Gender gap

Question 1

What did women receive less of than men in early life?

Answer 1

Formal education

Question 2

How did writer carpi describe the women of Italy in the early 1870s?

Answer 2

‘an ass, an ox, a sheep are almost always worth more than a wife to a peasant, and the wife obeys her husband like a slave’

Question 3

How did Agrigento describe the women of Italy?

Answer 3

‘superstituous, gossipy, quarrelsome and turbulent, the women pay little attention to personal cleanliness and none to their houses

Question 4

What would women often get to play their part in?

Answer 4

Agriculture, when working as hired labour

Question 5

Women made up what proportion of the factory workforce?

Answer 5

60%

Question 6

What was the main job for middle class girls?

Answer 6

Teaching, especially at a primary level. 2/3 of schoolteachers were women by 1901

Question 7

Why did many female teachers have a difficult time?

Answer 7

They often taught unruly students, and received little support from the parents or clergy

Question 8

List some of the jobs, aside from teaching, commonly taken up by women

Answer 8

• Telegraph operator
• Domestic servant
• Prostitute