A Woman’s Education, & Class in George Gissing’s The Odd Women
‘All I do is work, work, work, no matter what.’
A woman’s education is reserved solely for the middle classes.
At least, that is according George Gissing’s 1893 novel The Odd Women.
By the late 19th century, Britain was populated by more women than men, which made the concept ‘a woman’s role is in the home’ a tad redundant.
If a woman couldn’t be a wife and mother, then what could she be?
And, more practically, how might she make money?
The term ‘odd women’ is coined in the novel by character Rhoda Nunn, who’s describing women who are unmatched, unpaired — not necessarily peculiar, or unnatural.
Although the book sets up provocative questions about the relevance of marriage in late 19th century Britain, I’m interested in the novel’s depiction of a woman’s education — and who, specifically, is permitted access.
Gissing explicitly believed that women needed to be educated. In a letter from 1893, he says (xvii):
My demand for female ‘equality’ simply means that I am concerned there will be no social peace until women are intellectually trained very much as men are. More than half the misery of life is due to the ignorance & childishness of women. The average woman pretty closely resembles in all intellectual considerations, the average male idiot…That state of things is traceable to lack of education, in all senses of the word… I am driven frantic by the crass imbecility of the typical woman. That type must disappear, — or at all events become altogether subordinate. And I believe that the only way of effecting this is to go through a period of what many people will call sexual anarchy.
On the one hand, Gissing has a point that education would help elevate women’s minds (as it would anyone’s). On the other, I don’t think women need to be educated for the benefit of men, which is what he seems to be concerned with. However, his vocalization in favor of women’s education, although problematic, helps advocate for women’s opportunities outside the home.
I’ve identified four examples of education in The Odd Women that I think are worth mentioning. I want look at how these are forms of education are depicted, and which classes they are extended to.
Note: In this essay, I use the terms ‘men’ and ‘women’ because the context of The Odd Women by George Gissing at large understood gender as a binary. Additionally, the characters in this novel are white. There is much more to be said about the access of education to genderqueer, trans, and gender non-conforming individuals, as well as LGBTQIA+, POC, and other marginalized identities, and these conversations exist in other essays much better than this one. Go read them!
Vocational training with Mary Barfoot and Rhoda Nunn
In part one, Rhoda Nunn tells her friend Virginia Madden about her new job helping Ms. Mary Barfoot educate young women (27–28):
‘I must tell you about this lady, — Miss Barfoot. She has private means, — not large, but sufficient to allow of her combining benevolence with business. She makes it her object to train young girls for work in offices, teaching them the things that I learnt in Bristol, and type-writing as well. Some pay for their lessons, and some get them for nothing. Our workrooms are in Great Portland Street, over a picture-cleaner’s shop. One or two of the girls have evening lessons, but our pupils, for the most part, are able to come in the day. Miss Barfoot hasn’t much interest in the lower classes; she wishes to be of use to the daughters of educated people. And she is of use. She is doing admirable work.’
At first glance, the basic concept is progressive: women teaching other women skills which can lead to employment, and therefore give them freedom of movement, livelihood, and a sense of purpose or contribution to society.
Mary and Rhoda do deserve a pat on the back for this. However, my modern and socialist beliefs are in direct opposition with Rhoda and Mary’s classism.
Who is deserving of education? Some might argue that the variability in schools and teachers allow for particular specializations; here, Rhoda marks Mary’s ‘specialization’ of middle-class women. But, the context around this remark necessitates a criticism of Mary’s decision to turn away an entire class of women.
In response to the question ‘Surely you don’t limit your humanity, Miss Barfoot, by the artificial divisions of society’ — asked in a conversation among Mrs Smallbrook, Rhoda, and Mary about supporting a ‘fallen’ girl — Mary says (63):
‘I think these divisions are anything but artificial…In the uneducated classes I have no interest whatever…I choose my sphere, that’s all. Let those work for the lower classes (I must call them lower, for they are, in every sense), let those work for them who have a call to do so. I have none. I must keep to my own class.’
This is problematic, because there is an explicit bias against working class women — calling them ‘lower, for they are, in every sense.’ What is the evidence that a working class woman is less than a middle class one? There are social differences, to be sure, but this is the product of divisions in society — not inherent qualities in people who have to work harder and get paid less than people who have the time and money (read: privilege) of reading, training, and conversing with other intellectually stimulating individuals.
A husband’s proprietorship of his wife
Mr. Widdowson marries Monica Madden and is shocked to find out she is an actual human being, who desires to be treated as an equal. Mr. Widdowson believes in a traditional ideology of the time that a man is in charge of his wife, and that it falls to him to cultivate and guide his wife to be the best wife she can be. In the following passage, Widdowson can not comprehend Monica’s personhood (219–220):
In no woman on earth could he have put perfect confidence. He regarded them as born to perpetual pupillage. Not that their inclinations were necessarily wanton; they were simply incapable of attaining maturity, remained throughout their life imperfect beings, at the mercy of craft, ever liable to be misled by childish misconceptions. Of course he was right; he himself represented the guardian male, the wife-proprietor, who from the dawn of civilization has taken abundant care that woman shall not outgrow her nonage. The bitterness of his situation lay in the fact that he had wedded a woman who irresistibly proved to him her claims as a human being. Reason and tradition contended in him, to his ceaseless torment.
Widdowson views himself as ‘the guardian male, the wife-proprietor’ — the teacher. But he has an unruly student: Monica does not wish to be ‘reformed’ by him.
Gissing’s portrayal of Widdowson as a heinous character (his jealously leads to violence — spoiler alert) leads me to believe that Gissing himself was opposed to this kind of ‘education’. It should not fall on the man to teach the woman how to reason, and, in fact, Monica already possesses these abilities.
