The "Women Question": The Victorian Debate About Gender

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The Victorian debate on gender engaged both sexes about the role of women and on occasion men. There were many mixed opinions on the matter, for instance Queen Victoria believed in education for women but the idea of women voting was ludicrous. The Queen also believed that women were to be submissive. Women of the time accepted their roles because it was thought to be divinely willed. This holds a lot of power because the Church had the control over people to where if they declared something to be the “will of God”, then people would obey. People of the time conformed to “Gods will”, in fear that if they did not, God would punish them. Many of Queen Victoria’s female subjects shared her views in that a women’s role was to be submissive because “God willed it so” (Greenblatt p.654). Mrs. Breeton in her Book of Household Management, agreed with the Queen, that women were to be submissive and supported this with the claim that women were intellectually inferior compared to men. I think there were anxieties that men of the time had in concern with women and that to calm the anxiety, men did all they could to stay in control over women.

Florence Nightingale’s work, Cassandra, she eluded that there was a fear/anxiety that men held towards woman due to the possibility that women could make a study of something; she stated, “that he would not have so good a dinner- that she would destroy, as it is called, his domestic life” (Greenblatt p.675). A man’s norm of domestic life would be ruined if women decided to be socially deviant to their norms. For men this was a scary thought and would mean a big change in society if it were to happen. Nightingale questioned the norms that women were set to follow, but she also questioned the norms that men were to follow. She stated, “why should we laugh if we were to see a parcel of men sitting round a drawing room table in the morning and think it alright if they were woman” (Greenblatt p.674). In the “Women Question”, Nightingale was the only one who truly questioned why men couldn’t do certain things, not just women, in her manuscript Cassandra.

Women however, were set to an unbelievably high standard. In Coventry Patmore’s work The Angel in the House he stated, “woman became an object to be worshiped” (Greenblatt p.654) and in John Ruskin’s work Of Queens’ Gardens, he stated that women made home “a sacred place” (Greenblatt p.654). Women had to be pure and perfect to live up to the idea that they are worthy enough to be worshiped or to be a sacred place, but they couldn’t surpass the idea that they were an object. The word object holds meaning because it entertains the idea that women are less than man. Calling women an object makes it seem like they are lesser and therefor aren’t entitled to the same opportunities or privileges as men are. John Ruskin’s Of Queens’ Gardens, talks about how a woman should be wise; he says “…wise, not that she may set herself above her husband, but that she may never fail from his side…” (Greenblatt p.662). Women were not to surpass men, only support him and deviated from that would make a woman imperfect and not worthy of worship.

Many writers have contributed to the Victorian debate on gender and in their works, glimpses of the anxiety’s men held about women can be seen. This is because majority of the authors focused on stating what a women’s place is. Florence Nightingale broke away from societies norms about women and in her work, Cassandra, she questioned the norms both genders were held too. The “Women Question” debate in its title seems to be questioning gender norms of the Victorian times and so I assume that people of the time were starting to draw it into question as well.

Work Cited:

Greenblatt, Stephen, and Catherine Robson. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 10th ed., E, W.W. Norton, 2018.