Women in European History

I. Renaissance
a. Status did not change much compared to the Middle Ages
b. Poor people stayed in nuclear family and wealthier people tended to have extended
families
c. Women played a more significant role in Northern Europes economies; dowries
extremely important in wealthy families; marriages based on economic considerations
and not love
d. Poor and rich married earlier than middle classes
e. Low rate of illegitimate births; dramatic population growth; increased infanticide and
abandonment which came with an increase of foundling hospitals
f. Divorce available in some places compared with it being non-existent in the Middle
Ages
g. Castiglione: the woman pleasing to the man in upper classes
h. Only women expected to remain chaste until marriage; more prostitution than Middle
Ages; rape not a serious crime
i. KNOW: Christine de Pisan, Isabella d Este, Artemesia Gentilleschi, Witchcraft, Mary
Tudor, Elizabeth I, Catherine de Medicis, Isabella I

II. Reformation
a. Catholic women enjoyed more freedom than Protestant women; increased womens
literacy ; occupation still was in the home caring for the family
III. Agricultural and Industrial Revolution
a. Enclosure made women had fewer opportunities on common lands and many worked
away from the home
i. Most work was domestic; some were prostitutes; more autonomy; can save
money for own dowries; more choice in marriage partners
b. Large numbers of women work in cottage industry and then factories
c. Explosion in illegitimate birth and increased infanticide; married late 20s or later; many
women dont marry; marriage based more on romance
IV. Enlightenment and French Revolution
a. Enlightenment: Women ran salons; ideology of the time didnt respect women
b. Bread riots, march on Versailles, Olympe de Gouges, Wollstonecraft, closing of
womens political clubs, women gained few rights, increased use of birth control
V. Pre-World War
a. 1896- National Association of Colored Women founded
b. 1906- First female suffrage granted in Finland
c. Florence Nightingale- The Lady with the Lamp
VI. World War I
a. Women take on men jobs and join organizations to help the war effort
b. Proved women were as capable as men in the work force, which later led to the voting
controversy
c. 1917- Loretta Perfectus Walsh became the first women to serve in the U.S. armed forces
in a non-nurse position (U.S. Navy)
d. Women were used in propaganda to promote a vision to soldiers that they were
defending their women and homeland.
e. Flora Sands- only British woman to officially serve as a soldier in WWI
f. The National Woman's Party (Alice Paul, 1913) fought for equal women rights
VII. After WWI
a. 1918- First Soviet Constitution declares equal rights for men and women
b. Women start demanding equal rights around Europe, voting controversy arises after men
came back and reclaimed their jobs
c. Employers had decreed that women would only be employed for the duration of the war,
which angered many women
d. Unemployment soared; men were furious, saying that women had taken all their jobs.
VIII. World War II and Post
a. Women again take on a vital part in the war effort and volunteered to serve/enlist in
Britain, Soviet Union
b. Baby Boom after the war