History of women in the United Kingdom covers the social, cultural and political roles of women in Britain over the last two millennia.
Medieval
![Hunterian Psalter c](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Hunterian_Psalter_c._1170_Eve_spinning.jpg)
Medieval England was a
patriarchal society
Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of dominance and privilege are primarily held by men. It is used, both as a technical anthropological term for families or clans controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males ...
and the lives of women were heavily influenced by contemporary beliefs about gender and authority. However, the position of women varied according to factors including their
social class
A social class is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the Upper class, upper, Middle class, middle and Working class, lower classes. Membership in a social class can for ...
; whether they were unmarried, married, widowed or remarried; and in which part of the country they lived. Henrietta Leyser argues that women had much informal power in their homes and communities, although they were of officially subordinate to men. She identifies a deterioration the status of women in the Middle Ages, although they retained strong roles in culture and spirituality.
Significant gender inequities persisted throughout the period, as women typically had more limited life-choices, access to employment and trade, and legal rights than men. After the Norman invasion, the position of women in society changed. The rights and roles of women became more sharply defined, in part as a result of the development of the feudal system and the expansion of the English legal system; some women benefited from this, while others lost out. The rights of widows were formally laid down in law by the end of the twelfth century, clarifying the right of free women to own property, but this did not necessarily prevent women from being
forcibly remarried against their wishes. The growth of governmental institutions under a succession of bishops reduced the role of queens and their households in formal government. Married or widowed noblewomen remained significant cultural and religious patrons and played an important part in political and military events, even if chroniclers were uncertain if this was appropriate behaviour. As in earlier centuries, most women worked in agriculture, but here roles became more clearly gendered, with
ploughing
A plough or plow (Differences between American and British spellings, US; both ) is a farm tool for loosening or turning the soil before sowing seed or planting. Ploughs were traditionally drawn by oxen and horses, but in modern farms are draw ...
and managing the fields defined as men's work, for example, and
dairy production becoming dominated by women.
In medieval times, women had responsibility for brewing and selling the ale that men all drank. By 1600, men had taken over that role. The reasons include commercial growth, gild formation, changing technologies, new regulations, and widespread prejudices that associated female brewsters with drunkenness and disorder. The taverns still use women to serve it, a low-status, low-skilled, and poorly remunerated tasks.
Early modern period
Tudor era
![Elizabeth I, Procession Portrait](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Elizabeth_I%2C_Procession_Portrait..jpg)
While the Tudor era presents an abundance of material on the women of the nobility—especially royal wives and queens—historians have recovered scant documentation about the average lives of women. There has, however, been extensive statistical analysis of demographic and population data which includes women, especially in their childbearing roles.
The role of women in society was, for the historical era, relatively unconstrained; Spanish and Italian visitors to England commented regularly, and sometimes caustically, on the freedom that women enjoyed in England, in contrast to their home cultures. England had more well-educated upper-class women than was common anywhere in Europe.
The Queen's
marital status
Civil status, or marital status, are the distinct options that describe a person's relationship with a significant other. ''Married'', ''single'', ''divorced'', and ''widowed'' are examples of civil status.
''Civil status'' and ''marital status ...
was a major political and diplomatic topic. It also entered into the popular culture. Elizabeth's unmarried status inspired a cult of virginity. In poetry and portraiture, she was depicted as a virgin or a goddess or both, not as a normal woman. Elizabeth made a virtue of her virginity: in 1559, she told the Commons, "And, in the end, this shall be for me sufficient, that a marble stone shall declare that a queen, having reigned such a time, lived and died a virgin". Public tributes to the Virgin by 1578 acted as a coded assertion of opposition to the queen's marriage negotiations with the Duc d'Alençon.
In contrast to her father's emphasis on masculinity and physical prowess, Elizabeth emphasised the maternalism theme, saying often that she was married to her kingdom and subjects. She explained "I keep the good will of all my husbands — my good people — for if they did not rest assured of some special love towards them, they would not readily yield me such good obedience," and promised in 1563 they would never have a more natural mother than she. Coch (1996) argues that her figurative motherhood played a central role in her complex self-representation, shaping and legitimating the personal rule of a divinely appointed female prince.
Medical care
Although medical men did not approve, women healers played a significant role in the medical care of Londoners from cradle to grave during the Elizabethan era. They were hired by parishes and hospitals, as well as by private families. They played central roles in the delivery of nursing care as well as medical, pharmaceutical, and surgical services throughout the city as part of organised systems of health care. Women's medical roles continue to expand in the 17th century, especially regarding care of paupers. They operated nursing homes for the homeless and sick poor, and also looked after abandoned and orphaned children, pregnant women, and lunatics. After 1700, the workhouse movement undermined many of these roles and the parish nurse became restricted largely to the rearing and nursing of children and infants.
Marriage
Over ninety percent of English women (and adults, in general) entered marriage in this era at an average age of about
25–26 years for the bride and 27–28 years for the groom. Among the nobility and gentry, the average was around 19-21 for brides and 24-26 for grooms. Many city and townswomen married for the first time in their thirties and forties and it was not unusual for orphaned young women to delay marriage until the late twenties or early thirties to help support their younger siblings, and roughly a fourth of all English brides were pregnant at their weddings.
Witchcraft
In England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland there was a succession of
Witchcraft Acts
In England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, and the British colonies, there has historically been a succession of Witchcraft Acts governing witchcraft and providing penalties for its practice, or—in later years—rather for pretending to practise ...
starting with Henry VIII's Act of 1542. They governed witchcraft and providing penalties for its practice, or—in 1735—rather for pretending to practise it.
In Wales, fear of witchcraft mounted around the year 1500. There was a growing alarm of women's magic as a weapon aimed against the state and church. The Church made greater efforts to enforce the canon law of marriage, especially in Wales where tradition allowed a wider range of sexual partnerships. There was a political dimension as well, as accusations of witchcraft were levied against the enemies of Henry VII, who was exerting more and more control over Wales.
The records of the Courts of Great Sessions for Wales, 1536-1736 show that Welsh custom was more important than English law. Custom provided a framework of responding to witches and witchcraft in such a way that interpersonal and communal harmony was maintained, Showing to regard to the importance of honour, social place and cultural status. Even when found guilty, execution did not occur.
Becoming king in 1603,
James I James I may refer to:
People
*James I of Aragon (1208–1276)
*James I of Sicily or James II of Aragon (1267–1327)
*James I, Count of La Marche (1319–1362), Count of Ponthieu
*James I, Count of Urgell (1321–1347)
*James I of Cyprus (1334–13 ...
brought to England and Scotland continental explanations of witchcraft. He set out the much stiffer
Witchcraft Act of 1604, which made it a felony under common law. One goal was to divert suspicion away from male homosociality among the elite, and focus fear on female communities and large gatherings of women. He thought they threatened his political power so he laid the foundation for witchcraft and occultism policies, especially in Scotland. The point was that a widespread belief in the conspiracy of witches and a witches' Sabbath with the devil deprived women of political influence. Occult power was supposedly a womanly trait because women were weaker and more susceptible to the devil.
Enlightenment attitudes after 1700 made a mockery of beliefs in witches. The
Witchcraft Act of 1735
The Witchcraft Act 1735 (9 Geo. 2 c. 5) was an Act of the Parliament of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1735 which made it a crime for a person to claim that any human being had magical powers or was guilty of practising witchcraft. With this, t ...
marked a complete reversal in attitudes. Penalties for the practice of witchcraft as traditionally constituted, which by that time was considered by many influential figures to be an impossible crime, were replaced by penalties for the pretence of witchcraft. A person who claimed to have the power to call up spirits, or foretell the future, or cast spells, or discover the whereabouts of stolen goods, was to be punished as a vagrant and a con artist, subject to fines and imprisonment.
Historians
Keith Thomas and his student
Alan Macfarlane
Alan Donald James Macfarlane (born 20 December 1941 in Shillong, Meghalaya, India) is an anthropologist and historian, and a Professor Emeritus of King's College, Cambridge. He is the author or editor of 20 books and numerous articles on th ...
revolutionised the study of witchcraft by combining historical research with concepts drawn from anthropology. They argued that English witchcraft, like African witchcraft, was endemic rather than epidemic. Older women were the favorite targets because they were marginal, dependent members of the community and therefore more likely to arouse feelings of both hostility and guilt, and less likely to have defenders of importance inside the community. Witchcraft accusations were the village's reaction to the breakdown of its internal community, coupled with the emergence of a newer set of values that was generating psychic stress.
