ABSTRACT
Despite the lack of an organised feminist movement in Britain between the 1790s and the mid 1850s, there was a rich debate throughout the period concerning the position of women in British society. Were British women oppressed or privileged? Did women’s biological differences from men imply differences in their mental capacities or emotional qualities? What were the appropriate social roles for women, and what type of education would best fit them for these roles? Should women be treated as men’s equals or as their social subordinates? Should they be encouraged to focus on their domestic duties or urged to assert their civic rights? Positions were often very polarised, particularly in the late 1790s, when conservative evangelicals were at pains to distance themselves publicly from radical advocates of the ‘rights of woman’. However, across the political spectrum, writers on the ‘woman question’ shared a reformist zeal, a conviction of the important role of women in the nation, and a belief that women exerted a strong influence on society, for good or for ill.1
