Karin E. Gedge
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195130201
- eISBN:
- 9780199835157
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195130200.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
At the same time that ministerial misconduct exposed the flaws in separate spheres ideology, the accounts of two dozen clergymen’s trials disclose the ways they worked to repair and reinforce the ...
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At the same time that ministerial misconduct exposed the flaws in separate spheres ideology, the accounts of two dozen clergymen’s trials disclose the ways they worked to repair and reinforce the damaged boundaries. Caught in a disgraceful liaison that threatened a career, ministers usually escaped conviction or severe punishment. In the course of these trials, clergy were rescued from the dangerous domestic sphere and “masculinized,” portrayed as valiant combatants in monumental political or theological battles that secured their positions in the public sphere and acknowledged their value to the church and to society. Only two of these men were Catholic priests, yet most enjoyed a cultural immunity similar to the medieval privilege of “benefit of clergy.” Women, however, were “feminized,” depicted as vulnerable victims in need of the protection of fathers and husbands within the domestic sphere and suffering public ignominy if they strayed beyond it. In short, clergy learned to stay out of the domestic sphere and women to stay in it.Less
At the same time that ministerial misconduct exposed the flaws in separate spheres ideology, the accounts of two dozen clergymen’s trials disclose the ways they worked to repair and reinforce the damaged boundaries. Caught in a disgraceful liaison that threatened a career, ministers usually escaped conviction or severe punishment. In the course of these trials, clergy were rescued from the dangerous domestic sphere and “masculinized,” portrayed as valiant combatants in monumental political or theological battles that secured their positions in the public sphere and acknowledged their value to the church and to society. Only two of these men were Catholic priests, yet most enjoyed a cultural immunity similar to the medieval privilege of “benefit of clergy.” Women, however, were “feminized,” depicted as vulnerable victims in need of the protection of fathers and husbands within the domestic sphere and suffering public ignominy if they strayed beyond it. In short, clergy learned to stay out of the domestic sphere and women to stay in it.
Karin E. Gedge
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195130201
- eISBN:
- 9780199835157
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195130200.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
The gender ideology of separate spheres that emerged in nineteenth-century America prescribed public roles for men and private roles for women while, at the same time, asking clergy and women to ...
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The gender ideology of separate spheres that emerged in nineteenth-century America prescribed public roles for men and private roles for women while, at the same time, asking clergy and women to serve together as moral guardians of the republic. The cultural no-man’s land they occupied proved to be dangerous territory. Four highly publicized trials reveal nineteenth-century Americans’ fascination and horror with clerical sexual misconduct and crimes against women: the 1832 murder trial of New England Methodist minister Ephraim Avery; the 1844 presentment for moral “impurities” of the Episcopal Bishop of New York, Benjamin Onderdonk; the 1857 criminal adultery trial of Boston pastor Isaac Kalloch; and the 1875 church hearing and civil trial for adultery of the renowned preacher, Henry Ward Beecher. The verbal and graphic images generated in each of these trials tapped deep cultural anxieties, showing clergy and women regularly transgressing the too permeable boundaries of separate spheres and calling into question their roles as moral guardians and the utility of gender ideals in regulating social and sexual behavior.Less
The gender ideology of separate spheres that emerged in nineteenth-century America prescribed public roles for men and private roles for women while, at the same time, asking clergy and women to serve together as moral guardians of the republic. The cultural no-man’s land they occupied proved to be dangerous territory. Four highly publicized trials reveal nineteenth-century Americans’ fascination and horror with clerical sexual misconduct and crimes against women: the 1832 murder trial of New England Methodist minister Ephraim Avery; the 1844 presentment for moral “impurities” of the Episcopal Bishop of New York, Benjamin Onderdonk; the 1857 criminal adultery trial of Boston pastor Isaac Kalloch; and the 1875 church hearing and civil trial for adultery of the renowned preacher, Henry Ward Beecher. The verbal and graphic images generated in each of these trials tapped deep cultural anxieties, showing clergy and women regularly transgressing the too permeable boundaries of separate spheres and calling into question their roles as moral guardians and the utility of gender ideals in regulating social and sexual behavior.
Stephen C. Barton
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195383355
- eISBN:
- 9780199870561
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195383355.003.0011
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies, History of Christianity
Beginning with Darwin's almost religious awe at the wonder of natural selection, this chapter moves to an account of the ambiguous legacy of Darwin's views on gender, including the support they ...