Reformation
The Reformation closed the convents and monasteries, and called on former monks and nuns to marry. Lay women shared in the religiosity of the Reformation. In Scotland the egalitarian and emotional aspects of Calvinism appealed to men and women alike. Historian Alasdair Raffe finds that, "Men and women were thought equally likely to be among the elect....Godly men valued the prayers and conversation of their female co-religionists, and this reciprocity made for loving marriages and close friendships between men and women." Furthermore, there was an increasingly intense relationship In the pious bonds between minister and his women parishioners. For the first time, laywomen gained numerous new religious roles, and took a prominent place in prayer societies.
Industrial Revolution
Women's historians have debated the impact of the
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
and capitalism generally on the status of women. Taking a pessimistic view,
Alice Clark Alice Clark may refer to:
* Alice Clark (historian), British feminist and historian
* Alice Clark (singer), American soul singer
See also
* Alice Clarke, English cricketer
{{hndis, Clark, Alice ...
argued that when capitalism arrived in 17th century England, it made a negative impact on the status of women as they lost much of their economic importance. Clark argues that in 16th century England, women were engaged in many aspects of industry and agriculture. The home was a central unit of production and women played a vital role in running farms, and in operating some trades and landed estates. For example, they brewed beer, handled the milk and butter, raised chickens and pigs, grew vegetables and fruit, spun flax and wool into thread, sewed and patched clothing, and nursed the sick. Their useful economic roles gave them a sort of equality with their husbands. However, Clark argues, as capitalism expanded in the 17th century, there was more and more division of labor with the husband taking paid labor jobs outside the home, and the wife reduced to unpaid household work. Middle-class women were confined to an idle domestic existence, supervising servants; lower-class women were forced to take poorly paid jobs. Capitalism, therefore, had a negative effect on more powerful women. In a more positive interpretation,
Ivy Pinchbeck
Ivy Pinchbeck, (9 April 1898 – 10 May 1982) was a British economic and social historian, specialising in the history of women. Her book of 1930,''Women Workers and the Industrial Revolution, 1750 – 1850'' was a pioneering effort in women's hi ...
argues that capitalism created the conditions for women's emancipation.
Louise Tilly
Louise Audino Tilly (December 13, 1930 – March 27, 2018) was an American historian known for utilizing an interdisciplinary approach to her scholarly work, fusing sociology with historical research. Biographer Carl Strikwerda, states:
:Louise T ...
and
Joan Wallach Scott
Joan Wallach Scott (born December 18, 1941) is an American historian of France with contributions in gender history. She is a professor emerita in the School of Social Science in the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Scott ...
have emphasised the continuity and the status of women, finding three stages in European history. In the preindustrial era, production was mostly for home use and women produce much of the needs of the households. The second stage was the "family wage economy" of early industrialisation, the entire family depended on the collective wages of its members, including husband, wife and older children. The third or modern stage is the "family consumer economy," in which the family is the site of consumption, and women are employed in large numbers in retail and clerical jobs to support rising standards of consumption.
19th century
Fertility
In the Victorian era, fertility rates increased in every decade until 1901, when the rates started evening out. There are several reasons for the increase in birth rates. One is biological: with improving living standards, the percentage of women who were able to have children increased. Another possible explanation is social. In the 19th century, the marriage rate increased, and people were getting married at a very young age until the end of the century, when the average age of marriage started to increase again slowly. The reasons why people got married younger and more frequently are uncertain. One theory is that greater prosperity allowed people to finance marriage and new households earlier than previously possible. With more births within marriage, it seems inevitable that marriage rates and birth rates would rise together.
The evening out of fertility rates at the beginning of the 20th century was mainly the result of a few big changes: availability of forms of birth control, and changes in people's attitude towards sex.
Morality and religion
The Victorian era is famous for the Victorian standards of personal morality. Historians generally agree that the middle classes held high personal moral standards (and usually followed them), but have debated whether the working classes followed suit. Moralists in the late 19th century such as
Henry Mayhew
Henry Mayhew (25 November 1812 – 25 July 1887) was an English journalist, playwright, and advocate of reform. He was one of the co-founders of the satirical magazine ''Punch'' in 1841, and was the magazine's joint editor, with Mark Lemon, in ...
decried the slums for their supposed high levels of cohabitation without marriage and illegitimate births. However, new research using computerised matching of data files shows that the rates of cohabitation were quite low—under 5%—for the working class and the poor. By contrast in 21st century Britain, nearly half of all children are born outside marriage, and nine in ten newlyweds have been cohabitating.
Historians have begun to analyse the agency of women in overseas missions. At first, missionary societies officially enrolled only men, but women increasingly insisted on playing a variety of roles. Single women typically worked as educators. Wives assisted their missionary husbands in most of his roles. Advocates stopped short of calling for the end of specified gender roles, but they stressed the interconnectedness of the public and private spheres and spoke out against perceptions of women as weak and house-bound.
The middle-class
The middle class typically had one or more servants to handle cooking, cleaning and child care, Industrialisation brought with it a rapidly growing middle class whose increase in numbers had a significant effect on the social strata itself: cultural norms, lifestyle, values and morality. Identifiable characteristics came to define the middle-class home and lifestyle. Previously, in town and city, residential space was adjacent to or incorporated into the work site, virtually occupying the same geographical space. The difference between private life and commerce was a fluid one distinguished by an informal demarcation of function. In the Victorian era, English family life increasingly became compartmentalised, the home a self-contained structure housing a nuclear family extended according to need and circumstance to include blood relations. The concept of "privacy" became a hallmark of the middle class life.
Working class families
Domestic life for a working-class family meant the housewife had to handle the chores servants did in wealthier families. A working-class wife was responsible for keeping her family as clean, warm, and dry as possible in housing stock that was often literally rotting around them. In London, overcrowding was endemic in the slums; a family living in one room was common. Rents were high in London; half of working-class households paid one-quarter to one-half of their income on rent.
Domestic chores for women without servants meant a great deal of washing and cleaning. Coal-dust from home stoves and factories filled the city air, coating windows, clothing, furniture and rugs. Washing clothing and linens meant scrubbing by hand in a large zinc or copper tub. Some water would be heated and added to the wash tub, and perhaps a handful of soda to soften the water. Curtains were taken down and washed every fortnight; they were often so blackened by coal smoke that they had to be soaked in salted water before being washed. Scrubbing the front wooden doorstep of the home every morning was done to maintain respectability.
Leisure
Opportunities for leisure activities increased dramatically as real wages continued to grow and hours of work continued to decline. In urban areas, the nine-hour workday became increasingly the norm; the 1874 Factory Act limited the workweek to 56.5 hours, encouraging the movement toward an eventual eight-hour workday. Helped by the
Bank Holiday Act of 1871, which created a number of fixed holidays, a system of routine annual holidays came into play, starting with middle class workers and moving into the working-class. Some 200 seaside resorts emerged thanks to cheap hotels and inexpensive railway fares, widespread banking holidays and the fading of many religious prohibitions against secular activities on Sundays. Middle-class Victorians used the train services to visit the seaside. Large numbers travelling to quiet fishing villages such as
Worthing
Worthing () is a seaside town in West Sussex, England, at the foot of the South Downs, west of Brighton, and east of Chichester. With a population of 111,400 and an area of , the borough is the second largest component of the Brighton and Hov ...
,
Brighton
Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London.
Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...
,
Morecambe
Morecambe ( ) is a seaside town and civil parish in the City of Lancaster district in Lancashire, England. It is in Morecambe Bay on the Irish Sea.
