Author: Ano Sensei
Format: Video
Victorian Women: Breaking the Stereotype — The Reality Behind "The Angel in the House"
According to the 1851 census, three million women — half of all adult women in England — were working. They were agricultural labourers, textile workers, domestic servants, coal miners, blacksmiths. Nearly 40% of the workforce in the major employment sectors was female. The "angel in the house" existed more often in the heads of Victorian men than in their houses.
This video examines the reality of Victorian women's lives through census data, legal history, and social reform — tracing the extraordinary changes that took place across the 19th century, from a time when married women couldn't own property or open a bank account, to the founding of women's colleges at Cambridge, the first female doctors, and the beginnings of the suffrage movement.
0:00 Introduction
10: Milton on the inferiority of women
0:44 The angel in the house
1:17 Mary Wollstonecraft
1:29 Coventry Patmore and stereotypes of women
2:36 The 1851 census
3:15 Women at work
5:44 Prostitution
6:44 Celibate men
7:24 Charles Dickens & fallen women
8:12 Getting past the stereotypes
8:51 Women and reform
11:23 Before the reforms
12:22: Women who made a differenceShow More
3 Comments
0:00 Introduction
10: Milton on the inferiority of women
0:44 The angel in the house
1:17 Mary Wollstonecraft
1:29 Coventry Patmore and stereotypes of women
2:36 The 1851 census
3:15 Women at work
5:44 Prostitution
6:44 Celibate men
7:24 Charles Dickens & fallen women
8:12 Getting past the stereotypes
8:51 Women and reform
11:23 Before the reforms
12:22: Women who made a difference
Thank you for the video.
You’re welcome!