- Joined
- Nov 26, 2016
- Location
- central NC
"In the Library" by August Toulmouche, 1872.
“It is one of the most potent objections to the cause of female education, that clever women go in for huge boots and Gampian umbrellas, setting at nought many graces essentially womanly and indispensable in woman: and the fact, which really has some truth in it, positively damages the cause.
Recollect that you have a body, although exceptionally gifted with a mind: a little attention to it will neither nip your mental powers nor impede you as you clamber up the tree of knowledge. Busy sisters, if you climb at all, climb gracefully, rather than bring the tree into disrepute.”
"Young Girl Reading" by Otto Scholderer, 1883.
Haweis subscribed to the notion that an excess of education turned attractive young ladies into frumpy bumpkins. She counseled Victorian females not to flaunt their intelligence and to never be so strong-minded as to be accused of “aping a man.” Ouch again!!!
Haweis did advocate education for some women. For unattractive girls who she referred to as “Nonentities,” she asserted that education was absolutely essential. Her advice to the “Nonentities” was quite forthright:
“To her I have but one word to say: educate yourself...books are so cheap, and your leisure probably so large that there is little to prevent an effort to redeem lost time.”
It is clear throughout her book that Haweis deems outward beauty as a woman’s most important asset. She refused to believe “bluestockings” who said appearance wasn’t important to them. She wrote:
“No woman can say truthfully that she does not care whether she is pretty or not. Every woman does care. The immutable laws of her being have made physical attractiveness as much a natural glory to her as strength is to a man...After all, what is vanity? If it means only a certain innocent wish to look one’s best, is it not another name for self-respect—and without it, what would woman be worth?”
Ouch yet again!!!
Sadly the idea that a woman’s worth stemmed from her outward appearance was popular in the Victorian era. Many thought that beauty and intellect were incompatible in women. While these views weren’t necessarily the norm, it seems the stereotype of the unattractive “bluestocking” was very prevalent.
Source: The Art of Beauty by Maria Haweis, 1883.