Gender/Nation Article

Warning, this article has sexual themes to it!

How did women become silenced in the first place? This is a question that many people wonder. One time period that was majorly sexist and silenced women's voices was the Victorian times. People already know that the Victorian times were bad for women, but they often don’t know why. Sometimes they don’t even know how. Roles in the household are the first thing that should be touched on. For men, they often spent most of their time working and making money for the household. For women, they spent their time having kids, taking care of the kids and cooking/cleaning the home. This means the woman of the household spent most of their time in the house and separated from the public.

            What does it truly mean to be a perfect wife in the Victorian times though? A good Wife is virtuous, busy, and their whole life revolved around the house. Men’s job was to work and be social. According to Lynn Abrams, “The increasing physical separation of the home and the workplace, for many among the professional and commercial classes, meant that these women lost touch with production, and came to fashion an identity solely within the domestic sphere. It was through their duties within the home that women were offered a moral duty, towards their families, especially their husbands, and towards society as a whole.”  So if someone was born as a woman, they only had one option, to be quiet and work on home life. Some state that most women were happy with this, but how much of this was enforced and taught to be enjoyable? How many women faked it? It must be noted that ideas like this are still here in 2019, but luckily most women have the freedom to do what they want.

Fashion even showed a woman’s role in the house. According to Lynn Abrams, “By wearing dresses that resembled their interior furnishings, women became walking symbols of their social function - wife, mother, domestic manager.” Victorian women's clothing often mirrored their role in the house. Their hips, breasts, and other body parts were emphasized to show the separation from the outside. This clothing restricted movement so much that some women fainted. Many speculate that this could have been a way men controlled women, how could they work with such difficult clothing? Women were supposed to be beautiful and presentable, and if they worked it would be very difficult to do both of those things in their minds. Even clothing contributes to the idea that women in the Victorian times were silenced. It made them unable to work, and further enforced the idea of them barely having a social life. In turn, they had no voice. 

      

A big topic in the Victorian time to silence women was labeling them with hysteria. Hysteria was something that even the Greeks talked about. Even the term hysteria is deeply rooted and connected to women, according to Vanessa Traniello, “The term hysteria comes from the Greek word hysterika, meaning Uterus.” Hysteria was a common diagnosis for women in the Victorian times. Basically, diagnosing a woman with it was saying that they don't know what’s wrong with the woman or they couldn’t quiet her down, so they were going to blame it on her body parts. Even if a woman was emotional and outspoken, she would be labeled with hysteria directly silencing her voice with even her own body. Sound familiar? Many women would be labeled with this, and according to the victorian-era they would diagnosis women with it and say it’s because they have not had sex. So, what was the treatment? An example of the treatment was called a “Pelvic massage” which was the manual stimulation of the private parts by a doctor until the women basically orgasms. They called this “hysterical paroxysm”. According to victorian-era, “In 1859, a physician claimed that a quarter of all women suffered from hysteria. He cataloged possible symptoms, which included faintness, nervousness, insomnia, fluid retention, heaviness in abdomen, muscle spasm, shortness of breath, irritability, loss of appetite for food or sex, and ‘a tendency to cause trouble.’” That last part is the most disturbing. What do they mean by a woman causing trouble? Well, in the Victorian times it was often a woman who didn’t like the sexist box they were placed in. Hysteria was a method of control used by men. Even if a woman was sick with something, it would often be confused with hysteria and that led to the problem of more suffering or even the death of the woman, all because people would not listen to her. This still happens today, even though hysteria is not often what is diagnosed.

            Another example of women being silenced was being thrown in an asylum. If a woman defied men, they could be thrown into an asylum. According to the science museum BroughtToLife, “A woman who rebelled against Victorian domesticity risked being declared insane and committed to an asylum. This was usually at her husband’s or father’s request, and she generally had no right to contest or appeal. Women were further disempowered by moral treatment once locked away. This cornerstone of Victorian psychiatry claimed male dominance was therapeutic. The doctor ruled the asylum like a father ruled his family.” This is a prime example of the idea that men rule the house, therefore women were not able to do anything about their own treatment during said time. Even if that meant the woman was locked up! How could women speak during these times? It's understandable that they wouldn’t, considering they could be diagnosed with something or even be thrown into an asylum without being able to say a word. That had to be a scary time for women.

Discussing the silenced voices of women does not mean that women were weak back then. Living in that kind of world and struggling through all that had to be tough. To look at these women and think they were weak is a huge miscalculation. The industrial times brought on some new feminist ideas such as women working. Learning about these silenced voices hopefully brought everyone to the idea that we should never go down that dark path again. No one should be silenced because they defy the social norms of the society. Hopefully, when you read this, you were as shocked as I was at some of these facts! Women have been silenced for too long, we have a long way to go but we have made some remarkable progress since the Victorian times. That doesn’t mean that during imperialism this attitude didn’t affect people Britain were trying to take over though! Tune into my Postcolonial page to learn more about that!

Works Cited

Abrams, Lynn. “History - Ideals of Womanhood in Victorian Britain.” BBC, BBC, www.bbc.co.uk/history/trail/victorian_britain/women_home/ideals_womanhood_04.shtml.

“Female Hysteria during Victorian Era: Its Symptoms, Diagnosis & Treatment/Cures.” Victorian Era Life in England. Victorians Society & Daily Life, victorian-era.org/female-hysteria-during-victorian-era.html.

“Science Museum. Brought to Life: Exploring the History of Medicine.” Women and Psychiatry, broughttolife.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/themes/menalhealthandillness/womanandpsychiatry.

Traniello, Vanessa. “Hysteria and the Wandering Womb.” Hysteria and the Wandering Womb, academic.mu.edu/meissnerd/hysteria.html.