Key Events, Trends, and Figures in European Women's History

Question 1

The Renaissance

Answer 1

1. In The Courtier, Baldassare Castiglione wrote that the perfect court lady should be well educated and charming. Women, however, were not expected to seek fame as men did.
2. Christine de Pizan was a prolific author who wrote a history of famous women and is now remembered as Europe’s first feminist.
3. Isabella d’Este was the most famous Renaissance woman. Her life illustrates that being a patron of the arts was the most socially acceptable role for a well-educated Renaissance woman.

Question 2

The Reformation

Answer 2

1. Martin Luther believed that Christian women should strive to be models of obedience and Christian charity.
2. The Protestant Reformation reduced access to convents, thus changing the role of 16th century women.
3. Quakers regularly allowed women to preach.
4. Older, widowed women were most often accused of practicing witchcraft.

Question 3

The Enlightenment

Answer 3

1. Women played a leading role in hosting salons. Salons gave educated women a voice in cultural affairs. Madame Geoffrin was the most influential of the salon hostesses.
2. Support for superstition and witchcraft declined as educated Europeans turned to rational explanations for natural events.

Question 4

The 18th Century

Answer 4

1. Most young married European couples lived in nuclear families. Large multigenerational households were not the norm.
2. Most couples postponed marriage until their mid-to late 20s.
3. Young peasant women increasingly left home to work as domestic servants.

Question 5

The French Revolution

Answer 5

1. Women led the march to Versailles to demand cheap bread and try to force the royal family to move to Paris.
2. Women did not gain the right to vote or to hold political office.
3. Olympia de Gouges wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen. She demanded that French women be given the same rights as men.
4. Mary Wollstonecraft wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Women. She argued that women are not naturally inferior to men. They only appear to be inferior because of a lack of education.
5. Napoleon Bonaparte’s Civil Code reasserted the Old Regime’s patriarchal system. The Code granted husbands extensive control over their wives. For example, married women needed their husband’s consent to dispose of their own property. Divorce and property rights taken away by the Napoleonic Code were not fully restored until 1881.

Question 6

The 19th Century

Answer 6

1. John Stuart Mill wrote The Subjection of Women. He argued that the social and legal inequalities imposed on women were a relic from the past.
2. Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House criticized conventional marriage roles.
3. The ideal middle-class woman was expected to be an “angel in the house.” Her most important roles were to be a devoted mother and the family’s moral guardian.
4. The rising standards of living made it possible for men and women to marry at a younger age. At the same time, the rising cost of child rearing caused a decline in the size of middle-class families.
5. Few married women worked outside the home. Most working women were single.
6. Opportunities for well-educated women were limited to teaching, nursing, and social work.
7. Law codes in most European countries gave women few legal rights. Divorce was legalized in Britain in 1857 and in France in 1884. However, Catholic countries such as Spain and Italy did not permit divorce.
8. Nineteenth-century women’s rights advocates worked for the right of women to control their own property.
9. By the end of the nineteenth century, educated middle-class “new women” enjoyed more independent lifestyles.
10. As mass culture developed, fashion magazines made middle-class and working-class women more aware of style. At the same time, booksellers began to publish more fictional romances as well as articles and poems by female authors.

Question 7

Women’s Suffrage

Answer 7

1. Although the women’s suffrage movement commanded wide attention, it achieved few successes. In 1900, no country in Europe allowed women the right to vote.
2. Leg by Emmeline Pankhurts, British women waged an aggressive campaign for women’s suffrage.
3. During World War I, millions of women replaced men in factories, offices, and shops.
4. In 1918, Parliament granted the suffrage to women over the age of 30.

Question 8

Women in the Soviet Union

Answer 8

1. Marxists argued that both capitalism and middle-class husbands exploited women.
2. The Bolsheviks proclaimed complete equality of rights for women.
3. Soviet women were urged to work outside the home. Divorce and abortion were both easily available.
4. Soviet women were encouraged to become professionals. By 1950, women comprised three-quarters of the doctors in the Soviet Union.

Question 9

World War II

Answer 9

1. During the 1930s, Italy and Germany encouraged women to remain at home and provide their countries with more offspring.
2. During World War II, the commitment to total war caused millions of women to enter the workforce.
3. Women contributed directly to the war effort by serving as nurses and medics. In the Soviet Union, women known as “night witches” served as combat pilots.
4. Postwar reconstruction required women to continue working.
5. French and Italian women gained the franchise in 1945.

Question 10

Post-World War II Feminism

Answer 10

1. Led by Simone de Beauvoir, European feminists called attention to social problems that women faced. De Beauvoir also emphasized the need for women to control their own lives.
2. European feminists worked for liberalized divorce laws, improved access to birth control information, and expanded child-care facilities.
3. During the postwar period, European women married earlier and gave birth to fewer children.
4. Employment rates for married women dramatically increased.