Name
The first use of the name was by John Whitaker in his ''History of Manchester'' (1771), w ...
and
Scarborough Scarborough or Scarboro may refer to:
People
* Scarborough (surname)
* Earl of Scarbrough
Places Australia
* Scarborough, Western Australia, suburb of Perth
* Scarborough, New South Wales, suburb of Wollongong
* Scarborough, Queensland, su ...
began turning them into major tourist centres, and people like
Thomas Cook
Thomas Cook (22 November 1808 – 18 July 1892) was an English businessman. He is best known for founding the travel agency Thomas Cook & Son. He was also one of the initial developers of the "package tour" including travel, accommodation ...
saw tourism and even overseas travel as viable businesses.
By the late Victorian era, the leisure industry had emerged in all cities with many women in attendance. It provided scheduled entertainment of suitable length at convenient locales at inexpensive prices. These included sporting events, music halls, and popular theatre. Women were now allowed in some sports, such as archery, tennis, badminton and gymnastics.
Feminism and Reform
![+Ann Thornton Going Aloft](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/%2BAnn_Thornton_Going_Aloft.jpg)
The advent of
Reformism
Reformism is a political doctrine advocating the reform of an existing system or institution instead of its abolition and replacement.
Within the socialist movement, reformism is the view that gradual changes through existing institutions can eve ...
during the 19th century opened new opportunities for reformers to address issues facing women and launched the
feminist movement
The feminist movement (also known as the women's movement, or feminism) refers to a series of social movements and political campaigns for Radical politics, radical and Liberalism, liberal reforms on women's issues created by the inequality b ...
. The first organised movement for British women's suffrage was the
Langham Place Circle
The ''English Woman's Journal'' was a periodical dealing primarily with female employment and equality issues. It was established in 1858 by Barbara Bodichon, Matilda Mary Hays and Bessie Rayner Parkes. Published monthly between March 1858 an ...
of the 1850s, led by Barbara Bodichon (''née'' Leigh-Smith) and
Bessie Rayner Parkes
Elizabeth Rayner Belloc (; 16 June 1829 – 23 March 1925) was one of the most prominent English feminists and campaigners for women's rights in Victorian times and also a poet, essayist and journalist.
Early life
Bessie Rayner Parkes was b ...
. They also campaigned for improved female rights in the law, employment, education, and marriage.
Property owning women and widows had been allowed to vote in some local elections, but that ended in 1835. The Chartist Movement was a large-scale demand for suffrage—but it meant ''manhood'' suffrage. Upper-class women could exert a little backstage political influence in high society. However, in divorce cases, rich women lost control of their children.
Child custody
Before 1839, after divorce rich women lost control of their children as those children would continue in the family unit with the father, as head of the household, and who continued to be responsible for them.
Caroline Norton was one such woman, her personal tragedy where she was denied access to her three sons after a divorce, led her to a life of intense campaigning which successfully led to the passing of the
Custody of Infants Act 1839
The Custody of Infants Act of 1839 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The bill was greatly influenced by the reformist opinions of Caroline Norton. Norton had a failed marriage with her husband. Her pamphlets arguing for the natur ...
and then introduced the
Tender years doctrine
The tender years doctrine is a legal principle in family law since the late 19th century. In common law, it presumes that during a child's "tender" years (generally regarded as the age of four and under), the mother should have custody of the ch ...
for child custody arrangement.
The Act gave women, for the first time, a right to their children and gave some discretion to the judge in a child custody cases. Under the doctrine the Act also established a presumption of maternal custody for children under the age of seven years maintaining the responsibility for financial support to the father.
In
1873 due to additional pressure from woman, the
Parliament
In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...
extended the presumption of maternal custody until a child reached sixteen. The doctrine spread in many states of the world because of the
British Empire
The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...
.
Divorce
Traditionally, poor people used desertion, and (for poor men) even the practice of selling wives in the market, as a substitute for divorce. In Britain before 1857 wives were under the economic and legal control of their husbands, and divorce was almost impossible. It required a very expensive private act of Parliament costing perhaps £200, of the sort only the richest could possibly afford. It was very difficult to secure divorce on the grounds of adultery, desertion, or cruelty. The first key legislative victory came with the
Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857. It passed over the strenuous opposition of the highly traditional Church of England. The new law made divorce a civil affair of the courts, rather than a Church matter, with a new civil court in London handling all cases. The process was still quite expensive, at about £40, but now became feasible for the middle class. A woman who obtained a judicial separation took the status of a ''feme sole,'' with full control of her own civil rights. Additional amendments came in 1878, which allowed for separations handled by local justices of the peace. The Church of England blocked further reforms until the final breakthrough came with the
Matrimonial Causes Act 1973
The Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 (c 18) is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom governing divorce law and marriage in England and Wales.
Contents
The act contains four parts:
# Divorce, Nullity and Other Matrimonial Suits
# Financial Reli ...
.
Protection
A series of four laws called the
Married Women's Property Act passed Parliament from 1870 to 1882 that effectively removed the restrictions that kept wealthy married women from controlling their own property. They now had practically equal status with their husbands, and a status superior to women anywhere else in Europe.
Working-class women were protected by a series of laws passed on the assumption that they (like children) did not have full bargaining power and needed protection by the government.
Prostitution
Bullough argues that prostitution in 18th-century Britain was a convenience to men of all social statuses, and economic necessity for many poor women, and was tolerated by society. The evangelical movement of the nineteenth century denounced the prostitutes and their clients as sinners, and denounced society for tolerating it. Prostitution, according to the values of the Victorian middle-class, was a horrible evil, for the young women, for the men, and for all of society. Parliament in the 1860s in the
Contagious Diseases Acts
The Contagious Diseases Acts (CD Acts) were originally passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1864 (27 & 28 Vict. c. 85), with alterations and additions made in 1866 (29 & 30 Vict. c. 35) and 1869 (32 & 33 Vict. c. 96). In 1862, a com ...
("CD") adopted the French system of licensed prostitution. The "regulationist policy" was to isolate, segregate, and control prostitution. The main goal was to protect working men, soldiers and sailors near ports and army bases from catching venereal disease. Young women officially became prostitutes and were trapped for life in the system. After a nationwide crusade led by
Josephine Butler
Josephine Elizabeth Butler (' Grey; 13 April 1828 – 30 December 1906) was an English feminist and social reformer in the Victorian era. She campaigned for women's suffrage, the right of women to better education, the end of coverture ...
and the
, Parliament repealed the acts and ended legalised prostitution. Butler became a sort of saviour to the girls she helped free. The age of consent for young women was raised from 12 to 16, undercutting the supply of young prostitutes who were in highest demand. The new moral code meant that respectable men dared not be caught.
Work opportunities
The rapid growth of factories opened jobbed opportunities for unskilled and semiskilled women and light industries, such as textiles, clothing, and food production. There was an enormous popular and literary interest, as well as scientific interest, in the new status of women workers. In Scotland St Andrews University pioneered the admission of women to universities, creating the Lady Licentiate in Arts (LLA), which proved highly popular. From 1892 Scottish universities could admit and graduate women and the numbers of women at Scottish universities steadily increased until the early 20th century.
Middle-class careers
Ambitious middle-class women faced enormous challenges and the goals of entering suitable careers, such as nursing, teaching, law and medicine. The loftier their ambition, the greater the challenge. Physicians kept tightly shut the door to medicine; there were a few places for woman as lawyers, but none as clerics.
In the 1870s a new employment role opened for women in libraries; it was said that the tasks were "Eminently Suited to Girls and Women." By 1920, women and men were equally numerous in the library profession, but women pulled ahead by 1930 and comprised 80% by 1960. The factors accounting for the transition included the demographic losses of the First World War, the provisions of the Public Libraries Act of 1919, the library-building activity of the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, and the library employment advocacy of the Central Bureau for the Employment of Women.
Teaching
Teaching was not quite as easy to break into, but the low salaries were less of the barrier to the single woman then to the married man. By the late 1860s a number of schools were preparing women for careers as governesses or teachers. The census reported in 1851 that 70,000 women in England and Wales were teachers, compared to the 170,000 who comprised three-fourths of all teachers in 1901.
The great majority came from lower middle class origins. The National Union of Women Teachers (NUWT) originated in the early 20th century inside the male-controlled National Union of Teachers (NUT). It demanded equal pay with male teachers, and eventually broke away. Oxford and Cambridge minimised the role of women, allowing small all-female colleges operate. However the new redbrick universities and the other major cities were open to women.