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Beginning with Darwin's almost religious awe at the wonder of natural selection, this chapter moves to an account of the ambiguous legacy of Darwin's views on gender, including the support they offered to a Victorian separate-spheres ideology and to theories and practices associated with Social Darwinism, such as eugenics. It then considers the wider history of gender before and after Darwin, running from the classical tradition through the biblical tradition, Hellenistic Judaism, and early Christianity to the universalizing tendencies of modernity and the postmodern destabilizing of gender in the interests of identity politics as represented by Judith Butler. A final section reflects on the possibility of reading and practicing "male and female" well in the light of this discomforting narrative. A Christological and eschatological hermeneutics is offered as a contribution to performing gender in ways that begin to do justice to the body's grace.Less
Beginning with Darwin's almost religious awe at the wonder of natural selection, this chapter moves to an account of the ambiguous legacy of Darwin's views on gender, including the support they offered to a Victorian separate-spheres ideology and to theories and practices associated with Social Darwinism, such as eugenics. It then considers the wider history of gender before and after Darwin, running from the classical tradition through the biblical tradition, Hellenistic Judaism, and early Christianity to the universalizing tendencies of modernity and the postmodern destabilizing of gender in the interests of identity politics as represented by Judith Butler. A final section reflects on the possibility of reading and practicing "male and female" well in the light of this discomforting narrative. A Christological and eschatological hermeneutics is offered as a contribution to performing gender in ways that begin to do justice to the body's grace.
Cynthia Grant Tucker
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195390209
- eISBN:
- 9780199866670
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195390209.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter describes a culture of contradictions where religiously liberal people tend to be socially conservative, where the pulpits' descriptions of truth conflict with the daily reality known in ...
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This chapter describes a culture of contradictions where religiously liberal people tend to be socially conservative, where the pulpits' descriptions of truth conflict with the daily reality known in the pews, and where parsonage females bear the brunt of these incongruities. Unitarian women who treasure their freedom from punishing Calvinist creeds and who revel in stretching their minds as they study the Bible in light of their reason and conscience complain of being betrayed by the pulpits' blind‐sided optimism and coldly cerebral sermons. Increasingly, too, they protest that the cult of domestic religion and separate spheres, as canonized by Horace Bushnell, violates the Unitarian values of equity and inclusion. The double standard of authorship and separatist ideology distort and diminish the women's posthumous reputations.Less
This chapter describes a culture of contradictions where religiously liberal people tend to be socially conservative, where the pulpits' descriptions of truth conflict with the daily reality known in the pews, and where parsonage females bear the brunt of these incongruities. Unitarian women who treasure their freedom from punishing Calvinist creeds and who revel in stretching their minds as they study the Bible in light of their reason and conscience complain of being betrayed by the pulpits' blind‐sided optimism and coldly cerebral sermons. Increasingly, too, they protest that the cult of domestic religion and separate spheres, as canonized by Horace Bushnell, violates the Unitarian values of equity and inclusion. The double standard of authorship and separatist ideology distort and diminish the women's posthumous reputations.
K. D. Reynolds
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198207276
- eISBN:
- 9780191677601
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198207276.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
By examining the lives of aristocratic women during the first forty years of Victoria's reign, this book proposes a reading of aristocratic political society which does not rest on a notion of ...
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By examining the lives of aristocratic women during the first forty years of Victoria's reign, this book proposes a reading of aristocratic political society which does not rest on a notion of ‘separate spheres’, and in which women played an active part. It tries to show that aristocratic women were actively engaged in the pursuits of their families — whether on their estates, in local institutions, in national politics, or at the court. Politics, whether national or local, was the motivating force of aristocratic society. Unlike other Victorian institutions, a working aristocracy required women as well as men to function fully, and not simply in the hereditary dimension. This chapter suggests that it is more constructive to regard aristocratic women as an integral part of an aristocratic culture in which they had important roles which were the consequence of their membership of the aristocracy.Less
By examining the lives of aristocratic women during the first forty years of Victoria's reign, this book proposes a reading of aristocratic political society which does not rest on a notion of ‘separate spheres’, and in which women played an active part. It tries to show that aristocratic women were actively engaged in the pursuits of their families — whether on their estates, in local institutions, in national politics, or at the court. Politics, whether national or local, was the motivating force of aristocratic society. Unlike other Victorian institutions, a working aristocracy required women as well as men to function fully, and not simply in the hereditary dimension. This chapter suggests that it is more constructive to regard aristocratic women as an integral part of an aristocratic culture in which they had important roles which were the consequence of their membership of the aristocracy.
Derek B. Scott
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195151961
- eISBN:
- 9780199870394
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195151961.003.0003
- Subject:
- Music, Theory, Analysis, Composition
A sexual division of musical composition emerged in 19th-century Britain: during that period, metaphors of masculinity and femininity solidified into truths about musical style. Contemporary social ...
