Gender Roles In The Victorian Era

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:

He believed such attitudes and symptoms of women to be caused by an abnormal shift of the uterus in a woman’s body. Unfortunately, these beliefs carried over into the Victorian era. A woman in Victorian society was to be the caretaker and nurturer of husband, child and household, all the while expected to remain active in women’s society. Many women’s clubs literary groups and associations became popular during this time because of this expectation. Women were thought to have no sexual desires and were told from a very young age that such thoughts were unnatural. Women and men played traditional roles and it was the popular (male) opinion at the time that there should be 2 separate spheres in which men and women operate. According to the Victorian male, a woman was to have no greater aspirations than motherhood and marriage this was the woman’s private sphere. The Public sphere which was the man’s domain included commerce, work outside the home and

During the Victorian period, women had a very specific role to play in society. They had very little influence on the public sphere, only men were to deal with business and political issues. Women were restrained to the private sphere, and were supposed to take care of the house, and of their beloved. The phrase ‘the angel in the house’ was used to describe their duty. Obviously, this applies to women of a certain rank, mostly those belonging to the middle-class. Working-class women soon had to leave home and work in order to help feed their family.

In the 1800s, the U.S. became more industrialized and factories started to become more common. This was the beginning of the market revolution, where people buy and sell goods instead of making everything by themselves. People could trade the money they earn from working for the things they needed. As the market revolution thrust workers into new systems of production, it redefined gender roles of women in family and society. During the first half of the nineteenth century, the market revolution played a significant role in changes in gender roles.

In the Victorian era, the people have to uphold their reputations to be accepted by society. Women, especially have harder expectations to live up to. Women are told to stay home and take care of the family. Women are meant to be at home in the kitchen, waiting to serve their husbands. Society also expects women to follow the

Women’s roles have gradually changed over time. People have different opinions, but i will be showing you the facts. I will be showing you how and what has changed starting from the 1890’s to the 1950’s and now 2016. At the end I will be expressing my own opinion towards the subject.

“Nothing is so frightening as what’s behind the closed door,” said William F. Nolan… and society proved him right. The human race is terrified of what they do not understand. Whether centuries in the past, or right here in the present, women have rarely ever been, and still are not, afforded the opportunity of individuality and freedom. Victorian society in its time period took on an extremely conservative behavior. Sex and womanly freedoms were strongly controversial topics and thus, society encouraged an overall chaste and modest lifestyle.

Women in the Victorian society had two main goals which were to marry a respectable man and to have/raise children. The society had a vision of the “perfect woman” who did what she was told and did not question it. She did what her mother did before her, and her mother did what her mother did before her. They were constricted, as if they lived in a box. They couldn’t go too far forward or backward and they couldn’t tray too far off the sides. There were high standards and a true Victorian woman upheld those standards no matter how she felt about them. Victorian women were not their own; they were property-- property that was owned by their husbands or fathers.

Life in the early nineteenth century wasn’t so easy different gender roles were just starting to take place; where men did the dirty work and women were taught to do the house work. Some women cleaned; took care of children; and having a meal prepared for the children and husband. The American Industrial Revolution transformed daily life by creating a middle class, shifting from predominately rural home life, to urban head-quarters and reclassifying gender roles in the home life. The middle class had started to form a few years before the start of nineteenth century. By the time the Industrial Revolution had started children and women were seen as a different matter other than just property to the man or a new way to earn money.

During the reign of Queen Victoria, everything in society from gender roles to even the Great Exhibition centered around family and the domestic realm. Even the design of furniture was focused on domesticity and ornament, rather than practicality. The world was separated into the private sphere and the public, with the woman’s place being firmly in the latter and the man’s place in the eye of the public. A woman was to derive all her satisfaction from being a doting wife and a dutiful mother. Thirdly, it is perhaps Victorian England which firmly rooted into place such ideals which have led to the toxic masculinity present in today’s world.

Historically, the average women in the Victorian era were only known for doing domestic chores. Middle class women were raised to be submissive, obedient and virginal to fit the image of the Virgin Mother Mary during this era, and having her rights taken away with the male of the household whether it be her father or eldest brother, who would decide what would be best for her. There were very few professions that were open to women who had an education such as a governess as a way to support themselves when times were tough. If a women were to have a higher level of education the men considered it to be of no use because they believed women to be the weaker counterpart both mentally and physically, as well as thinking that work made women ill.

Despite there being a need for women in the labor workforce, it was solely men that were considered strong based on their physical strength. It was believed that a woman’s strength lied in her ability to be somewhat of a moral compass for men. Sarah Stickney Ellis discussed this in her work The Women of England. Their Social Duties and Domestic Habits. In the ideal Victorian household, the man would support the family financially, and the woman would handle all of the domestic duties. Any

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,

During the Victorian Era in 1837 the period that was ruled by Queen Victoria I, women endured many social disadvantages by living in a world entirely dominated by men. Around that time most women had to be innocent, virtuous, dutiful and be ignorant of intellectual opinion. It was also a time associated with prudishness and repression. Their sole window on the world would, of course, be her husband. During this important era, the idea of the “Angel in the House” was developed by Coventry Patmore and used to describe the ideal women who men longed. Throughout this period, women were treated inferior to men and were destined to be the husbands “Angel in the House”.

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.