Show Sidebar Log in
English @ SUNY Geneseo The SUNY Geneseo English Community
  • Home
  • Members
  • Groups
  • Site-Wide Activity

Group Admins

  • Profile picture of The Management

Nineteenth-Century Studies

Public Group active 2 years, 4 months ago

For courses and discussion related to any aspect of the long nineteenth century in England, the United States, and elsewhere.

Education of Women in Victorian Era- Group 2

Tagged: cambridge, education, england, oxbridge, oxford, victorian

  • This topic has 0 replies, 1 voice, and was last updated 4 years ago by Hayley Jones.
Viewing 1 post (of 1 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • September 9, 2019 at 9:19 pm #1470
    Hayley Jones
    Participant

    After reading the assigned passages for our 9/10 class, Group 2 decided to zero-in on women’s education in Victorian England and found an article called “Feminist thinking on education in Victorian England” by Laura Schwartz. This article begins by asserting that the Victorian women’s rights movement did not spring up from one text or thinker, but rather was a conglomerate of many ideas, sometimes opposing ones, from many different people. According to Schwartz, feminists active in the second half of the 19<sup>th</sup> century “directly equated freedom with the acquisition of knowledge” (2). Activists such as Elizabeth Wolstenholme also chose to focus on sex education and suffrage, and even more radical feminists such as Josephine Butler focused on the rights and treatment of sex workers.

    As the article begins to narrow its focus from the general women’s rights movement to education specifically, Schwartz asserts that altering the landscape of educating women did not come without its challenges: some women in higher education rejected more radical stances and opposed “female enfranchisement” (2). What’s more, women could not even read for degrees at Oxford until 1920 and at Cambridge until 1947. Interestingly, feminism during this time was often connected to religious movements and schools of thought, for in Christianity idleness is considered a great sin and it was decided that women needed to be kept busy in some way.

    Despite major roadblocks to equal education between men and women, activists like Emily Davies and Frances Power Cobbe insisted that women receive an identical education to men, including competitive exams. In 1869, Griton College was established at Cambridge for the education of women, though the majority of the North of England Council for Higher Education for Women disapproved. Oxford followed suit soon after by establishing its own women’s centers for education, though they placed severe restriction on student’s dress, conduct, and interaction with men.

    In conclusion, Schwartz surmises that the women’s education movement was shaped out of the larger “women question” (i.e., the questioning of women’s place in society) and by the “feminist re-thinking of gender roles, sexual difference, and the family” (10). Schwartz goes on to say that the feminist movement was very much rooted in politics of the time and, as stated before, influenced by religious aversion to idleness, “valuing work, dignity of economic independence, and individual self-improvement” (11). Though it was an often gruelingly slow road to female emancipation, the feminist campaign for women’s education developed in tandem with ideas and institutions, and so as England evolved and progressed, so did the movement.

  • Author
    Posts
Viewing 1 post (of 1 total)
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
Log In
Group logo of Nineteenth-Century Studies
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Announcements
  • Blog
  • Docs
  • Members 65

Recent Blog Posts

  • Profile picture of Sandy Brahaspat

    Sandy Brahaspat edited the blog post Themes Across Victorian Literature – Group 3 in the group Group logo of Nineteenth-Century StudiesNineteenth-Century Studies: 3 years, 9 months ago

    Group 3: Sandy Brahaspat, Mallory DelSignore, Domenica Piccoli, Jasmine Vrooman

    In completing our group project, we decided to use the online software Kumu to map out prevalent connections between themes like […]

  • Profile picture of Emma Sens

    Emma Sens wrote a new blog post Group 4: Refelction in the group Group logo of Nineteenth-Century StudiesNineteenth-Century Studies: 3 years, 9 months ago

    Group 4: Places That Show The Development Of Pip

    By: Kathryn Capone, Emma Sens, Clare Corbett, Cameron Luquer, Kristopher Bangsil, and Isa Higgins

    Our goal with this project was to delve deeper into the […]

  • Profile picture of Emily Tsoi

    Emily Tsoi edited the blog post Connecting the Experiences of Women in Victorian Literature in the group Group logo of Nineteenth-Century StudiesNineteenth-Century Studies: 3 years, 9 months ago

    Project by Group 2- Logan Carpenter, Hayley Jones, John Serbalik, and Emily Tsoi

    Blog Post Written By Emily Tsoi and Hayley Jones

    Process and Challenges Faced in Creating the Project:

    When we were first […]

  • Profile picture of Abbey Morgan

    Abbey Morgan wrote a new blog post Group 6: Reflection in the group Group logo of Nineteenth-Century StudiesNineteenth-Century Studies: 3 years, 9 months ago

    For our project, we were interested in gaining a better understanding of the role family plays in both Wuthering Heights and Great Expectations. We can also begin to understand what role family plays in Victorian […]

  • Profile picture of Ravenna VanOstrand

    Ravenna VanOstrand edited the blog post Group 1: Reflection in the group Group logo of Nineteenth-Century StudiesNineteenth-Century Studies: 3 years, 9 months ago

    This project was inspired by, and further unearthed certain connections between, the chronology of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights and Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. Both novels feature chronology as […]

  • Profile picture of Jaffre Aether

    Jaffre Aether edited the blog post Group 5 Reflection in the group Group logo of Nineteenth-Century StudiesNineteenth-Century Studies: 3 years, 9 months ago

    The aim of our project is to situate the themes of our novel in a physical and historical context. By way of this, our thematic map allows for a visualization of the physical spaces that influenced the writers […]

  • Profile picture of Jasmine Vrooman

    Jasmine Vrooman wrote a new blog post Connextions: Reflecting on this Semester in the group Group logo of Nineteenth-Century StudiesNineteenth-Century Studies: 3 years, 10 months ago

    The biggest takeaway I have from this semester is the connexions that I’ve made within the texts we’ve read but also across timelines. Dissecting stories like Wuthering Heights and Great Expectations in a way […]

  • Profile picture of John Serbalik

    John Serbalik wrote a new blog post A “Wilde” Author in the group Group logo of Nineteenth-Century StudiesNineteenth-Century Studies: 3 years, 10 months ago

    Oscar Wilde made many contributions to the Victorian literature movement. His sexuality was a double-edged sword in his success as a. We learned in class that his intimate relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas […]

  • Profile picture of Logan Carpenter

    Logan Carpenter wrote a new blog post What I’ve learned this semester in the group Group logo of Nineteenth-Century StudiesNineteenth-Century Studies: 3 years, 10 months ago

    Last semester I took Digital Humanities with Dr. Schacht and learned so much that I decided to take another class with him this semester. He always chooses such enjoyable readings and formats the class so we all […]

  • Profile picture of Tommy Castronova

    Tommy Castronova wrote a new blog post The Victorian Connection in the group Group logo of Nineteenth-Century StudiesNineteenth-Century Studies: 3 years, 10 months ago

    In thinking about this class as a whole, and what I would write for this blog post, I spent some time thinking about the name of the course, Victorian Connections, and what exactly that meant. I tried to think of […]

More Blogs

Recently Active Members

Profile picture of Paul Schacht
Profile picture of Evan Brown
Profile picture of Beth McCoy
Profile picture of Danielle Tomasello
Profile picture of Logan Theofield
Profile picture of Claire Miller
Profile picture of Gianna Minnuto
Profile picture of AJ Forte
Profile picture of Evelyse Cruz
Profile picture of Alyssa Lee
Profile picture of Liv Rayburn
Profile picture of Cristiana Nuzzi
Profile picture of Lauren Conover
Profile picture of Jessie Seifert
Profile picture of Katelyn Jacques

Connect

@GeneseoEnglish

SUNY Geneseo English Department

english-at-geneseo-dot-edu

Terms and Conditions

Read our terms and conditions here.

Sitemap

  • Groups
  • Home Page
  • Members
  • Site-Wide Activity
  • Sites
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Two-factor authentication
Powered by Commons In A Box
Skip to toolbar
  • About WordPress
    • About WordPress
    • Get Involved
    • WordPress.org
    • Documentation
    • Support
    • Feedback
  • Log In
  • Register