Musings on Victorian Double Standards

Bending down to pick up ten dollars which dropped from her hand, she felt a jolt to her bottom-someone had kicked her. She looked up only to see that the violator had run off laughing at her. His laughter was a physical response to his amusement- her body bent over and her choice of life. …

A Tale of Two Prostitutes-Notes on the Victorian Social Order

In the nineteenth century, a woman who owned property, made high wages, had sex outside of marriage (or outside the missionary position) and was not ashamed may well have been involved in nineteenth century sex work. These “public women” challenged and subverted the Victorian cultural universals that upheld traits of purity, piety, domesticity and submission …

Notes on the 19th Century: The Functions of Victorian Manners

The functions of Victorian manners during the 19th century rested on its investment in creating a genteel populace. In this way Victorian manners can be seen as an “investment” of the body. Michel Foucault reminds that, “…the body is directly involved in a political field, power relations have an immediate hold upon it, they invest …

Notes on Darwin’s Origin of Species

  The nineteenth century was rife with cataclysmic changes in economics, technology, and science. An increasingly diversified market of goods and services, new inventions, and population shifts were just some aspects of the rapid innovation and progress made during the 1800's. Additionally the ideological discourses thrived with print material that challenged, provoked and brought new …