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A sexual division of musical composition emerged in 19th-century Britain: during that period, metaphors of masculinity and femininity solidified into truths about musical style. Contemporary social theory, domestic sphere ideology, the new scientia sexualis, and aesthetics of the sublime and the beautiful ensured that certain musical styles were considered unsuitable or even unnatural for women composers. Female creativity was also denied or inhibited by educational and socioeconomic pressures born of ideological assumptions. In consequence, many women found themselves marginalized as composers, restricted to “acceptable” genres such as the drawing-room ballad. Men, too, were affected by the sexual politics of the age, because the supposed revelation of biological truths in music meant that the presence of feminine qualities in their compositions could lead to invidious comparison with the less elevated output of women.Less
A sexual division of musical composition emerged in 19th-century Britain: during that period, metaphors of masculinity and femininity solidified into truths about musical style. Contemporary social theory, domestic sphere ideology, the new scientia sexualis, and aesthetics of the sublime and the beautiful ensured that certain musical styles were considered unsuitable or even unnatural for women composers. Female creativity was also denied or inhibited by educational and socioeconomic pressures born of ideological assumptions. In consequence, many women found themselves marginalized as composers, restricted to “acceptable” genres such as the drawing-room ballad. Men, too, were affected by the sexual politics of the age, because the supposed revelation of biological truths in music meant that the presence of feminine qualities in their compositions could lead to invidious comparison with the less elevated output of women.
Megan Smitley
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719079665
- eISBN:
- 9781781703069
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719079665.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Social History
Middle-class women made use the informal power structures of Victorian and Edwardian associationalism in order to participate actively as citizens. This investigation of women's role in civic life ...
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Middle-class women made use the informal power structures of Victorian and Edwardian associationalism in order to participate actively as citizens. This investigation of women's role in civic life provides a fresh approach to the ‘public sphere’, illuminates women as agents of a middle-class identity and develops the notion of a ‘feminine public sphere’, or the web of associations, institutions and discourses used by disenfranchised middle-class women to express their citizenship. The extent of middle-class women's contribution to civic life is examined through their involvement in reforming and philanthropic associations as well as local government. Feminist historians have developed increasingly nuanced understandings of the relationship between ‘separate spheres’ and women's public lives, yet many analyses of middle-class civic identity in nineteenth-century Britain have conformed to over-rigid interpretations of separate spheres to largely exclude an exploration of the role of women. By examining under-used Scottish material, new light is shed on these issues by highlighting the active contribution of women to in this process. Employing a case study of women's temperance, Liberal and suffrage organisations, this analysis considers the relationship between separate spheres ideology and women's public lives; the contribution to suffrage of organisations not normally associated with the Victorian and Edwardian women's movement; and the importance of regional and international perspectives for British history.Less
Middle-class women made use the informal power structures of Victorian and Edwardian associationalism in order to participate actively as citizens. This investigation of women's role in civic life provides a fresh approach to the ‘public sphere’, illuminates women as agents of a middle-class identity and develops the notion of a ‘feminine public sphere’, or the web of associations, institutions and discourses used by disenfranchised middle-class women to express their citizenship. The extent of middle-class women's contribution to civic life is examined through their involvement in reforming and philanthropic associations as well as local government. Feminist historians have developed increasingly nuanced understandings of the relationship between ‘separate spheres’ and women's public lives, yet many analyses of middle-class civic identity in nineteenth-century Britain have conformed to over-rigid interpretations of separate spheres to largely exclude an exploration of the role of women. By examining under-used Scottish material, new light is shed on these issues by highlighting the active contribution of women to in this process. Employing a case study of women's temperance, Liberal and suffrage organisations, this analysis considers the relationship between separate spheres ideology and women's public lives; the contribution to suffrage of organisations not normally associated with the Victorian and Edwardian women's movement; and the importance of regional and international perspectives for British history.
Karen Harvey
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199533848
- eISBN:
- 9780191740978
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199533848.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Cultural History
This chapter explore the concepts which shaped contemporaries’ understanding of men's relationship with the house and household. Focusing on printed works, it establishes the discourse of ‘oeconomy’ ...
