How Did Women Participate In The Private Sphere In Victorian England

The ‘separate spheres’ ideology – that men were naturally suited to a ‘public sphere’ while women belonged in the ‘private sphere’ of the home – is the dominant model of gender relations in the nineteenth century, especially for examining the middle classes, but the reality was not as rigid as it appears. It would be inaccurate to argue that there were not legal and societal restraints upon women’s participation in the public sphere in Victorian Britain, however, neither would it be accurate to argue that all women in Victorian Britain spent their lives sequestered in the private sphere. Women’s lives were not entirely confined to the home, and women did participate in the ‘public sphere’, which here will refer to engagement with the market
Though legally prohibited from voting or standing in national elections, campaigning was another way for women to involve themselves. Campaigns surrounding the abolition of slavery, the corn laws, and of course female issues such as women’s suffrage and the Contagious Diseases Act all featured women in active and leading roles, and the national scope of such campaigns cannot be doubted. These campaigns sometimes led to changes in law, such as the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act in 1886 after a sustained campaign led by Josephine Butler. Though men often played an important part in these campaigns as leaders, organisers and supporters, and of course male lawmakers were instrumental, women nonetheless were able to take leading roles alongside men in these issues. Women were able to manipulate the ideology of ‘separate spheres’ to relate public sphere issues such as women’s health to their duties as wives and mothers. For example, in 1889 Millicent Garrett Fawcett argued for votes for women on the basis that “we want to see the home and the domestic side of things to count for more in politics”. By using women’s domestic responsibilities as the basis for their political arguments, women could justify a public position for themselves. However, women were not only confined to those issues relating to domesticity. For aristocratic women, as K.D. Reynolds has illustrated, interest and indirect participation in politics was fundamental to their roles. Reynolds argued they could exert influence over elections through offering patronage and campaigning alongside their male relatives. This view is endorsed by Peterson, who attested that aristocratic women “certainly” involved themselves in national politics, and further suggested that upper-middle-class women could perform a similar role. It is clear that, though excluded from voting, women were not excluded entirely from the political