Education
Women were not freely offered the opportunity to study subjects of an extended, classical, and commercial nature. This made it difficult for a woman to break free from the societal constraints to achieve independent economical status. Education was specialised by gender. Women were provided with the opportunity to study refined subjects such as history, geography and general literature which would provide them with interesting but noncontroversial topics for discussion. Despite the restrictions and stigmatisation, some women did excel in "male" subjects such as law, physics, engineering, science and art. These women pioneered the path for the much improved gender equality in modern education in the UK. Women were rarely given the opportunity to attend university. It was even said that studying was against their nature and could make them ill. They were to stay more or less an "ornament of society."
Read more about this topic: Women In The Victorian Era
Famous quotes containing the word education:
“I would urge that the yeast of education is the idea of excellence, and the idea of excellence comprises as many forms as there are individuals, each of whom develops his own image of excellence. The school must have as one of its principal functions the nurturing of images of excellence.”
—Jerome S. Bruner (20th century)
“... the physical and domestic education of daughters should occupy the principal attention of mothers, in childhood: and the stimulation of the intellect should be very much reduced.”
—Catherine E. Beecher (1800–1878)
“Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. Education and free discussion are the antidotes of both.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)