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This chapter explore the concepts which shaped contemporaries’ understanding of men's relationship with the house and household. Focusing on printed works, it establishes the discourse of ‘oeconomy’ as the key to understanding men's (and women's) engagements with the domestic in the eighteenth century. The chapter shows that a language of strict order and deference dominated during the long eighteenth century, created from a fusion of older patriarchalism and classical republican theories of household. The content and audience of this discourse did change, however. Becoming a language of the smaller householder rather than the large landowner in the early 1700s, before shifting focus from the 1770s from estate management and political governance to citizenship for the middling‐sort, ‘oeconomy’ subsequently became a potent expression of political engagement that emphasized frugality and honest virtue in a national community. Throughout, the house remained closely connected to the economy and polity.Less
This chapter explore the concepts which shaped contemporaries’ understanding of men's relationship with the house and household. Focusing on printed works, it establishes the discourse of ‘oeconomy’ as the key to understanding men's (and women's) engagements with the domestic in the eighteenth century. The chapter shows that a language of strict order and deference dominated during the long eighteenth century, created from a fusion of older patriarchalism and classical republican theories of household. The content and audience of this discourse did change, however. Becoming a language of the smaller householder rather than the large landowner in the early 1700s, before shifting focus from the 1770s from estate management and political governance to citizenship for the middling‐sort, ‘oeconomy’ subsequently became a potent expression of political engagement that emphasized frugality and honest virtue in a national community. Throughout, the house remained closely connected to the economy and polity.
Elizabeth Beaumont
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199940066
- eISBN:
- 9780199369782
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199940066.003.0005
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics, Democratization
Chapter 5 turns to an era slighted by many constitutional studies: the suffrage movement and its national reconstruction project. Suffragists reinterpreted essential elements of fundamental law ...
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Chapter 5 turns to an era slighted by many constitutional studies: the suffrage movement and its national reconstruction project. Suffragists reinterpreted essential elements of fundamental law through gender justice constitutionalism: a set of innovative arguments that women must be recognized as free and equal citizens. Emphasizing a broad tapestry of voices seeking women’s rights and empowerment, the chapter develops the argument that suffragists are civic founders of the Nineteenth Amendment and a transformed political community. For decades before they persuaded Congress to propose the Nineteenth Amendment, suffragists challenged the dominant constitutional order and showed, through practices of claiming rights and justice publicly, that women could not be cordoned off into a separate female sphere. As they worked to identify contradictions between espoused national ideals and practices of gender exclusion and discrimination, suffragists enriched civil rights and liberties and cultivated new conceptions of suffrage, representation, civic equality, and political power.Less
Chapter 5 turns to an era slighted by many constitutional studies: the suffrage movement and its national reconstruction project. Suffragists reinterpreted essential elements of fundamental law through gender justice constitutionalism: a set of innovative arguments that women must be recognized as free and equal citizens. Emphasizing a broad tapestry of voices seeking women’s rights and empowerment, the chapter develops the argument that suffragists are civic founders of the Nineteenth Amendment and a transformed political community. For decades before they persuaded Congress to propose the Nineteenth Amendment, suffragists challenged the dominant constitutional order and showed, through practices of claiming rights and justice publicly, that women could not be cordoned off into a separate female sphere. As they worked to identify contradictions between espoused national ideals and practices of gender exclusion and discrimination, suffragists enriched civil rights and liberties and cultivated new conceptions of suffrage, representation, civic equality, and political power.
Katherine Pickering Antonova
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199796991
- eISBN:
- 9780199979721
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199796991.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History, Family History
This chapter compares the Chikhachevs’ gendered roles at home to Andrei’s journalism about “the importance of the mistress [khoziaika] of the house,“ examining the interplay between rhetoric and ...
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This chapter compares the Chikhachevs’ gendered roles at home to Andrei’s journalism about “the importance of the mistress [khoziaika] of the house,“ examining the interplay between rhetoric and reality in the Chikhachevs’ reception of the western European ideology of separate spheres and domesticity. The chapter argues that Andrei’s adoption of a veneer of separate spheres in his rhetoric while simultaneously urging his readers to teach their daughters to be estate managers suggests the limits to which western domestic ideology was applicable in provincial landowning society as well as the readiness with which gentry men, at least, casually employed the terms of that ideology. The chapter also addresses the apparent absence of motherhood in Natalia’s written legacy, and argues that motherhood was interpreted in this family largely as meeting the materials needs of the whole family and their dependents.Less
This chapter compares the Chikhachevs’ gendered roles at home to Andrei’s journalism about “the importance of the mistress [khoziaika] of the house,“ examining the interplay between rhetoric and reality in the Chikhachevs’ reception of the western European ideology of separate spheres and domesticity. The chapter argues that Andrei’s adoption of a veneer of separate spheres in his rhetoric while simultaneously urging his readers to teach their daughters to be estate managers suggests the limits to which western domestic ideology was applicable in provincial landowning society as well as the readiness with which gentry men, at least, casually employed the terms of that ideology. The chapter also addresses the apparent absence of motherhood in Natalia’s written legacy, and argues that motherhood was interpreted in this family largely as meeting the materials needs of the whole family and their dependents.
