Ellen Anne McLarney
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691158488
- eISBN:
- 9781400866441
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691158488.003.0006
- Subject:
- Sociology, Social Research and Statistics
This chapter traces the proliferation of debates over women's work—tangled dialectics among development experts, feminists, academics, politicians, Marxists, Azharis, Islamists, and journalists like ...
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This chapter traces the proliferation of debates over women's work—tangled dialectics among development experts, feminists, academics, politicians, Marxists, Azharis, Islamists, and journalists like Iman Muhammad Mustafa. Mustafa charts a specific chronological timeline of these debates, from 1974 to 1989, a period of intense economic and political liberalization in Egypt. In 1989, in the midst of economic crisis and Egypt's contentious negotiations with the International Monetary Fund, Mustafa published a ten-part series of articles in the mainstream economic journal al-Ahram al-Iqtisadi criticizing “the working woman.” The articles identified women as a great, untapped resource of human capital in Egypt. Using the statistics, charts, arguments, and language of development reports, Mustafa critiqued Western, secular, feminist valorization of remunerated labor through a celebration of the economic and social worth of women's work in the household economy.Less
This chapter traces the proliferation of debates over women's work—tangled dialectics among development experts, feminists, academics, politicians, Marxists, Azharis, Islamists, and journalists like Iman Muhammad Mustafa. Mustafa charts a specific chronological timeline of these debates, from 1974 to 1989, a period of intense economic and political liberalization in Egypt. In 1989, in the midst of economic crisis and Egypt's contentious negotiations with the International Monetary Fund, Mustafa published a ten-part series of articles in the mainstream economic journal al-Ahram al-Iqtisadi criticizing “the working woman.” The articles identified women as a great, untapped resource of human capital in Egypt. Using the statistics, charts, arguments, and language of development reports, Mustafa critiqued Western, secular, feminist valorization of remunerated labor through a celebration of the economic and social worth of women's work in the household economy.
Sara Horrell
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199212668
- eISBN:
- 9780191712807
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199212668.003.0007
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Financial Economics
Changes in household structure, fertility rates, and domestic technology all have consequences for labour market behaviour. This chapter explores these links. It starts by describing household ...
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Changes in household structure, fertility rates, and domestic technology all have consequences for labour market behaviour. This chapter explores these links. It starts by describing household structure and the role of children at the start and end of the 20th century. The next section considers the impact of domestic technology on women's availability for work. The final section considers the interrelationship between work, fertility decisions, and divorce.Less
Changes in household structure, fertility rates, and domestic technology all have consequences for labour market behaviour. This chapter explores these links. It starts by describing household structure and the role of children at the start and end of the 20th century. The next section considers the impact of domestic technology on women's availability for work. The final section considers the interrelationship between work, fertility decisions, and divorce.
Elisha P. Renne
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- April 2004
- ISBN:
- 9780199270576
- eISBN:
- 9780191600883
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199270570.003.0015
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, History of Economic Thought
Compares characteristics associated with women's status commonly used in demographic surveys with women's status, matsayi mace, as it is defined by a group of Hausa Moslem women in the northern ...
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Compares characteristics associated with women's status commonly used in demographic surveys with women's status, matsayi mace, as it is defined by a group of Hausa Moslem women in the northern Nigerian town of Zaria. Their assessments of appropriate gender roles and what constitutes ‘women's status’, which include the importance of respectability, mutunci, and seclusion, suggest that while distinctive cultural ideas and religious beliefs are essential in framing these definitions, there is no necessary congruence with the conventional ‘social indicators’, such as women's education and work, used in standardized surveys.Less
Compares characteristics associated with women's status commonly used in demographic surveys with women's status, matsayi mace, as it is defined by a group of Hausa Moslem women in the northern Nigerian town of Zaria. Their assessments of appropriate gender roles and what constitutes ‘women's status’, which include the importance of respectability, mutunci, and seclusion, suggest that while distinctive cultural ideas and religious beliefs are essential in framing these definitions, there is no necessary congruence with the conventional ‘social indicators’, such as women's education and work, used in standardized surveys.
