Women in the Victorian era
The Victorian era, spanning from 1837 to 1901 during Queen Victoria's reign, was a transformative period in British history marked by industrial growth and middle-class expansion. Women in this era experienced a complex interplay of social expectations and economic realities. While the dominant ideology emphasized domesticity—portraying wifehood and motherhood as ideal roles—many women actively participated in the workforce as governesses, factory workers, and shopkeepers, particularly in response to economic changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution.
Despite these contributions, women faced significant societal limitations, especially in political representation, as illustrated by the suffrage movement that sought to address their disenfranchisement. The period also highlighted stark contrasts in women's experiences based on class, with working-class women often underrepresented in cultural narratives. As urban centers expanded and economic pressures increased, women took on greater roles in supporting their families, leading to gradual shifts in educational and professional opportunities.
The Victorian era, therefore, was not merely a time of domestic confinement for women; it was also a period of significant change and emerging activism that laid the groundwork for future advancements in women's rights.
Women in the Victorian era
The Victorian era spans the years of Queen Victoria’s reign (1837–1901). This era overlaps the years of the British romantic period, which started in the 1830s. It also overlaps with the years of the Industrial Revolution, roughly from 1760 to 1840, and its aftermath. The Industrial Revolution marked the transition from mainly agrarian and artisan societies to manufacturing and industrial production. The Victorian era, then, was one of great prosperity and growth for the middle classes.
The Victorian era cast a wide cultural net, especially in English-speaking societies. During its inception, it was characterized by the dominance of middle-class virtues and ideology and, at its end, by a rebellion against its ideals and stereotypes. There was a general emphasis on home virtues and social advancement. Contrary to popular misconception, however, many Victorian women worked for wages, participated in political, and otherwise contributed to society outside of the household.
Background
The commercial and industrial middle classes prospered in the early days of the Industrial Revolution. In England, the middle classes used economic success to gain political power, which became largely consolidated with the Reform Act of 1832. The act gave representation to cities that had emerged during the Industrial Revolution and increased the number of citizens entitled to vote. By solely enfranchising male voters, however, the act gave the women’s suffrage movement a target for their activism in coming years.
The rising Victorian middle class challenged the hereditary privileges of landed aristocracy. Some members of the middle classes became richer than the aristocracy, purchased large landholdings, and married into aristocratic families. It was a time when skilled members of the working class could gain entry into the middle class. The rise of the middle classes during this time is associated with civic improvement and market expansion, as well as with growth of cities and towns. Expanding urban centers provided ample employment opportunity for small- and medium-sized businesspeople and professionals, such as shopkeepers, lawyers, doctors, civil servants, managers, and clerks.
Queen Victoria rose to power during the time of middle-class expansion. The predominant ideology, with Queen Victoria as its figurehead, represented the household as sacred and promoted a rigid morality. The private domestic sphere was separated from the public sphere, with wifehood and motherhood considered the ideal roles for women. While men earned money outside the house, women held the important tasks of managing household funds and family affairs. Much of the income in middle-class families went toward the acquisition of social advances and political power. By definition, a household became middle class in its possession of at least one servant. Running the household, then, often included managing servants, a process exposed and idealized in traditional Victorian novels and imagery. Victorian wives, however, were not always middle or upper class. Many women played a more significant economic role than usually perceived. Despite large numbers of working women, the working-class wife became underrepresented in popular literature and culture, largely because she could not display signs of middle-class status.
Overview
The Victorian era lasted a long time and had different impacts across gender, social class, and countries. In comparison with modern women, Victorian women were isolated from the spheres of work and politics. However, many women entered the workforce, laboring as governesses, factory workers, servants, shopkeepers, and more.
Among the developments that propelled women into the workforce was the growth of the foreign civil service in England. With the settlement of new lands, young men left their villages, leaving rural women with no men to marry. Despite middle-class prosperity, social phenomena such as the Napoleonic Wars, economic straits that drove farmers to the cities, and other social dislocations meant that many poor men could not afford to marry. Women had to become self-supporting during the economic changes of the Industrial Revolution and its aftermath. In the United States, for example, women became the main workforce of the textile industry, in particular from 1820 to 1910. Throughout most of this time, as well, many women of African descent were enslaved.
The image of women as workers did not fit Victorian ideology. Charles Dickens, the preeminent writer of the Victorian era, wrote many novels exposing the exploitative conditions of the poor. He changed unjust prevailing ideas about poverty and crime. His novels, however, often promoted discriminatory Victorian gender roles. Gender determined women’s roles in their communities as well as in the labor market. Many Victorian women worked, and some even received an advanced education. Their gender meant, however, that they were given limited opportunities for work, leisure, and development.
As women entered the workforce, opportunities for educational and personal development eventually grew. Women resented the discriminations to which they were subject, in particular on the issue of voting rights. The roots of the women’s suffrage movement can be traced to the 1830s in England and 1840s in the United States. It would not become a formal movement in England until 1872, with the establishment of the National Society for Women’s Suffrage, and in the United States in 1848 with a declaration at the Seneca Falls Convention. Other countries followed suit in the late nineteenth century. Although many women in the Victorian era embraced the prevailing ideology of domestic womanhood, the phenomenon paralleled the emergence of a majority of women in the labor market and political discourse.
In the shadow of the economic expansion of the Victorian era, poverty cast a wide net, especially in its last years. There were no state welfare systems, and most people faced the very real possibility of poverty. During the Victorian era, the poor in urban areas lived in crowded tenements, under unsanitary conditions, and had little access to water supplies. Child mortality rates were high, especially for the poor, and constant hunger was not uncommon. The varied experiences of Victorian women can be studied in the context of economic conditions, prevailing political and cultural ideology, and labor markets. Regardless of their socioeconomic status and work obligations, Victorian women—poor, middle class, or wealthy—were expected to devote their lives to households and families and generally did so.
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