By Mariam Salem
Edited by Saundarya Mitter and Mark Potter
The opportunities available to nineteenth-century women were dependent upon the strict
distinction between gender roles. The separate spheres ideology doctrine centralised the
importance of female domesticity, as well as female dependency on men.[1] This enforced a
continued restriction of women’s occupations, sexuality, political interferences, academic
aspirations and religious duties. This very much reflected eighteenth-century ideals of the Angel in the House, affecting middle-class women the most. Women largely lacked economic
independency as they remained the property of their fathers, only to legally cease to exist once they entered into marriage - according to the doctrine of coverture. The multi-faceted nature of this argument, therefore, demands a thematic approach to reach a conclusive argument. While determined feminists were able to make a difference, pushing for their rights and the expansion of legislation, social expectations weighed down heavily on women, contracting their sexual freedom, and targeting victims of polite society the most. Gendered culture, built on patriarchal values, remained largely consistent throughout the century, yet the growth of a women’s movement set the stage for the efforts of early feminism, bearing fruit at the turn of the century.
The complexity of gender conflicts, alongside the battles between Conservative-Victorianism
and the progressive-liberal views on gender inequalities, including the sex double-standard,
simmered throughout the century. Max O’Rell, an American writer, delivers the conundrum for women attempting to reshape their identity in nineteenth-century society, describing the
emerging ideal of the New Woman, coined by Sarah Grand, as “the most ghastly failure of the
century”.[2] O’Rell criticises women seeking equality, which he terms as privilege because it
allows them to adapt masculine qualities. This attitude reflects Henry Maudsley, who regards
women seeking opportunities in the public-sphere as masculine or unfeminine in nature, as
those who would “fail to become a man...may succeed in ceasing to be a woman”.[3] This leaves the woman stuck between these gender dichotomies as an unwoman, as termed by Victorian scientists. This explains the attitudes which influenced the contraction of women’s
opportunities, an attitude which feminists and reformers worked hard to deconstruct. Women’s opportunities contracted during the nineteenth century due to the restraints placed on their sexuality. Susie Steinbach writes that prior to industrialisation, the public and private spheres were not as distinct where the home and workplace were identical or overlapping”.[4] The doctrine of separate spheres presented a marked contrast between domestic and public spheres, and with this separation came various restrictions on women’s freedoms, including notions regarding their sexuality. This appeared alongside the rise of evangelicalism, which contradicted previous notions on female sexual desire. Most notably, the term dangerous woman, which was a prevalent characterisation of female sexual potency and unchaste desire from the Restoration, was replaced with a “passionless” state of female sexuality.[5] These demands on female sexuality included virtue, chastity and a lack of regard for their sexual desires. This constant patriarchal interference in sexual definitions for women, through the policing effect of societal judgement and religion in this century, meant that womens sexual opportunities contracted to match the social climate of the era.[6]
The academic opportunities available to women in the nineteenth century were restricted in
order to inculcate societal gender and class expectations. [7] Steinbach offers a thorough
exploration of female educational opportunities before-1850 and post-1850 by dividing the
periods. The education of working-class girls was narrowly concentrated on imitating docility, teaching the skills required for their future domestic-service roles of mother, housewife and maid. Elite and middle-class girls were offered governess-taught and home-based teaching, consisting of writing, reading and arithmetic. They were prepared for taking up their position in polite society as accomplished ladies and were, therefore, encouraged to learn desirable talents, including singing, playing an instrument, sketching or learning foreign languages. The latter part of the century saw a significant increase in the academic opportunities offered: the passing of education acts, the increase of state-funded schools, as well as easier access to higher education meant a transition into a new era. Forster’s Education Act (1870) set the stage for the 1880 Education Act, which made elementary-education compulsory for all classes. This led to an increase in elected school boards which had the role of assessing the quality of education, as well as setting up new schools. This became a female-dominated field, allowing accomplished feminists like Elizabeth Anderson and Emily Davies the opportunity to stand out and make a difference.[8] The Victorian perspective on expanding female academic opportunities can be analysed through a contemporary psychiatrist’s view. Maudsley’s employment of scientific and uterine economics were used to justify the dangers associated with educating women, including how mental strains translated into biological defects.[9] Nonetheless, this view did not stand and, following the Taunton Commission’s declaration of male-female uniform mental capacities,
more girls schools were opened and feminist attempts to achieve gender-equality in education began gaining momentum. [10] Langham-Place feminists pressured Oxbridge and London universities to open their doors to women, a movement prevalent from the 1870s. By 1900, women constituted fifteen percent of all British higher-education students, which shows that by the end of the century, women’s education began expanding significantly and the efforts of feminists bore fruit. Hence, despite the shortcomings of the state in providing national, gender-neutral education to all classes and the backlash faced by conservative-traditionalists, women and girls found their education in a much-improved position when contrasted with previous centuries.[11]
