I.               Women’s Rights

A.     Key Voices

1.     Olympia de Gouges (1748-1793)

a.     French playwright, political activist, and early feminist

b.     Wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen, 1789

c.      Demanded that French women be given the same rights as French men

2.     Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)

a.     English author and early feminist

b.     Wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Women, 1792

c.      Argued that women are not naturally inferior to men. They only appear to be inferior because of a lack of education.

3.     John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)

a.     English reformer, essayist, and influential Utilitarian

b.     Wrote the Subjection of Women, 1869

c.      Opposed the social and legal inequalities imposed on women. Argued that inequalities were a relic from the past and “a hindrance to human development.”

B.     “The Angel in the House”

1.     The ideal middle-class woman was an “angel in the house.” Her most important role was to be the family’s moral guardian.

2.     Middle-class women were expected to supervise the domestics, manage the household, and direct the children’s education.

3.     Rising standards of living made it possible for men and women to marry at a younger age. At the same time, the rising cost of child-rearing caused a decline in the size of middle-class families.

C.     Economic Changes

1.     It is important to remember that most working women were single. Few married women worked outside the home.

2.     By the mid-1850s, women and children comprised half of the labor force in the cotton industry. Women were paid about half of a man’s wages for similar work.

3.     Opportunities for well-educated women were limited to teaching, nursing, and social work.

4.     After 1800, many working-class women worked as clerks, typists, and telephone operators.

D.    The Struggle for Legal and Political Rights

1.     Law codes in most European countries gave women few legal rights.

2.     Divorce was legalized in Britain in 1857 and in France in 1884. However, Catholic countries such as Spain and Italy did not permit divorce.

3.     Although the woman’s suffrage movement commanded wide attention, it achieved few successes. In 1900, no country in Europe allowed women to vote.

E.     The “New Woman”

1.     By the end of the nineteenth century, educated middle-class women enjoyed more independent lifestyles.

2.     The “new woman” wore fewer petticoats, often supported herself, and enjoyed sports.