Women and the Industrial Revolution

Résumé du document

This essay, examining both economic and social consequences of this upheaval, tries to determine whether women benefit from them, in comparison with their condition under l'Ancien Régime. England, France and Germany are studied here; there are great differences in the way they came to the age of industry, but the social and economic consequences are very close. When not specified, this essay speaks of Western Europe as a whole

Extraits

[...] When not specified, this essay speaks of Western Europe as a whole. Historians usually make sure they are not judgmental, that is, judging facts in terms of and and Thus, trying to establish whether women benefit of suffered from the Industrial Revolution is no easy task. There are scientific criteria upon which one may safely declare that women were better or worse off: standard of living, working conditions . But there are also decisive symbolic criteria which are subordinated to values and judgements: status, equality, liberty. [...]

[...] See Laura Levine Frader, Women in the industrial capitalist economy in Becoming visible. The public sphere, stricto sensu, only refers to the political sphere, where people act as citizens and does not comprise work. By public sphere of work, I mean work in public: outside home, in factories Though Marx said it would eventually disappear Laura Frader, in Becoming visible Moreover, work, as described by Hannah Arendt in The human condition, is only a biological process, necessary to survive, not a value in itself. [...]

[...] In brief, I strongly believe that women's material conditions of living were really worse than during the Old Regime. Industrial Revolution only brought costs for working women, no benefits. In contrast, women who belonged to the middle class, a class produced by capitalism[3] and industrialisation, enjoyed far better material conditions than wives of peasants, artisans and merchants of the Old regime for two main reasons. They enjoyed both a higher standard of living and an easier access to new facilities like gas. [...]

[...] Indeed, the new family ideal aroused by industrialisation was that women should not work and stay home, as good mothers and wives. As a consequence, most of middle-class women did not work (for wages) for their husband could support the family. This is a very controversial issue on which I would like to dwell a little. In my view, the Industrial Revolution did not create this family ideal ex nihilo; the changes it brought put in light an old theory that persisted throughout the ages. [...]

[...] One of the tremendous achievements of the Industrial Revolution was the creation of a large working-class which had to face disastrous conditions everywhere. Women and men alike, pushed at the forefront of the factory system, had to endure new working conditions that contrasted with those under the Old regime. They were alienated by a machine that henceforth determined how fast they should work[1], and by a work that cut them from the creation of an entire product which Pierre Bourdieu has called travail en miettes”. [...]