Flashcards on From Wollstonecraft to the New Woman
From Wollstonecraft to the New Woman: A Student's Guide
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Gender relations in Victorian Britain
19 cards
Card 1
Question: How did gender roles change during the Victorian period compared with earlier centuries?
Answer: Men and women’s roles became more sharply defined; previously women commonly worked alongside men in family businesses, but in the 19th century men in
Card 2
Question: Why was it easier for women in earlier centuries to work in the family business?
Answer: Living 'over the shop' made it easy for women to serve customers or keep accounts while also doing domestic duties.
Card 3
Question: What effect did men commuting to work have on women’s daily responsibilities?
Answer: Wives, daughters and sisters were left at home all day to oversee domestic duties, many of which were increasingly carried out by servants.
Card 4
Question: How did the crinoline fashion from the 1830s affect women’s domestic work?
Answer: The huge bell-shaped crinoline made it virtually impossible to clean a grate or sweep stairs without tumbling over, hindering practical household task
Card 5
Question: What is meant by the Victorian idea of 'Separate Spheres'?
Answer: The belief that men and women inhabited distinct spheres—the public sphere for men and the domestic sphere for women—only coming together at breakfast
Card 6
Question: On what assumptions did the ideology of Separate Spheres rest?
Answer: That women were physically weaker but morally superior to men, making them best suited to the domestic sphere and moral guardians of the family.
Card 7
Question: How was women’s moral influence at home used politically?
Answer: Their great influence at home was used as an argument against giving women the vote.
Card 8
Question: What kind of education were middle-class girls expected to receive to prepare them for the domestic role?
Answer: They learned 'accomplishments'—music, singing, drawing, dancing, modern languages, and manners—taught at boarding school or by a resident governess.
Card 9
Question: Why were intellectual pursuits discouraged for women in the Victorian period?
Answer: Devoting oneself too enthusiastically to intellectual work was seen as unfeminine and as usurping men’s natural intellectual superiority; some doctors
Card 10
Question: How did families often react when Oxford and Cambridge opened to women later in the century?
Answer: Many families refused to let clever daughters attend for fear that higher education would make them unmarriageable.