My First History Presentation: The Women Discrimination of Victorians

Audience, if I say this single word, 'Queen Victoria's reign' to you, you may imagine the intelligent and wise queen, fancy aristocrats and so many new inventions. You may even think that the Victorian era might be very exciting. That's true, but, unfortunately, the other side also existed. There were so many people who suffered from hunger and diseases, monstrous crimes and serious children abuse. The most serious problem among them, however, was the discrimination against Victorian women.

During Queen Victoria's reign, women were treated so badly and villainously. Victorian men treated women as if women were men's servants. The roles of women were just to get married, do house chores and take care of children and their husbands. Besides, even if it was the reign of the Queen, the Victorian law was very unfair for women. When a Victorian woman married, all her property and money automatically belonged to her husband. Moreover, Queen Victoria even allowed men to beat their wives and girl friends! During the Victorian era, women were treated like dogs.

To make the matters worse, Victorians discriminated women even in the courts. Let me give you an example. The two cruel murderers, Elizabeth Pearson and John Tully, lived during the Queen Victoria's reign. Let's examine what they did and how they were punished.

Elizabeth Pearson, who had a husband and a son, lived near her uncle and aunt's house. So, when her aunt died, she had to take care of her old and sick uncle. She knew that she had to take care of him for a long time but she didn't want to do it. So she put some rat poison in her uncle's medicine and pretended that it was some sugar. The uncle willingly drank the poison and soon died. For some reasons, police officers noticed that Elizabeth killed her uncle and arrested her. And the judges sentenced her hanging. So, on 2nd August 1875, Pearson died.

And, as for John Tully, he killed his wife by battering her. It is said that he beat his wife until she bruised her nose and smashed her against the wall. He got caught the day before Elizabeth Pearson was arrested. Can you guess what happened to him? Yes, exactly! He just served in jail for only 9 months!

Audience, think about it. The woman who killed a man, was hung. But the man who killed a woman served in jail for only 9 months. Is it fair?

Through this story, we can know how much Victorians discriminated women. The Victorian men didn't feel guilty when they battered women. The men didn't feel sorry when they discriminated women. They didn't notice that the discrimination against women was wicked and villainous thing and they shouldn't do it. And, they didn't notice that because of the discrimination, Victorian women couldn't use their own talent and ability productively. If they had noticed all the fact, they might not discriminated women. If they had noticed all the fact, Queen Victoria's England might have developed much more. But, they didn't.

Even if the society developed very much, the discrimination against women still exist. Some companies do not pay enough money to women and even fire women when women get babies. Besides, many people still divide jobs into women's and men's. Some people even think that women's role is just to take care of their babies and husbands. But, although some people are still discriminating women, we should not follow the misbehavior but should achieve the gender equality. We will make the future of Korea. What we do will determine Korea's future. So, remember the destiny of Victorians, who discriminated women so much. Thank you very much.