The Historical Context of Women’s Oppression

The late 19th century presented a world where women’s roles remained rigidly confined by patriarchal structures. As Freud dismissively noted in 1907, women were believed incapable of intellectual or professional achievement comparable to men. This attitude permeated societies where daughters like Grete Appen’s mother were pulled from school at 14 to work while brothers received vocational training. The industrial revolution had transformed economic systems but left gender hierarchies largely intact, with women’s labor—whether domestic, agricultural, or industrial—being systematically undervalued.

Across Europe and America, legal systems codified women’s secondary status. Married women couldn’t own property independently in many jurisdictions, educational opportunities remained limited, and political participation was unthinkable. Even progressive movements often excluded women; when democratic reforms expanded voting rights after 1870, they deliberately excluded female citizens. This systemic marginalization prompted Katherine Anthony’s 1915 observation that feminism’s core mission was restoring women’s self-respect against centuries of institutionalized belittlement.

The Birth of the “New Woman” Phenomenon

From the 1880s onward, a remarkable transformation began taking shape within Western bourgeois society—the emergence of the “New Woman.” This cultural archetype represented educated, independent women pushing against traditional domestic roles. While statistically small—limited primarily to urban middle and upper classes—their visibility made them cultural lightning rods.

Iconic literary figures like Ibsen’s Nora (A Doll’s House, 1879) and Shaw’s heroines gave this phenomenon dramatic form, while real-life pioneers like Rosa Luxemburg, Marie Curie, and Beatrice Webb demonstrated women’s intellectual and professional capabilities. The New Woman typically pursued higher education, delayed or rejected marriage, and sought meaningful work beyond domestic service. Their appearance sparked intense debate, with critics like philosopher Nietzsche infamously advising men to “go to women with a whip,” while supporters celebrated their potential to transform gender relations.

Demographic Revolution and Its Consequences

A silent revolution in reproductive behavior fundamentally altered women’s lives across the industrialized world. After 1875, birth rates began declining sharply in developed nations—a phenomenon demographers still puzzle over. In Denmark, infant mortality dropped from 140 per 1,000 births (1870s) to 96 (1910s); similar patterns emerged across Western Europe.

This demographic shift reflected several interlocking factors:
– Urbanization made large families economically burdensome rather than assets
– Extended education kept children dependent longer
– Rising living standards encouraged family limitation
– New attitudes viewed children as individuals deserving investment rather than economic resources

In rural Ireland and France, inheritance concerns drove family planning; urban couples increasingly sought to improve quality of life. This reproductive autonomy—achieved through abstinence, withdrawal, or rudimentary contraception—represented women’s first significant control over their biological destinies.

Economic Realities and Gendered Labor

Industrial capitalism created paradoxical effects on women’s work. While factory jobs drew many into wage labor, the separation of workplace from home increasingly marginalized married women from “official” economies. By the 1890s, only 12% of married German women held recognized employment, versus 95% of married men.

Three distinct employment patterns emerged:
1. Traditional domestic/agricultural work (declining)
2. Industrial labor in textiles, garment trades (poorly paid)
3. New white-collar opportunities in offices, shops, teaching (more respectable)

The typewriter revolutionized female employment—British female clerks surged from 6,000 (1881) to 146,000 (1911). Teaching became feminized, with France establishing 138 public girls’ secondary schools by 1913 where none existed in 1880. Yet persistent wage gaps and occupational segregation maintained economic dependence.

Education as Liberation Pathway

Secondary and higher education became the New Woman’s gateway to independence. Progress varied dramatically:
– France: 33,000 girls in public lycées by 1913 (1/3 of male numbers)
– Britain: Girls’ secondary schools exploded from 99 (1904) to 349 (1914)
– Russia: Women university students grew from 2,000 (1905) to 9,300 (1911)

These educated women formed feminism’s vanguard. As Katherine Anthony observed, schooling taught women “not to despise their sex”—a radical concept after millennia of institutionalized inferiority. Yet access remained limited; in 1908 Germany had produced only 103 female university graduates despite permitting women’s enrollment.

Political Awakening and Suffrage Struggles

Organized feminism took divergent paths across nations. While Britain’s militant suffragettes (Women’s Social and Political Union, founded 1903) staged dramatic protests, most European movements worked through socialist parties. The German Social Democrats’ August Bebel published the influential Women and Socialism (1879), linking gender and class liberation.

Key feminist victories before 1914 included:
– Property rights reforms
– Access to professions
– Local voting rights (some regions)
– Public visibility through events like 1908’s Franco-British Women’s Work Exhibition

Yet national voting rights remained elusive outside Norway (1913) and Finland (1906). Feminist movements struggled with class divides; middle-class activists often ignored working women’s concerns about wages and working conditions.

Cultural Transformations and New Freedoms

Beyond politics, women’s daily lives underwent subtle but profound changes:
– Fashion: Corsets loosened, hemlines rose slightly, bicycling demanded practical clothing
– Recreation: Tennis, cycling, and alpine clubs admitted female members
– Socializing: Public dance halls enabled unchaperoned interaction
– Travel: Railways and tourism created mobility opportunities

The 1908 Olympics featured women’s events, symbolizing growing acceptance of female athleticism. Literary depictions shifted from tragic “fallen women” to complex protagonists like Colette’s Claudine. These cultural shifts prepared ground for postwar transformations.

The Sexual Question and Family Futures

No issue proved more contentious than sexuality. While Freud’s Vienna explored female desire scientifically, feminists divided over issues like:
– Birth control access (pioneers like Margaret Sanger faced prosecution)
– “Free love” versus marriage reform
– Lesbian visibility (salons like Natalie Barney’s Paris circle)

Socialists envisioned collective child-rearing arrangements; technological optimists promoted labor-saving appliances. Yet most women still saw marriage as their primary career—a reality that complicated feminist solidarity across class lines.

Legacy and Lasting Impact

By 1914, the New Woman had achieved limited but groundbreaking advances:
– Educational access
– Professional footholds
– Growing cultural legitimacy
– Organizational experience through suffrage campaigns

These paved the way for postwar victories—between 1918-1928, twelve European nations granted women suffrage. The interwar “flapper” embodied freedoms first claimed by prewar pioneers: shorter hair, lighter clothing, public smoking, and sexual expressiveness.

Yet deeper inequalities persisted in wages, marital laws, and social expectations. As historian Eric Hobsbawm notes, true liberation would require transforming the structures that made women’s unpaid domestic labor invisible. This task—barely begun before 1914—remains unfinished over a century later, making the New Woman’s struggles not historical curiosities, but the first chapters in an ongoing revolution.