The Women Question By Stephen Greenblatt

The Victorian era was a time where men and women had their separate spheres and people had their own ideologies of each gender. One of the ideologies was domestic ideology which is where women should stay in the house, obey their husbands while the men leave to go out into the workforce to provide for their families. However, later in this era is when women begin to appear into the workforce and the beginning of unfair treatment of women in the workforce started happening. Women were viewed in different ways in the Victorian era, in the essay “The Women Question” by Stephen Greenblatt, it portrays what the ideal women should be like during the Victorian era, whereas in Annie Besant’s article “White Slavery of London Match Workers” the women

The workforce was mainly for men, but when women started to enter the workforce, they were treated unfairly compared to how the men were. In Tusan’s article, she explains how the workforce is like when women entered it by saying, “This new gendered hierarchy of the industrial period resulted in a mixed bag for the female worker. Although mechanization provided new opportunities for women in the industrial trades, majority found themselves working in deskilled, low-paying jobs” (Tusan 104-105). In other words, women were still seen as staying in the private sphere and not out in the public sphere. The jobs that were available at that time for women were not the same as the ones for men. Other people during this time didn’t want to see women in the workforce. The view of genders and their roles seemed to be unrealistic to many. The women were working and they were not in the correct sphere that they should’ve been in. In the article “The Emergence of ‘Women’s Sphere’” it said, “The great majority of women never met the rigorous standard of “true womanhood" set by the Victorian middle class, nor could they ever hope to” (1). In other words, it was difficult for women to meet the high standards that were set for what an ideal woman looked and acted like. Therefore, women entered the public sphere and began

Besant’s article goes into detail on how much the women are paid, and she explains how much money is deducted if a rule was broken. “Throughout most of this period women were paid less than their male counterpart working alongside them, which created great financial difficulties for working women” according to the “Striking Women” article (1). This shows how the women during this time were treated poorly and unfair. Many of the women who were working started to revolt and they wanted to have equal rights in the workforce just like men did. Also, during this time, many of the working women husbands viewed them working in an unpleasant way. The women started to revolt against the factory owners because they wanted equal rights, and they were also being mistreated by the factory owners. Women were being viewed negatively since they were in the workforce instead of their private sphere. Therefore, they were being mistreated by others and because of this, they revolted. The revolution caused many to notice how women were mistreated compared to how the men were treated. This allowed their voices to be heard and changes started to happen after the women started to revolt. Women finally received rights and they were not as much mistreated by owners or other