Industrial Revolution & Women Essay

The meaning of everyday life events, as a rule, is not immediately realized, although many of them, in their significance, serve as precursors of global changes in people’s livelihoods, milestones that indicate the strategic direction of human development. With the full basis to such phenomena, it is possible to carry the processes connected with the industrial revolution and its influence on the role of women in a society. The industrial period plays many significant roles in history and in present day. The industrial revolution impacted the women during this period because their jobs shifted from the normative duties that they were subjected to, in addition, work increased because of the men leaving for war. Despite this, individuals benefited from the industrial period there also some defects. These would include, the poor working conditions in the factories including children and women, also the loss of farming because of the factories. This is a direct result to expand new ways and ideas, starting in Britain and essentially spreading this central idea.

To begin, it is important to mention that Great Britain, which had significant reserves of coal and iron ore, is considered the homeland of the industrial revolution. Great Britain was the leading colonial state in the world, and a country with a politically stable society.[1] British colonies were both a source of raw materials and a market for industrial products. Demand for British goods increased, and traders needed economic methods of production, which contributed to the introduction of mechanization and the factory system. In such a way, it can be said that in Great Britain, the industrial revolution occurred earlier than in other countries: large-scale machine production supplanted the small, based on manual labor; the basic classes of capitalist society such as the bourgeoisie and the proletariat have appeared, as well as the capitalist mode of production won over others. Thus, in the middle of the 17th century, a revolution took place in England, which eliminated a number of feudal survivals and created prerequisites for the rapid development of capitalism.

Observing general influence of the industrial revolution on the development of different areas of human life, it should be mentioned that the industrial revolution, introducing machines into the production process and concentrating it in factories and urban areas, has gradually brought to naught two types of rural production. Firstly, it destroyed the production of cloth at home by women and children in agricultural areas, and secondly, it destroyed such handicrafts for men as the production of watches, weaving baskets, the production of carts and coaches, milling, brewing, shoemaking, etc. These changes greatly affected the destiny of villages, making them only an agricultural link in production, as a result, villagers lost their independence.[2] Moreover, the largest landowners and large farmers used actively fencing policies for intensive land use, but this invariably hit the most vulnerable segments of the population, who had to withdraw from the land and join the growing class of the proletariat.

Discussing the influence of the industrial revolution on the life of ordinary women, it becomes evident that industrialization has opened up new opportunities for women from families who earned their living by their own physical labor. The use of machinery in the course of the industrial revolution simplified the production operations, reduced labor functions to the implementation of relatively simple methods, and allowed the use of elementary trained, low-skilled workers.[3]

In addition, the use of steam engines required less physical strength to service machines, especially in the textile industry, and this made it possible to replace men with women. In production, cheap female and child labor has become ubiquitous and widespread.[4] Textile factories of the industrial revolution era, perhaps, would not have been built at all if their owners did not expect a constant influx of cheap female labor. Women became an essential part of the new workforce, doomed to long hours of work in a mechanized factory with a complete lack of opportunity to show their own initiative.

Continuing the research, it can be said that public figures and publicists of the XIX century regarded the participation of women in industrial production in a negative light in connection with the exhausting nature of work, discriminated against the material situation of men, distraction from family responsibilities. According to Cook, with all the validity of the assessment of the status of women workers as discriminatory, women themselves sometimes did not dramatize their position in the factory world.[5] In comparison with the work that the daughters of farmers and peasants carried out at home, factory labor, at first sight, was well paid and promised better opportunities.

For the purpose to explain the previous statement, it is necessary to say that the woman faced much more difficulties when working on a farm at home. The peasant woman took care for cows, pigs, poultry, vegetable gardens, growing roots, poppies and flax, cooking, baking bread, processing milk into butter and cheese, preserving meat, fruits and cabbage, cooking dinner and washing clothes, etc. Women constantly performed hard physical work. For instance, in Finland, plowing and sowing were women’s occupation, while men were engaged in forestry, fishing and hunting. Moreover, there have been cases when women were forced to work in the felling and replaced one of the men when sawing the trees with a handsaw.

The question arises, whether women, who were accustomed to the burdens of peasant life, were afraid of the heavy factory conditions, counting on the best existence in the city and, sometimes, being not disappointed in their expectations. Especially, when social movements forced entrepreneurs to treat working personnel with greater humanity and improve working conditions.[6] The owners of many factories subsequently created a system of boarding schools – hostels with organized meals, and the parents had the illusion that their daughters would live in a healthy environment. Letters sent home often indicated the satisfaction of young women with their new position. In other words, the motive of financial independence, which was brought to women (especially unmarried) by work in production, came to the fore.

