Bourgeois Respectability and Its Significance in Feminism
After finishing “On Failure: How to succeed at Defeat”, I am intrigued to learn more about this one specific chapter which is called “Bourgeois Respectability”. To be honest, I am unfamiliar with this term, let alone have a complete understanding of what it is about. My second guess was the urge to be ‘perfect’ in front of people or to build a perfect image in order to gain respect from people, especially from the proletarians. It is not completely wrong tho, but not quite an impeccable explanation for that term. To be precise, Bourgeois Respectability is the tendency of the Bourgeoisies to separate themselves from the dissipation of the aristocrats and the chaotic way of living of the proletarians. By that, it means that they have to own well-ordered houses, read important books, teach their children good manners, and dress well. Not only that but it is also related to their behavior of sticking to the moral codes created by society during that time (The School of Life, 2022).
The way the Bourgeoisies lived around the 19th century has led me to think about the women at that time instead. This thought popped up in my head when I worked on my thesis several days ago about second-wave feminism. Even though second-wave feminism began way far after the degeneracy of the separation among those social classes, I think the discussion of the 19th century middle-class women can be linked to the core issues that feminists are trying to demolish, considering the society’s unequal rules which violate women’s rights for the sake of respectability and perfection.
To begin with, women’s rights movements were increasingly stroke beginning from the late 19th century as first-wave feminism came to the surface in the Western World, demanding equality for women. Aside from the fact that women during that time were already aware of their rights outside their traditional gender roles which mainly involve domestic chores and the private sphere, the conditions of middle-class women and lower-class women were distinguishable. Scott & Tilly (1975), stated that the massive amounts of women who worked in the 19th century were dominated by the working classes, and most industries they were occupied to are textile industries and domestic services. Moreover, those women were coming from lower classes families, causing the daughters of the families to work before they got married (p. 40).
As is said before that the Bourgeoisies are eager to separate themselves from the chaotic lives of Proletarians, which explains how women from both social classes differ in their roles in society. While lower-classes women were expected to help their family’s financial instability during the growth of industrialization, middle-classes women were expected to take care of the domestic chores and their main value is to teach their children to have a good manner which reflects Bourgeois Respectability. Both conditions were not deliberating women from deciding what they want to accomplish in their lives. Lower-classes women were restrained by the economic conditions which hinder them from even thinking about their passions and middle-classes women were assigned to certain tasks that force them to obey for the sake of a good reputation in front of the public. Additionally, for middle-classes women, their husbands hold the highest hierarchy in the household, thus their commands should be obeyed nevertheless.
There are at least two goals that first-wave feminists wanted to achieve, including the right to pursue higher education and to showcase their talents in public domains (Briatte, 2020). Both goals could hardly be achieved by women from the lower classes and middle classes due to their responsibilities to their families (for the lower classes) and their husbands (for the middle classes).
Bourgeois Respectability is responsible for the mentality of making themselves exclusive among the Proletarians, making women from both classes unable to collaborate in reaching gender equality and breaking their boundaries. Furthermore, it also hinders middle classes wives from pursuing their own dreams because they are owned as the property of their husbands, let alone the judgment they would receive for not being ‘woman’ enough according to society’s standard of femininity. As for the lower classes women, they could not get enough chances to change their life trajectories due to a lack of support from people from the higher hierarchy in society.
This article is composed based on my findings about women’s conditions in 19th-century Europe and it also includes my hot takes on this issue as I am very interested in feminism as well as history. So, happy reading^^
References:
The School of Life. (2022). On Failure: How to succeed at Defeat. The School of Life.
Scott, J. W. & Tilly, L. A. (1975). Women’s Work and the Family in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 17(1), 36–64. http://www.jstor.org/stable/178370
Briatte, A. L. (2020, June 22). Feminisms and Feminist Movements in Europe. Digital Encyclopedia of European History. https://ehne.fr/en/encyclopedia/themes/gender-and-europe/feminisms-and-feminist-movements/feminisms-and-feminist-movements-in-europe#:~:text=These%20movements%20first%20and%20foremost,and%20participation%20in%20public%20affairs.
