Industrial Revolution in the 19th century - Essay Example

The Victorian Era is one of the most popular eras in the history of Europe, particularly with respect to women. The Victoria Era had very well-established norms and practices for the women and all were expected to comply with those standards in order to live a respectable life. Women were not allowed to work. They were expected to get married at a very young age and take care of the family from that point on until death. The Victorian Era assigned man the responsibility of earning the bread while women were supposed to nurture the children.

Women’s representation in social matters and in politics was negligible and their rights were subdued by men. Women’s movement in Europe commenced with the emergence of machinery in the days of the industrial revolution that surfaced in the 19th century. Replacement of the manual work with machine work brought the long-cultivated argument of the physical superiority of men over women to a halt. Although industrial revolution in the 19th century was beneficial for both Europe and America in terms of the technological advancement, yet one of the most important outcomes was the end it brought to the subjugation of rights of women by men in the Europe.

In order to help their husbands run the finances, women had to enter the work force and assume roles that they had conventionally been denied in the Victorian Era. Industrial revolution brought an altogether revolution in the societal roles and perceptions of women. Women formed a new working group that acquired special attention of the society’s controlling power. Owing to the lack of pre-defined expectations of the society with the women as workers, the controlling power resolved to exploit the women.

Women were taken extensive labor from and were compensated lesser as compared to the men. Here, then, is the "curse" of our factory-system; as improvements in machinery have gone on, the "avarice of masters" has prompted many to exact more labour from their hands than they were fitted by nature to perform, and those who have wished for the hours of labour to be less for all ages than the legislature would even yet sanction, have had no alternative but to conform more or less to the prevailing practice, or abandon the trade altogether. (Fielden).

Not only were the women subjected to injustice in the society, but they also had troubles managing their homes like they had been doing for centuries before. Nevertheless, with whatever they earned, they gained significant financial independence. Their work led them to personal grooming. The increasingly confident women were able to break free of the chains they had been tied with for centuries. Men saw the increased freedom of the women as a threat to their dominating role in the society, yet they could not overlook the benefits of the same.

This led the notion of “equal but different” to surface, which men used to define women in the period of the industrial revolution. During the age of industrial revolution, Europe transited from the agricultural to the urbanized state which was the preliminary form of the Europe we know today. The industrial revolution caused a drastic transformation of the farm villages into the urban areas. One of the most obvious