[寫作指導] 文獻回顧 Literature Review｜文學課 IB Literature｜女性權利 Women's Rights｜玩偶之家 A Doll's House｜學生作品 Writing Clinic

Group6: Women in Victorian Age

Was society equal, patriarchal or matriarchal?

Definition on Patriarchy:

• Dictionary:

• Cambridge Dictionary: “a society in which the oldest male is the leader of the family, or a society controlled by men in which they use their power to their own advantage.”

• Merriam-Webster Dictionary: 

• “ social organization marked by the supremacy of the father in the clan or family, the legal dependence of wives and children, and the reckoning of descent and inheritance in the male line”

• broadly  : control by men of a disproportionately large share of power

• Science Direct: Patriarchy: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/patriarchy

• Definition on academic journal: 

• “Patriarchy is an analytical concept referring to a system of political, social, and economic relations and institutions structured around the gender inequality of socially defined men and women.”C.J. Nash, in International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, 2009.

• “Broadly, patriarchy can be conceptualized as a system or systems producing and reproducing gendered and intersectional inequalities, and men's power and women's subordination.” Sofia Strid, Jeff Hearn, in Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, & Conflict (Third Edition), 2022.

British Library: Gender role

https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/gender-roles-in-the-19th-century

• Absurd binary on the two sexes: Ｍen and women are naturally diiferent and opposite

• The two sexes now inhabited what Victorians thought of as ‘separate spheres’, only coming together at breakfast and again at dinner.

• The ideology of Separate Spheres rested on a definition of the ‘natural’ characteristics of women and men. 

• Women are sexually oppreseed: Some evidence from William Acton’s medical text, The Functions and Disorders of the Reproductive Organs:

• ‘the majority of women (happily for them) are not very much troubled by sexual feelings of any kind’

Oxford Open Learning: The Role Of Women In Victorian England

https://www.ool.co.uk/blog/the-role-of-women-in-victorian-england/

• Women and Work

• “ It is calculated that whilst most men worked, only one third of all women were in employment at any time in the 19th century. Compare this with 1978 when two-thirds of women were in employment.”

• In the 19th century, society was a “separate sphere” which means that men work outside and have a place in the business while a woman was a trophy of the home. Women were able to work but there was no chance to get the rights to vote and own property. Also, for the upper middle class, most women never worked outside the home and they were expected to live with the image of “the angel in the house” and forced to be a perfect wives and mothers.  

What are some examples of a good and virtuous woman?

British Library: Gender role

https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/gender-roles-in-the-19th-century

• Some evidence from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin: 

• Soft-speaking people pleaser: “A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing” and “she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions … (ch. 8)”

• Play-dumb persona: Another piece of evidence in the piece: “No-one wanted to be called a ‘blue-stocking’, the name given to women who had devoted themselves too enthusiastically to intellectual pursuits. “

BBC History: Ideas of womenhood in Victorian Britain

https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/trail/victorian_britain/women_home/ideals_womanhood_01.shtml

• The ideal woman

• “women lost touch with production, and came to fashion an identity solely within the domestic sphere. It was through their duties within the home that women were offered a moral duty, towards their families, especially their husbands, and towards society as a whole.”

• Pious, respectable, busy

• Their virtue was manifested in the service of others

• At home

• “The female body was dressed to emphasize a woman's separation from the world of work.”

• Women’s dresses were symbols of their social function, such as wife, mother, and domestic manager. Also, their dresses constrain their activities physically. 

Suffragette movements in Norway, UK, US, etc.

UK: Start of the suffragette movement: https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/womenvote/overview/startsuffragette-/

• Yes to Vote!: 20th century English political activity

• militant campaign by The Pankhurst family

• starting from 1880: Emmeline Pankhurs started to raise certain issue

• 1903: Emmeline Pankhurs founded Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) with the motto 'Deeds not words’ to foster women’s voting right

• Fierce women: an attempt to invade the House of Commons with 60,000 people gathered.

• 1918: WSPU disbanded

US suffragette movement

https://www.history.com/topics/womens-history/the-fight-for-womens-suffrage

• A war for gender equality for nearly 100 years: 

• starting around 1820s and 30’s, before the Civil War (1861-1865)

• Similar gender expectations in both U.K and U.S:  “Cult of True Womanhood”: that is, the idea that the only “true” woman was a pious, submissive wife and mother concerned exclusively with home and family.”

• Final victory on August 18, 1920: “the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was finally ratified, enfranchising all American women and declaring for the first time that they, like men, deserve all the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.”

Norway: Association work for movement of suffragette

https://www.treasuresinarchives.com/digital-catalogue-page-2/voting-rights-for-norwegian-women

https://borgenproject.org/tag/the-norwegian-association-for-womens-rights/

• Norway granted suffrage to women in 1913