Women and The Economy
During the Victorian era, the economy was seen as something stable, and controlled by man. However, if disrupted it was seen to produce catastrophic effects within society. Due to the economy's high variability, it was often compared to a women's menstrual cycle and vice versa. The ideologue of the time, Herbet Spencer, describes the economic system as a "magnificent landscape trenched with dark drains", meaning that as a whole the economy is rather beautiful and structured, but needs to be controlled in order to avoid complication. In relation to the woman's body, the money of the economy was directly related to the blood within her body. At the time a woman's menstrual cycle was also seen as something that needed to be controlled, often mentally. However, the woman's body was not reflected in a positive light, described as "the sewer of all the excrements existing in the body" . If the cycle's flow was obstructed, it was believed that the woman would be led to insanity, and thus the medical industry grew in order to solve these problems.
Read more about this topic: Women In The Victorian Era
Famous quotes containing the words women and, women and/or economy:
“Q: What would have made a family and career easier for you?
A: Being born a man.”
—Anonymous Mother, U.S. physician and mother of four. As quoted in Women and the Work Family Dilemma, by Deborah J. Swiss and Judith P. Walker, ch. 2 (1993)
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—Jeanne Elium (20th century)
“Even the poor student studies and is taught only political economy, while that economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy is not even sincerely professed in our colleges. The consequence is, that while he is reading Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Say, he runs his father in debt irretrievably.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)