Diemut Elisabet Bubeck
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198279907
- eISBN:
- 9780191684319
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198279907.003.0002
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This chapter argues that Karl Marx's vision of abundance in the communist utopia only occurred to him as a solution to the necessary labour problem because he failed to consider women's work. ...
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This chapter argues that Karl Marx's vision of abundance in the communist utopia only occurred to him as a solution to the necessary labour problem because he failed to consider women's work. However, Marx's solution to his problem is interesting in the sense that it poses the question of how necessary it is for labour to be distributed and what constraints can be imposed on the distribution of work. The chapter suggests that Marx's conception of the dialectic of labour may be used to visualize more concretely who would do women's work in the utopia derived from the dialectic of labour and under what circumstances.Less
This chapter argues that Karl Marx's vision of abundance in the communist utopia only occurred to him as a solution to the necessary labour problem because he failed to consider women's work. However, Marx's solution to his problem is interesting in the sense that it poses the question of how necessary it is for labour to be distributed and what constraints can be imposed on the distribution of work. The chapter suggests that Marx's conception of the dialectic of labour may be used to visualize more concretely who would do women's work in the utopia derived from the dialectic of labour and under what circumstances.
Hannah Barker
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199299713
- eISBN:
- 9780191714955
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199299713.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
This book argues that businesswomen were central to urban society and to the operation and development of commerce in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It presents a rich and complicated ...
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This book argues that businesswomen were central to urban society and to the operation and development of commerce in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It presents a rich and complicated picture of lower-middling life and female enterprise in three northern English towns: Manchester, Leeds, and Sheffield. The stories told by a wide range of sources, including trade directories, newspaper advertisements, court records, correspondence, and diaries, demonstrate the very differing fortunes and levels of independence that individual businesswomen enjoyed. Yet, as a group, their involvement in the economic life of towns and, in particular, the manner in which they exploited and facilitated commercial development, forced a reassessment of the understanding of both gender relations and urban culture in late Georgian England. In contrast to the traditional historical consensus that the independent woman of business during this period - particularly those engaged in occupations deemed 'unfeminine' - was insignificant and no more than an oddity, businesswomen are presented not as footnotes to the main narrative, but as central characters in a story of unprecedented social and economic transformation.Less
This book argues that businesswomen were central to urban society and to the operation and development of commerce in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It presents a rich and complicated picture of lower-middling life and female enterprise in three northern English towns: Manchester, Leeds, and Sheffield. The stories told by a wide range of sources, including trade directories, newspaper advertisements, court records, correspondence, and diaries, demonstrate the very differing fortunes and levels of independence that individual businesswomen enjoyed. Yet, as a group, their involvement in the economic life of towns and, in particular, the manner in which they exploited and facilitated commercial development, forced a reassessment of the understanding of both gender relations and urban culture in late Georgian England. In contrast to the traditional historical consensus that the independent woman of business during this period - particularly those engaged in occupations deemed 'unfeminine' - was insignificant and no more than an oddity, businesswomen are presented not as footnotes to the main narrative, but as central characters in a story of unprecedented social and economic transformation.
Eleanor Hubbard
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199609345
- eISBN:
- 9780191739088
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199609345.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History
This chapter deals with the work that early modern London wives and widows performed for money. It argues that restrictions on women's work resulted from economic concerns, not sexual anxieties about ...
