The Role of Women in History: Using Two Histories of Women in 19th Century Britain and Scotland to Defend Women’s History as a Whole
Women’s history is a new field, as it is closely linked to the respective new concepts of feminism and womens’ rights. Despite being new territory in the historiographical realm, women’s history is a vital aspect of history as a whole. Without including the plight of women into the narrative of history, historians create inaccuracies, silence an entire gender, and strengthen sexist stereotypes by pushing patriarchal narratives. Two books that perfectly exemplify the importance of women’s history are Anna Clark’s “The Struggle for the Breeches: Gender and the making of the British Working Class” and Wendy M. Gordon’s “Mill Girls and Strangers : Single Women’s Independent Migration in England, Scotland, and the United States.” These two authors illustrate exactly how women impacted the history of Britain and Scotland, and highlight the specific roles women played in both the creation of an entire social class in Britain and the economy of Scotland in the 19th century. While these books are wonderful representations of the importance of women’s history, each book has its own set of positive and negative qualities. This essay will explore how each book handled the concepts of looking at age differences in the women they are discussing, understanding the social implications of their writings and whether they have to do with current or historically accurate social issues, whether it is possible to write history from the perspective of those who are missing from history, how lack of representation on history can skew modern perceptions of entire groups of people, and looking at women beyond the stereotypical role that women were expected to play and instead viewing women as people, while also comparing the two books and delving into ways they could be used together to argue that, without including women’s history into the narrative of history, history itself becomes inaccurate.
Clark’s book seems to follow a theoretical framework as opposed to a methodological approach, despite her minimal references to well- known social and cultural theorists. Clark, of course, focuses largely on issues of class and gender, as is the whole premise of the book. She briefly references cultural theorist Joan Scott in the introduction, but does not continue to reference her throughout the book. She also indirectly references Karl Marx in her introduction by including the views of the orthodox Marxists on class consciousness, stating that for them, “class consciousness simply reflected the structure of economic relations and came into being when workers became aware of the ‘objective’ analysis of their situation”, but does not directly reference Marx or any of his work. Despite the lack of employment of famed cultural theorists in her book, Clark still manages to achieve a theoretical approach in her book by relying on themes such as misogyny and toxic masculinity to construct her arguments, whereas if she had used a methodological approach, she may have found it more useful to solely focus on the structure of events that took place and not the social issues behind those events. Because the topic of her book is so concept- dependent to begin with, her selection to use a theoretical approach serves her purpose more thoroughly than a methodological approach would have.
Clark heavily references The Making of the English Working Class By E.P. Thompson heavily throughout the book- in fact, she spends the entire book embellishing the narrative he wrote by adding gender to the equation . She describes his book as a melodramatic interpretation of the events leading up to the creation of the working class in Britain, stating that his dissertation told of “compromising villains, soul-crushing political economics, and heroic radical artisans triumphing in the working-class movement of 1832”. While Clark describes Thompson’s narrative as “richly textured, nuanced, and theoretically inspiring,” she believes that including gender takes the heroic story he tells and casts upon it a more sorrowful light. This book, therefore, could assist in a larger historiographical discussion about how the erasure of gender- specific struggles from history changes the entire tone of the story, and that by including gender in history, one gets a more accurate view into how history actually unfolded. While Clark, for the majority of her book, references the oppression of women and the struggles that women, specifically, faced during the eighteenth century, she does, interestingly enough, touch on the effects of toxic masculinity on men and how the social norms constructed around masculinity contributed to the gender divisions of the period. Clark points out that “a man might go to the chapel where the elders would rebuke him for drinking, yet if he mended his ways he would find his workmates teasing him as a ‘molly’ for refusing to go to the pub”. This analysis gives the reader insight to the effects of gender roles on men as opposed to women, as is the focus in the majority of her book. By including this analysis, Clark gives her readers an interesting insight into the working-class men’s point of view by noting the social repercussions men faced no matter what lifestyle they chose to follow, and that the fear of these repercussions and the fragility of masculinity contributed to the poor treatment of women by men as the idea of women in the workforce was seen as threatening to the patriarchy.
In Mill Girls and Strangers: Single Women's Independent Migration in England, Scotland, and the United States, 1850-1881 by Wendy M. Gordon, Professor of History at State University of New York Plattsburgh, single migrant women of 19th-century Scotland are portrayed not just as a whole group but as individual women with aspirations and failures along with economic roles. The book uses both qualitative and quantitative data to journey through the textile mills of 19th- century Scotland through the perspective of single migrant women. In a series of case studies located in different towns, Gordon makes her way through scottish textile mills, beginning with Preston, continuing to Lowell, and concluding with Paisley. Gordon defends this order from the beginning- Preston, the city with the least available qualitative data, serves as sort of a base upon which the more qualitatively rich case studies of Lowell and Paisley will build. Her findings reveal many things about single migrant women in Victorian-era Scotland, such as the fact that single migrant women in 19th- century Scotland were more prone to sexual predation and corruption, and that the migration of single women was determined by a plethora of factors, including the needs of employers, the availability of labor close to their homes, pre- established cultures and patterns of migration, and the ambitions of the migrants themselves.