Tricia Lootens
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780691170312
- eISBN:
- 9781400883721
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691170312.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This book challenges familiar accounts of the figure of the nineteenth-century Poetess, offering new readings of Poetess performance and criticism. In performing the Poetry of Woman, the mythic ...
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This book challenges familiar accounts of the figure of the nineteenth-century Poetess, offering new readings of Poetess performance and criticism. In performing the Poetry of Woman, the mythic Poetess has long staked her claims as a creature of “separate spheres”—one exempt from emerging readings of nineteenth-century women's political poetics. Turning such assumptions on their heads, this book models a nineteenth-century domestic or private sphere whose imaginary, apolitical heart is also the heart of nation and empire, and, as revisionist histories increasingly attest, is traumatized and haunted by histories of slavery. Setting aside late-Victorian attempts to forget the unfulfilled, sentimental promises of early antislavery victories, this book restores Poetess performances like Julia Ward Howe's “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and Emma Lazarus's “The New Colossus” to view—and with them, the vitality of the Black Poetess within African-American public life. Crossing boundaries of nation, period, and discipline to “connect the dots” of Poetess performance, the book demonstrates how new histories and ways of reading position poetic texts by Felicia Dorothea Hemans, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Dinah Mulock Craik, George Eliot, and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper as convergence points for larger engagements ranging from Germaine de Staël to G.W.F. Hegel, Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Bishop, Alice Walker, and beyond.Less
This book challenges familiar accounts of the figure of the nineteenth-century Poetess, offering new readings of Poetess performance and criticism. In performing the Poetry of Woman, the mythic Poetess has long staked her claims as a creature of “separate spheres”—one exempt from emerging readings of nineteenth-century women's political poetics. Turning such assumptions on their heads, this book models a nineteenth-century domestic or private sphere whose imaginary, apolitical heart is also the heart of nation and empire, and, as revisionist histories increasingly attest, is traumatized and haunted by histories of slavery. Setting aside late-Victorian attempts to forget the unfulfilled, sentimental promises of early antislavery victories, this book restores Poetess performances like Julia Ward Howe's “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and Emma Lazarus's “The New Colossus” to view—and with them, the vitality of the Black Poetess within African-American public life. Crossing boundaries of nation, period, and discipline to “connect the dots” of Poetess performance, the book demonstrates how new histories and ways of reading position poetic texts by Felicia Dorothea Hemans, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Dinah Mulock Craik, George Eliot, and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper as convergence points for larger engagements ranging from Germaine de Staël to G.W.F. Hegel, Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Bishop, Alice Walker, and beyond.
Tricia Lootens
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780691170312
- eISBN:
- 9781400883721
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691170312.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This book examines the performance of the Political Poetess and its mythic, absolute identification with “separate spheres.” It explores the connection between “Political Poetess” and “Black Poetess” ...
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This book examines the performance of the Political Poetess and its mythic, absolute identification with “separate spheres.” It explores the connection between “Political Poetess” and “Black Poetess” in relation to nineteenth-century women's patriotic poetry, “Politics” as practiced by nation-states, and ongoing conflicts around the histories of slavery and the meanings of “race.” The book is divided into three sections: the first considers racialized Poetess reception and performance, the second analyzes negotiations with the forms of “spheres” and of sentimental poetry, and the third deals with transatlantic readings. Each section focuses on a “nineteenth-century Poetess” who shifts, flickers, and mourns through the nineteenth century, the 1930s, the 1970s, the 1990s, and beyond.Less
This book examines the performance of the Political Poetess and its mythic, absolute identification with “separate spheres.” It explores the connection between “Political Poetess” and “Black Poetess” in relation to nineteenth-century women's patriotic poetry, “Politics” as practiced by nation-states, and ongoing conflicts around the histories of slavery and the meanings of “race.” The book is divided into three sections: the first considers racialized Poetess reception and performance, the second analyzes negotiations with the forms of “spheres” and of sentimental poetry, and the third deals with transatlantic readings. Each section focuses on a “nineteenth-century Poetess” who shifts, flickers, and mourns through the nineteenth century, the 1930s, the 1970s, the 1990s, and beyond.
K. D. Reynolds
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198207276
- eISBN:
- 9780191677601
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198207276.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
This is a study of gender and power in Victorian Britain. It examines the contribution made by women to the public culture of the British aristocracy in the 19th century. It challenges the view that ...
