The Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria’s reign from 1837 until 1901 when she died. Although the Victorian era was good for the United Kingdom in many ways, it was also a time where there were great differences in gender equality leaving women with very few rights. Therefore, making it a period when women began to demand equal treatment to men and although their rights would not be equal until the 20th Century, Victorian women started the idea. This essay looks at 5 key areas of Victorian life to show the gender and sexuality issues that existed. First, it will describe the Victorian idea of ‘separate spheres’ for men and women. Second, it will look at education and work to show how difficult it was for women to be …show more content…
In this era, everything revolved around gender and the way other people saw you was always based upon this.
For women it was a very different story, they were expected to be innocent. They were only seen to have a use in domestics so were forced to stay at home to cook, clean and only take an interest in what their husbands wanted, leaving them with no freedom of their own. They, themselves, were not allowed to be educated or know a world outside the home chores. They were also expected to raise their children and prepare them for the life ahead if them, without knowing much about it themselves. From this they gained the nickname ‘angels of their homes’, which sounds a lot more exciting than it really was.
At the start of the Victorian era many children did not go to school and most worked in factories. There were some good boys’ schools around, but only rich families could afford to pay the fees, so even if you were male, the wealth of your family determined whether your life would lead to something worthwhile or not. Girls did not go to school at all at the start of the era, so were left with little, if any, education. Girls from wealthy families could be taught at home by a governess, but only the minority had this luxury. From 1833, this all changed and the English parliament began to provide schools for poor children. The Forster elementary act
The world today consists of children roaming the streets, technology taking over the world, and being able to work wherever you'd like but, could you imagine a life without all these things? Believe it or not there was a time in life where these things were very uncommon to see. This would be known as the victorian era. This time period was between 1837 and 1901. Daily life was very different from now. Health, social classes, and fashion are just three examples of how daily life was different in the victorian era.
The Victorian Era is a remarkable time in history with the blooming industries, growing population, and a major turnaround in the fashion world. This era was named after Queen Victoria who ruled United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from June 1837 until she passed away 64 years later in January 1901.When Victoria received the crown, popular respect was strikingly low. The lack of respect for the position she had just come into did not diminish her confidence. Instead she won the hearts of Britain with her modesty, grace, straightforwardness, and her want to be informed on the political matters at hand even though she had no input. She changed Britain into a flourishing country. She also impacted how women interacted
The Victorian Era women was vastly different than the female we think of nowadays. Women during that time were expected to fulfill more of a domestic and motherly role, one that stayed at home and took care of the house. They were confined within the private sphere of the world while the men toiled away in the public sphere. The ideal Victorian women was described as:
In the 17th Century, men and women were viewed and treated very unequally especially compared to today's time period. Of all factors in the hierarchical arrangement like class or race, gender was considered the most distinct of them all which caused it to be the most arguable. Men and women had their own rules and responsibilities that were given to them by what has always been traditionally practiced. Society created a box in a way, that each sex was to remain in and it was looked down upon for anyone to stray from that theoretical box.
She expected to teach them their manners and raise them with basic Christian morals in mind. Private schools were also set up such as the school set up by the More family. Education became very important to middle class people as they could now afford to educate their children with the excess money they had and the ease of access to books, but they did not need to hire a governess which was only for the very rich. In 1813 John Angell James set up his own ‘Sabbath schools’.
Women were expected to basically be merely an object, even a trophy for their husbands. They were expected to stay home and clean, as well as cook. With all these expected tasks, women hardly had any time to branch out and figure out what they wanted to do with their life. They had no time for leisure activities of any kind because, of course, their activities involved taking care of the house. Women were also seen as the weaker sex, always submissive to their dominant male counterpart. Although the women were submissive, they were held to a higher moral standard. Adultery was twice shamed upon if committed by a woman rather than a man. (Hughes par.3) A woman could be stoned to death, but people would turn their cheek for a man while the woman still was expected to stay beside the man.
Social standing, and moral values were vital elements in Victorian society, and the fundamental doctrine of establishing this ideology, began at home. The home provided a refuge from the rigour, uncertainty, anxiety, and potential violence of the outside world. (P, 341) A woman’s role was to provide a safe, stable, and well-organised environment for their husbands and families. However, change was on the horizon with an underlying movement of business and domestic changes both home and abroad, with industrialization, and the suffragist movement. Women were beginning to gain autonomy and began to grasp their opportunities, thus significantly curtailing male supremacy and the definable acceptable ‘role’ of the woman.
Education was not equal between the sexes and neither between the classes. Gentlemen were educated at home until they were old enough to attend well-known or lesser schools. A lady’s schooling was
I'm going to be talking about the victorian era and what they did for fun for fun. This topic is going to focus on mainly children and adults on what they did for fun in the victorian era. You should be able to relate to some of the things that they did.
The Victorian Period was a great influence to the authors who composed novels at that time where distinctions between social classes as well as between men and women were strongly marked. During this period, it was precisely a woman who ruled. Alexandrina Victoria who was born on May 24, 1819 became Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from June 20, 1837 until her death on January 22, 1901. Victoria’s reign was one of the longest of a female in history. At only the age of 18, after her uncle William Henry IV died, she began a span of 63 years of reign. In spite of her independence and power, Victoria fell into a deep depression when her husband died in 1861 and ever since she wore black every day for the rest of her
In the Victorian era, the status of women in society was extremely oppressive and, by modern standards, atrocious. Women had few rights, in or outside of the home. Married women in this period relied on men almost completely as they had few rights or independence. With this mindset in focus,
Despite being under the rule of a female monarch, women faced many inequalities and suffering during the Victorian age. Examples of these inequalities include not having the right to vote, unequal educational and employment opportunities. Women were even denied the legal right to divorce in most cases. As the Norton Anthology states, these debates over women’s rights and their roles came to be known as the “woman question” by the Victorians. This lead to many conflicting struggles, such as the desire by all for women to be educated, yet they are denied the same opportunities afforded to men. While these women faced these difficulties, there was also the notion that women should be domestic and feminine. There was an ideal that women should be submissive and pure because they are naturally different. The industrial revolution introduced women into the labor workforce, but there was still a conflict between the two identities; one of an employed woman, and one of a domestic housewife.
The Victorian education tried to introduce, especially in young men, an attitude towards women based on respect. They were taught to think of women as sisters or even as angels rather than human beings. This kind of education tried to separate completely love from sex and it was not especially oriented to girls because women were supposed to not have any kind of sexual desire.
great prosperity in Great Britain's literature. The Victorian Age produced a variety of changes. Political and social reform produced a variety of reading among all classes. The lower-class became more self-conscious, the middle class more powerful and the rich became more vulnerable. The novels of Charles Dickens, the poems of Alfred,
The Victorian period started in 1837 through 1901 under Queen Victoria’s reign. The period got divided into three stages: Early, middle and late Victorians periods. During, the early Victorian era took the throne. Under the middle years, the industrialization of the country began and everything stay steady. On the last few years, a lot of problems rise up with Ireland and the English colonies. In her 63 years of ruling lots of cultural, political and economic changes arise. The country became highly industrialized and expanded its land to some parts of the middle west of the World. However, under the period, many diseases were developed such as typhus and cholera because of the food distribution and hunger. Social changes such as women’s vote and rights were proclaimed. New science and technological theories were promoted such as Darwin’s Evolution Theory and Charles Lyell’s Theory of Uniformitarianism. Other social and economic changes