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This chapter deals with the work that early modern London wives and widows performed for money. It argues that restrictions on women's work resulted from economic concerns, not sexual anxieties about working women's mobility, contact with the public, and independence. Instead, hostility to female competition kept women out of most occupations. Under these circumstances, women worked as craftswomen, marketwomen, hucksters, fishwives, nurses, midwives, charwomen, laundresses, starchers, the keepers of victualling houses, alehouses, inns, and chandler's shops, and more – often very public kinds of work. They took pride in their contributions to household economies, although the earnings they received in the over‐crowded female labor sector were always low. Even within these marginal occupations, they risked being accused of earning private gains that injured the common good. The chapter concludes by comparing women's work opportunities ca. 1600 to the situations in medieval and eighteenth‐century London.Less
This chapter deals with the work that early modern London wives and widows performed for money. It argues that restrictions on women's work resulted from economic concerns, not sexual anxieties about working women's mobility, contact with the public, and independence. Instead, hostility to female competition kept women out of most occupations. Under these circumstances, women worked as craftswomen, marketwomen, hucksters, fishwives, nurses, midwives, charwomen, laundresses, starchers, the keepers of victualling houses, alehouses, inns, and chandler's shops, and more – often very public kinds of work. They took pride in their contributions to household economies, although the earnings they received in the over‐crowded female labor sector were always low. Even within these marginal occupations, they risked being accused of earning private gains that injured the common good. The chapter concludes by comparing women's work opportunities ca. 1600 to the situations in medieval and eighteenth‐century London.
Amy M. Froide
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199270606
- eISBN:
- 9780191710216
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199270606.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History
This book presents original research on women who never married in early modern England. It reintroduces us to the category of marital status and to the significant ways it shaped the life ...
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This book presents original research on women who never married in early modern England. It reintroduces us to the category of marital status and to the significant ways it shaped the life experiences of early modern women. The book argues that to understand early modern women we need to de-center marriage and not accept the marital couple as the norm. It is both a socio-economic and cultural study of singlewomen. It reveals the importance of kinship for women without husbands and children as well as the significant roles that singlewomen played in their own kin groups as caretakers and providers. It examines the contributions of working and propertied singlewomen in early modern towns. It also traces the origins of the spinster and old maid stereotypes to the late 17th century, revealing how singlewomen became marginalized in Protestant English society. The book concludes by examining the writing of never-married women and what it reveals about their own views on singleness. While few women chose singleness outright, many women who never married lived full lives and made important contributions to their families and communities.Less
This book presents original research on women who never married in early modern England. It reintroduces us to the category of marital status and to the significant ways it shaped the life experiences of early modern women. The book argues that to understand early modern women we need to de-center marriage and not accept the marital couple as the norm. It is both a socio-economic and cultural study of singlewomen. It reveals the importance of kinship for women without husbands and children as well as the significant roles that singlewomen played in their own kin groups as caretakers and providers. It examines the contributions of working and propertied singlewomen in early modern towns. It also traces the origins of the spinster and old maid stereotypes to the late 17th century, revealing how singlewomen became marginalized in Protestant English society. The book concludes by examining the writing of never-married women and what it reveals about their own views on singleness. While few women chose singleness outright, many women who never married lived full lives and made important contributions to their families and communities.
PARVIN GHORAYSHI
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195150865
- eISBN:
- 9780199865222
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195150865.003.009
- Subject:
- Public Health and Epidemiology, Public Health, Epidemiology
This chapter first emphasizes the significance of gender as a category of analysis in the understanding of the nature of women's work, using research findings from various parts of the world. In the ...
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This chapter first emphasizes the significance of gender as a category of analysis in the understanding of the nature of women's work, using research findings from various parts of the world. In the next section, it discusses how governmental policies and large-scale data collection methods have contributed to a narrow concept of women's work. Using examples from original case studies in Iran, the chapter continues with a presentation of Iranian women's position in the labor market and the varied nature of women's work in Iran, from paid employment to work in the household to family work. Women's own words are used to show the complex impact of their multiple roles on their health and well-being. The chapter concludes that women's work is complex and multidimensional and that narrow definitions of work do not allow a full understanding of the relationship between women's work and well-being.Less
This chapter first emphasizes the significance of gender as a category of analysis in the understanding of the nature of women's work, using research findings from various parts of the world. In the next section, it discusses how governmental policies and large-scale data collection methods have contributed to a narrow concept of women's work. Using examples from original case studies in Iran, the chapter continues with a presentation of Iranian women's position in the labor market and the varied nature of women's work in Iran, from paid employment to work in the household to family work. Women's own words are used to show the complex impact of their multiple roles on their health and well-being. The chapter concludes that women's work is complex and multidimensional and that narrow definitions of work do not allow a full understanding of the relationship between women's work and well-being.
Janet Galligani Casey
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195338959
- eISBN:
- 9780199867103
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195338959.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Women's Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
This chapter evidences the currency and value of the Farm Woman as cultural trope within various Progressive Era discourses, and considers women’s actual and theoretical positions in reference to ...
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This chapter evidences the currency and value of the Farm Woman as cultural trope within various Progressive Era discourses, and considers women’s actual and theoretical positions in reference to such appropriations. It explores how male agrarian-reform efforts routinely evaded discussions of women’s interests, even as other arenas of social theory (eugenics, for instance) valorized the Farm Woman as a vehicle of nativism and traditional gendered values. It also addresses the various paradigms available for defining farm women, and by implication women more generally, in reference to some of the social concerns that structured modernity, including attitudes toward production and reproduction, women’s work for wages, and commodity consumption.Less
This chapter evidences the currency and value of the Farm Woman as cultural trope within various Progressive Era discourses, and considers women’s actual and theoretical positions in reference to such appropriations. It explores how male agrarian-reform efforts routinely evaded discussions of women’s interests, even as other arenas of social theory (eugenics, for instance) valorized the Farm Woman as a vehicle of nativism and traditional gendered values. It also addresses the various paradigms available for defining farm women, and by implication women more generally, in reference to some of the social concerns that structured modernity, including attitudes toward production and reproduction, women’s work for wages, and commodity consumption.
Eleanor Hubbard
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199609345
- eISBN:
- 9780191739088
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199609345.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History
City Women is a major new study of the lives of ordinary women in early modern London. Drawing on thousands of pages of Londoners' depositions for the consistory court, it focuses on the ...
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City Women is a major new study of the lives of ordinary women in early modern London. Drawing on thousands of pages of Londoners' depositions for the consistory court, it focuses on the challenges that preoccupied London women as they strove for survival and preferment in the burgeoning metropolis. Balancing new demographic data with vivid case studies, it explores the advantages and dangers that the city had to offer, from women's first arrival to London as migrant maidservants, through the vicissitudes of marriage, widowhood, and old age. In early modern London, women's opportunities were tightly restricted. Nonetheless, before 1640, the city's unique demographic circumstances provided unusual scope for marital advancement, and both maids and widows were quick to take advantage of this. Similarly, moments of opportunity emerged when the powerful sexual anxieties that associated women's speech and mobility with loose behavior came into conflict with even more powerful anxieties about the economic stability of households and communities. As neighbors and magistrates sought to reconcile their competing priorities in cases of illegitimate pregnancy, marital disputes, working wives, remarrying widows, and more, women were able to exploit the resulting uncertainty to pursue their own ends. By paying close attention to the aspirations and preoccupations of London women themselves, their daily struggles, small triumphs, and domestic tragedies, this study provides a valuable new perspective on the importance of early modern women's efforts in the growing capital, and on the nature of early modern English society as a whole.Less
City Women is a major new study of the lives of ordinary women in early modern London. Drawing on thousands of pages of Londoners' depositions for the consistory court, it focuses on the challenges that preoccupied London women as they strove for survival and preferment in the burgeoning metropolis. Balancing new demographic data with vivid case studies, it explores the advantages and dangers that the city had to offer, from women's first arrival to London as migrant maidservants, through the vicissitudes of marriage, widowhood, and old age. In early modern London, women's opportunities were tightly restricted. Nonetheless, before 1640, the city's unique demographic circumstances provided unusual scope for marital advancement, and both maids and widows were quick to take advantage of this. Similarly, moments of opportunity emerged when the powerful sexual anxieties that associated women's speech and mobility with loose behavior came into conflict with even more powerful anxieties about the economic stability of households and communities. As neighbors and magistrates sought to reconcile their competing priorities in cases of illegitimate pregnancy, marital disputes, working wives, remarrying widows, and more, women were able to exploit the resulting uncertainty to pursue their own ends. By paying close attention to the aspirations and preoccupations of London women themselves, their daily struggles, small triumphs, and domestic tragedies, this study provides a valuable new perspective on the importance of early modern women's efforts in the growing capital, and on the nature of early modern English society as a whole.
Diemut Elisabet Bubeck
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198279907
- eISBN:
- 9780191684319
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198279907.003.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This introductory chapter explains the coverage of this book, which is the inequality between men and women in care and justice. Its main concern is that many women still do most of the unpaid work ...
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This introductory chapter explains the coverage of this book, which is the inequality between men and women in care and justice. Its main concern is that many women still do most of the unpaid work performed in any home which goes towards meeting the needs of others. This is one of the first chapters to explore so-called women's work because many philosophers in social science and philosophy still do not take into account the problems or issues raised in their own subjects by a gendered reality. This work shares the preoccupation of Susan Moller Okin with sexual division of labour, particularly the gendered distribution of work in and between the public and private spheres.Less
This introductory chapter explains the coverage of this book, which is the inequality between men and women in care and justice. Its main concern is that many women still do most of the unpaid work performed in any home which goes towards meeting the needs of others. This is one of the first chapters to explore so-called women's work because many philosophers in social science and philosophy still do not take into account the problems or issues raised in their own subjects by a gendered reality. This work shares the preoccupation of Susan Moller Okin with sexual division of labour, particularly the gendered distribution of work in and between the public and private spheres.
Sandra Fredman
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780198763239
- eISBN:
- 9780191695216
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198763239.003.0003
- Subject:
- Law, Employment Law
This chapter traces the patterns of social disadvantage of women from the industrial revolution to the present, focusing on the family and public sphere. It examines the nature of women's work and ...
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This chapter traces the patterns of social disadvantage of women from the industrial revolution to the present, focusing on the family and public sphere. It examines the nature of women's work and the status of women in the workforce, the family, and the state from the late 18th century to World War I and through to the present. The historical analysis of the sources of disadvantage reveals two persistent themes. The first is that women remain primarily responsible for childcare and domestic work, and the second is that such work is consistently ignored and undervalued.Less
This chapter traces the patterns of social disadvantage of women from the industrial revolution to the present, focusing on the family and public sphere. It examines the nature of women's work and the status of women in the workforce, the family, and the state from the late 18th century to World War I and through to the present. The historical analysis of the sources of disadvantage reveals two persistent themes. The first is that women remain primarily responsible for childcare and domestic work, and the second is that such work is consistently ignored and undervalued.
P. J. P. Goldberg
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198201540
- eISBN:
- 9780191674938
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198201540.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Medieval History, Economic History
This chapter explores the full range of female economic activity over a comparatively long period of time. The dynamic analysis is designed to shed light both on the range of employment women had ...
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This chapter explores the full range of female economic activity over a comparatively long period of time. The dynamic analysis is designed to shed light both on the range of employment women had access to and on how and why this changed within the period studied. The chapter locates women's work within the context of both the familial economy and the wider urban and rural economies. It considers how far women's role was circumscribed by lack of access to wealth and training, by marital status, by the particular needs of the local economy, and by household and family responsibilities. Underlying all these is how far women were able to support themselves, and how this changed in response to secular movements in the economy. The analysis focuses on York, and its rural hinterland, notably the West Riding and Howdenshire, areas with substantial poll tax evidence.Less
This chapter explores the full range of female economic activity over a comparatively long period of time. The dynamic analysis is designed to shed light both on the range of employment women had access to and on how and why this changed within the period studied. The chapter locates women's work within the context of both the familial economy and the wider urban and rural economies. It considers how far women's role was circumscribed by lack of access to wealth and training, by marital status, by the particular needs of the local economy, and by household and family responsibilities. Underlying all these is how far women were able to support themselves, and how this changed in response to secular movements in the economy. The analysis focuses on York, and its rural hinterland, notably the West Riding and Howdenshire, areas with substantial poll tax evidence.
