Women's Inequality In The 19th Century

Gentility affected many aspects of society in the late eighteenth century into the early nineteenth century. Into the early nineteenth century women still experienced educational discrimination compared to men during this time. Educational discrimination means that women during this time had a subordinate quality education compared to men. The discrimination that the women experienced can be seen through the limited amount of schools for women as well as the lack of relevant subjects that were offered in the schools. Advertisements for academies were popular in newspapers throughout the early nineteenth century. There were many more advertisements for male academies, then female academies. In the early nineteenth century the education revolution had not happened yet, so it was not as important to education women as it was men. Because it was not as important, academies for women were not as well advertised. Society valued men having a good education, thus academies for them were advertised more frequently. Women were expected to grow up and get married and have their own families, and not have actual jobs in society. This was

Women in the upper class were not expected to work, because it was not proper behavior for them, and thus they did not need to be taught subjects in school about that. Very few women had jobs and if they did it was because they were not married, which was not popular in society at that time. These women went against the expectation to get married young, run a home and care for their families. The focus on gentility during this time is large proponent of why there were few advertisements for female academies and why only a select set of courses were taught at the female academies. Had women had the equal opportunity to learn all of the same subjects as men during this time, they could have made a contribution to society and held jobs in their