire, now based in Cowes, on the Isle of Wight. She is best known as a solo long-distance yachtswoman who, on 7 February2005, broke the world record for the fastest solo circumnavigation of the globe.

As we have seen, so many women have had an impact on our lives and have brought us to the situation which we find ourselves in today – a situation where we have choice and can be accepted, whatever we do, whatever we say and whatever we feel. In years to come we hope that many of us in this hall today can make a difference to others’ lives and that we can pave the way for future generations.

Let us now say someBIDDING PRAYERS

We pray for women all over the world. May God strengthen and guide them throughout their lives . Lord hear us ….

We pray for women in wartorn countries. May the Lord look after them in their times of suffering and during the conflict. Lord hear us …..

We pray for all the Year 9 students choosing their option subjects at this time. May Jesus help us to make the right decisions. Lord hear us ……………

We pray for the women in our own lives – mothers, sisters, grandmothers, aunts and teachers. May God help us to be grateful for all of the things that they do for us. Lord hear us

We pray to our Lady for all of our own special intentions. Hail Mary full of Grace …….

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen