Roles & Rights: WomenRenaissance to Contemporary Europe

Mimi Pham

The Renaissance

In The Courtier, Baldassare Castiglione defined the perfect court lady as being well-educated & charming. Women were not expected to seek fame, unlike their male counterparts.

Being a patron of the arts was the most socially acceptable role for a well-educated Renaissance woman, like Isabella d’Este.

Christine de Pizan was a prolific author. She wrote a history of famous woman and is now remembered as Europe’s first feminist.

The Reformation

As advocated by Martin Luther, Christian woman should strive to be models of obedience & Christian charity.

Women were regularly allowed to preach by Quakers.

Due to the Protestant Revolution, access to convents was reduced.

Women were accused of & prosecuted for practicing witchcraft. Generally, older & widowed women were the most likely at risk.

The Enlightenment

In many ways, the position of women was seriously degraded during the Enlightenment.

Economically, the rise of capitalism produced laws that severely restricted women's rights to own property and run businesses.

While Enlightenment thinkers were proposing economic freedom and enlightened monarchs were tearing down barriers to production and trade, women were being forced out of a variety of businesses throughout Europe. 

Women were prominent in hosting

salons. Here, educated women

were given a voice in cultural affairs. The support of superstition and accusations of

witchcraft declined. This was a direct

result of educated Europeans turning to rational explanations

of natural events.

The French Revolution

On October 5, 1789, women marched to Versailles to demand lower bread prices from Louis XVI.

Through Napolean Bonaparte’s Civil Code, husbands were granted exclusive control over their wives, & the Old Regime’s patriarchal system was restored.

Olympia de Gouges wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen in 1791. She demanded that French women receive the same rights as men.

Mary Wollenstonecraft wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Women arguing that women were not naturally inferior to men; but rather, they only seem inferior due to lack of an education.

Women never gained the right to vote or to hold political office, though.

During the Radical Phase, women took an active part in the Revolution through a Society for Revolutionary Women, but many men forbade women to be involved in such activity.

Women became aware that they could be a major force in politics if they choose to take action.

The Nineteenth Century

John Stuart Mill attempted to include women in the voting reform bill of 1867, but failed. When Mill wrote The Subjection of Women, he argued that the social andlegal inequalities imposed on women were a relic from thepast & that differences betweenmen & women were only social.

The ideal middle-class woman was expected to be an “angel in the house.” her most important roles were to be a devoted mother & the family’s moral guardian.

Women were expected to marry & stay at home. Only in working-class families was “sweat work” standard for women.

Few married women worked outside the home, for most working women were single; the cottage industry tied women to the home.

Although women do gain a workplace, their wages remain lower than that of a man.

Although most women worked domestically, following the

Industrial Revolution there

were many women working in the mines &

factories.

Opportunities for well-educated women were limited to teaching, nursing, and school work, although women attendance at medical school did rise during this time.

Divorce is still not permitted excluding Britain in 1857 and France in 1884.

Women poets also became increasingly published, as well as fashion magazines that made women more conscious of style.

Women’s Suffrage Although the women’s suffrage movement commanded wide attention, it achieved few successes. In 1900, no country in Europe allowed women the right to vote. Led by Emmeline Pankhurst, British Women waged an aggressive campaign for women’s suffrage.

In 1918, Parliament finally granted the suffrage to women over the age of 30.

Women in the Soviet Union

The Bolsheviks proclaimed complete equality of rights for women.

Soviet women were urged to work outside the home. Both divorce and abortion were available to women.

These women were encouraged to become professionals, eventually comprising three-quarters of Soviet doctors by 1950.

World War I

During WWI, women replaced men on duty in factories, offices, & shops.

The wages of women barely increased, & their jobs were only temporary until the men came home.

Immediately following the war, women were given the right to vote in some countries such as Germany & Austria.

Women began showing off their new independence in

ways such as wearing shorter dresses, using

cosmetics, and smoking in public.

World War II

During the 1930’s, Italy & Germany encouraged women to remain at home & provide their country with more offspring.

However, during WWII, most women re-entered into the workforce as an effect of commitment to total warfare.

Women directly helped war efforts by acting as medics & nurses.

Post-war reconstruction left women to continue working, although still at lower wages than men.

However, many women returned to traditional family practices, causing an increase in birthrates known as the “baby boom.”

Contemporary Europe

Led by Simone de Beauvoir, European

feminists called attention to social

problems that women faced, &

she emphasized the need for women to control their own

lives.

European feminists worked for liberalized divorce laws, improved access to birth control information, and expanded child-care facilities.

Employment rates for married women dramatically increased.

Women now refuse to be dominated by males by taking control of their lives like through politics/the right to vote, property rights, and abortion laws.