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Western Civilization II / Unit 12   WC2 1103 short lesson, about 20 seconds

Separate Spheres: Men and Women as Opposites

Captions available

The idea

Victorian thought cast men and women as opposites: rational and forceful against irrational and gentle. Men wore sensible clothes; women wore impractical dresses and corsets, ornaments rather than actors. The man held the public sphere, the woman the home under his veto. Feminism began as a reply to this infantilization.

In practice

Ornament, not agent.

Where people slip

The legal detail waits for 1118.

Your place on the trail

Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.

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