Nursing and Medicine
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale (; 12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910) was an English Reform movement, social reformer, statistician and the founder of modern nursing. Nightingale came to prominence while serving as a manager and trainer of nurses during t ...
demonstrated the necessity of professional nursing in modern warfare, and set up an educational system that tracked women into that field in the second half of the nineteenth century. Nursing by 1900 was a highly attractive field for middle-class women.
Medicine was very well organised by men, and posed an almost insurmountable challenge for women, with the most systematic resistance by the physicians, and the fewest women breaking through. One route to entry was to go to the United States where there were suitable schools for women as early as 1850. Britain was the last major country to train women physicians, so 80 to 90% of the British women came to America for their medical degrees. Edinburgh University admitted a few women in 1869, then reversed itself in 1873, leaving a strong negative reaction among British medical educators. The first separate school for women physicians opened in London in 1874 to a handful of students. In 1877, the King and Queen's College of Physicians in Ireland became the first institution to take advantage of the Enabling Act of 1876 and admit women to take its medical licences. In all cases, coeducation had to wait until the World War.
Poverty among working class women
The
1834 Poor Law defined who could receive monetary relief. The act reflected and perpetuated prevailing gender conditions. In Edwardian society, men were the source of wealth. The law restricted relief for unemployed, able-bodied male workers, due to the prevailing view that they would find work in the absence of financial assistance. However, women were treated differently. After the Poor Law was passed, women and children received most of the aid. The law did not recognise single independent women, and lumped women and children into the same category.
If a man was physically disabled, his wife was also treated as disabled under the law.
[ Unmarried mothers were sent to the workhouse, receiving unfair social treatment such as being restricted from attending church on Sundays.][ During marriage disputes women often lost the rights to their children, even if their husbands were abusive.][
At the time, single mothers were the poorest sector in society, disadvantaged for at least four reasons. First, women had longer lifespans, often leaving them widowed with children. Second, women's work opportunities were few, and when they did find work, their wages were lower than male workers' wages. Third, women were often less likely to remarry after being widowed, leaving them as the main providers for the remaining family members.][ Finally, poor women had deficient diets, because their husbands and children received disproportionately large shares of food. Many women were malnourished and had limited access to health care.][
]
20th century
Women in the Edwardian Era
The Edwardian era
The Edwardian era or Edwardian period of British history spanned the reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910 and is sometimes extended to the start of the First World War. The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 marked the end of the Victori ...
, from the 1890s to the First World War saw middle-class women breaking out of the Victorian limitations. Women had more employment opportunities and were more active. Many served worldwide in the British Empire or in Protestant missionary societies.
Housewives
For housewives, sewing machines enabled the production of ready made clothing and made it easier for women to sew their own clothes; more generally, argues Barbara Burman, "home dressmaking was sustained as an important aid for women negotiating wider social shifts and tensions in their lives." An increased literacy in the middle class gave women wider access to information and ideas. Numerous new magazines appealed to her tastes and help define femininity.
White-collar careers
The inventions of the typewriter, telephone, and new filing systems offered middle-class women increased employment opportunities. So too did the rapid expansion of the school system, and the emergence of the new profession of nursing. Education and status led to demands for female roles in the rapidly expanding world of sports.
Women's suffrage
As middle-class women rose in status they increasingly supported demands for a political voice.
In 1903, Emmeline Pankhurst
Emmeline Pankhurst ('' née'' Goulden; 15 July 1858 – 14 June 1928) was an English political activist who organised the UK suffragette movement and helped women win the right to vote. In 1999, ''Time'' named her as one of the 100 Most Impo ...
founded the Women's Social and Political Union
The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was a women-only political movement and leading militant organisation campaigning for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom from 1903 to 1918. Known from 1906 as the suffragettes, its membership and ...
(WSPU), a suffrage advocacy organisation. While WSPU was the most visible suffrage group, it was only one of many, such as the Women's Freedom League
The Women's Freedom League was an organisation in the United Kingdom which campaigned for women's suffrage and sexual equality
Gender equality, also known as sexual equality or equality of the sexes, is the state of equal ease of access ...
and the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies
The National Union of Women Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), also known as the ''suffragists'' (not to be confused with the suffragettes) was an organisation founded in 1897 of women's suffrage societies around the United Kingdom. In 1919 it was ren ...
(NUWSS) led by Millicent Garrett Fawcett
Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett (née Garrett; 11 June 1847 – 5 August 1929) was an English politician, writer and feminist. She campaigned for women's suffrage by legal change and in 1897–1919 led Britain's largest women's rights associati ...
. In Wales the suffragists women were attacked as outsiders and were usually treated with rudeness and often violence when they demonstrated or spoke publicly. The idea of Welshness was by then highly masculine because of its identification with labouring in heavy industry and mining and with militant union action.
The radical protests steadily became more violent, and included heckling, banging on doors, smashing shop windows, burning mailboxes, and arson of unoccupied buildings. Emily Davison
Emily Wilding Davison (11 October 1872 – 8 June 1913) was an English suffragette who fought for Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, votes for women in Britain in the early twentieth century. A member of the Women's Social and Polit ...
, a WSPU member, unexpectedly ran onto the track during the 1913 Epsom Derby
The Derby Stakes, also known as the Epsom Derby or the Derby, and as the Cazoo Derby for sponsorship reasons, is a Group 1 flat horse race in England open to three-year-old colts and fillies. It is run at Epsom Downs Racecourse in Surrey o ...
and died under the King's horse. These tactics produced mixed results of sympathy and alienation. As many protesters were imprisoned and went on hunger-strike, the Liberal government was left with an embarrassing situation. From these political actions, the suffragists successfully created publicity around their institutional discrimination and sexism. Historians generally argue that the first stage of the militant suffragette movement under the Pankhursts in 1906 had a dramatic mobilising effect on the suffrage movement. Women were thrilled and supportive of an actual revolt in the streets; the membership of the militant WSPU and the older NUWSS overlapped and was mutually supportive. However a system of publicity, historian Robert Ensor argues, had to continue to escalate to maintain its high visibility in the media. The hunger strikes and force-feeding did that. However the Pankhursts refused any advice and escalated their tactics. They turned to systematic disruption of Liberal Party meetings as well as physical violence in terms of damaging public buildings and arson. This went too far, as the overwhelming majority of moderate suffragists pulled back and refused to follow because they could no longer defend the tactics. They increasingly repudiated the extremists as an obstacle to achieving suffrage, saying the militant suffragettes were now aiding the antis, and many historians agree. Historian G. R. Searle
Geoffrey Russell Searle, born 1941, is a British historian, specialising in British nineteenth century history. He is Emeritus Professor at the University of East Anglia.
Works
*''The Quest for National Efficiency: A Study in British Politics and ...
says the methods of the suffragettes did succeed in damaging the Liberal party but failed to advance the cause of woman suffrage. When the Pankhursts decided to stop the militancy at the start of the war, and enthusiastically support the war effort, the movement split and their leadership role ended. Suffrage did come four years later, but the feminist movement in Britain permanently abandoned the militant tactics that had made the suffragettes famous.
In Wales, women's participation in politics grew steadily from the start of the suffrage movement in 1907. By 2003, half the members elected to the National Assembly were women.
Birth control
Although abortion was illegal, it was nevertheless the most widespread form of birth control in use. Used predominantly by working-class women, the procedure was used not only as a means of terminating pregnancy, but also to prevent poverty and unemployment. Those who transported contraceptive
Birth control, also known as contraception, anticonception, and fertility control, is the use of methods or devices to prevent unwanted pregnancy. Birth control has been used since ancient times, but effective and safe methods of birth contr ...
s could be legally punished. Contraceptives became more expensive over time and had a high failure rate. Unlike contraceptives, abortion did not need any prior planning and was less expensive. Newspaper advertisements were used to promote and sell abortifacient
An abortifacient ("that which will cause a miscarriage" from Latin: ''abortus'' "miscarriage" and '' faciens'' "making") is a substance that induces abortion. This is a nonspecific term which may refer to any number of substances or medications, ...
s indirectly.
