Women's history

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This article is about the history of women. For information on the field of historical study, see Gender history.

Women's history is the history of female human beings.

1 Rights and equality
2 Employment
3 Sex and reproduction
4 Clothing
5 Religion
6 See also
7 See also
8 Sources
9 External articles and references
10 References

Rights and equality

Women's rights refers to the social and human rights of women. One of the first women's rights declaration was the "Declaration of Sentiments". From women's involvement within the abolition movements, women became aware of male dominance and oppression^{[citation needed]}. From then on women struggled for equality. The History of feminism reaches far back before the 18th century. (See Protofeminist.) The advent of the reformist age during the 19th century meant that those invisible minorities or marginalized majorities were to find a catalyst and a microcosm in such new tendencies of reform. The earliest works on the so-called "woman question" criticized the restrictive role of women, without necessarily claiming that women were disadvantaged or that men were to blame. In the UK, the Feminism movement began in the 1800s and continues in the present day. In the early 20th century, Simone de Beauvoir wrote a detailed analysis of women's oppression. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the sexual revolution substantially changed the condition of women in the Western world. The trigger for the revolution was the development of the birth control pill in 1960, which gave women access to easy and reliable contraception.

Employment

Main article: Women in the workforce

The 1870 US Census was the first to count “Females engaged in each occupation” and provides an intriguing snapshot of women's history. It reveals that, contrary to popular belief, not all American women of the Victorian period were either idle in their middle class homes or working in sweatshops. Women were 15% of the total work force (1.8 million out of 12.5). They made up one-third of factory “operatives,” to be sure, but teaching and the more gentle occupations of dressmaking, millinery, and tailoring played a larger role. Two-thirds of teachers were women. And they could be found in such unexpected places as iron and steel works (495), mines (46), sawmills (35), oil wells and refineries (40), gas works (4), and charcoal kilns (5) and held such surprising jobs as ship rigger (16), teamster (196), turpentine laborer (185), brass founder/worker (102), shingle and lathe maker (84), stock-herder (45), gun and locksmith (33), hunter and trapper (2). There were five lawyers, 24 dentists, and 2,000 doctors.

Sex and reproduction

In the history of sex, the social construction of sexual behavior - its taboos, regulation and social and political impact - has had a profound effect on women in the world since prehistoric times. The history of abortion dates back to ancient times and has impacted men and women in a variety of ways in different times and places. Historically, it is unclear how often the ethics of abortion (induced abortion) was discussed. In the later half of the 20th century some nations began to legalize abortion. This controversial subject has sparked heated debate and in some cases even violence.

Women have been exposed to various tortuous sexual conditions and have been discriminated against in various fashions in history. An example are the comfort women, women who were forced to work as prostitutes in military brothels in Japanese-occupied countries during World War II.

Clothing

The social aspects of clothing has been related to the traditions regarding certain items of clothing intrinsically suited different gender roles. In particular, the wearing of skirts and trousers has given rise to common phrases expressing implied restrictions in use and disapproval of offending behaviour. For example, ancient Greeks often considered the wearing of trousers by Persian men as a sign of an effeminate attitude. Women's clothing in Victorian fashion was used as a means of control^{[citation needed]} and admiration. Reactions to the elaborate confections of French fashion led to various calls for reform on the grounds of both beauty (Artistic and Aesthetic dress) and health (dress reform; especially for undergarments and lingerie). Although trousers for women did not become fashion items until the later 20th century, women began wearing men's trousers (suitably altered) for outdoor work a hundred years earlier. In the 1960s, André Courrèges introduced long trousers for women as a fashion item, leading to the era of the pantsuit and designer jeans and the gradual eroding of the prohibitions against girls and women wearing trousers in schools, the workplace, and fine restaurants. Corsets also have long been used for fashion, and body modification, such as waistline reduction. There were, and are, many different styles and types of corsets, varying depending on the intended use, corset maker's style, and the fashions of the era.

Beauties Wearing Flowers, by Tang Dynasty Chinese artist Zhou Fang, 8th century.

The status of Women in the Victoria Era is often seen as an illustration of the striking discrepancy between the nation's power and richness and what many, then and now, consider its appalling social conditions. Victorian morality was full of many contradictions. A plethora of social movements concerned with improving public morals co-existed with a class system that permitted harsh living conditions for many, such as women. There is an apparent contradiction between the widespread cultivation of an outward appearance of dignity and restraint and the prevalence of social phenomena that included prostitution. In the Victorian era, the bathing machine was developed. It was a device that flourished in the 19th century to allow people to wade in the ocean at beaches without violating Victorian notions of modesty. The bathing machine was part of sea-bathing etiquette that was more rigorously enforced upon women than men.

Religion

The Hindu, Jewish, Sikh, Islamic and Christian views about women vary considerably today and have varied even more throughout the last two millennia, evolving along with or counter to the societies in which people have lived. For much of history, the role of women in the life of the church both local and universal has been downplayed, overlooked, or simply denied.^[1] When some women have interreligious marriage, or marriage (either religious or civil) between partners professing different religions, they seldom can do so without disobeying both of these religions.