Mrs. Warren's Profession

During the Age of Enlightenment in the late eighteenth century, Mary Wollstonecraft presented a radical essay, A Vindication of the Rights of Women, that shed light on the largest, underrepresented groups of the time, women. The essay voiced the inequalities women at the time faced and called upon Wollstonecraft’s audience to invoke a revolution for the rights of women. Through her writing, she presented a compelling argument that slowly allowed women to question their “place” in society and demand change to the British social order. While these changes did not happen quickly, her work sparked the feminist movements through its unique message and called upon women to demand equality through the Match Girls Strike and Women’s Suffrage

Mary Warren’s behavior foreshadow about her testimony in court by giving Elizabeth a doll she made, “a popper,” which later leads to her arrest. They found a needle inside the doll, in the same spot Abigail was stabbed in. She seems to be manipulated by Abigail, due to the fact that she feared to have to testify against her in court. “She’ll kill me for sayin’ that! Abby’ll charge lechery on you, Mr. Proctor!” Mary kept saying over and over again that she cannot, which also indicates that she knows that Abigail will do something terrible to her.

The life of a lady in the 19th century is painted in a romantic light. Pictured in her parlor, the lady sips tea from delicate china while writing letters with a white feathered quill. Her maid stands silently off in the background, waiting for orders to serve her mistress. What is not typically pictured, is the sadness or boredom echoed on the lady’s face. Perhaps the letter is to a dear friend, not seen in ages, pleading with the friend to visit, in hopes that the friend will fill the void in the lady’s life made from years spent in a loveless marriage; or possiblyk20 the lady isn’t writing a letter at all, but a novel or a poem, never to be read by anyone but her. Edith Warton and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, are 19th Century ladies who dare to share their writing with the world. Through their works, the darker side of a woman’s life in the late 1800’s is exposed. Gender politics in the 19th dictates that a lady is dependent on her husband for her financial security and social standing; that is if she is fortunate enough to marry at all. In Edith Warton’s The House of Mirth, Lily Bart is a beautiful woman in her late 20’s, who fails to marry a wealthy man. The narrator in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper slowly goes insane under her physician husbands misguided attempts to cure her of depression. The downfall of Lily Bart and the narrator of The Yellow Wallpaper is

Elizabeth Cady Stanton became conversant with the Women’s rights activists for the first time for the Anti-Slavery convention held in London (Keene, 297). “From a youthful age, Elizabeth was distinctly mindful of the sexual orientation based force lopsided characteristics that were set up in her days” (Dorothy).

Mary Anne Warren argues in the position that abortion is morally permissible because the fetus is not a person therefore has no rights and not considered immoral to be killed. I shall argue that Warren’s argument in invalid since the claims of argument cannot be proven.

Two-hundred years is a sizeable gap of time that allows plenty of room for change. American society had been rapidly changing from the early seventeenth century to the late nineteenth century, but despite this, the roles and rights of women have remained locked in place. There were many factors to consider as to why women were not allowed to flourish in their time and exceed these boundaries, and while some accepted it, there were many that opposed and faced these difficulties head on. Two female authors, one from colonial times, and one from nineteenth century America, have written about the obstacles and misogyny they’ve overcome in a male dominated literary career. Despite the two-hundred-year gap between the lives of Margaret Fuller and Anne Bradstreet, they both face issues regarding the static stereotype that women are literarily inferior and subservient handmaids to men.

The coin was small, and its value was only one dollar, but to Betty Friedan, and to women everywhere, it was worth so much more. Every person who looked at the silver coin would see not only a picture of women’s rights activist Susan B. Anthony, but also a symbol of the changing world, and how hard people had fought to make that change. This was the first time a woman had been etched into the metal of a coin, and it meant that, finally, the efforts of Betty Friedan and Susan B. Anthony, herself, were paying off. Despite being lampooned and being ignored, both Anthony and Friedan made it their life’s work to grant women basic rights. Though their lives were one hundred years apart, both feminists are responsible for many of the freedoms women

Since the beginning of time prostitution has been a part of our world 's culture, and it is said that it is the world 's oldest profession. Man has always been equally participated and felt the need to pay for services of a sexual nature since the beginning of time, whether it was legal or not. During 19th century woman who belonged to lower class family might have worked in order to support her family, in harsh times. During that time as farther away a woman moved from the mother and home, the lower her status became. Prostitution was clearly seen as disrespectful; the prostitute was at the bottom of society’s status chain. “During the late 19th- and early 20th century, the nature of society forced the working class women of Eau Claire to take advantage of any means to support themselves, including prostitution. Each woman had to decide herself which work option best supported her financially.”(Schaar.A) The wages these women earned were unbelievably low, and at times as much as 80% lower than the wages men earned. Back in those days there weren’t many jobs