Female servants
Edwardian Britain had large numbers of male and female domestic servant
A domestic worker or domestic servant is a person who works within the scope of a residence. The term "domestic service" applies to the equivalent occupational category. In traditional English contexts, such a person was said to be "in service ...
s, in both urban and rural areas.[Pdf.]
/ref> Men relied on working-class women to run their homes smoothly, and employers often looked to these working-class women for sexual partners.[ Servants were provided with food, clothing, housing, and a small wage, and lived in a self-enclosed social system inside the mansion.] The number of domestic servants fell in the Edwardian period due to a declining number of young people willing to be employed in this area.
Fashion
The upper classes embraced leisure sports, which resulted in rapid developments in fashion, as more mobile and flexible clothing styles were needed. During the Edwardian era, women wore a very tight corset
A corset is a support garment commonly worn to hold and train the torso into a desired shape, traditionally a smaller waist or larger bottom, for aesthetic or medical purposes (either for the duration of wearing it or with a more lasting effe ...
, or bodice
A bodice () is an article of clothing traditionally for women and girls, covering the torso from the neck to the waist. The term typically refers to a specific type of upper garment common in Europe during the 16th to the 18th century, or to the ...
, and dressed in long skirts. The Edwardian era was the last time women wore corsets in everyday life. According to Arthur Marwick
Arthur John Brereton Marwick (29 February 1936 – 27 September 2006) was a British social historian, who served for many years as Professor of History at the Open University. His research interests lay primarily in the history of Britain in the ...
, the most striking change of all the developments that occurred during the Great War was the modification in women's dress, "for, however far politicians were to put the clocks back in other steeples in the years after the war, no one ever put the lost inches back on the hems of women's skirts".
The Edwardians developed new styles in clothing design. The bustle and heavy fabrics of the previous century disappeared. A new concept of tight fitting skirts and dresses made of lightweight fabrics were introduced for a more active lifestyle.
* The 2 pieces dress came into vogue. Skirts hung tight at the hips and flared at the hem, creating a trumpet of lily-like shape.
* Skirts in 1901 had decorated hems with ruffles of fabric and lace.
* Some dresses and skirts featured trains.
* Tailored jackets, first introduced in 1880, increased in popularity and by 1900, tailored suits became popular.
* By 1904, skirts became fuller and less clingy.
* In 1905, skirts fell in soft folds that curved in, then flared out near the hemlines.
* From 1905 - 1907, waistlines rose.
* In 1901, the hobble skirt was introduced; a tight fitting skirt that restricted a woman's stride.
* Lingerie dresses, or tea gowns made of soft fabrics, festooned with ruffles and lace were worn indoors.
First World War
The First World War advanced the feminist cause, as women's sacrifices and paid employment were much appreciated. Prime Minister David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. He was a Liberal Party politician from Wales, known for leading the United Kingdom during t ...
was clear about how important the women were:
The militant suffragette movement was suspended during the war and never resumed. British society credited the new patriotic roles women played as earning them the vote in 1918. However, British historians no longer emphasise the granting of woman suffrage as a reward for women's participation in war work. Pugh (1974) argues that enfranchising soldiers primarily and women secondarily was decided by senior politicians in 1916. In the absence of major women's groups demanding for equal suffrage, the government's conference recommended limited, age-restricted women's suffrage. The suffragettes
A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members ...
had been weakened, Pugh argues, by repeated failures before 1914 and by the disorganising effects of war mobilisation; therefore they quietly accepted these restrictions, which were approved in 1918 by a majority of the War Ministry and each political party in Parliament. More generally, Searle (2004) argues that the British debate was essentially over by the 1890s, and that granting the suffrage in 1918 was mostly a byproduct of giving the vote to male soldiers. Women in Britain finally achieved suffrage on the same terms as men in 1928.
There was a relaxing of clothing restrictions; by 1920 there was negative talk about young women called "flappers
Flappers were a subculture of young Western women in the 1920s who wore short skirts (knee height was considered short during that period), bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptab ...
" flaunting their sexuality.
Social reform
The vote did not immediately change social circumstances. With the economic recession, women were the most vulnerable sector of the workforce. Some women who held jobs prior to the war were obliged to forfeit them to returning soldiers, and others were excessed. With limited franchise, the UK National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies
The National Union of Women Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), also known as the ''suffragists'' (not to be confused with the suffragettes) was an organisation founded in 1897 of women's suffrage societies around the United Kingdom. In 1919 it was ren ...
(NUWSS) pivoted into a new organisation, the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship
The National Union of Women Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), also known as the ''suffragists'' (not to be confused with the suffragettes) was an organisation founded in 1897 of women's suffrage societies around the United Kingdom. In 1919 it was re ...
(NUSEC), which still advocated for equality in franchise, but extended its scope to examine equality in social and economic areas. Legislative reform was sought for discriminatory laws (e.g., family law and prostitution) and over the differences between ''equality'' and ''equity'', the accommodations that would allow women to overcome barriers to fulfillment (known in later years as the "equality vs. difference conundrum"). Eleanor Rathbone
Eleanor Florence Rathbone (12 May 1872 – 2 January 1946) was an independent British Member of Parliament (MP) and long-term campaigner for family allowance and for women's rights. She was a member of the noted Rathbone family of Liverpool.
E ...
, who became an MP in 1929, succeeded Millicent Garrett as president of NUSEC in 1919. She expressed the critical need for consideration of ''difference'' in gender relationships as "what women need to fulfill the potentialities of their own natures". The 1924 Labour government's social reforms created a formal split, as a splinter group
A schism ( , , or, less commonly, ) is a division between people, usually belonging to an organization, movement, or religious denomination. The word is most frequently applied to a split in what had previously been a single religious body, suc ...
of strict egalitarians formed the Open Door Council The Open Door Council, established in May 1926, was a British organisation pressing for equal economic opportunities for women. It opposed the extension of 'protective legislation' for women, regarding such legislation as 'restrictive' and arguing t ...
in May 1926. This eventually became an international movement, and continued until 1965. Other important social legislation of this period included the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919
The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 is an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom. It became law when it received Royal Assent on 23 December 1919.''Oliver & Boyd's new Edinburgh almanac and national repository for the year 1921''. p. 213 ...
(which opened professions to women), and the Matrimonial Causes Act 1923
Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognized union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children, and between t ...
. In 1932, NUSEC separated advocacy from education, and continued the former activities as the National Council for Equal Citizenship
National may refer to:
Common uses
* Nation or country
** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen
Places in the United States
* National, Maryland, ce ...
and the latter as the Townswomen's Guild
Members representing their Federation at the 2009 AGM in Birmingham
The Townswomen's Guild (TG) is a British women's organisation. There are approximately 30,000 members, 706 branches and 77 Federations throughout England, Scotland, Wales and N ...
. The council continued until the end of the Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
.
Reproductive rights
Annie Besant
Annie Besant ( Wood; 1 October 1847 – 20 September 1933) was a British socialist, theosophist, freemason, women's rights activist, educationist, writer, orator, political party member and philanthropist.
Regarded as a champion of human f ...
had been prosecuted in 1877 for publishing Charles Knowlton
Charles Knowlton (May 10, 1800 – February 20, 1850) was an American physician and writer. He was an atheist.
Education
Knowlton was born May 10, 1800 in Templeton, Massachusetts. His parents were Stephen and Comfort (White) Knowlton; his ...
's ''Fruits of Philosophy
Charles Knowlton (May 10, 1800 – February 20, 1850) was an American physician and writer. He was an atheist.
Education
Knowlton was born May 10, 1800 in Templeton, Massachusetts. His parents were Stephen and Comfort (White) Knowlton; his ...
'', a work on family planning, under the Obscene Publications Act
Since 1857, a series of obscenity laws known as the Obscene Publications Acts have governed what can be published in England and Wales. The classic definition of criminal obscenity is if it "tends to deprave and corrupt," stated in 1868 by Lord ...
1857. Knowlton had previously been convicted in the United States for publishing a book on conception. She and her colleague Charles Bradlaugh
Charles Bradlaugh (; 26 September 1833 – 30 January 1891) was an English political activist and atheist. He founded the National Secular Society in 1866, 15 years after George Holyoake had coined the term "secularism" in 1851.
