7 ways the rules for being a woman in the 1890’s are the same as the rules for women in 2015

In my soon to be published book the main character, Irena, deals with life in the 1890’s. As I researched and wrote I realized that the 1890’s were not that different from the present. What do you think?

Look the part: In 1892 there was an ideal look for women, the Gibson Girl. She had a tiny little waist, round bust and hips, perfectly styled hair and fashionable clothes.

Gibson_Girls_seaside_-cropped-_by_Charles_Dana_Gibson

Today’s ideal woman is pretty close to the Gibson Girl. It is questionable how many women, then or now, really meet this ideal.

By Frank Kovalchek from USA [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

2. Be powerful, but not too powerful: Gibson Girls were calm and confident and might even attend college, but what they really wanted was to settle down and get married, and they would never disrupt the social order by being a suffragette.

Art_Lesson_Charles_Dana_Gibson

Today we need women to be more involved in everything. The idea that tech is not a girls world has led to Silicon Valley missing out on talent. Check out CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/26/tech/5-reasons-tech-needs-geek-girls/index.html

3. Women’s rights will upset the God-Given natural order: In 1892 the anti-women’s suffrage movement proposed that the God-given inferiorities of women made them unsuitable for politics and letting women vote would undermine the family and even destroy the economy. Women who
tried to vote were arrested. In 2015 idiots say that women are not suited for public office. http://money.cnn.com/video/media/2015/09/11/donald-trump-rolling-stone-paul-solotaroff.cnnmoney/index.html

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ASuffragette_Mabel_Capper_Bow_Street_arrest_1912.jpg By Johnny Cyprus (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

 

4. Women’s rights are human rights: Susan B. Anthony campaigned for more than women’s rights, she was a Quaker and abolitionist who supported human rights for all. In 2015 Hillary Clinton also supported rights for all in her address to the UN “The international community has long acknowledged and recently reaffirmed at Vienna that both women and men are entitled to a range of protections and personal freedoms, from the right of personal security to the right to determine freely the number and spacing of the children they bear.” http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/hillaryclintonbeijingspeech.htm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Susan B Anthony c1855” by Engraved by G.E. Perine & Co., NY – http://www.archive.org/stream/historyofwomansu01stanuoft#page/n603/mode/2up. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Susan_B_Anthony_c1855.png#/media/File:Susan_B_Anthony_c1855.png

5. Young good looking women make for sensational crime stories: Lizzie Borden was tried and acquitted for the August 4th ax murders of her father and step mother. In 1892 the crime was the news sensation and much discussed including by the characters of my upcoming book ‘Longing for Home’. Hmm, what modern cases could be like this? Jodi Arias anyone?

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                 Lizzie Bordon – wikipedia

 

6. The government is way too interested in reproduction: In 1892 the Comstock Law was in effect. The law made it illegal to send ‘erotica, contraceptives, abortifacients or sex toys through the mail and made it illegal to distribute written materials about any of the above. Mostly it was because Anthony Comstock really had a thing against sexuality, especially female sexuality.

 

By Photographer unknown; author of book Charles Gallaudet Trumbull [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Think the government interference in reproduction is a thing of the past? Remember the controversy and angry slurs against Sandra Fluke in 2014? http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/08/opinion/fluke-women-rights/

7. Expect to make less money than men: In 1892 women made less than half what men made for the same jobs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

By National Library of Ireland on The Commons (Kapp & Peterson: Men/women pipe making) [No restrictions or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

 

In 2015 women make 78 cents for every dollar earned by men. That’s better, but not good enough!