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This is a study of gender and power in Victorian Britain. It examines the contribution made by women to the public culture of the British aristocracy in the 19th century. It challenges the view that power and authority were predominantly masculine attributes and shows that a partnership of authority between men and women was integral to aristocratic life. The book is thus an important addition to the debate on ‘separate spheres’. The book explores the roles of aristocratic women in estate management, patronage of churches and schools, and in caring for the poor and other dependants. It shows how women were at the heart of the local communities and institutions on which aristocratic power was based. The book goes on to discuss the realm of national politics, analysing women's participation in the electoral process, in Westminster-based political life, and at Queen Victoria's court.Less
This is a study of gender and power in Victorian Britain. It examines the contribution made by women to the public culture of the British aristocracy in the 19th century. It challenges the view that power and authority were predominantly masculine attributes and shows that a partnership of authority between men and women was integral to aristocratic life. The book is thus an important addition to the debate on ‘separate spheres’. The book explores the roles of aristocratic women in estate management, patronage of churches and schools, and in caring for the poor and other dependants. It shows how women were at the heart of the local communities and institutions on which aristocratic power was based. The book goes on to discuss the realm of national politics, analysing women's participation in the electoral process, in Westminster-based political life, and at Queen Victoria's court.
Karin E. Gedge
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195130201
- eISBN:
- 9780199835157
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195130200.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
By examining a wide variety of public and private primary sources from northeastern, mid-Atlantic, and midwestern states, Gedge challenges an assumption prevalent in nineteenth-century culture as ...
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By examining a wide variety of public and private primary sources from northeastern, mid-Atlantic, and midwestern states, Gedge challenges an assumption prevalent in nineteenth-century culture as well as twentieth-century historiography: women and clergy formed a natural alliance, exercised a particular influence over each other, and enjoyed a close, even perilously intimate, relationship. Part I locates the perception of a dangerous pastoral relationship in the published accounts of European travelers and in pamphlets describing dozens of criminal, civil, and ecclesiastical trials of clergy accused of sexual misconduct. Part II identifies both benign and malignant representations of the relationship in the imagination—the diverse literary genres that featured women and clergy as central characters, reinforcing and subverting the perception of a peculiar attraction between the two. The dangerous liaison so ubiquitous in popular culture, however, actually worked to alienate clergy and women. In Part III, pastoral manuals and seminary lectures, as part of the “professionalization” of the Protestant clergy, articulated an ideal relationship that effectively distanced ministers from their female parishioners. In Part IV, Gedge argues that the experience of ordinary pastors and female parishioners, as revealed in journals, diaries, and correspondence, also tells a tale of estrangement. Clergy resisted “feminization,” recording frustration, disdain, and avoidance in their relationships with women while women reported neglect, disappointment, and disillusionment in their relationships with pastors. The paradigm of “feminization” that historians have applied to the nineteenth-century clergy and the Protestant church is a distorted representation of the pastoral relationship. The gender ideology of separate spheres imposed enormous restrictions upon and tensions within that relationship, anxieties that reverberated in the culture at large.Less
By examining a wide variety of public and private primary sources from northeastern, mid-Atlantic, and midwestern states, Gedge challenges an assumption prevalent in nineteenth-century culture as well as twentieth-century historiography: women and clergy formed a natural alliance, exercised a particular influence over each other, and enjoyed a close, even perilously intimate, relationship. Part I locates the perception of a dangerous pastoral relationship in the published accounts of European travelers and in pamphlets describing dozens of criminal, civil, and ecclesiastical trials of clergy accused of sexual misconduct. Part II identifies both benign and malignant representations of the relationship in the imagination—the diverse literary genres that featured women and clergy as central characters, reinforcing and subverting the perception of a peculiar attraction between the two. The dangerous liaison so ubiquitous in popular culture, however, actually worked to alienate clergy and women. In Part III, pastoral manuals and seminary lectures, as part of the “professionalization” of the Protestant clergy, articulated an ideal relationship that effectively distanced ministers from their female parishioners. In Part IV, Gedge argues that the experience of ordinary pastors and female parishioners, as revealed in journals, diaries, and correspondence, also tells a tale of estrangement. Clergy resisted “feminization,” recording frustration, disdain, and avoidance in their relationships with women while women reported neglect, disappointment, and disillusionment in their relationships with pastors. The paradigm of “feminization” that historians have applied to the nineteenth-century clergy and the Protestant church is a distorted representation of the pastoral relationship. The gender ideology of separate spheres imposed enormous restrictions upon and tensions within that relationship, anxieties that reverberated in the culture at large.
Joanne Bailey
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199565191
- eISBN:
- 9780191740664
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199565191.003.0011
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History, Family History
This chapter argues that notions of Georgian parenthood and the expectations held about parents’ roles did not originate in Evangelical revival, in the reconfiguration of the middle‐classes, or the ...
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This chapter argues that notions of Georgian parenthood and the expectations held about parents’ roles did not originate in Evangelical revival, in the reconfiguration of the middle‐classes, or the hardening of separate spheres. They stemmed from contemporary social and cultural concerns. Parents were influenced by Christianity and sensibility, which encouraged more emotionally expressive styles of parenting. Concerns about population brought attention to the need for both mothers and fathers to be more hands‐on in the physical care of their offspring. Reconfigurations in the basis of political authority brought to the forefront ideals of companionate, negotiated parent‐child relationships. The rapid commercialisation of society created anxieties about moral and physical corruption, which encouraged parents to control both their children's diets and emotions. Thus it concludes that parenthood holds specific, historicised meanings at different times.Less
This chapter argues that notions of Georgian parenthood and the expectations held about parents’ roles did not originate in Evangelical revival, in the reconfiguration of the middle‐classes, or the hardening of separate spheres. They stemmed from contemporary social and cultural concerns. Parents were influenced by Christianity and sensibility, which encouraged more emotionally expressive styles of parenting. Concerns about population brought attention to the need for both mothers and fathers to be more hands‐on in the physical care of their offspring. Reconfigurations in the basis of political authority brought to the forefront ideals of companionate, negotiated parent‐child relationships. The rapid commercialisation of society created anxieties about moral and physical corruption, which encouraged parents to control both their children's diets and emotions. Thus it concludes that parenthood holds specific, historicised meanings at different times.
Tricia Lootens
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780691170312
- eISBN:
- 9781400883721
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691170312.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter examines the capacity of suspended spheres to help figure otherwise mysterious acts of political, intellectual, historical denial. Building on Bonnie Honig's critique of current ...
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This chapter examines the capacity of suspended spheres to help figure otherwise mysterious acts of political, intellectual, historical denial. Building on Bonnie Honig's critique of current democratic theory's willingness to accept what she terms the “Antigone effect,” it considers what histories of evasion might help explain current democratic theorists' apparent willingness to keep positioning Antigone as heroic figure for femininity's relations to the State, without ever asking about Antigone's slaves. The chapter analyzes two texts,G.W.F. Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit and Virginia Woolf's Three Guineas, as well as Dinah Mulock Craik's Crimean War poems, to identify forms of analysis that might help expose and denaturalize the allure of suspending spheres, the satisfactions of continuing to pretend that race plays no role within the maintenance of even the most abstract “State-free zones.” Finally, it shows how sentimental poetry can be employed to articulate the workings of a spatialized trope of separate spheres.Less
This chapter examines the capacity of suspended spheres to help figure otherwise mysterious acts of political, intellectual, historical denial. Building on Bonnie Honig's critique of current democratic theory's willingness to accept what she terms the “Antigone effect,” it considers what histories of evasion might help explain current democratic theorists' apparent willingness to keep positioning Antigone as heroic figure for femininity's relations to the State, without ever asking about Antigone's slaves. The chapter analyzes two texts,G.W.F. Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit and Virginia Woolf's Three Guineas, as well as Dinah Mulock Craik's Crimean War poems, to identify forms of analysis that might help expose and denaturalize the allure of suspending spheres, the satisfactions of continuing to pretend that race plays no role within the maintenance of even the most abstract “State-free zones.” Finally, it shows how sentimental poetry can be employed to articulate the workings of a spatialized trope of separate spheres.
Alice Kessler-Harris
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780813145136
- eISBN:
- 9780813145631
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813145136.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This chapter discusses gender ideology in the 1930s, specifically during the Great Depression. The common thought was that work and the home were “separate spheres,” but this chapter argues that the ...
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This chapter discusses gender ideology in the 1930s, specifically during the Great Depression. The common thought was that work and the home were “separate spheres,” but this chapter argues that the reality was much more complex. The Depression serves as a case study for the interweaving of home and work needs, analyzing individual versus group/societal desires and the change in the expectations workers had of their professional roles. Public and private spheres increasingly overlapped, and even women, competing with one another for jobs, protested the social cost. The chapter ends by claiming that separate spheres were not separate, though gender was an element of the complex web of the wage discussion.Less
This chapter discusses gender ideology in the 1930s, specifically during the Great Depression. The common thought was that work and the home were “separate spheres,” but this chapter argues that the reality was much more complex. The Depression serves as a case study for the interweaving of home and work needs, analyzing individual versus group/societal desires and the change in the expectations workers had of their professional roles. Public and private spheres increasingly overlapped, and even women, competing with one another for jobs, protested the social cost. The chapter ends by claiming that separate spheres were not separate, though gender was an element of the complex web of the wage discussion.
