Becerra 1

Maria Alejandra Becerra

Teacher Laura White

British Literature

13 November 2015

Women’s Role During The Victorian Era

The Victorian Era was one of the most famous eras in English History. It was a

time of change. Many of the historical changes that characterized this period motivated

discussion and argument about the nature and role of women — what the Victorians

called "The Woman Question." Also, during this time there were two movements in

which women participated. One of them was the Temperance movement, which was an

organized effort to encourage moderation in the consumption of intoxicating liquors or

press for complete abstinence. The movement's ranks were mostly filled by women

who, with their children, had endured the effects of uncontrolled drinking by many of

their husbands. The other movement was Feminism1. The women's rights movement

was one of the most important events in the Victorian Era. During the reign of Queen

Victoria, a woman's place was in the home, as domesticity and motherhood were

considered by society at large to be enough emotional fulfillment for females. Why were

some women supportive of their roles in society during the Victorian Era while others

weren’t?

The Victorian Era was characterized as a domestic age. Queen Victoria came to

represent a kind of femininity that was centered on the family, motherhood and

1 Feminism: the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to
those of men
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respectability. Even though these ideals kept women away from the public life, during

the 19th century charitable missions began to extend the female role of service, and

Victorian feminism emerged as a potent political force. The Industrial Revolution 2 in

Britain had profound consequences in the ways women were idealized. New kinds of

work and new kinds of urban living prompted a change in the ways in which appropriate

male and female roles were perceived. The ideas that women and men lived in different

“spheres”, women in the private sphere of domesticity and men in the public sphere of

business and politics, influenced women’s choices and experiences. Texts in the topic

of “The Woman Question” address both the hardships faced by women forced into new

kinds of labor and the competing visions of those who exalted domestic life and those

who supported women's efforts to move beyond the home3.

The Feminist Movement during the Victorian Era is considered as a movement

that would give women their equal rights with men back at that time. A very common

image that people have of the Victorian woman is home loving, devoted to family, and

unselfish. However, for a countless number of families, the above scenario was not the

case as many wives and unmarried daughters also had to go out to work daily in order

to provide for their families. These are the women of the working class and those who

lived in poverty who are very often overlooked when talking about the Victorian Era. The

division between the “domestic female” and the “public” male was not the reality for

many and practicing it, was considered burdensome. The women who would go on to

2 The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in the period from
about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840. The Industrial Revolution began in the United
Kingdom and most of the important technological innovations were British.
3 Examples of these texts are “Of Queen's Gardens” by John Ruskin in which he celebrates the

"true wife," and Elizabeth Eastlake's "Lady Travellers" proposes her as a national ideal, while in
The Girl of the Period Eliza Lynn Linton satirizes the modern woman.
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fight for their rights believed that manipulating its principles would prove more

successful than a total rejection of the ideology. Women argued that if their purity

allowed them to be the teachers of moral values, then their effect on public life could

only be uplifting. This argument became the leading edge for the women's rights

movement during the period. Women's demands for participation in public life presented

the challenge of separating the "sphere ideology".

While many women were supportive of women’s changing roles, they did not

agree unanimously. For example, during the Victorian Era women participated in the

Temperance movement. The Temperance movement focused on the drinking habits of

men, because men drank openly and because the drinking habits of women were

unknown. While its goals changed according to its respective leaders, it achieved what

it originally set out to do: control drunkenness and change Victorian England's lenient

treatment of alcohol abusers. Women participated in this movement because their

families had had to endure the consequences of excessive drinking of their husbands.

One critic, Richard D. Altick states, “a woman was inferior to a man in all ways except

the unique one that counted most [to a man]: her femininity. Her place was in the

home, on a veritable pedestal if one could be afforded, and emphatically not in the world

of affairs” (Altick 54). Women spent all their lives preparing for marriage and having no

freedom because of the expectations men had. These expectations pressured women

to be the ideal Victorian woman society expected them to be. The women had to

prepare themselves for what was to come of their lives and it determined their future. If

a woman did not meet the expectations of the Victorian male, she would end up
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spouseless. The fear of ending up without a husband could be one of the reasons why

some women accepted their role in Victorian society.

The Victorian Era affected future societies because it established a cultural norm.

Women were expected to participate in jobs that dealt with taking care of the children

and taking care of the husband’s needs. Men were expected to find jobs outside of the

home and become successful enough to bring it home and support the family. Many

women still follow this expectation, in fear of being judged or criticized for behaving

against it. Education in particular was not as stressed upon women because of their

conservative role that kept them mostly at home. Very few women received an

education, as it was expensive and contradictory to the cultural norm. Today’s society is

even more of a challenge to the conservative view, because more women are becoming

involved in education and making greater achievements in the fields of literature,

mathematics, science, and many others. The number of women enrolled in college now

exceeds men. “Women obtained 19% of all undergraduate college degrees by the 20th

Century. By 1984 the figure had sharply increased to 49%. Graduate study numbers

increased as well” (Women’s History). These statistics show that women are making

names for themselves in the professional workplace.

The 19th century saw significant developments in and the widespread

questioning of the place of women in English society. While many women would

increasingly demand more political and legal rights and greater economic and social

opportunities, the Victorian Era also saw the increasing identification of women with the

domestic sphere. The women that were part of the Feminist movement argued that they

deserved a place in the public sphere. On the other hand, some women decided to fulfill
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their domestic roles because it was easier during that time. Nowadays, women prove to

be more active and ambitious than they once were in the more innocent Victorian Era.

It’s important to acknowledge that women have come a long way and that perhaps they

will continue to progress, making the gender gap between male and female smaller and

smaller.
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Works Cited

Abrams, Lynn. "Ideals of Womanhood in Victorian Britain." BBC News. BBC, 9 Aug.

2001. Web. 2 Nov. 2015.

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/trail/victorian_britain/women_home/ideals_womanh

ood_02.shtml>.

Compton’s Interactive Encyclopedia. “Women’s History in America Presented by

Women’s International Center.” 1995. Web.

Malheiro, B. "The Victorian Woman - 1876 Victorian England Revisited." The Victorian

Woman - 1876 Victorian England Revisited. Web. 02 Nov. 2015.

<http://logicmgmt.com/1876/overview/victorian_woman/victorian_woman.htm>.

Weston, Paulina. "A Woman's Place In C19th Victorian History." A Woman's Place in

Victorian Society. Web. 12 Nov. 2015. <http://www.fashion-

era.com/a_womans_place.htm>.