Burstyn highlights that these changes altered the social and economic role of women during the nineteenth-century . She goes on to point out that there were great pressures on middle-class women not to work during this period and explains that ‘leisure women’ were symbols of the economic success of their male relatives . Burstyn suggests that marriage was vital for a woman as it was argued men needed to protect women because of their physical weakness . According to the ideal of womanhood, the home became a place where only women spent their lives and thus the ideal woman was morally pure and a guardian of the home . Burstyn also considers the contemporary issue of education for women by suggesting that if women were to become financially independent, they may no longer have the desire to marry for economic stability . If women remained unmarried, then men would, in theory, be forced to gain sexual gratification from the ‘Social Evil’: prostitutes . In the nineteenth century, the term ‘prostitute’ was used in a much wider context to how we would use it today. Judith Flanders explains that it referred to women who: were living with men outside marriage, had had illegitimate children, or women who perhaps had relations with men, but for pleasure rather than money . It is important to

Sisters, a collection of biographies, has a central purpose to describe the lives of five crucial characters of the women’s rights movement in the 1800s and early 1900s. This movement began during a period when nearly no one would allow a woman to stand up as a leader, and no one approved of any woman wearing pants; it was only acceptable for women to wear floor length dresses or skirts. Along with the strict dress code women had to abide by to remain sociable, their central duty was to be a house maiden and to care for children. Even the most monumental women in the feminist movement were expected to bear children and raise them the best they could.

Judith Walkowitz’s book Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women, Class, and the State, deals with the social and economic impact that prostitution had on English society in the mid to late 19th century. Throughout her piece Walkowitz illustrates the plight of women who are in the prostitution field and that are working the streets throughout England. She starts with the background of most of the prostitutes in Victorian England then talks about the Contagious Disease Act in 1864 that attempted to curb the venereal diseases being spread by prostitutes. Walkowitz also discusses two specific cities in England that prostitution was a ‘social evil’, Southampton and Plymouth, where the repeal campaigns were successful.

Mary E. Wilkins Freeman was born in New England in 1852 at the start of the Victorian era. This time during American history women had a certain expected role in society. Their area of influence was known as the domestic sphere. This meant women were in charge of the home, children, and the moral values and eternal souls of the family. Many women during this time were becoming “the single, highly educated, economically autonomous New Woman” (Rosenberg, 245). They were breaking out of the domestic sphere and looking for something more. These women were “eschewing marriage...espoused innovative, often radical, economic and social reforms” (Rosenberg, 245) and were altogether more independent than women before them. Mary Wilkins Freeman

This book uses the life and experiences of Elizabeth Cady Canton to depict the state of radical feminism in the 19th century. Stanton grew up in a traditional family in New York and just like most young women, she had some insecurities. However, she also had some influence from the liberal family of her cousin Gerrit Smith. According to banner, Stanton’s feminism was highly influenced by some of the crises she experienced from a young age. Among some of the crises that she diagnoses in the book include the “lack of love” and “deep-seated sense of guilt and rejection”. Her awareness of the injustices

Social standing, and moral values were vital elements in Victorian society, and the fundamental doctrine of establishing this ideology, began at home. The home provided a refuge from the rigour, uncertainty, anxiety, and potential violence of the outside world. (P, 341) A woman’s role was to provide a safe, stable, and well-organised environment for their husbands and families. However, change was on the horizon with an underlying movement of business and domestic changes both home and abroad, with industrialization, and the suffragist movement. Women were beginning to gain autonomy and began to grasp their opportunities, thus significantly curtailing male supremacy and the definable acceptable ‘role’ of the woman.

Josephine Butler was born on the 13th of April in 1828 in Milfield Hill Northumberland, and she was the seventh child of John Grey and his wife, Hannah Annett. Born during the Victorian era, she was a revolutionary activist and a leader of a National Women’s Political campaign. Inspired by her father, who was a leading liberal and agricultural reform in the English border country, Josephine became aware of the terror of slavery and mistreatment of women, which sparked her care for the imprisoned and ill prostitutes. During the time, women were not allowed to vote, but Josephine managed to repeal the Contagious Disease Act, which was an act strongly supported by the public. This act was passed as a rationale to protect military men from getting sexually transmitted diseases from prostitutions, but allowed the latter to be sexually assaulted by police officers as they checked them for venereal disease. By repealing the act, Josephine Butler highlighted the great injustice that prostitutions faced. Moreover, she also campaigned for higher education for women, and sought equal suffrages. Nevertheless, she never became the national heroine of her time as compared to Florence Nightingale, and her accomplishments were much undermined. This essay narrates the exciting and complex journey of Josephine Butler, the influences she received throughout her life, as she struggled through her campaign that made her the historical heroine of today.