Ruth H. Bloch
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520234055
- eISBN:
- 9780520936478
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520234055.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This chapter investigates the relationship of the Revolution to changes in feminine ideals and views of woman's role in society. It also explains the several alternative ways that ...
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This chapter investigates the relationship of the Revolution to changes in feminine ideals and views of woman's role in society. It also explains the several alternative ways that late-eighteenth-century Americans conceived of the public/private distinction in relation to gender, presenting them all as products of developments in Anglo-American culture that predate the Revolution. It then questions the monolithic stature usually accorded by historians to early-nineteenth-century middle-class Anglo-American ideas about “separate spheres.” It shows that post-Revolutionary Americans articulated at least two conflicting conceptions of gender, which remain today. The emergent ideology of “separate spheres,” which valorized female domesticity, found little to commend in public life. Virtue was instead increasingly located in the family. In revolutionary America, profound changes in gender relations merged with the redefinition of public and private. Gender dichotomization has been a constant target of modern liberal feminism, but the public/private distinction has proved far more intractable.Less
This chapter investigates the relationship of the Revolution to changes in feminine ideals and views of woman's role in society. It also explains the several alternative ways that late-eighteenth-century Americans conceived of the public/private distinction in relation to gender, presenting them all as products of developments in Anglo-American culture that predate the Revolution. It then questions the monolithic stature usually accorded by historians to early-nineteenth-century middle-class Anglo-American ideas about “separate spheres.” It shows that post-Revolutionary Americans articulated at least two conflicting conceptions of gender, which remain today. The emergent ideology of “separate spheres,” which valorized female domesticity, found little to commend in public life. Virtue was instead increasingly located in the family. In revolutionary America, profound changes in gender relations merged with the redefinition of public and private. Gender dichotomization has been a constant target of modern liberal feminism, but the public/private distinction has proved far more intractable.
Yvonne C. Zimmerman
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199942190
- eISBN:
- 9780199980765
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199942190.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter traces several key movements, including separate spheres gender ideology, the Cult of True Womanhood, and the ideology of romantic love, through which Protestant conceptions of morality ...
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This chapter traces several key movements, including separate spheres gender ideology, the Cult of True Womanhood, and the ideology of romantic love, through which Protestant conceptions of morality became more broadly American moral views of gender propriety and sexual morality. As a result, Protestantism is part and parcel of U.S.-American culture and the complex of cultural values that is generally perceived as secular “American values.”Less
This chapter traces several key movements, including separate spheres gender ideology, the Cult of True Womanhood, and the ideology of romantic love, through which Protestant conceptions of morality became more broadly American moral views of gender propriety and sexual morality. As a result, Protestantism is part and parcel of U.S.-American culture and the complex of cultural values that is generally perceived as secular “American values.”
Tracy A. Thomas
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780814783047
- eISBN:
- 9781479853892
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814783047.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, History of Ideas
This chapter addresses Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s feminist views on maternal custody and parenting. She advocated granting legal rights of child custody to mothers in the event of separation or ...
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This chapter addresses Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s feminist views on maternal custody and parenting. She advocated granting legal rights of child custody to mothers in the event of separation or divorce. Stanton challenged the separate spheres ideology and argued for women to work in paid employment as well as to have pecuniary and social power in the home. To bring about this transformation of gender roles, Stanton articulated feminist parenting ideals of reconstructing gender by raising the next generation of boys and girls in equal moral, educational, and social ways. She took this message to the populace in speeches on the Lyceum tour over eleven years. Ultimately, as this chapter concludes, Stanton argued that religious doctrine must be reformed in order to transform the gendered social roles of women and men, as she articulated in the feminist theology of her Woman’s Bible.Less
This chapter addresses Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s feminist views on maternal custody and parenting. She advocated granting legal rights of child custody to mothers in the event of separation or divorce. Stanton challenged the separate spheres ideology and argued for women to work in paid employment as well as to have pecuniary and social power in the home. To bring about this transformation of gender roles, Stanton articulated feminist parenting ideals of reconstructing gender by raising the next generation of boys and girls in equal moral, educational, and social ways. She took this message to the populace in speeches on the Lyceum tour over eleven years. Ultimately, as this chapter concludes, Stanton argued that religious doctrine must be reformed in order to transform the gendered social roles of women and men, as she articulated in the feminist theology of her Woman’s Bible.
