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Women Throughout History

The document outlines the role of women throughout European history, highlighting their experiences during the Reformation, Religious Wars, Enlightenment, and Industrial Society. It discusses the evolution of women's rights, education, and societal roles, including the impact of significant figures like Catherine de Medicis and Elizabeth I. Additionally, it touches on the challenges faced by women, such as witch hunts, limited property rights, and the rise of political feminism leading up to World War II.

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7 views13 pages

Women Throughout History

The document outlines the role of women throughout European history, highlighting their experiences during the Reformation, Religious Wars, Enlightenment, and Industrial Society. It discusses the evolution of women's rights, education, and societal roles, including the impact of significant figures like Catherine de Medicis and Elizabeth I. Additionally, it touches on the challenges faced by women, such as witch hunts, limited property rights, and the rise of political feminism leading up to World War II.

Uploaded by

aarondavidking
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Women Throughout

European History
Women in the Reformation
• Clerical marriage = big
• Degrade them (temptresses) or exalt them
(virgins)
• Marriage laws = new protection, security
• Protestants opposed popular
anti-women/marriage literature of Middle Ages
• Idea of companionate marriage
• Female education encouraged
• Family size, duration of marriage, childcare
changing
Women during the Religious Wars
WOMEN IN POWER
• Catherine de Medicis: power in France during
reigns of 3 sons; plotted w/ Guises
• Mary I: England, divisive domestic measures,
bad foreign policy
• Elizabeth I: England, appealed to the people,
moderate religion, singleness = political tool
16 and 17 Centuries
th th

• Witch hunts: 80% of victims 45-60 year old


women, dependent social group, women
vulnerable & claimed powers for status, women
= sexual devils
Women in the Old Regime
• Women married young  neolocalism
• Family economy: wives ran husbands’
businesses, maintain household, started
work from early age, in charge of farm w/
husband absent
• Lack of child-rearing: unwanted/illegitimate
births, foundling hospitals, deaths
Women during the Enlightenment
• Aided philosophes in promoting ideas
• Philosophes urged better/broader education for
women, rejected old views of sexual relations
• Montesquieu: women not naturally inferior to men
• Encyclopedia: emphasized physical weakness and
inferiority, reared to be frivolous and unconcerned with
imp’t issues
• Rousseau: different spheres for M&W - women’s
function in childbirth/rearing, weaker except for
capacity of love, domestic sphere
• Wollstonecraft: victims of male tyranny, Rousseau etc.
limiting women’s vision/experience
Enlightened Despot:
Catherine the Great
• Major Russian reforms
– Instructions
– Administrative reform
– Suppressed internal barriers to trade, exports
– Territorial expansion
The French Revolution
• Left out of Rights of Man and Citizen
Industrial Society
• Less closely bound with family
• Associated with domestic duties
• Employment in factories
• Harsh domestic work conditions
• Prostitution prevalent
• Marriage for dependency on husband
• Fewer family/community ties
• Relationships with men more fleeting
Second Industrial Revolution to
World War 1
• No property ownership
• Contraception/abortion illegal
• Little education & low-level skill jobs
• Poverty  prostitution
• Home = unit of consumption
• Rise of political feminism: suffragettes
Late 19 Century
th

• Antifeminism
• Social Darwinism enforced women as
weaker gender
• New directions in Feminism
– Feminist authors
– Issues over prostitute laws
– Ellen Key & The Renaissance of Motherhood
World War 2
• Germany: Nazi propaganda praised
women’s role as mothers and household
maintainers, held family together in time of
crisis/unrest

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