Gail Hershatter
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520267701
- eISBN:
- 9780520950344
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520267701.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
What can we learn about the Chinese revolution by placing a doubly marginalized group—rural women—at the center of the inquiry? This book explores changes in the lives of seventy-two elderly women in ...
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What can we learn about the Chinese revolution by placing a doubly marginalized group—rural women—at the center of the inquiry? This book explores changes in the lives of seventy-two elderly women in rural Shaanxi province during the revolutionary decades of the 1950s and 1960s. Interweaving these women's life histories with analysis, the text shows how Party-state policy became local and personal, and how it affected women's agricultural work, domestic routines, activism, marriage, childbirth, and parenting—even their notions of virtue and respectability. The women narrate their pasts from the vantage point of the present and highlight their enduring virtues, important achievements, and most deeply harbored grievances. In showing what memories can tell us about gender as an axis of power, difference, and collectivity in 1950s rural China and the present, this book examines the nature of socialism and how gender figured in its creation.Less
What can we learn about the Chinese revolution by placing a doubly marginalized group—rural women—at the center of the inquiry? This book explores changes in the lives of seventy-two elderly women in rural Shaanxi province during the revolutionary decades of the 1950s and 1960s. Interweaving these women's life histories with analysis, the text shows how Party-state policy became local and personal, and how it affected women's agricultural work, domestic routines, activism, marriage, childbirth, and parenting—even their notions of virtue and respectability. The women narrate their pasts from the vantage point of the present and highlight their enduring virtues, important achievements, and most deeply harbored grievances. In showing what memories can tell us about gender as an axis of power, difference, and collectivity in 1950s rural China and the present, this book examines the nature of socialism and how gender figured in its creation.
Ellen Ross
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520249059
- eISBN:
- 9780520940055
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520249059.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
Two generations before World War I, the poor urban districts of Britain had exerted a magnetic pull on middle- and upper-class women. Thousands of those who belonged to the upper strata forsook ...
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Two generations before World War I, the poor urban districts of Britain had exerted a magnetic pull on middle- and upper-class women. Thousands of those who belonged to the upper strata forsook activities that marked their wealth and dedicated their time instead to visiting slums and to activities that would further the betterment of this often marginalized and ignored population. According to an estimate from the mid-1980s, around half a million women in England were involved in philanthropy. This book presents some of the well-born women's narratives of their encounters with poverty and the poor in London. These narratives focus on the domestic sphere and the lives of women and children. A number of them represent the process of observing, or investigating poverty in itself: knocking on doors, alighting from a tram in a strange district, or simply looking out a window at the street life outdoors. The selections in this book range over a fifty-year period and offer several genres: policy-oriented social observation, journalism, art, fiction, and poetry. These narratives are not intended to offer a consistent and comprehensive portrait of London's inhabitants, or of those who observed them. The narratives also do not include many elements of working-class life such as male workplaces, sports, crime, and electoral politics. However, because of the detail the writers here include and the diversity of voices they offer, these narratives offer a crash course in social history, particularly charity, family life, health care, childhood, and women's work. This book is also a contribution to the recovery of lost and hidden women writers. To rediscover these women as writers and activists is to redraw the gender map of Victorian and Edwardian London.Less
Two generations before World War I, the poor urban districts of Britain had exerted a magnetic pull on middle- and upper-class women. Thousands of those who belonged to the upper strata forsook activities that marked their wealth and dedicated their time instead to visiting slums and to activities that would further the betterment of this often marginalized and ignored population. According to an estimate from the mid-1980s, around half a million women in England were involved in philanthropy. This book presents some of the well-born women's narratives of their encounters with poverty and the poor in London. These narratives focus on the domestic sphere and the lives of women and children. A number of them represent the process of observing, or investigating poverty in itself: knocking on doors, alighting from a tram in a strange district, or simply looking out a window at the street life outdoors. The selections in this book range over a fifty-year period and offer several genres: policy-oriented social observation, journalism, art, fiction, and poetry. These narratives are not intended to offer a consistent and comprehensive portrait of London's inhabitants, or of those who observed them. The narratives also do not include many elements of working-class life such as male workplaces, sports, crime, and electoral politics. However, because of the detail the writers here include and the diversity of voices they offer, these narratives offer a crash course in social history, particularly charity, family life, health care, childhood, and women's work. This book is also a contribution to the recovery of lost and hidden women writers. To rediscover these women as writers and activists is to redraw the gender map of Victorian and Edwardian London.
