gender identities 1830-1914 Flashcards
Mill’s opinion on the exclusion of women from everyday life
Everyone would disagree on its injustice, yet female disabilities are clung to “in order to maintain their subordination in domestic life; because the generality of the male sex cannot yet tolerate the idea of living with an equal”
Mill on female exclusion from the workplace
while women are equipped for jobs, women must be excluded in order to prevent an inferior woman from winning over a superior man- “desirable to believe, that they are incapable of doing it”, yet “women, and not a few merely, but many women, have proved themselves capable of everything”
Mill on if women are biologically inferior
“any of the mental differences supposed to exist between women and men, but the natural effect of the differences in their education and circumstances, and indicate no racial difference”
Women and men’s biological differences according to Mill
Women are sensitive to the present and thinks in terms of individuals. hence women give reality to the thoughts of men which think of things “as if they exist for the benefit of some imaginary identity”
Mill on female writers
“our best novelists in point of composition, and of the management of detail, have mostly been women: and there is not in all of modern literature a more eloquent vechile of thought than the style of Madame de Stael
Mill on women’s primary role as a wife
according to Wedgewood he “never seems to realise that there are other women beside wives” eg he talks of how women will struggle to act for causes that their husband disagrees “Women cannot be expected to devote themselves to the emancipation of women, until men in considerable number are”
Women and men as biologically different over time- Wedgewood and Darwin
‘sexual selection’
“some qualities, transmitted only in a latent form… are fully inherited only by children of the same sex…. Tending to make every generation of women in some sense more feminine, every generation of men in some sense more masculine”
female attendance at Church
more women attended than men. McLeod says “women positively chose religion” as while they were not part of its leadership, they were not actively excluded. According to Davidoff and Hall, this made “women more susceptible to religion”
St Paul’s Epistle on families in religion
‘household was the basic unit of society and so “Family celebrations should contribute to the building of the little kingdom of heaven on earth”
William Marsh
was labelled as too feminine, but described his religious conversion in masculine terms- undertook “higher commission in the service of the Great Captain of his salvation and fought under his banner” so he was an example “of real manliness consisting of all that is pure and tender and strong and lasting”- Davidoff +Hall
Gleadle in response to Davidoff + Hall in relation to female economics role
not restricted to the household- “new research has unearthed the diverse practices of female financial initiatives and the many opportunities available to women in independent investment and business enterprise”
Gleadle in response to Davidoff +Hall on women in the public sphere
women were borderline citizens. they were not complete separate spheres- “the authors tended to minimise instances of female public engagement” and she describes large amounts of female involvement in the anti-slavery campaign and battle against the corn laws
women as both unmarried and nonconformist
Davidoff + Hall- their lives would be meaningless and they would be in danger of being a ‘surplus’ with ‘unconfined sexuality’
Christian Lady’s Friend on women’s roles
1832- women were subordinate but not inferior. operated in “a different department and sphere of action “ who in the home could “wield their moral influence and save not only themselves, but men as well”
John Angell James
provincial minister who became well known from his 1812 speech at the Birmingham conference, said that the pastor’s wife should be “a bright pattern of all that tender affection… and cheerful obedience”
Congregational Magazine
articles and letters in 1837 that said “let your woman keep silent in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience”
exmaple of female involvement in church organisation
Saffron Walden possessed a widow who dealt with 165 applicants for relief in a single meeting
from 1782, women could vote by proxy on official positions
Vickery on the middle class and feminism
it was the clear ideas on femininity and masculinity which distinguished the middle class from the rest- “the separation of separate spheres was one of the fundamental organising characteristics of middle-class society”
Attack on Davidoff and Halls focus on the middle-class female role in the church
Clapham sect consisted of lesser gentry and so evangelicalism was not an exclusively middle-class project and women were given subsidiary roles and directed single-sex committees
Vickery on female economic role
Female professions in the domestic sphere eg laundry were not handed to men during industrialisation and neither were the roles of men and women in agriculture interchangeable so “the structure of the female labour market stayed the same”, however participation did decline
Tosh on men and the home
there was a growth in the manufacturing and commercial classes whose lives centred around the home and the “domesticated manhood was the ideal of the ‘moral force’” behind the Chartist movement and other advocates of the household franchise
Tosh on men moving away from leisure