In her article titled “Regenerating Women’s History.” Stephanie Gilmore highlights the argument that, when studying women’s history, both looking at age differences in women and understanding that historians tend to look at history with current issues and questions in mind rather than the issues and questions those in the past would have been focused on is vital to truly understanding the history of women. In her article, she references another female historian, Nancy Hewitt, and recalls her take on the subject:
“Though intrigued by many points the panelists raised, I decided to focus on Nancy Hewitt’s reminder that all history is contemporary history—and that could be no more evident than in women’s history, a discipline that arose from feminist activism in the 1960s and 1970s. After she neatly summarized Croce’s dictum that “all history is written in dialogue with current issues, concerns, and perspectives,” she illustrated how her own work reflected issues contemporaneous to the times in which she was working on her various projects.”
When looking at their own respective histories of women in the 19th century, Clark and Gordon don’t seem to realize this point, or at least choose to ignore it for the sake of their own personal topics and analysis angles. Clark, throughout her book, projects modern ideals and questions upon a time period in which nobody was asking them. Themes of misogyny, gender roles, and toxic masculinity that were ever- present in her book would not have even begun to be conceived of by the common man or woman in the 19th century industrial culture of Britain. Gordon’s analyses of single migrant women in 19th century Scotland all group those women into one universal group- single migrant women in 19th century Scotland. Surely a 18 year old girl would have had vastly different experiences than a 60 year old woman in the same circumstances, yet Gordon chooses to group them together into one statistical group.
Elizabeth C. Macknight writes in her article titled “Gender, History, and Heritage in Ireland and Scotland” about the issue of exclusion in history, and asks the question of how possible it is to write history from the perspective of what’s missing rather than what it contains. She gives examples of how women are currently portrayed in Scottish history, referencing the histories of important women in the Scottish noble families, and explains how the lack of representation of common women in Scottish history skews the current perception of women in Scottish history. She concludes her article with a profound statement on the subject:
“From the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century, women and men from all social backgrounds have contributed to making Ireland and Scotland “global nations,” culti- vating and promoting distinctive identities while simultaneously receiving ideas and influences from other parts of the globe. The evidence we have of women and men’s lived experiences in Ireland and Scotland is partial and full of silences and ambiguities. Historians and heritage interpreters do well to reflect together on what can be known, as well as what is absent from the historical record. It is important that we continue to reflect, for, in the words of the poet James McAuley, “What we omit, we teach will not be missed.”
These sentiments that history is incomplete without the inclusion of women's history are resolved quite nicely in Clark’s book; contrastly, Gordon’s book indirectly answers the question as to how well one can write history from the perspective of what’s missing in a more doubtful light. Clark’s entire motive behind the writing of her book is centered around rewriting an existing historical piece to include the history of women, and further proving how vastly history is changed when women are left out of it. Accuracy cannot be achieved without inclusion, and Clark’s book is proof. Gordon, on the other hand, answers MacKnight’s question as to how accurately history can be told from the perspective of what’s missing. When looking at Gordon’s work, on the other hand, it is soon clear that some of her more interesting historical questions are left unanswered due to lack of detail. For example, Gordon’s discussion of the citizenship rights and identities of migrant women in the textile towns is disappointingly brief. In spite of the fact that Lowell was dependent upon these women’s presence for its economic prosperity, they were automatically considered nonresidents during economic slumps- they did not “belong” to the textile city. Gordon raises the issue and points out the irony, but leaves it at that, a pattern repeated at several points in the book. The lack of evidence available to support her arguments leaves her conclusions lackluster, and therefore indirectly concludes that history is not easy to write from the perspective of what’s missing- in fact, using this instance as evidence, it is arguably impossible.
Esther Breitenbach, Alice Brown, and Fiona Myers’ article, “Understanding Women in Scotland,” aims to delve into the roots of misogyny in Scotland. These women claim that explanations that bring about misogyny in Scottish men aren’t enough, and that “the marginalization of women in Scotland is produced both by male domination within Scotland, and by English cultural and political hegemony within the UK.” By writing their article, these women aim to assist in breaking “the deadlock of the inferiority/superiority dyad of Scotland/England,” and that to do so, “there needs to be a recognition of difference that goes beyond stereotype.” This would mean looking at Scottish people as not simply Scottish, but actual people. They draw upon a quote from Edward Said’s conclusion in Culture and Imperialism to further drive this point home:
“It is more rewarding- and more difficult- to think concretely and sympathetically, contrapuntally, about others than only about ‘us’. But this also means not trying to rule others, not trying to reclassify them or put them in hierarchies, above all, not constantly reiterating how ‘our’ culture or country is number one (or not number one, for that matter).”
