The Woman Question

1. The Woman Question Danika Rockett English 371 Summer 2010 June 2

2. 18th century women Worked a variety of professions: Spinning thread

3. Goldsmithing

4. Running shops

5. Brewing beer

6. Women’s lives went from this …

7. … to this. But why?

8. Industrial revolution1780 - 1830 • Work conditions changed drastically • Cottage industries turned into large-scale factories • Men went out to work • Women stayed home

9. religion • Women were “morally weak” • The public sphere was morally dangerous • The Angel in the House

10. RestrictionsBy law, husband and wife are one person, and that person is the husband. • Education • Limited to “genteel” skills • Work opportunities • Seamstress, governess, ladies’ companion • Marriage • Custody of children • Property inheritance • Social perception • Bodily freedom

11. The Victorian period1832 - 1901 • Named for Queen Victoria (ruled 1837-1901) • Women were expected to stay in the private sphere (the home) • Novels became extremely popular and influential • Western feminism began mid-century • This period saw a huge amount of reform

12. Separate spheres Man for the field and woman for the hearth, Man for the sword and for the needle she, Man with the head and woman with the heart, Man to command and woman to obey. ~from Tennyson’s The Princess (1847)

13. Social battles1837 "Literature cannot be the business of a woman's life..." I would like your advice about my poetry … VS. Charlotte Brontë a.k.a. Currer Bell Robert Southey, Poet Laureate

14. Unmarried women are unnatural. Send them to the colonies to find husbands Social battles1862 30% of women do not marry … let’s educate them! VS. Frances Power Cobbe “What Shall We Do With Our Old Maids?” W. R. Greg “Why Are Women Redundant?”

15. Readings for today • Mary Wollstonecraft – A Vindication of the Rights of Woman pp. 373 – 376 • Anna LatitiaBarbauld – “The Rights of Woman” • Frances Power Cobbe – “Wife-Torture in England” pp. 111 – 144 • Florence Nightingale – “Woman’s Time” from Cassandra pp. 1017 – 1021 • Sojourner Truth – “Ain’t I a Woman?” • Frances E. W. Harper – “Learning to Read”

16. Mary Wollstonecraft1759 – 1797 • Worked as a ladies’ companion and governess • Had a daughter out of wedlock • Considered a founding feminist philosopher • Died giving birth to daughter, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, a.k.a. Mary Shelley

17. A vindication of the rights of woman (1792) • Women are not naturally inferior to men, but appear to be only because they lack education. • Both men and women should be treated as rational beings • Rights cannot be based on tradition • What does she claim to be “the only way women can rise in the world”? (p. 375)

18. From A Vindication: Let it not be concluded that I wish to invert the order of things; I have already granted, that, from the constitution of their bodies, men seem to be designed by Providence to attain a greater degree of virtue. I speak collectively of the whole sex; but I see not the shadow of a reason to conclude that their virtues should differ in respect to their nature. In fact, how can they, if virtue has only one eternal standard? I must therefore, if I reason consequentially, as strenuously maintain that they have the same simple direction, as that there is a God …

19. On Women and “sensibility” One of Wollstonecraft's most scathing critiques in the Rights of Woman is of false and excessive sensibility, particularly in women. She argues that women who succumb to sensibility are "blown about by every momentary gust of feeling," and because they are "the prey of their senses" they cannot think rationally. What does the word “sensibility” mean in this context?

20. On women’s education In addition to her larger philosophical arguments, Wollstonecraft also lays out a specific educational plan. In the 12th chapter of the Vindication, "On National Education", she argues that all children should be sent to a "country day school" as well as given some education at home "to inspire a love of home and domestic pleasures." She also maintains that schooling should be co-educational arguing that men and women, whose marriages are "the cement of society", should be "educated after the same model"

21. Anna LatitiaBarbauld1743 – 1825 • Popular professional writer and poet • Taught with her husband at Palgrave Academy (for boys), but refused to open a girls’ school • 1792: “We are called upon to repent of national sins, because we can help them, and because we ought to help them …” • 1812 poem “Eighteen Hundred and Eleven” ruined her career

22. The rights of woman • Response to Wollstonecraft • Is Barabauld a feminist? • Look at these lines: • 4 • 6 • 9 – 12 • 25 – 28 • 29