Widdowson’s belief in these ideals leads to the ultimate downfall of his marriage. He cannot treat Monica as an equal and she becomes disgusted by him. All-in-all, this is a defunct ‘educational’ system.
Novels
Novels are most noticeably present in relation to Virginia Madden, Monica’s older sister. Virginia has worked as a companion to an older lady, for only £12 a year, and when the lady passes, she takes a room in London in the interim between finding a new station. Sadly, perhaps because her life lacks meaningful work, Virginia takes to drinking.
The following passage encapsulates Virginia’s relationship with drinking and reading novels (334):
To-night she drank her first glass quickly; a consuming thirst was upon her. By half-past eight, the second was gently steaming at her elbow. At nine she had mixed the third; it must last a long time, for the bottle was now empty.
The novel entertained her, but she often let her thoughts stray from it. She reflected with exultation that tonight’s indulgence was her very last. On the morrow she would be a new woman. […]
The page before her was no longer legible; the book dropped from her lap. Why this excited her laughter, she could not understand; but she laughed for a long time, until her eyes were dim with tears.
In this scene, novels have a limited power over Virginia’s faculties and a limited ability to drive her reasoning powers. Of course, the book is in direct competition with the drink; the book cannot win when Virginia is drinking.
Novelists often defend the novel as a medium for educating. Jane Austen promoted the novel as the following (Volume I, Chapter V, Northanger Abbey):
[A] work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humor are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language.
Novels, according to Jane Austen, traffic in powerful ideas, the understanding of people (empathy), and wit and humor. A person who reads novels can broaden and strengthen their mind. In short, they can educate themselves by reading novels.
Unfortunately, this route is not available to Virginia because of her propensity for drinking. Taking up the bottle illustrates her weakness in character and difficulty in overcoming the obstacles in her life. Novels in and of themselves cannot save Virginia. She also requires access to basic necessities, like a wholesome diet (her nutrition suffers because of her poverty throughout the novel), and psychological ‘food’ — like purposeful work.
Life experience
By the end of The Odd Women, Monica arguably has learned a lot about life through her marriage with Widdowson and flirtation with Bevis. She is at her wits’ end, begging her friend Rhoda for advice. This is what Rhoda tells Monica (349–350):
‘When you have reached my age, I prophesy you will smile at your despair of ten years ago. At your age, one talks so readily of “wrecked life” and “hopeless future,” and all that kind of thing. My dear girl, you may live to be of the most contented and most useful women in England. Your life isn’t wrecked at all — nonsense! You have gone through a storm, that’s true, but more likely than not you will be all the better for it. Don’t talk or think about sins; simply make up your mind that you won’t be beaten by trials and hardships. There cannot — can there? — be the least doubt as to how you ought to live through these coming months. Your duty is perfectly clear. Strengthen yourself in body and mind. You have a mind, which is more than can be said of a great many women. Think bravely and nobly of yourself! Say to yourself: This and that it is in me to do, and I will do it!’
This is great advice, even for a modern audience. Rhoda is essentially telling Monica to pick herself up and focus on what she is capable of doing, and to find purpose in that. Unfortunately, Monica suffers too greatly and is unable take Rhoda’s advice.
I read this as a significant example of how — even while there are conversations happening about women in regards to education, work, and marriage in the 1890's — learning through living is only really available to men, and women who try to learn from their mistakes are ultimately unredeemable in the eyes of society.
Monica understands so much more about marriage now that she is in an unbearable one. But, there is no streamlined route for her out of this dreadful situation. She is only one of many women who suffer from the ignorance in picking a suitable husband (if at all).
Mr. Widdowson suffers an emotion toil, but his livelihood and selfhood at no time are at risk. This lack of availability to learn through experience is intrinsically a female one.
All four of these educational pathways are barred from the working classes. The first example, of vocational training with Mary Barfoot and Rhoda Nunn, is explicitly classist, as these two women have decided to focus on training those of the middle class. They are biased against working class women.
Not that anyone necessarily aspires to be Mr. Widdowson’s wife and receive his ‘tutelage’, yet this is an ‘education’ intrinsically linked to class: Mr. Widdowson is a wealthy man. A working class woman might bring her working class values into the marriage, but she also enters into wealth by marrying Widdowson and becoming is wife-pupil.
Novels could be a working class woman’s gateway to an education — if she is literate, of course. Unfortunately, by nature of being working class, time spent on work is all-encompassing. When Monica lives as a shopgirl, she works six days a week, sixteen-hours on Saturdays, with twenty minutes or less for meals. Sundays are reserved for seeing family and going to church. Not much time (or energy) is left over for studying novels and working towards self-improvement.
Finally, life experience, as shown above, is not a secure form of education for any woman, despite her class. One wrong move, and her livelihood is tremendously threatened, if not ruined irrevocably.
The way a woman’s education is depicted in The Odd Women is delineated by class: an education, and, by extension, an opportunity for a sustainable working life, is reserved for middle-class women only.
Gissing was in conversation with the New Woman movement, which represented the existence of educated and ‘independent career women in Europe and the United States’ (Wikipedia).
The main takeaway I have from this bias against education for the working classes is that movements work incrementally. Intersectionality is often put to the wayside for more palatable or popular representatives of a social revolution.
Yes, women were granted access to education by the late 19th century, but it was largely reserved for only white, middle-class women.
I don’t know enough about social justice theory to comment further (I’ve basically only used the primary text and its introduction to write this essay), but it would be worth reading more about why social justice works in this way.
I could make some guesses, but I’ll leave that responsibility up to you. At least for today.
Works Cited:
Gissing, George, and Patricia Ingham. The Odd Women. Oxford University Press, 2008.
“New Woman.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 17 Apr. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Woman.
SparkNotes, SparkNotes, www.sparknotes.com/lit/northangerabbey/quotes/page/2/.