Melanie Bell
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- January 2022
- ISBN:
- 9780252043871
- eISBN:
- 9780252052774
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252043871.003.0005
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter evaluates the feature film industry in the 1950s. It begins by focusing on production context and women's union representation as shop stewards — within the broader social context of ...
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This chapter evaluates the feature film industry in the 1950s. It begins by focusing on production context and women's union representation as shop stewards — within the broader social context of debates about women and work. The chapter provides an overview of women in the British film industry through union membership application data. It then turns to four complementary case studies that characterize women's work in film production during the 1950s: the production secretary, publicity assistant, paint and trace artist, and editors in the documentary sector. In a decade dominated by debate about women's place in the workforce, relative to the home, the chapter uses women's accounts to trace multiple instances of occupational autonomy and the performance of skilled labor, revealing not only how women sought out and secured avenues for professionally satisfying work but also how their careers bring into view forms of creativity that have been neglected in existing film histories.Less
This chapter evaluates the feature film industry in the 1950s. It begins by focusing on production context and women's union representation as shop stewards — within the broader social context of debates about women and work. The chapter provides an overview of women in the British film industry through union membership application data. It then turns to four complementary case studies that characterize women's work in film production during the 1950s: the production secretary, publicity assistant, paint and trace artist, and editors in the documentary sector. In a decade dominated by debate about women's place in the workforce, relative to the home, the chapter uses women's accounts to trace multiple instances of occupational autonomy and the performance of skilled labor, revealing not only how women sought out and secured avenues for professionally satisfying work but also how their careers bring into view forms of creativity that have been neglected in existing film histories.
Jennie Batchelor
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719082573
- eISBN:
- 9781781701829
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719082573.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
This introductory chapter sets out the purpose of the book, which is to complicate the conventional narrative about labour, gender and authorship posited by Samuel Crisp, and often endorsed by ...
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This introductory chapter sets out the purpose of the book, which is to complicate the conventional narrative about labour, gender and authorship posited by Samuel Crisp, and often endorsed by literary and historical scholarship, both by pointing to the vital and valued role that work of various kinds played in texts by middling and genteel women writers publishing during the later eighteenth century, and by revealing labour's centrality to these authors' self-conceptualization as women and as literary professionals. It then discusses men's work and women's leisure; domesticity, the novel and the invisibility of women's work; and the debate on women's work. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.Less
This introductory chapter sets out the purpose of the book, which is to complicate the conventional narrative about labour, gender and authorship posited by Samuel Crisp, and often endorsed by literary and historical scholarship, both by pointing to the vital and valued role that work of various kinds played in texts by middling and genteel women writers publishing during the later eighteenth century, and by revealing labour's centrality to these authors' self-conceptualization as women and as literary professionals. It then discusses men's work and women's leisure; domesticity, the novel and the invisibility of women's work; and the debate on women's work. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.
Jane Stevenson
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780198185024
- eISBN:
- 9780191714238
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198185024.003.0018
- Subject:
- Literature, Women's Literature
Were there problems with women studying Latin? Evidence suggests that European society could accommodate individual women scholars without changing its views on ‘women’. Early modern women scholars ...
