“The great principle of english fair-play”: male champions, the english women's movement and the admission of women to the pharmaceutical society in 1879
Year: 1998
Type: article
Abstract: Although the nineteenth-century women's movement in Britain was committed to opening male professions to women, pharmacy was not considered a likely target until it was discovered that certain men in the ruling body of the Pharmaceutical Society were sympathetic to their cause. Two young women already training to be hospital dispensers under the auspices of the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women were then encouraged to take the Pharmaceutical Society's examinations and apply for membership of the Society. The male champions who conducted a 7-year campaign for the admission of these women, although motivated by a commitment to gender equality, for strategic reasons limited their public rhetoric to appeals to justice, fairness and generosity. It is therefore suggested that the role of contingency and expediency in nineteenth-century feminist campaigns should be recognised.
Source: Women s History Review
Author: Ellen Jordan
Institution: University of Newcastle Australia
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Gender equality
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2060133418