Which would you rather Feminist edition

Hello. Today is celebrate your ladyparts day International Women's Day. This is exciting, non? I think so. There is a lot of stuff out there about celebrating the achievements of various women and, alternatively, criticizing countries and regimes which subjugate women. Having read some of this over the past few days, I started to be very glad that I am living where I am, but also when I am. I'm fortunate, I thought, that I live in the 21st century, where, at least in the UK, I am treated as a human being with human rights. So much better, I thought, than in Ye Olden Days.

Until I started reading this book. It's very interesting, as well as that rare sort of History book which is highly informative and well researched, but also fascinating for someone who only has a small interest in History. Written as a travel guide, it's literally like reading about visiting Spain, or China, or Mars for that matter. Anyway, in this book (which I'm not getting paid for the advertising of, honestly), the author talks about the rights of women in fourteenth century England.

In some ways, as people - myself included - it is very much a misogynistic society, with women controlled by men and no one wanting to change this as it is clearly God's will, as punishment for Eve's sins. Lack of understanding about general medicine meant that a lot of women died in childbirth, and as the general life expectancy was lower, women were often married at around the age of 14, quite shocking to us today. Furthermore, though rape was an extremely serious offense, it was extremely rare that a man was convicted, as it was taught that women could only conceive a child if she orgasmed during sex. If a child was conceived, she had clearly orgasmed, thus "enjoyed" the rape, and so it wasn't rape. Alternatively, if no child was conceived, there was no proof that the rape had taken place other than the woman's word, which, especially against a man in a position of power over her, was not likely to be believed.

Though forced marriages were fairly rare, they did still occur and must have been awful for the women who suffered through them. Women were also not considered free as such - even a high society woman 'belonged' to her father before she was married, then to her husband afterward.

Phew, you think, I'm glad I live now and not then.

Well, yes and no. Obviously there were huge inequalities in society, but there were some ways in which women did manage to have fairly equal opportunities. For example, women were allowed to report abusive husbands in their local church, and the men were often punished severely for their actions. Men on the other hand, were not allowed to report any violence against them by women, as if they did so, they would be perceived as a cuckold and therefore ridiculed. A backhanded reason for celebration, perhaps.

Another way in which women were more equal than we might first think was that, in the event of their husbands' death, she could take over his job or trade and make money for herself this way. For most women, this just meant continuing to farm the same fields or sell meat in a butcher's shop, but for a few notable exceptions this could leave them very rich - such as one woman from Coventry who ended up with a cloth business that was exporting its wares as far afield as Spain and earning her in excess of £800 in Medieval terms. 

Though there were a lot of arranged marriages, often men and women worked together to try hard to make it work and most came to love each other after a little while. If not, especially in the upper classes, one or both partners could take partners whom they loved - or at least lusted after.Women had the advantage of not being allowed to go to fight, and as there were a lot of wars going on during the 14th century, it greatly reduced their chance of dying whilst still young. Men who lived to an old age were looked down upon, unable to fight, they were considered no longer masculine. An old woman, on the other hand, was considered at the height of her power, full of the wisdom of the ages. 

Clearly, there was inequality in the Medieval society, and probably more so than there is in today's society in the UK. But conditions were perhaps not as harsh as one might first think, and though I still wouldn't want to live in their society, this is starting to have more to do with the large amounts of germs flying about with the Black Death and whatnot, rather than their treatment of women.  

Proud & Prejudiced: Female writers in the early nineteenth century

For Christmas, my lovely friend Christina got me a copy of the novel Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen. I've never read it, nor indeed any other of Austen's works, and I haven't seen any of the film or TV adaptations of it either, but the copy she bought me is an absolutely beautiful book (look! It has swans on! Or at least, I think they're swans... And it's gold! What's not to love?!) and Christina insisted that I simply had to read it because it would revolutionize the way I looked at love and I figured that since so so many people rave on about it, it can't be all that bad, so I'm reading it. And it is pretty interesting. 

It's not the first thing I would have picked up in a bookshop, so I'm glad it was given to me because there isn't much chance I'd have read it otherwise, and it's actually quite good. For something that was written at the beginning of the nineteenth century, it's still very readable, and the love story itself (yeah, I'm yet to finish it, but I'm pretty sure of exactly who is going to end up betrothed to whom...) is a fairly timeless one.

By which I mean to say, 'Thank you very much for this gift Christina, I'm actually enjoying it'. But I'm not an English student thank God not that they aren't completely lovely people; I just loathe most poetry and I have no idea how to analyse a text, so I couldn't tell you about the writing styles and the hidden metaphors and whatever else it is that write-y people bang on about. Not that you would want to read my analysis of a half-read book anyway. No, I'd much rather talk about the book's author, Jane Austen herself, as today in 1813 was the day the book I've been rambling on about was first published.

There are books and website a-plenty out there about her, so I'm not going to waste time filling you in on facts about her birth, death or daily life - instead, I'm going to attempt to put her writing into context: how, as a woman in the early nineteenth century, did you get published?

With great difficulty, it appears. Pride and Prejudice was not Austen's first published novel, and had in fact been a work in progress for many years prior to it's publishing, but when it finally went to print in 1813, it did so anonymously and only after Austen's brother, Henry, had persuaded Thomas Egerton to publish the novel. Her books, once published, remained steady sellers; they were often reviewed favourably and were fashionable amongst the elite aristocracy of the early nineteenth century, but despite this success, Austen was not persuaded to 'come out' as the author of the books, and when she died, in 1817, her achievements as a writer were not mentioned at her funeral, though the 'extraordinary endowments' of her mind were.