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Were there problems with women studying Latin? Evidence suggests that European society could accommodate individual women scholars without changing its views on ‘women’. Early modern women scholars existed within the republic of letters, maintaining networks of correspondence. Significant numbers of them married, and achieved a respected position within their immediate milieu.Less
Were there problems with women studying Latin? Evidence suggests that European society could accommodate individual women scholars without changing its views on ‘women’. Early modern women scholars existed within the republic of letters, maintaining networks of correspondence. Significant numbers of them married, and achieved a respected position within their immediate milieu.
ALEXANDRA SHEPARD
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199299348
- eISBN:
- 9780191716614
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199299348.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History
Focusing on debt litigation, this chapter confirms the extent to which male status was competitively gauged. Patriarchal imperatives of male provision and self-sufficient mastery were regularly ...
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Focusing on debt litigation, this chapter confirms the extent to which male status was competitively gauged. Patriarchal imperatives of male provision and self-sufficient mastery were regularly invoked, demonstrating that appraisals of manhood rooted in economic independence, and heading and maintaining a household, were commonplace. However, evidence of women and children's extensive (and sometimes primary) contributions to the household economy suggests that patriarchal manhood in these terms was a privilege which many men could not afford, if not a chimera. In addition, from the late sixteenth century, increasing numbers of men and women were either excluded from householding positions or chose to adopt alternative family strategies. For these men and women patriarchal behavioural codes were irrelevant, except as the substance of social critiques levelled by their ‘betters’, suggesting the emergence of deepening fissures between concepts of manhood along class lines.Less
Focusing on debt litigation, this chapter confirms the extent to which male status was competitively gauged. Patriarchal imperatives of male provision and self-sufficient mastery were regularly invoked, demonstrating that appraisals of manhood rooted in economic independence, and heading and maintaining a household, were commonplace. However, evidence of women and children's extensive (and sometimes primary) contributions to the household economy suggests that patriarchal manhood in these terms was a privilege which many men could not afford, if not a chimera. In addition, from the late sixteenth century, increasing numbers of men and women were either excluded from householding positions or chose to adopt alternative family strategies. For these men and women patriarchal behavioural codes were irrelevant, except as the substance of social critiques levelled by their ‘betters’, suggesting the emergence of deepening fissures between concepts of manhood along class lines.
Jennie Batchelor
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719082573
- eISBN:
- 9781781701829
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719082573.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
This book challenges influential accounts about gender and the novel by revealing the complex ways in which labour informed the lives and writing of a number of middling and genteel women authors ...
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This book challenges influential accounts about gender and the novel by revealing the complex ways in which labour informed the lives and writing of a number of middling and genteel women authors publishing between 1750 and 1830. It provides a seam of texts for exploring the vexed relationship between gender, work and writing. The four chapters that follow contain contextualised case studies of the treatment of manual, intellectual and domestic labour in the work and careers of Sarah Scott, Charlotte Smith, Mary Wollstonecraft and women applicants to the writers' charity, the Literary Fund. By making women's work visible in our studies of female-authored fiction of the period, the book reveals the crucial role that these women played in articulating debates about the gendered division of labour, the (in)compatibility of women's domestic and professional lives, and the status and true value of women's work, which shaped eighteenth-century culture as surely as they do our own.Less
This book challenges influential accounts about gender and the novel by revealing the complex ways in which labour informed the lives and writing of a number of middling and genteel women authors publishing between 1750 and 1830. It provides a seam of texts for exploring the vexed relationship between gender, work and writing. The four chapters that follow contain contextualised case studies of the treatment of manual, intellectual and domestic labour in the work and careers of Sarah Scott, Charlotte Smith, Mary Wollstonecraft and women applicants to the writers' charity, the Literary Fund. By making women's work visible in our studies of female-authored fiction of the period, the book reveals the crucial role that these women played in articulating debates about the gendered division of labour, the (in)compatibility of women's domestic and professional lives, and the status and true value of women's work, which shaped eighteenth-century culture as surely as they do our own.
