Was Queen Victoria the first anti-feminist woman?
I find that very interesting because the term ‘feminism’ was thought to originate in France in the 1880s and not reach England until the 1890s. However she was certainly known to perpetuate traditional roles and be anti the women’s rights movement. She did have an idealised view of women’s roles tho. She wanted Prince Albert made king and to take the responsibility from her and saw average women as lucky to have decisions made for them. Had she had to work the hours Victorian women did, give all the money to her husband, do all the housework and childcare, cooking and shopping and submit to sex if she felt like it or not she may well have felt differently. Of course she was not the first anti-feminist woman. We have Charlotte Bronte telling female readers not to try to think too much and accept that men’s intelligence and general superiority is to be pandered to at all times. In Villette she goes on about how unattractive women with opinions are. Every time any woman tries to think for
