THE WOMAN QUESTION IN THE 19th CENTURY

THE WOMAN QUESTION IN THE 19^th CENTURY

We can say that, during the Victorian period (that lasted from 1837 to 1901), the traditional roles of women as wives, mothers and daughters began to be discussed and, towards the end of the century, gradually changed.

Indeed, Queen Victoria, believing in education for her sex, gave support and encouragement to the founding of a college for women in 1847, but she opposed the movement to give women the right to vote because she believed that woman's role was to be submitted to men.

The stereotype of the Victorian woman is embodied by the Angel in the House (l'"Angelo del Focolare") name taken by Virginia Woolf from a poem by Coventry Patmore): it's the idealized angel-like woman with wings, frail and weak, who can only stay at home.

This image projected on Victorian women by men, though, contrasted with the actual demands of women, that, in this period, begin to show and making more and more pressing/urgent.

It is commonly said that Victorian women, married or not, were always bored, but this is not true of women belonging to the working class because most of them had hard and low-paying jobs.

Indeed, to be bored was the privilege of women in upper and middle-class families in which feminine idleness was a status symbol and servants ran everything in the household, even the raising of their master's children.

But there were women who suffered of their condition and wanted to do more or learn more than the things considered necessary: so, some women, like Florence Nightingale [who, despite parental opposition, went away from her home to became a nurse; during the Crimean War, set up a hospital for soldiers in Turkey. Then, she set up a school for nurses, making nursing (=the job of being a nurse) into a real profession] openly rebelled/reacted.

Similar drives for independence produced an extraordinary change in the status of women during the late Victorian period, opening up for them a wide variety of professional opportunities.

Many women became successful novelists, such as the Brontė sisters (we can mention the novel "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte, about a young tutoress).

In conclusion, can be said that only intelligent/clever women were frustrated and discontented of their condition, while many upper and middle-class women apparently were satisfied with their lives.

So, thanks to the growing rebellion to their condition, towards the end of the 1940s and 50s, women obtained the admission to some college.

Into professions, the first few sectors opened to women were:

education (that is, becoming a tutoress, like Jane Eyre, the main character of the famous novel by Charlotte Brontė);

medicine, but only as nurses (like Florence Nightingale, a girl who went away from home to became a nurse: during the Crimean war, she set up a hospital for soldiers in Turkey and afterwards, set up a school for nurses, making nursing into a real profession);

literature (bourgeois revolution begins just trough writing).

Towards middle 19^th century, it was found proper give women some more right: indeed, in the 1850 the North London College, a college for women only, is founded.

In 1857 the first Matrimonial Cause Act, is approved: it's a law that sanctioned divorce because before only men of means could divorce. Now, instead, divorce become possible almost for all.

With regard to the women's right to vote, from1870 the question is being discussed, thanks to the support of John Stuart Mill but with its death (in 1873) the process to the obtaining of the women suffrage stops.

It will be in the 1895 that the question restarts, thanks to the suffragettes who fought to obtain the right to vote.

In 1882, the Married Woman's Property Act is approved: it's a law that gave married women the property right(s).

In this period, in which it was still turned into myth the ure of Queen Victoria as a mother and a faithful wife, has been created the image of the woman that is in violent contrast with that of the angel in the house: NEW WOMAN, the woman who works outside the home/out of home.

In fact, before, women went out always accompanied (by a man) and only in order to aid parishes and poor, activity considered a mission, not a profession.

Therefore, towards the 1890s, there was a double image of the woman: angel in the house and new woman, a woman who goes out of her home and takes over the road. So, for the first time she can supply to us an image of London saw with a woman's eyes, the eyes of a STREET WALKER.

Therefore, the change within the space of a century has been significant if we consider that in the early 19^th century Jane Austen wrote (in the incipit of her Pride and Prejudice) that, as a "truth universally acknowledged, a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife" (not a woman!!!) while, towards the end of the century women tried to break free from most of their constraints, also those linked to the clothing and hairstyle ( women want to remove their corsets and cut their hair).

Towards the end of the 19^th century, WOMEN'S MAGAZINES acquire an important role spreading the ideas connected to the woman question: in fact, now women (but only those of the upper-middle classes) are inclined to read so editors count on women in order to increase sales (just as today sellers count on children and young people), also relying on the fact that, after the Married Woman' s Property Act of 1882, women began to be owners of their gains.

So, in this period are born numerous women's magazines, some of which continued to put forward the ideal of the angel-like woman: it's this the case of magazines entitled Home Companion, House Wife, Woman at Home. 

Just the latter, in one of its issues, publishes an picture of an idealized Queen Victoria wearing a wedding dress (even though at that time she wasn't so young any more); the aim was that of presenting the Queen as the emblem/symbol of the mother and wife so the picture took her at the high[est] point of a woman's life: the wedding.

However, at that time, other magazines tried to spread the concept of new woman. 

Just of this period is the rise of big DEPARTMENT STORES (like Harrods), whose favoured object is the woman, also employed as shop girl.

For the first time the image of a woman is used to merchandise something totally different (a brand of coffee/cocoa).

Walter Besant - The Transformation of the Women's Status between 1837 and 1897

Young ladies of 1837 couldn't reason on  any subject because of their ignorance: indeed, they didn't know anything about Art, History, Science, Literature, Politics, etc. so they couldn't form an independent judgement. In their presence, men talked about trivialities but men preferred them so, childishly ignorant.

On the contrary, towards 1897, young Englishwomen were educated in the same way of the young men: they studied just as the young men studied, but harder and with greater concentration.

Thanks to their instruction, women had invaded the professions, even though they couldn't become a priest or enter the Law yet.

For a long time they had been kept out of medicine (they could only be nurses) but that restriction has been removed: women have shown in professions or in their university studies that they can succeed just as men do.

Men don't see women any more as frail, tender ts to protect because they can protect themselves perfectly well and they don't see women any more as housewife of sweet emotion and complete ignorance whose whole time is occupied in superintending servants or in making things with her own hands.