Queen Victoria's reign lasted from 1937 until 1901, during which time British society underwent a number of profound changes. Britain became the 'workshop of the world', a nation where it was possible for anyone to embrace the virtues of self-help and prosper. Of course, this was not entirely true, since women were not afforded the same rights as men and it would take until the twentieth century for women to make any real progress in their fight for equal rights. Despite the many societal changes that occurred in Britain during the Victorian era, women continued to be treated as inferior to men.
Women did not have the same opportunities as men in terms of education, business and relationships, and they were expected to be content with their lot, as opposed to challenging the status quo. However, it is important to remember that social class was an inherent component of British life. Although all women were considered to be inferior to their male counterparts, there was no sense of universal sisterhood. The lives and experiences of working-class women were likely to be very different to those of middle- and upper-class women. Even when women began to call for the vote in the second half of the nineteenth century, it was mainly educated women from the higher echelons of society that were calling for change.
This is because middle-class women, in particular, had been exposed to progressive ideas, usually through their philanthropic or religious work and so wanted to take on a more public role. In most cases, women were expected to be seen and not heard, so that any kind of public engagement or political involvement was deemed inappropriate, unless it was conducted within the sphere of philanthropy. If women decided to hold meetings in their homes to discuss the problem of the slave trade or heathenism amongst the British working classes, this was not such a cause for concern. It was only if women troubled themselves with more 'masculine' endeavours that opposition arose.
As long as middle-class women stuck to raising money for charity and proselytising to those who had no faith, men had nothing to worry about. Educated men in powerful positions would maintain that women did not require the vote, as they could simply use the power of female persuasion to convince their husbands to vote a certain way. However, women were not only interested in suffrage, since they faced many other disadvantages. Women were constricted in terms of their occupation; plus, when they married they became their husbands' property. Women would often stay in an unhappy marriage, because they feared they would lose their property, children and status if they did not.
It was difficult to obtain a divorce, anyway, and there was a stigma attached to any woman labelled as a divorcee. Indeed, whether married or unmarried, women came under much greater scrutiny in the ways they conducted themselves than men. Unmarried, middle-class women could not be seen to cavort with young men, as they could develop somewhat of a reputation for themselves, thus having a negative impact on their marriage prospects. It was harder for working-class women to uphold such propriety when they lived in extremely close quarters with their men folk. Consequently, the slums were perceived to be a hotbed of heathenism and immoral behaviour by wider society.
Working-class women definitely had a hard life. Whereas middle-class women had a comfortable existence and could dedicate their time to managing the servants and engaging in philanthropic activities, working-class women spent their time working hard, looking after the children and fighting a futile battle against the grime that would infect their households. They would often give birth to lots of children, since contraception was generally not something they had knowledge of or access to. Plus, a significant number of their children would not reach adulthood, meaning that parents needed to ensure they had children who would be able to look after their welfare when they became too old to work.
It was obviously a challenge for working-class women to engage in any kind of wider philanthropic or political movements when they did not possess either the education or the time needed to participate. Thus, when the women's movement started to gain ground, it was largely confined to the middle classes, as middle-class women had usually had some kind of informal education and had experience of creating and distributing leaflets, organising campaigns and meetings. Many of these women looked towards America for inspiration, where calls for women's rights were growing louder.
However, at the end of the day, any changes to British society that would impact women would have to come from men. Women could campaign all they wanted, but until they had enough men onside to pass legislation that would give women the same rights as men, nothing was going to happen. Unfortunately, there were still apparently sensible and educated men who believed that women had smaller brains than men; that they were intellectually inferior and that any kind of learning would make women too masculine. These men were hardly likely to take the position that women should have the vote.
Consequently, throughout the nineteenth century, a time when a woman was the head of state in Britain and the colonies, and British society underwent many substantial changes, the one thing that did not change was the inferior position British women had to take. Women of all classes could not simply do as they pleased, as there were certain expectations of them, which if they failed to meet would have a detrimental impact on their reputation. Thus, it is not surprising so many women felt suffocated by a repressive society. This led a number of wealthy women to seek refuge in other countries, where there was less pressure on them to conform to gender ideals and to stick to their traditional roles than in Britain.
Women clearly had a vital role in Victorian Britain, as they were there to offer support to their husbands; to look after their children and home; to engage in philanthropic activities and, eventually, to participate in political campaigns. However, they were not rewarded for their efforts in the same way as men, and so it is understandable why a growing number of women were becoming frustrated and deciding to try to change the political system. It would take quite a few years longer for them to succeed, though, as it was only in 1918 that suffrage was awarded to women who it was believed had proved themselves as being worthy of the vote during World War I.
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