These women are arguing in their article that, to fully understand the patriarchy and its effects on women, historians must look at people beyond their inherent stereotypes. Both Clark and Gordon succeed in doing this in their respective books. Clark looks past the stereotypical role that women were expected to play in industrial- era Britain, and saw those whom she was writing about as people. She wrote about their experiences without the bias of gender roles or misogyny guiding her analyses. Gordon does the same in her novel by not only delving into the economic roles that single women migrating into Scotland in the 19th century played in history, but also into the motivations and fears of these women- something very often overlooked in history. Both authors are very concise in their analyses, but also manage to humanize their research by breaking the stereotype- ridden fourth wall and viewing these women as what they were- people.
While both books are very thorough in their analyses, there is still one aspect in which both are lacking- the exclusion of women of color.Though Clark’s book is extremely thorough in its examination of how gender issues contributed to the making of the British working class, the focus largely lies on white men and women. The same can be said of Gordon’s analyses of single migrant women in 19th- century Scotland- the emphasis lies on white women and their struggles It is understandable why Clark and Gordon elected to focus primarily on the struggles of white women- the question of the impact that racial issues had on the making of the British working class and on the migration of single women to Scotland in the 19th century could create entirely separate books in and of itself. However, the goals of both authors were to tell the narrative of women and the struggles they faced, the roles they played, and the lives they led in the 19th century, and the exclusion of women of color leaves a large portion of the narrative untold. Even a reference here and there in their books to how the struggles of women of color compared to those of white women would have made their analyses more inclusive, and therefore more thorough. MacKnight highlights the issue of exclusion in her essay, stating this:
“The freedom to tell one’s own story, the power to influence future tellings, is not spread evenly through any society. These ar- ticles all demonstrate that gender is implicated, along with other factors such as class, race, and sexuality, in the processes and rationales that determine the kinds of stories that are told, and in the preservation or destruction of historical evidence of all types.”
While the topics of both books were centered around the plight of women and not racial- specific issues in the 19th- century United Kingdom, it can easily be argued that women of color deserve to be included in the narrative of women’s role in history, as well, and that even when trying to fill the holes left in history by including the narrative of women, these books still fail to acknowledge the plight of women of color in their narratives, and thus follow the very ideology of exclusion that they are fighting against.
Gordon’s book provides a look into the minds and motivations of single migrant women in 19th-century Scotland, and could be very useful in historical conversations regarding the motivations behind single women’s migration, and the effects that migration itself had on women migrants. Clark’s book provides insight into the role of women in the making of the British working class, and could be an effective source in a historical argument about the importance of women’s history and why the erasure of the plight of women from history changes the entire story of history and causes inaccuracies. Both of these sources together help give insight into what life was like for women textile workers in the 19th-century United Kingdom. The history of all people- no matter their race, gender, class, sexuality, nationality, religion, or political alliance- not only deserve to be told, but must be told. Clark describes very eloquently in her book the historical inaccuracies that occur when large groups of people are erased from history, and Gordon, by humanizing the women she studies in her book instead of referencing pre-existing stereotypes about them, inherently proves their worth as people who deserve to have their stories told as well. It is far too common an occurrence for history to exclude the narratives of large groups of people, and the exclusion of women in particular from history stems from a deep- rooted patriarchy that goes back in history as far back as history even exists. Both Clark and Gordon’s intentions behind their books are relieving this type of patriarchal viewpoint of the past that either dehumanizes women or ignores them completely, and together their books serve s proof that not only is it unethical to silence womens’ voices in history, but it is also flat- out historically inaccurate. There is a long way to go before everyone’s story gets told in history, but by including women in the narrative, not only are the inaccuracies somewhat mended, but the conversation about the inclusion of silenced minorities is opened and discussed. Women’s history is history in and of itself, and failing to recognise it as such is failure as a historian altogether.
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Works Cited
Clark, Anna. The Struggle for the Breeches: Gender and the making of the British Working Class. Charlotte: University of California Press, 1995.
Gordon, Wendy M. 2002. Mill Girls and Strangers : Single Women’s Independent Migration in England, Scotland, and the United States, 1850-1881. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Gilmore, Stephanie. "Regenerating Women's History." Journal of Women's History 15, no. 1 (2003): 178-82.
Macknight, Elizabeth C. 2011. “Gender, History, and Heritage in Ireland and Scotland: Medieval to Modern.”Historical Reflections 37 (2): 1–7.
Breitenbach, Esther, Alice Brown, and Fiona Myers. "Understanding Women in Scotland." Feminist Review, no. 58 (1998): 44-65.