23. Frances Power Cobbe1822 - 1904 • Born in Dublin, Ireland • British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection • Spoke out passionately about the treatment of women and other disenfranchised groups

24. Criminals, Idiots, Women and Minors: wife-torture in England (1869) • Collection of essays • What does the title mean? • She focuses on lower classes—why? • What might be the purpose of her opening anecdote? (also p. 140) • “Where is the hidden fun in this and scores of similar allusions, which sound like the cracking of whips over the cowering dogs in a kennel?” (p. 112) • “The whole relation between the sexes … is very little better than one of master and slave” (p. 115)

25. wife-torture in england, cont. • p. 116, para. 1: Whom does Cobbe blame for this problem? • “The notion that a man’s wife is his PROPERTY, in the sense in which a horse is his property … is a fatal root of incalculable evil and misery” (p. 117) • What are the “incentives” of wife-beating, according to Cobbe? (pp. 119 – 120) • Why does she choose the title “Wife-torture”? (p. 125)

26. Florence nightingale1820 - 1910 • Upper-class, well educated • Never desired marriage • Nurse, writer, statistician • Crimean War (1853 -56) • Sanitation pioneer She is a ‘ministering angel’ in these hospitals, and as her slender form glides quietly along each corridor, every poor fellow's face softens with gratitude at the sight of her. When all the medical officers have retired for the night and silence and darkness have settled down upon those miles of prostrate sick, she may be observed alone, with a little lamp in her hand, making her solitary rounds . . .

27. Cassandra(1851) • What is Nightingale’s main complaint? • “Better to have pain than paralysis” (p. 1017) • What does she refer to as “those wise institutions”? (p. 1018) • “Now, why is it more ridiculous for a man than for a woman to do worsted work and drive out every day in the carriage? Why should we laugh if we were to see a parcel of men sitting round a drawing-room table in the morning, and think it all right if they were women?” (p. 1019) • “But it is laid down, that our time is of no value….” (p. 1020) • How does she illustrate this point?

28. Isabella Baumfree, a.k.a. Sojourner truth1797 - 1883 • Born in New York • Spoke only Dutch until age 9 • Escaped slavery at age 26 with infant • First African-American woman to win court case against a White man

29. Ain’t I a woman?(1851) • Delivered at Women’s Rights Convention, Ohio • Why does she think White men will “be in a fix pretty soon”? • What is the meaning of her “cup” metaphor? • How does she use religion to make her points?

30. Frances e.w. harper1825 - 1911 • Most successful African-American woman writer in abolition movement • Born in Baltimore to free parents • Went to school, supported herself as a nursemaid, seamstress, and teacher • With Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony, she organized the American Equal Rights Association • She questioned activists whose beliefs excluded certain groups

31. Learning to read1872 • She recited this, and other poems, in a dramatic fashion • What kind of dialect does she use? • “learning by hook or crook” (line 12) • How does “Mr. Turner’s Ben” learn to read? • What does she gain from learning how to read? A hundred thousand newborn babes are annually added to the victims of slavery; twenty thousand lives are annually sacrificed on the plantations of the South. Such a sight should send a thrill of horror through the nerves of civilization and impel the heart of humanity to lofty deeds. So it might, if men had not found out a fearful alchemy by which this blood can be transformed into gold. Instead of listening to the cry of agony, they listen to the ring of dollars and stoop down to pick up the coin … ~from 1857 address to New York Antislavery Society

32. For next week • No class Monday—start reading Tenant a.s.a.p.  • We will discuss Victorian laws regarding women • Take notes in your book as you read! • Make note of character names, their relationships to one another, where they meet and interact, etc. • Note any questions that arise as you read

33. ½ - 1-page In-class essay question: choose one • What kind of changes or progression can you see from the Medieval and Early Modern women’s writing to the 18th and 19th Century women’s writing? • What were some of the advantages to women from the set of assumptions about gender known as "separate spheres"? • Cobbe seems to almost excuse upper- and middle-class men who abuse their wives. Note the following quote: “Wife-beating exists in the upper and middle classes rather more, I fear, than is generally recognized; but it rarely extends to anything beyond an occasional blow or two of a not dangerous kind” (p. 113). Do you think she is being serious, or is she attempting to make a rhetorical point when she makes statements like this? →Use specific examples from the readings to support your answer