Austen was not the only female author in the nineteenth century and beyond to hide behind a veil. Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, which was first published a year after Austen's death in 1818, had the first few editions of her book published anonymously; Charlotte Bronte wrote under two pen names - Lord Charles Albert Florian Wellesley and Currer Bell,  the name which appears on early versions of her most famous novel, Jane Eyre. 

It wasn't until much later in the nineteenth century that authors such as Louisa May Alcott were able to print under their own names as men were - Little Women was published in 1868. Though Alcott herself was a passionate advocate of women's suffrage - she was the first woman to register to vote in the state of Massachusetts - there are some schools of thought which say that she was only published because her novels were deemed 'mere' women's books. Her semi-autobiographical stories were seen as fairly trivial, and not radical enough to be threatening to most men, who in the nineteenth century, and beyond had a firm idea of where women 'belonged' - and it was not in the publishing house. 

Clearly, this is not something I agree with at all, but I can at least understand where most of these men were coming from. They had been brought up in an incredibly patriarchal society, which firmly believed that women should not be involved in business of any description - some even believed that educating women beyond the basic skills needed to write letters or perhaps speak a little French was too much. They were a product of the society they had been brought up in; it took a World War and the womens' suffrage movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to show them how wrong they had been in their ideas, and fortunately for us today, there would be no need for a female author to publish anonymously or under a male pseudonym, because we no longer live in such a sexist society.

Except, a few years ago, around the turn of the millennium, I remember listening to a radio interview with a female author, who was asked why she had used a pseudonym (of sorts) to publish her (very well selling, and well written) books under. The author replied that she had been advised that publishing her stories, which had been written to appeal to neither boys nor girls specifically, under her obviously female name might turn boys off reading the books - young boys wouldn't want to been seen reading a book written by an (eurgh!) GIRL. Her publishing house advised her that she should at least attempt to make her name less obviously feminine, in order to appeal to a male fanbase. 

So she did, choosing to publish using her first initials and surname - 'J' and 'K' and 'Rowling'. It's such a remarkably progressive society we live in.     

Spirit of '68

On Tuesday, I am going to a protest. Not in one of the major cities of the UK - though the so-called Second City is practically on my doorstep - but in a tiny, middle class, true blue town very close to where I live. This town has it's own Hitler Conservative Youth club. The MP representing it has never, ever come from a party other than the Tory party. It contains an Independent School which is (supposedly) one of the most prestigious in the world which was founded in 1553. In short, I fear it is more rightwing than David Cameron's own constituency.

And yet. And yet. 

Despite all of this, I and (according to Facebook) 272 other students are going to take to the streets at 11am and protest against this government. This number has already gone up by two in the time it has taken me to write this, and I am sure it will go up further still by Tuesday. Oh, and this is the second protest in the high street - the first happened at the same time last Tuesday. 

My town is not unusual at all. It could be a town in Yorkshire, Worcestershire, Essex, Cornwall, Cheshire, Buckinghamshire. It's your basic Anywhere's-ville. And in all of these places, there will be students on the streets, protesting - and for a very good reason. They - I - do not want their right to education to be removed from them. Historically, education has been the biggest contributing factor to social mobility. Women and those from ethnic minorities fought, and in a very few extreme cases, died for the right to be educated. And this government, in raising the tuition fees to up to £9,000 per year, want to take this away from us. (After, of course, they went through higher education themselves for free, or, if they are young enough to have to pay fees, they did not pay nearly as dearly as we will have to, and most of them are millionaires anyway.)

I am aware that the funding for education has to come from somewhere. Tuition fees are a necessary evil. I want a job as a historian, researching and teaching in a university when I am older. The money from fees will probably pay my wages, so I would be a hypocrite if I pretended that I was completely against them. But a threefold increase in fees in a mere two years is entirely unethical. The psychological impact of a debt of £27,000 in fees alone the moment you graduate, would be, for some, too much - and understandably so. Those from the poorest backgrounds could be put off studying at university - or even Sixth Form, as the government have now decided to scrap EMA for those who need it the most - and this is fundamentally wrong.
 

The coalition claim not to have the money to fund universities, which may or may not be true, but there are other ways to pay for higher education other than increasing the fees by such an extortionate amount - taxing the banks and removing bankers' bonuses, or going after the millions of pounds of tax evasion (avoidance?) by the people and companies who fund the Conservative party, for example (Lord Ashcroft anyone?). Removing the right to education removes the chances of those from non-Upper Class backgrounds ever having any degree of power or moving up in the world - surely this can't be what the Tories want?!

I will make my placard and I will go out on Tuesday and I will protest - peacefully. I won't only be protesting against the rise in tuition fees, but also against the cuts to the welfare state - particularly those which will affect women, which are basically all of them. Did you know that, under the new Child Benefit reforms, a family with a single parent earning £44,000 or more will lose their benefit, but families with two earners each on a salary of £43,000 (giving a combined household income of £86,000) will keep the benefit? The proportion of single fathers raising children is much, much smaller than single mothers. There are a myriad of other injustices that I could list, but I fear I would literally run out of space. This is not right.

Your normal scheduled History programming will resume tomorrow (probably). But I could not let this opportunity pass - I had to write about it, as it is honestly one of the most vile things I have ever heard of. Anyone in the UK who has the opportunity to protest on Tuesday, wherever you are, should do so because we must show that we will not stand for this. Go out onto the streets and tell this weak and feeble government that you are not scared of them, and you will fight what they are trying to do because, fundamentally, it is wrong.