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What is imperialism and how did it impact 19th-century European women?
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Imperialism in the 19th century involved European nations dominating Asia, Africa, and the Pacific through military and economic means. This era significantly impacted European women by altering traditional gender roles. Wealth from colonies allowed some women to pursue education and rights, while poorer women entered factory work, gaining financial independence. Both groups became aware of their societal exclusion, fueling suffrage movements. Women's roles also expanded to international relief efforts and wartime nursing.
Imperialism refers to the practice of one nation extending its influence over another. The term imperialism is most often used by historians to refer to a specific period in the nineteenth century in which the nations of Europe carved up much of Asia, Africa, and the Pacific into colonies using military force. Therefore, imperialism often overlaps with colonialism, in that both describe the military occupation and economic exploitation that exists in a colony. Imperialism, however, does not automatically connote the use of force, as Western countries in the nineteenth century right up to the present have been accused of economic imperialism over less powerful countries without the use of military force. For example, in his book Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism , Vladimir Lenin argued that the most important aspect of European colonialism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was the economic aspect. That is, that the resources of...
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Asia, Africa, and other parts of the world were being used to enrich Western nations in Europe and North America.
The most immediate effect of imperialism on women in the West was that it brought great wealth to their home countries, allowing women to be freed from the traditional gender roles associated with a rural, agrarian economy. In this manner, Imperialism combined with the Industrial Revolution, also happening at the time, to change the lives of the people of the West, including women. Cotton was imported from the Americas and India and spun into textiles by women in factories. Wealthier women, reading about workers and laborers agitating for rights in other wealthy imperialist countries, began wondering if perhaps they should have rights of their own. Imperialism was part of a web of factors in the nineteenth century that created a new urban society in which various groups became conscious of the ways in which they were being excluded.
From a practical standpoint, European women would have shared in both the highs and lows of living in an imperialist nation. Poorer women would have worked in factories or as domestic servants, the first time many women would have ever had any paid employment. Wealthier women would have shared the benefits of living with their husbands and families in households with servants and luxury goods. These wealthier women might attend lectures at universities, becoming just as educated as their husbands. Both classes of women participated in international relief efforts like the Red Cross or served as nurses in the many wars of the period, like the Crimean War, the American Civil War, or the Franco-Prussian War. Women, both rich and the poor, would have been conscious that they were excluded from being full participants in their societies, and this consciousness would lead directly to campaigns for women's suffrage.