A number of factors suggest that the political opportunities open to nineteenth-century women expanded significantly. Whig historians regard the 1860s and 1870s as the “cradle of campaigns for women’s civil and political rights”, whilst other historians choose to acknowledge female political engagement throughout the period, not just the fight for suffrage. [12] Although the latter part of the century was the prime entry-point for women into the male-dominated political sphere, women were already asserting their usefulness in local politics, which became categorised a domestic-related affair. A particular field examined previously was women’s influence on education: a woman successful in her political career would find herself head of a school board or any extra-governmental organisation alike. The female body itself was never excluded from political culture of the media, and a useful campaigning strategy. [13] The classification of political authority and power as masculine, with high politics remaining out of women’s reach for the majority of the century, became the driving force behind nineteenth-century gendered-politics. [14] Although the 1869 Municipal Franchise Act extended the municipal suffrage to female ratepayers and property owners – seventeen percent of local electors, which was by no means insignificant - Regina v. Harrald (1972) maintained the political status of a married women was tied entirely to their husbands.[15] This restriction was not lifted until the end of the century, and universal suffrage was not granted until 1918 by the Representation of Peoples Acts - the product of the campaign for female suffrage, which carries through for most of this period.[16] It is sound to argue that nineteenth-century women’s political opportunities were more peripheral in nature: so “ancillary and supportive rather than dynamic and proactive” which of course limited women’s political-party participation, particularly in the Conservative and Liberal parties. [17] For example, whilst the increase of female membership in the Primrose League (1833) from 1300 to 48000 by 1890 signifies an expansion of political opportunities, Richardson points to the ways such organisations acted as a social exercise, which appealed to aristocratic women who formed the majority of the Primrose Dames, tying them to socio-political culture instead of the politics. The Independent Labour Party was the only nineteenth-century party theoretically allowing women the same political status as men, but the reality was that men continued to dominate leadership ranks whilst women found themselves turning to women-based societies, including the Women’s Labour League and the Women’s Cooperative Guild. Nonetheless, it would be reductive. Chalus points to the ways in which nineteenth century women remained entrenched in social-politics as they played the significant role being repositories of electoral memory, by influencing voters particularly through systematic methods of canvassing. [18] It would therefore be reductive to downplay women’s political roles and opportunities in general: their social involvement in politics and the ways in which they sought to increase their influence, be it informal and largely of a background nature, in areas of education and poor law were also shadowed by their goal to exercise party activism. Nineteenth century women played a significant role in social-politics through becoming repositories of electoral memory—influencing voters through systematic methods of canvassing and campaigning on behalf of their men.[19] This demonstrates how the socio-political activities which were deemed acceptable for women to partake in were expanded, otherwise the struggle to enter formal and higher politics remained unreachable until fruition at the end of the century.
Moreover, marriage laws evolved as they saw more room for reform in favour of women. The
1857 Divorce Act is most significant in the way it enabled women to finally initiate divorce,
despite their terms being much harsher than those for men. They had to provide much more
evidence to prove the marriage could no longer continue, however, women still filed forty
percent of all divorce petitions, a great success in their fight for equality. The 1870 Married
Women’s Property Act sought to challenge coverture by allowing married women their wages, furthered by an act in 1882 that enabled them to own some property and directly deal with contracts and wills.[20] This goes to show women’s opportunities were increased by the efforts of feminists and reformers, who were determined to open more doors and create more opportunities for women.
Nineteenth century women’s occupational opportunities were also dictated and contracted by separate spheres. Middle-class married women were not expected to work, particularly up till the 1860s when the separate spheres ideology reached its climax. They worked wage-free
alongside their husbands or ran their households and managed servants, as well as engaging in philanthropic work and raising their children. This shows how their occupational opportunities did not expand as they were not expected to enter the economic sphere. Upper-class women aimed to work to help their husbands in order to maintain the wealth of the estates and keep their tenants agreeable but had better hope of having wealth secured through their dowries, which allowed them a degree of economic independence, and the freedom to support political campaigns. Respectable women largely lacked economic independence, especially after marriage, with respectable occupations limited to being a tutor, governess or nurse, as higher professions remained off limits for them throughout the century. This restriction of separate spheres on female occupations did not include working-class women, who often had little choice but to maintain a number of occupations, both formal and informal, alongside their unpaid domestic duties, as this was necessary for the family’s survival.[21] Industrialisation divided working-class women depending on the regions they lived within: women in the manufacturing north worked in textile and sweater factories, and in agriculture, including “dairying, vegetable cultivation...weeding and hoeing”.[22] Women entered domestic service in the south, but the result was the same. Women’s work was always secondary to men’s work; they had the less-skilled jobs and domestic duties that were not always recognised as necessary for the maintenance of the economy, despite their obvious importance. The gender pay-gap was a crucial contraction of opportunities, as women worked excessively long hours for a reduced wage. Therefore, this suggests that female social and work rights did not particularly expand as their work remained largely limited, until they were granted access into secondary and higher education.