the Conservative party were able to shift their electoral pitch from the “honest labourer who had earned the right to a quiet pint, to the honest labourer who had earned the right to a quiet home life”
economic changes in relation to gender ideals
‘family wage’ for the breadwinner so they could be the sole worker- wife could focus on domestic duties
decline in violence- shift in masculinity
“between 1850- 1914 trials for indictable offences declined by one-third”. Criminal registrar said in 1901 that what had occurred was “the substitution of words without blows for blows”
working-class and ‘bourgeois masculinity’
Tosh- cannot have touched more than 40% of the adult male population and so the unskilled working class was largely untouched by it
women as office clerks
by 1911, women accounted for 1/3 of office clerks
1841 census
householders need not to put the occupations of wives and children apprenticed or receiving wages - only if they were living with and assisting their parents
1851 census
the work of women working from home should not be specified, only their rank, profession or occupation should be so under reporting of women in the labour sector
1790-1865 women and children’s contribution to family incomes
18-22%
1835 female contribution to family incomes in agricultural families
5% in high wage counties
12% in low wage counties
female contribution to family incomes in mining families
married women- 8%
during the hungry 40s, 11%
legal changes to divorce
1857- men can divorce women but women can only divorce men if they have cheated and been abusive . in 1923, women could divorce men for adultery alone
legal changes to female custody of children
1839- granted for children up to the age of 7
1873- maternal custody for children up to 16
legal changes to welfare for women
1878- grant separation and maintenance from magistrates cour introduced
1922- women given more generous maintenance payment following separation
legal changes to female economic independence
1870 + 1882 married women’s property act allowed women to keep their earnings and their own property for the first time
Samuel Smiles
book on self-help sold 20k copies in the first year and was translated into multiple languages. it emphasised lack of trust in government aid and desired small government to foster self-sufficiency and hard work
Arnold in education
character-forming role of a school- and his belief in the gospel of work
from the 1840s, the public school ‘provided for the gradual fusion of classes and their drawing upon a common store of values”
the domestic service
single largest group of workers until the 1940s of who the majority were women- not unionised, low skilled and not subject to the regulated working house. MacDonald said ~”Britain is divided between those who serve and those who are served”
1886 contagious diseases act
took women off the streets who were suspected prostitutes and tested them for the sake of men’s sexual health. men would oversee their own sexual health- Josephine butler’s campaigning was crucial to the end of this act
1869 women and the vote
awarded to women in local elections if they were rate-payers and single-heads of household
how many were volunteers in philanthropic institutions
in 1893 was 1/2 mill women
involved visiting the poor/ Sunday school teaching
the domestic service contribution to employment
responsible for 1/4 of female employment in 1851 and 1871-1901 was 50% in Wales
Mines Act
1842
Banned women from working in underground mines
Factory acts
1834 limited the working hours of only women
employment levels of women in 1911 census
1/10 married women in England were employed, in Wales, 1/20
1900 female wages
average female wage was half the average male wage
Tullamore unrest
1881, 6 Irishwomen arrested for beating a process server
Rebecca riots
1834-44 in South- West Wales where Tennant farmers dressed in turncoats or women’s clothing
Female authors
Harriet Stowe’s uncle Tom’s cabin sold a million copies within a year of its publication in 1852
Females in the creative sect
1841 - 900 creatives eg artists/ actresses
1891- 17k
Women supporting the abolition of slavery
1833 petition received 400k female signatures (1/3 of total no. of signatures)
Female trade unions
1899- only 150k members, 1/3 of female workforce
Married Women’s property acts
1870 +1882- extended married women’s rights to property and their own income
custody awarded to mothers
1873- women even if guilty of adultery, could be grated custody of their children as old as 16 and the 1886 guardianship of infants act, widened the court’s discretion to act in the child’s interest in custody battles
female schooling
1869- both male and female grammar schools were endowed by the Endowed School’s act and by 1898, 30 private schools had been established by the girls public day school trust
Female higher education
Girton founded in 1869
1878, UCL became co-educational
women in local elections
1870 +1872, women could stand in school board elections, 1875 they could stand as poor law guardians and from 1907 this was extended to borough councils
what percentage of 45-49 year old women were unmarried in 1911
17%
1861: In Sheffield what proportion of women were married by 30
85%
1861: In textile town, Keighley, what proportion of women were married by 30?
69%
Women’s sports
Wimbledon’s lady’s singles held from 1884
Ladies Gold union championship held from 1893
Civilised sport for men
1835- bearbaiting and cockfighting became illegal
rugby rules became codified in 1846 nad in 1871, the English Rugby union was founded
