• Home
    • About Us
      • About Us
      • Our Project
      • Related Events
    • History
      • General Background
      • Key Events
      • Suffragism
      • Militant Suffragettes
      • Anti-suffrage
      • Hunger Strikes
    • Writers and Artists
      • Actresses Franchise League
      • Biographies
        • Actresses
        • Writers
        • Suffrage Actors & Performers, Directors and Designers Biographies
        • SWD Biographies
      • Suffrage Artists
      • Suffrage Writers & Directors
      • Suffrage Actresses and Others
      • Contemporary Suffrage Theatre
      • Performance & Protest Now
    • Resources
      • Anthems
      • Exhibition Panels
      • Key Books
      • Teaching Pack HLF
      • Chronology of Suffrage Plays
      • Workshops
      • Academic Papers
      • Additional Texts
    • Map
    • Links
    • Contact

General Background

The New Woman and Others

The New Woman

In the last part of the 19th and the early 20th century there was an upsurge of questioning about what the proper roles for women should be. Women began to gain access more widely to education at secondary level with the opening of girls high schools and, after long campaigns, women’s colleges began to be established including Royal Holloway, Westfield and Bedford Colleges in London, Somerville and Lady Margaret Hall at Oxford, Girton and later Newnham at Cambridge. Women also began to gain access to professions previously closed to them like medicine and the law. On the lower social rungs women were working from an early age both inside and outside the house, in insanitary factories, as sweated labourers, as home workers. There was no birth control and families were large and infant mortality high, domestic violence rife. Newly educated and independent women began increasingly to use their voices to draw attention to these social problems.


A demographic ‘surplus’ of women in the population meant that fewer middle class women could expect to marry and be supported forcing many more into where many women joined their working class sisters who had always had to work, the labour market. Jobs like clerk and typewriting girl began to appear in large numbers and in most cases were paid less than their male counterparts. Women increasingly were living outside the family home in rented rooms and shared flats.

Marie Lloyd Salue my Bicycle

Campaigns were started against unhealthy restrictive clothing, such as corsets and the tight-lacing which had physically restricted their foremothers and rational dress became a trend. Women also began to participate in more sporting activities. The introduction of the bicycle brought women a new freedom of movement. A popular iconography of the New Woman began to emerge, using bold language, riding a bicycle, clutching her own latch-key and smoking a cigarette.

The increased freedoms and responsibilities made many women aware of their social and political position and of their exclusion from the democratic process and from the ability to change things through the ballot box.





 


 

 


  • Pages

    • Home
      • Art, Tea and Talk with the Suffragettes : an Equaliteas Party
      • Exhibition: A Stone’s Throw from Westminster
      • Future Events
      • Make a Banner Celebrating Camden Women!
      • Zine-Making Workshop
    • Women’s Social and Political Union
    • Writers
    • About Us
      • Our Project
      • Related Events
    • History
      • General Background
      • Key Events
      • Suffragism
      • Militant Suffragettes
      • Anti-suffrage
      • Hunger Strikes
    • Writers and Artists
      • Actresses Franchise League
      • Biographies
      • Performance & Protest Now
      • Suffrage Writers & Directors
      • Suffrage Actresses and Others
      • Suffrage Artists
      • Contemporary Suffrage Theatre
    • Resources
      • Anthems
      • Exhibition Panels
      • Key Books
      • Teaching Pack HLF
      • Workshops
      • Additional Texts
      • Academic Papers
      • Chronology of Suffrage Plays
    • Map
      • Inner London Boroughs
      • Outer London Boroughs
      • Outside London
    • Links
    • Contact
  • MOST SEARCHED TERMS

Designed by Thieving Dingo Design.