The approach adopted in this essay demonstrates the different branches associated with
women’s opportunities in the nineteenth century. Ideas that matched with Victorian social-
expectations led to an immediate expansion of women’s opportunities: the female political
culture was increasingly tied to women’s social activities and the field of domesticity, which
allowed, or rather encouraged, their ‘behind-the-scenes’ work to flourish. High politics
remained masculinised throughout the century however, and the fight for suffrage was not
granted, because it contradicted the very ideologies and doctrines held about the nature of
women, with the vote restricted to those who paid taxes and were able to fight in wars: men.
This emerging pseudoscientific gender ideology, backed by Church teachings and the pre-
existing political climate, sought to redefine women’s academic and political abilities, contracting their opportunities. This extreme restriction was met with the emergence of first-
wave feminism, and the female reform movements of the century, which resulted in this clash, and granted the expansion of women’s opportunities in certain areas.
Notes
[1] Susie Steinbach, Understanding the Victorians, (Oxon: Routledge, 2017), pp. 167-169.
[2] Max O'Rell, “Petticoat Government”, The North American Review 163/476 (1896), p. 102.
[3] Steinbach, Victorians, pp. 167-169.
[4] Steinbach, Victorians, p. 168.
[5] Steinbach, Victorians, pp. 167-168; Tiffany Potter, “The Language of Feminised Sexuality”, Women’s Writing, 10 (2003), pp. 174
[6] Potter, Sexuality, p. 177.
[7] Susie Steinbach, Women in England 1760-1914: A Social History (2004), pp. 162-182.
[8] Steinbach, Women, pp. 162-182.
[9] Henry Maudsley, “Sex in Mind and in Education”, Fortnightly Review (1874).
[10] Newnham College, “Women’s Education”, About Newnham College - History
<https://www.newn.cam.ac.uk/about/history/womens-education/> [Accessed 02 January 2021].
[11] Steinbach, Women, pp. 179.
[12] Sarah Richardson, Politics and Gender, (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), p. 176.
[13] Richardson, Politics, pp. 175-178.
[14] Richardson, Politics, pp. 175-178.
[15] “The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Britain” (1999)
<https://www.1999_Bookmatter_TheWomenSSuffrageMovementInBri.pdf> [Accessed 22 January 2021].
[16] “The History of Parliament. Women and the Municipal Franchise”
<https://thehistoryofparliament.wordpress.com/2019/08/02/women-and-the-municipal-franchise/> [Accessed 27 December 2020].
[17] Richardson, Politics, p. 179.
[18] Richardson, Politics, p. 181.
[19] Richardson, Politics, p. 181.
[20] Steinbach, Victorians, pp. 173-176.
[21] Steinbach, Victorians, p. 167-176.
[22] Steinbach, Victorians, p. 174.
Bibliography:
Primary sources:
Maudsley, Henry. “Sex in Mind and in Education”. Fortnightly Review. 1874
O'Rell, Max. “Petticoat Government”. The North American Review. 163/476, 1896
Secondary sources:
Newnham College, “Women’s Education”, About Newnham College - History
<https://www.newn.cam.ac.uk/about/history/womens-education/> [Accessed 02 January
2021]
Potter, Tiffany. “The Language of Feminised Sexuality”. Women’s Writing. 10, 2003
Richardson, Sarah. Politics and Gender. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007
Steinbach, Susie. Women in England 1760-1914: A Social History, 2004
Steinbach, Susie. Understanding the Victorians. Oxon: Routledge, 2017
“The History of Parliament. Women and the Municipal Franchise”
franchise/> [Accessed 27 December 2020]
“The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Britain”. 1999
<https://1999_Bookmatter_TheWomenSSuffrageMovementInBri.pdf > [Accessed 22 January 2021]
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