In this aspect, the arrival of women in factories also had its positive results. In the work in the factories, more and more people began to see not only a way to help the family, but also a means of personal self-affirmation.[7] The opportunity to work outside the home due to the process of industrialization weakened the woman’s dependence on her father or husband. Analyzing the situation, it should be noted that women who went to work in factories, although they lost some of the valuable advantages of their former life, but gained independence. All the costs they earned were their own. The factory worker occupied a certain economic position, which over time began to arouse the envy of other women. It can be said that economic independence brought women liberation from the dictates of their families.

In summary, the factory system did not bring suffering and degradation to women. Moreover, it gave a means of subsistence, economic independence, an opportunity to hope for more than simple physical survival. Naturally, working conditions in the factories of the XIX century were harsh in comparison with the XX century. However, women preferred working in factories to other means of earning available to them – such as the post of servants, exhausting work in the composition of agricultural teams, work on the hauling of land in mines, etc. Moreover, a woman who could support herself with own money, rarely entered into an early marriage.

Critics of the factory system are still trying to assert that home weavers and spinners could feel the pride of the creator, admiring the results of their work, and lost this opportunity, turning into only the cogs of a huge industrial machine. Fortunately, such an opinion can be easily debunked by the following explanation. It is unlikely that the average weaver, persistently moving the shuttle back and forth, spending many hours working on this monotonous and exhausting labor, could experience the very feelings that a modern enthusiast, enthusiastic about folk crafts, expects from this kind of work.

To conclude, we have explored the influence of the industrial revolution on the women, and have realized that the increase in women’s participation in economic activities is associated with the labor-intensive needs of industrial societies, and not because of the interest in increasing the participation of women in society to enhance their status. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, so far, women are active in various economic fields, but the attitude of the West to them has never been based on equality between women and men. Moreover, from the standpoint of today, it is obvious that in the dispute between the socialist and the “bourgeois” feminists there were no right and wrong. The demands of women from different strata of society were formulated under the influence of different vital needs. Those for whom labor was a source of subsistence and a “piece of bread” were required to regulate labor relations: they gravitated toward socialists with their criticism of the injustices of the economic system of capitalism. Those who by virtue of belonging to the middle class could view work not as a heavy necessity, but as the sphere of application of creative forces and service to society, declared “war” to the political and civil lawlessness of women, uniting under the banner of suffragism. Thus, women gradually not only mastered a new job for themselves, but also learned to achieve better living and working conditions.

Bibliography

Berg, Maxine. “Women’s Property and the Industrial Revolution.” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 24, no. 2 (1993).

Burwick, Frederick. British Drama of the Industrial Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Cook, Sylvia Jenkins. Working Women, Literary Ladies: The Industrial Revolution and Female Aspiration. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Gonäs, Lena and Tyrkkö, Arja. “Changing Structures and Women’s Role as Labor Force.” Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies 5, no. 2, (2015).

More, Charles. Understanding the Industrial Revolution. London: Routledge, 2000.

Thistle, Susan. From Marriage to the Market: the Transformation of Women’s Lives and Work. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006.

Tilly, Louise. “Women, Women’s History, and the Industrial Revolution.” Social Research 61, no. 1 (1994).


[1] Frederick Burwick, British Drama of the Industrial Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015).

[2] Maxine Berg, “Women’s Property and the Industrial Revolution,” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 24, no. 2 (1993).

[3] Susan Thistle, From Marriage to the Market: the Transformation of Women’s Lives and Work (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006).

[4] Charles More, Understanding the Industrial Revolution (London: Routledge, 2000).

[5] Sylvia Jenkins Cook, Working Women, Literary Ladies: The Industrial Revolution and Female Aspiration (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).

[6] Louise Tilly, “Women, Women’s History, and the Industrial Revolution,” Social Research 61, no. 1 (1994).

[7] Lena Gonäs, and Arja Tyrkkö, “Changing Structures and Women’s Role as Labor Force,” Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies 5, no. 2, (2015).

The terms offer and acceptance. (2016, May 17). Retrieved from

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016.

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

freeessays.club (2016) The terms offer and acceptance [Online].
Available at:

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]
close
Haven't found the right essay?
Get an expert to write you the one you need!
print

Professional writers and researchers

quotes

Sources and citation are provided

clock

3 hour delivery

person