Women and Gender in Modern Europe

Women were assigned feminine traits such as to be submissive, to be idle and to have emotions to deal with problems. Along with these traits were spheres that women were assigned to. These spheres included a domestic one and one of an Angel of the House. There aren’t many more things that can control people than assigning them a station in life and having ways in which to keep them there. There were opinions held in high esteem by the academic community that women should stay in these spheres and not participate in the education of themselves. T. S. Clousten, in his “Female Education from a Medical Point of View” described this view in his own way of thinking. In that article the author describes how “energy” is expelled in the wrong way by women when participate in education. They should instead be focusing their energy into childbearing. This is a widely popular view back in the time in which the article was written. Academic minds have always been a strong indication of the public sentiment of the times. This view accompanied with laws such as coverture laws helped to make the response to events such as the French Revolution even greater than they would have normally been.
Another aspect to the oppression and response to it had to do with the “Jack the Ripper and the Myth of Male Violence”. There was an article of the same name that Judith Walkowitz wrote in 1982. This article entailed the violence that women may or may not face because of their trespassing in certain men’s domains. The symbolization of this was Jack the Ripper. Women of the time had to deal with the threat of this while trying to change their situation through their respective movements. Violence is the chief motivator in trying to conform to your oppressor’s demands. People everywhere know this so this was the most important aspect in women’s inability to rise in society.
Women’s position in society at the time was staggered according to what lot in life socio economically you were assigned to. There were some women who were more involved than others in the making of money. Some women were allowed to work in mines because of their small stature, and some were assigned to their husband’s business in the guild system. Men in this system were required to be wed. There were, however, places to which women could turn to get recourse from their lots. Women were forming movements of equality in the eyes of the law in response to several movements that involved middle class and below white men. These movements provided equality for all men to one another and because of this, women knew that these applied to women as well. One instance is John Locke’s Tabula Rasa. This Latin phrase means blank slate. This meant that people, when they were born were equal and thus had a blank slate. This also meant that their experiences shaped who they were. These types of responses were paramount to where the women of the time would go in society.
The women’s movements of time were characterized as progressive of the time, as are many movements of its type. There were far reaching changes made as a result of these movements. However, there are functions that they served as previously discussed, such as responding to the men’s portion of the same movement. The internalized conflict that they created was tremendously painful for the oppressors to go through. Much of the conflict that occurred happened when more and more women got involved in the movements. Education, as with a lot in the world was the key to providing the elevated status in society. Women were oppressed differently in Europe than in the United States, however that oppression wasn’t nearly as new. There were no such things as marital rape or signing contracts without husbands or fathers. These small things contributed to the big oppression of women.
European history is littered with events and movements such as these that shaped the course of history. Women’s history in that sense may be one of the most important of all of them. The course of history has been significantly changed on account of women of today and as such the contributions of those women that came before, and the obstacles in which they had to overcome are all the more monumental. Therefore there are no more important judgments that had to be made than the ones made centuries ago by these women.