In 1880, Brad ...
were convicted but acquitted on appeal, the subsequent publicity resulting in a decline in the birth rate. Besant followed this with '' The Law of Population''.
Second World War
Britain's total mobilisation during this period proved to be successful in winning the war, by maintaining strong support from public opinion. The war was a "people's war" that enlarged democratic aspirations and produced promises of a postwar welfare state.
Historians credit Britain with a highly successful record of mobilising the home front for the war effort, in terms of mobilising the greatest proportion of potential workers, maximising output, assigning the right skills to the right task, and maintaining the morale and spirit of the people. Much of this success was due to the systematic planned mobilisation of women, as workers, soldiers and housewives, enforced after December 1941 by conscription. The women supported the war effort, and made the rationing of consumer goods a success. In some ways, the government over planned, evacuating too many children in the first days of the war, closing cinemas as frivolous then reopening them when the need for cheap entertainment was clear, sacrificing cats and dogs to save a little space on shipping pet food, only to discover an urgent need to keep the rats and mice under control. In the balance between compulsion and voluntarism, the British relied successfully on voluntarism. The success of the government in providing new services, such as hospitals, and school lunches, as well as the equalitarian spirit of the People's war, contributed to widespread support for an enlarged welfare state. Munitions production rose dramatically, and the quality remained high. Food production was emphasised, in large part to open up shipping for munitions. Farmers increased the number of acres under cultivation from 12,000,000 to 18,000,000, and the farm labor force was expanded by a fifth, thanks especially to the Women's Land Army.
Parents had much less time for supervision of their children, and the fear of juvenile delinquency was upon the land, especially as older teenagers took jobs and emulated their older siblings in the service. The government responded by requiring all youth over 16 to register, and expanded the number of clubs and organisations available to them.
Rationing
Food, clothing, petrol, leather and other such items were rationed
Rationing is the controlled distribution of scarce resources, goods, services, or an artificial restriction of demand. Rationing controls the size of the ration, which is one's allowed portion of the resources being distributed on a particular ...
. However, items such as sweets and fruits were not rationed, as they would spoil. Access to luxuries was severely restricted, although there was also a significant black market. Families also grew victory garden
Victory gardens, also called war gardens or food gardens for defense, were vegetable, fruit, and herb gardens planted at private residences and public parks in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Germany during World War I ...
s, and small home vegetable gardens, to supply themselves with food. Many things were conserved to turn into weapons later, such as fat for nitroglycerin
Nitroglycerin (NG), (alternative spelling of nitroglycerine) also known as trinitroglycerin (TNG), nitro, glyceryl trinitrate (GTN), or 1,2,3-trinitroxypropane, is a dense, colorless, oily, explosive liquid most commonly produced by nitrating g ...
production. People in the countryside were less affected by rationing as they had greater access to locally sourced unrationed products than people in metropolitan areas and were more able to grow their own.
The rationing system, which had been originally based on a specific basket of goods for each consumer, was much improved by switching to a points system which allowed the housewives to make choices based on their own priorities. Food rationing also permitted the upgrading of the quality of the food available, and housewives approved—except for the absence of white bread and the government's imposition of an unpalatable wheat meal " national loaf." People were especially pleased that rationing brought equality and a guarantee of a decent meal at an affordable cost.
1950s
1950s Britain was a bleak period for militant feminism
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
. In the aftermath of World War II, a new emphasis was placed on companionate marriage and the nuclear family
A nuclear family, elementary family, cereal-packet family or conjugal family is a family group consisting of parents and their children (one or more), typically living in one home residence. It is in contrast to a single-parent family, the larger ...
as a foundation of the new welfare state
A welfare state is a form of government in which the state (or a well-established network of social institutions) protects and promotes the economic and social well-being of its citizens, based upon the principles of equal opportunity, equitabl ...
.
In 1951, the proportion of adult women who were (or had been) married was 75%; more specifically, 84.8% of women between the ages of 45 and 49 were married. At that time: "marriage was more popular than ever before." In 1953, a popular book of advice for women states: "A happy marriage may be seen, not as a holy state or something to which a few may luckily attain, but rather as the best course, the simplest, and the easiest way of life for us all".
While at the end of the war, childcare facilities were closed and assistance for working women became limited, the social reforms implemented by the new welfare state included family allowances meant to subsidise families, that is, to support women in the "capacity as wife and mother." Sue Bruley argues that "the progressive vision of the New Britain of 1945 was flawed by a fundamentally conservative view of women".
Women's commitment to companionate marriage was echoed by the popular media: films, radio and popular women's magazines
This is a list of women's magazines from around the world. These are magazines that have been published primarily for a readership of women.
Currently published
*'' 10 Magazine'' (UK - distributed worldwide)
*'' Al Jamila'' (Saudi Arabia)
*''All ...
. In the 1950s, women's magazines had considerable influence on forming opinion in all walks of life, including the attitude to women's employment.
Nevertheless, 1950s Britain saw several strides towards the parity of women, such as equal pay
Equal pay for equal work is the concept of labour rights that individuals in the same workplace be given equal pay. It is most commonly used in the context of sexual discrimination, in relation to the gender pay gap. Equal pay relates to the full ...
for teachers (1952) and for men and women in the civil service
The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...
(1954), thanks to activists like Edith Summerskill
Edith Clara Summerskill, Baroness Summerskill, (19 April 1901 – 4 February 1980) was a British physician, feminist, Labour politician and writer. She was appointed to the Privy Council in 1949.
Early life
Summerskill was educated at King's ...
, who fought for women's causes both in parliament and in the traditional non-party pressure groups throughout the 1950s. Barbara Caine argues: "Ironically here, as with the vote, success was sometimes the worst enemy of organised feminism, as the achievement of each goal brought to an end the campaign which had been organised around it, leaving nothing in its place."
Feminist writers of that period, such as Alva Myrdal
Alva Myrdal ( , ; née Reimer; 31 January 1902 – 1 February 1986) was a Swedish sociologist, diplomat and politician. She was a prominent leader of the disarmament movement. She, along with Alfonso García Robles, received the Nobel Peace ...
and Viola Klein, started to allow for the possibility that women should be able to combine home with outside employment. 1950s’ form of feminism is often derogatorily termed "welfare feminism." Indeed, many activists went to great length to stress that their position was that of ‘reasonable modern feminism,’ which accepted sexual diversity
Gender and sexual diversity (GSD), or simply sexual diversity, refers to all the diversities of sex characteristics, sexual orientations and gender identities, without the need to specify each of the identities, behaviors, or characteristics that ...
, and sought to establish what women's social contribution was rather than emphasising equality or the similarity of the sexes. Feminism in 1950s England was strongly connected to social responsibility and involved the well-being of society as a whole. This often came at the cost of the liberation
Liberation or liberate may refer to:
Film and television
* ''Liberation'' (film series), a 1970–1971 series about the Great Patriotic War
* "Liberation" (''The Flash''), a TV episode
* "Liberation" (''K-9''), an episode
Gaming
* '' Liberati ...
and personal fulfillment of self-declared feminists. Even those women who regarded themselves as feminists strongly endorsed prevailing ideas about the primacy of children's needs, as advocated, for example, by John Bowlby
Edward John Mostyn Bowlby, CBE, FBA, FRCP, FRCPsych (; 26 February 1907 – 2 September 1990) was a British psychologist, psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst, notable for his interest in child development and for his pioneering work in attachmen ...
the head of the Children's Department at the Tavistock Clinic
The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust is a specialist mental health trust based in north London. The Trust specialises in talking therapies. The education and training department caters for 2,000 students a year from the United Kin ...
, who published extensively throughout the 1950s and by Donald Winnicott
Donald Woods Winnicott (7 April 1896 – 25 January 1971) was an English paediatrician and psychoanalyst who was especially influential in the field of object relations theory and developmental psychology. He was a leading member of the Br ...
who promoted through radio broadcasts
Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio sta ...
and in the press
Press may refer to:
Media
* Print media or news media, commonly called "the press"
* Printing press, commonly called "the press"
* Press (newspaper), a list of newspapers
* Press TV, an Iranian television network
People
* Press (surname), a fam ...
the idea of the home as a private emotional world in which mother and child are bound to each other and in which the mother has control and finds freedom to fulfill herself.
Political and sexual roles
Women's political roles grew in the 20th century after the first woman entered the House in 1919. The 1945 election trebled their number to twenty-four, but then it plateaued out. The next great leap cane in 1997, as 120 female MPs were returned. Women have since comprised around 20 per cent of the Commons. The 2015 election saw a peak of 191 elected. The BBC radio program "Woman's Hour
''Woman's Hour'' is a radio magazine programme broadcast in the United Kingdom on the BBC Light Programme, BBC Radio 2, and later BBC Radio 4. It has been on the air since 1946.
History
Created by Norman Collins and originally presented by A ...
" was launched in 1946. The producers recognised that its audience wanted coverage of fashion and glamour, as well as housekeeping, family health and child rearing. Nevertheless, it tried to enhance the sense of citizenship among its middle class audience;. In cooperation with organisations, such as the National Council of Women (NCW), the National Federation of Women's Institutes
The Women's Institute (WI) is a community-based organisation for women in the United Kingdom, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand. The movement was founded in Stoney Creek, Ontario, Canada, by Erland and Janet Lee with Adelaide Hoodless being th ...
(NFWI), and the National Union of Townswomen's Guilds (NUTG), the program featured coverage of current affairs, public debates and national politics; it gave play to party political conferences; and it brought women MP's to the microphone.
The 1960s saw dramatic shifts in sexual attitudes and values, led by youth. It was a worldwide phenomenon, in which British rock musicians especially The Beatles
The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...
played an international role. The generations divided sharply regarding the new sexual freedom demanded by youth who listened to bands like ''The Rolling Stones''.
Sexual morals changed. One notable event was the publication of D. H. Lawrence
David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English writer, novelist, poet and essayist. His works reflect on modernity, industrialization, sexuality, emotional health, vitality, spontaneity and instinct. His best-k ...
's ''Lady Chatterley's Lover
''Lady Chatterley's Lover'' is the last novel by English author D. H. Lawrence, which was first published privately in 1928, in Italy, and in 1929, in France. An unexpurgated edition was not published openly in the United Kingdom until 1960, w ...
'' by Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a British publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.[mass-market
The term "mass market" refers to a market for goods produced on a large scale for a significant number of end consumers. The mass market differs from the niche market in that the former focuses on consumers with a wide variety of backgrounds with ...]
paperback
A paperback (softcover, softback) book is one with a thick paper or paperboard cover, and often held together with adhesive, glue rather than stitch (textile arts), stitches or Staple (fastener), staples. In contrast, hardcover (hardback) book ...
version prompted a court case. The prosecuting council's question, "Would you want your wife or servants to read this book?" highlighted how far society had changed, and how little some people had noticed. The book was seen as one of the first events in a general relaxation of sexual attitudes. Other elements of the sexual revolution
The sexual revolution, also known as the sexual liberation, was a social movement that challenged traditional codes of behavior related to sexuality and interpersonal relationships throughout the United States and the developed world from the 1 ...
included the development of The Pill
The combined oral contraceptive pill (COCP), often referred to as the birth control pill or colloquially as "the pill", is a type of birth control that is designed to be taken orally by women. The pill contains two important hormones: proges ...
, Mary Quant
Dame Barbara Mary Quant, Mrs Plunket Greene, (born 11 February 1930)The Mary Quant exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2019-20 stated her year of birth as 1930, and that she became a student at Goldsmiths College around 1950. is a ...
's miniskirt
A miniskirt (sometimes hyphenated as mini-skirt, separated as mini skirt, or sometimes shortened to simply mini) is a skirt with its hemline well above the knees, generally at mid-thigh level, normally no longer than below the buttocks; and a ...
and the 1967 legalisation of homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to peop ...
. There was a rise in the incidence of divorce and abortion, and a resurgence of the women's liberation movement
The women's liberation movement (WLM) was a political alignment of women and feminist intellectualism that emerged in the late 1960s and continued into the 1980s primarily in the industrialized nations of the Western world, which effected great ...
, whose campaigning helped secure the Equal Pay Act and the Sex Discrimination Act in 1975. The Irish Catholics, traditionally the most puritanical of the ethno-religious groups, eased up a little, especially as the membership disregarded the bishops teaching that contraception was sinful.
21st century
From 2007 to 2015, Harriet Harman
Harriet Ruth Harman (born 30 July 1950) is a British politician and solicitor who has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Camberwell and Peckham, formerly Peckham, since 1982. A member of the Labour Party, she has served in various Cabi ...
was Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, the UK's current opposition party. Traditionally, being Deputy Leader has ensured the cabinet role of Deputy Prime Minister
A deputy prime minister or vice prime minister is, in some countries, a government minister who can take the position of acting prime minister when the prime minister is temporarily absent. The position is often likened to that of a vice president, ...
. However, Gordon Brown
James Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2010. He previously served as Chance ...
announced that he would not have a Deputy Prime Minister, much to the consternation of feminists, particularly with suggestions that privately Brown considered Jack Straw
John Whitaker Straw (born 3 August 1946) is a British politician who served in the Cabinet from 1997 to 2010 under the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He held two of the traditional Great Offices of State, as Home Secretary ...
to be de facto deputy prime minister and thus bypassing Harman. With Harman's cabinet post of Leader of the House of Commons
The leader of the House of Commons is a minister of the Crown of the Government of the United Kingdom whose main role is organising government business in the House of Commons. The leader is generally a member or attendee of the cabinet of the ...
, Brown allowed her to chair Prime Minister's Questions
Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs, officially known as Questions to the Prime Minister, while colloquially known as Prime Minister's Question Time) is a constitutional convention in the United Kingdom, currently held as a single session every W ...
when he was out of the country. Harman also held the post Minister for Women and Equality
The minister for women and equalities is a ministerial position in the United Kingdom which leads the Government Equalities Office. This is an independent department within the wider Cabinet Office that has responsibility for addressing all fo ...
. In April 2012 after being sexually harassed on London public transport English journalist Laura Bates
Laura Bates (born 27 August 1986, Oxford) is an English feminist writer. She founded the Everyday Sexism Project website in April 2012. Her first book, ''Everyday Sexism'', was published in 2014.
Biography
Bates' parents are Diane Elizabet ...
founded the Everyday Sexism Project
The Everyday Sexism Project is a website founded on 16 April 2012 by Laura Bates, a British feminist writer. The aim of the site is to document examples of sexism from around the world. Entries may be submitted directly to the site, or by email or ...
, a website which documents everyday examples of sexism experienced by contributors from around the world. The site quickly became successful and a book compilation of submissions from the project was published in 2014. In 2013, the first oral history archive of the United Kingdom women's liberation movement (titled ''Sisterhood and After'') was launched by the British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...
.
See also
Topics
* Abortion in the United Kingdom
* Economic history of the United Kingdom
The economic history of the United Kingdom relates the economic development in the British state from the absorption of Wales into the Kingdom of England after 1535 to the modern United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland of the early ...
, after 1700
* Feminism in the United Kingdom
As in other countries, feminism in the United Kingdom seeks to establish political, social, and economic equality for women. The history of feminism in Britain dates to the very beginnings of feminism itself, as many of the earliest feminist writ ...
* Historiography of the British Empire
The historiography of the British Empire refers to the studies, sources, critical methods and interpretations used by scholars to develop a history of Britain's empire. Historians and their ideas are the main focus here; specific lands and histori ...
* Historiography of the United Kingdom
The historiography of the United Kingdom includes the historical and archival research and writing on the history of the United Kingdom, Great Britain, England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. For studies of the overseas empire see historiography ...
* List of female Members of the House of Lords of the United Kingdom
* Social history of England
English society comprises the group behaviour of the English people, and of collective social interactions, organisation and political attitudes in England. The social history of England evidences many social and societal changes over the histo ...
* Social history of the United Kingdom (1945–present)
English society comprises the group behaviour of the English people, and of collective social interactions, organisation and political attitudes in England. The social history of England evidences many social and societal changes over the hist ...
* Suffrage in the United Kingdom
* Timeline of Female MPs in the House of Commons
* Women in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom
The representation of women in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom has been an issue in the politics of the United Kingdom at numerous points in the 20th and 21st centuries. Originally debate centred on whether women should be allowed to v ...
* Women in the House of Lords
The first women in the House of Lords took their seats in 1958, forty years after women were granted the right to stand as MPs in the House of Commons. These were life peeresses appointed by the Prime Minister. Female hereditary peers were able ...
* Women in the Victorian era
The status of women in the Victorian era was often seen as an illustration of the striking discrepancy between the United Kingdom's national power and wealth and what many, then and now, consider its appalling social conditions. During the era ...
* Women in World War I (Great Britain)
** Home front during World War I (Britain)
Scotland
* Historiography of Scotland
The historiography of Scotland refers to the sources, critical methods and interpretive models used by scholars to come to an understanding of the history of Scotland.
Middle Ages and Renaissance
Scottish historiography begins with Chronicles of t ...
* Women in early modern Scotland
Women in early modern Scotland, between the Renaissance of the early sixteenth century and the beginnings of industrialisation in the mid-eighteenth century, were part of a patriarchal society, though the enforcement of this social order was no ...
* Women in Medieval Scotland
Wales
* Women's suffrage in Wales
Women's suffrage in Wales has historically been marginalised due to the prominence of societies and political groups in England which led the reform for women throughout the United Kingdom. Due to differing social structures and a heavily indu ...
Categories
* British suffragists
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
* British women
* English women
Women in England are women who live in or are from England. The ''A Guide to English Culture and Customs'' described the English women of the United Kingdom to be "equal to men, and should be treated fairly" and that they do "equal share of (... ...
* Scottish women
Women in early modern Scotland, between the Renaissance of the early sixteenth century and the beginnings of industrialisation in the mid-eighteenth century, were part of a patriarchal society, though the enforcement of this social order was n ...
* Welsh women
* Women from Northern Ireland
* Women in Scotland
Women in early modern Scotland, between the Renaissance of the early sixteenth century and the beginnings of industrialisation in the mid-eighteenth century, were part of a patriarchal society, though the enforcement of this social order was n ...
Organisations
* British Federation of University Women
The British Federation of Women Graduates (BFWG) was founded in 1907 as the British Federation of University Women (BFUW) to "afford a means of communication and of united action in matters affecting the interest of women". It was renamed the Brit ...
(BFUW), founded in 1907.
* NASUWT
The NASUWT is a TUC-affiliated trade union representing teachers, including headteachers, throughout the United Kingdom.
The early years 1919–1976; breakaway and the formation of a new union
The origins of the NASUWT can be traced back to ...
, The National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, formed 1976
* National Council of Women of Great Britain
The National Council of Women exists to co-ordinate the voluntary efforts of women across Great Britain. Founded as the National Union of Women Workers, it said that it would "promote sympathy of thought and purpose among the women of Great Brita ...
* National Union of Women Teachers
The National Union of Women Teachers (NUWT) was a trade union representing women schoolteachers in Great Britain. It originated in 1904 as a campaign for equal pay for equal work, and dissolved in 1961, when this was achieved.
History
Women te ...
, formed 1904
* Adelaide Anne Procter (1825–1864) writer on behalf of unemployed women
* Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps
The Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), known as Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps (QMAAC) from 9 April 1918, was the women's corps of the British Army during and immediately after the First World War. It was established in February 1917 and d ...
, unit in First World War
* Society for Promoting the Employment of Women
The Society for Promoting the Employment of Women (SPEW) was one of the earliest British women's organisations.
The society was established in 1859 by Jessie Boucherett, Barbara Bodichon and Adelaide Anne Proctor to promote the training and emplo ...
(SPEW), formed 1859; in 1926 renamed the Society for Promoting the Training of Women (SPTW)
* Townswomen's Guild
Members representing their Federation at the 2009 AGM in Birmingham
The Townswomen's Guild (TG) is a British women's organisation. There are approximately 30,000 members, 706 branches and 77 Federations throughout England, Scotland, Wales and N ...
, formed 1929
* Women's Freedom League
The Women's Freedom League was an organisation in the United Kingdom which campaigned for women's suffrage and sexual equality
Gender equality, also known as sexual equality or equality of the sexes, is the state of equal ease of access ...
* Women's Institutes
The Women's Institute (WI) is a community-based organisation for women in the United Kingdom, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand. The movement was founded in Stoney Creek, Ontario, Canada, by Erland and Janet Lee with Adelaide Hoodless being th ...
**Scottish Women's Institutes
The Scottish Women's Institutes (SWI), informally called ''"the Rural"'', is a registered charity which promotes the preservation of Scotland's traditions and rural heritage, particularly in the sphere of household activities. It does so by means ...
, formed in 1917
* Women's Social and Political Union
The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was a women-only political movement and leading militant organisation campaigning for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom from 1903 to 1918. Known from 1906 as the suffragettes, its membership and ...
, suffragists of early 20th century
Individuals
* Margaret Bondfield
Margaret Grace Bondfield (17 March 1873 – 16 June 1953) was a British Labour Party politician, trade unionist and women's rights activist. She became the first female cabinet minister, and the first woman to be a privy counsellor in th ...
(1873–1953) women's rights activist
* Edith Balfour Lyttelton
Dame Edith Sophy Lyttelton (''née'' Balfour; 4 April 1865 – 2 September 1948) was a British novelist, playwright, World War I-era activist and spiritualist.
Biography
Lyttelton was born in Saint Petersburg, the eldest daughter of Arch ...
(1865–1948) novelist, activist and spiritualist.
* Mary Macarthur (1880–1921) trade unionist and women's rights campaigner.
Notes
Further reading
Historiography
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* 12 chronological surveys by scholars.
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:: ''See also'':
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Demographic and family history
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Pre 1800
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Review
Excerpt
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* Survey essays by leading scholars; heavily illustrated.
* Essays by experts on social history and customs.
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* Pelling, Madeleine. "Reimagining Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots: women’s historiography and domestic identities, c. 1750–1800." ''Women's History Review'' 29.7 (2020): 1085-111
online
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Preview.
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* 209 essays by leading scholars in 3000 pp.; many aspects of women's history covered.
* From Middle Ages to 1850s.
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Excerpt and text search.
Women as workers
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Preview, bibliography pages 228.
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Review.
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Online, Bibliography pp 289-305.
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* King, Laura. "How Men Valued Women's Work: Labour In and Outside the Home in Post-War Britain." ''Contemporary European History'' 28.4 (2019): 454–468
online
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Review.
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Very brief summary: see bibliography pp 66-75 online.
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Preview.
* Whittle, Jane, and Mark Hailwood. "The gender division of labour in early modern England." ''Economic History Review'' 73.1 (2020): 3-32; covers 1500 to 1700.
Since 1800
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* Covers 1919–1939.
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* Davis, Angela/. ''Modern Motherhood: Women and Family in England, 1945–2000'' (Manchester University Press, 2012), pp. 272.
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* Gottlieb, Julie V., and Richard Toye. ''The Aftermath of Suffrage: Women, Gender, and Politics in Britain, 1918-1945'' (Springer, 2013).
* Bibliography pp. 268–282.
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* McCarthy, Helen. "The Rise of the Working Wife." ''History Today'' (May 2020) 70#5 pp 18–20, covers 1950 to 1960; online
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Preview.
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* 209 essays by leading scholars in 3000 pp.; many aspects of women's history covered.
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Scotland and Wales
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Online edition.
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Online review.
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* A new field since the 1980s; favourite topics are work, family, religion, crime, and images of women; scholars are using women's letters, memoirs, poetry, and court records.
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* {{citation , last = Rolph , first = Avril , contribution = A movement of its own: The Women’s Liberation Movement in South Wales , editor-last = Graham , editor-first = Helen , title = The feminist seventies , pages = 45–73 , publisher = Raw Nerve Books , location = York , year = 2003 , isbn = 9780953658558 , postscript = .
Social history of the United Kingdom
Feminism and history
British women
History of the United Kingdom by topic