WOMEN IN THE 20TH AND 21ST CENTURIES
We in Year 9 are currently in the process of choosing our option subjects
for GCSE and researching possible future careers. As we make our
choices, we are comfortable in the thought that we can go down a series
of routes and potentially take on a multitude of jobs which will suit our
qualifications.
However, this has not always been the case and the career prospects of
our female predecessors at St Paul’s and other schools at the beginning
of the 1900’s would have been very limited. The evolution for women has
been slow, but has brought us to where we are today – with choice and a
say in decision-making processes.
At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the Twentieth
Century, women had a very stereotypical role in British society. In the
upper classes, rich parents wanted their daughters to marry wealthy
young men. This meant they had to acquire such skills as keeping
household accounts and dealing with servants. They would also have to
sing, dance, play the piano and do embroidery. They were taught these
skills by a combination of their mothers and their governess, who was
employed by the family to teach the children in the household. In the
lower classes, if married, they stayed at home to look after the children
while their husband worked and brought in a weekly wage. If single, they
did work which usually involved some form of service such as working as a
waitress, cooking etc. Many young women were simply expected to get
married and have children. In education, the emphasis was on learning
skills for work, not on learning how to learn. The core curriculum was
reading, writing and arithmetic (the 3 R’s). Boys were shown the tools
they might need in manual jobs, and taught how to measure and
calculate. Girls were taught to sew, knit and cook, ready for work as
servants or wives and mothers.
(SLIDE OF ELIZABETH GARRETT ANDERSON) Towards the end of the
19th century, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson became the first lady to qualify
to be a doctor (GP). She then faced huge obstacles making progress in
her profession. Men would not go to her simply because she was female ,
whereas, women usually kept with the way it was done then - they
continued seeing a male GP. It took years for Anderson to succeed, but
eventually she won over her patients.
(SLIDE OF WOMEN IN EMPLOYMENT)
This table of employment gives an example of where women worked in
1900
Type of
employment
Number of women employed
Domestic Servants
1,740,800
Teachers
124,000
Nurses
68,000
Doctors
212
Architects
2
The table clearly shows in which direction women were expected to go,
should they have work. Many poorly educated young ladies simply worked
for a large household as a servant. From here they could train to work in
a kitchen but it is highly unlikely that they would have become the head
of a kitchen as this was still the 'territory' of the male.
Even the figure for teachers is somewhat misleading as female teachers
nearly all worked in junior or nursery schools. What we would now call
secondary schools were staffed only by male teachers.
(SLIDE – QUEEN VICTORIA WITH QUOTATION)
For decades women's progress in British society was haunted by the
words of Queen Victoria:
"Let women be what God intended, a helpmate for man,
but with totally different duties and vocations."
Coming from the most famous woman in the world at the time, men in
power used these words to hinder the advance women had made. By 1900,
women had been granted some improvements in their lifestyle via the law
courts - it was only in 1891 that women were told that they could not be
forced to live with a man if they did not want to - but because nearly all
women were reliant on their husbands for a source of money, many women
lived in miserable marriages.
(SLIDE OF MILLICENT FAWCETT) In the later years of the nineteenth
century, women wanted one very basic right - the right to vote – the
right of suffrage. The original movement for women's political rights was
a non-violent one lead by Millicent Fawcett. Her movement was called the
National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies. Fawcett believed in the
power of change through persuasion. She argued that those women who
had money and employed men as gardeners, cooks etc., were in the absurd
position of not being able to vote yet those men employed in their
employment did !! Another of Fawcett's arguments was that those women
that worked paid the same level of tax as men who were employed, but
the men could vote and the women could not.
However, Fawcett's arguments were not listened to and some men were
less than polite when giving reasons as to why women should not vote :
"Political power in many large cities would chiefly be in the hands of
young, ill-educated, giddy, and often ill-conducted (badly behaved) girls."
Frederick Rylands (1896)
Such a reaction led to some women taking a more hard-line attitude and in
1903, the Women's Social and Political Union was created by Emmeline
Pankhurst. (SLIDE OF EMMELINE PANKHURST) They became known as
the Suffragettes. Their campaign took them into the twentieth century a century that gave women over 30 years of age the right to vote in 1918
and allowed them to stand for Parliament as MP's in the same year. Finally
in 1928, women were given the same political rights as men.
