Female Sociability in Victorian England

This study explores how women during the Victorian period were totally excluded from most aspects of social life. Numerous events contributed to this result. First, the Evangelical revival which spread with such a power as to imbue the English middle class with a series of ideas about the proper and right place of men and women: men were for "the public sphere", women for "the private" one. Women could not enjoy, like men, all the practices of sociability. They were defined according to their relationships with men and by the care of children and the home, rather than by success and personal talent. It was only through philanthropy and charitable activities that women were able to carve out a role in the public sphere and to begin the revolt which would lead to the right to vote in the XX century.