(SLIDE OF JOBS DONE BY WOMEN IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR)
By the 1930’s women therefore were able to vote and stand for
Parliament, but for many women their career opportunities were still
limited. Before the Second World War, women were expected to be
'housewives' or perhaps to do certain 'women's jobs', such as nursing or
being a domestic servant or shop assistant. The war changed the world of
work for women forever. When men went to fight, women were called
upon to fill their jobs, and this included many jobs that were previously
thought of unsuitable for women. Jobs undertaken by women during the
war included:












mechanics
engineers
pilots
Tank drivers
Building ships
Working in factories - making bombs and aircraft parts
Air raid wardens
Driving fire engines
Plumbers
Ambulance drivers
WRVS volunteers
Nurses
(SLIDE OF ‘WE CAN DO IT’ POSTER)
After the war, as happens frequently in conflicts around the world, women
in Britain were seduced into thinking their place on or close to the front
line would inevitably give them an equal share in the post war running of
things. But they were wrong. The returning soldiers were to be given jobs
and women again would keep the home fires burning. Yet again, women fell
into their old ways – leave school, find a job, find a husband, get married,
start a family, leave the job and stay at home to look after the children.
A significant number, though, had tasted the freedom of the new ways
during the war years and yearned for the independence it had given them.
(SLIDE OF WOMEN’S LIBERATION MOVEMENT)
In the family, wives and mothers want.ed a renegotiation of the old order.
They argued for a form of democracy in the home where rights and
responsibilities would be equally shared. In the work place they wanted
equal rights, equal opportunity and equal pay. To be a young woman in the
late sixties and early seventies was unimaginably exciting. Feminist light
bulbs, as the American author, Gloria Steinem described them, were
coming on all over the place as women faced a problem and forced change.
And the crucial question that has been most hotly debated has been what
it means to be a woman. We've examined what we wear. Shall it be
dungarees, trousers, long skirts, short skirts, lipstick, high heels,
flatties? We've concluded anything goes. Should we shave our legs and
armpits, be thin or fat. Conclusion? Whatever you want. Do we go out to
work or stay at home and raise children? Whichever you choose. Can girls
study maths and physics? Of course they can. In every arena, in every
sphere women have attended to their kind and made a difference.
(POWERPOINT SLIDES OF 20TH CENTURY WOMEN WHO HAVE MADE
A DIFFERENCE)
Beatrix Potter – first British woman to publish botanical drawings
Anita Roddick – founder of the Body Shop / against animal testing
Ida B. Wells- Barnett – campaigner for human
rights
Rosa Parks – helped to launch civil rights movement in USA
Diana Princess of Wales – first British citizen to marry a royal heir in
300 years
Amelia Earhart – first woman aviator who attempted to fly around the
world (unfortunately she didn’t manage it – she and her plane were lost
somewhere near the Equator)
Eleanor Roosevelt - the first American president's wife to have a public
life and a career
Anne Frank – demonstrated great courage
Mother Teresa – devoted herself to working with the poorest of the poor
in Calcutta
Margaret Thatcher was Britain's first female prime minister in 1979, and
first British prime minister in the twentieth century to win three
consecutive terms.
Dame Ellen Patricia MacArthur, DBE (born 8 July 1976) is an English
sailor from Whatstandwell near Matlock in Derbyshire, now based in
Cowes, on the Isle of Wight. She is best known as a solo long-distance
yachtswoman who, on 7 February 2005, broke the world record for the
fastest solo circumnavigation of the globe.
As we have seen, so many women have had an impact on our lives and have
brought us to the situation which we find ourselves in today – a situation
where we have choice and can be accepted, whatever we do, whatever we
say and whatever we feel. In years to come we hope that many of us in
this hall today can make a difference to others’ lives and that we can pave
the way for future generations.
Let us now say some BIDDING PRAYERS
We pray for women all over the world. May God strengthen and guide
them throughout their lives . Lord hear us ….
We pray for women in wartorn countries. May the Lord look after them
in their times of suffering and during the conflict. Lord hear us …..
We pray for all the Year 9 students choosing their option subjects at this
time. May Jesus help us to make the right decisions. Lord hear us
……………
We pray for the women in our own lives – mothers, sisters, grandmothers,
aunts and teachers. May God help us to be grateful for all of the things
that they do for us. Lord hear us
We pray to our Lady for all of our own special intentions. Hail Mary full
of Grace …….
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen
