The differing behavioural patterns of women and man throughout the ages

The first 200 words of this essay...

The differing behavioural patterns of women and man throughout the ages

E Smith

Both males and females have similar needs in order to survive. Historically however, Britain's social structure has contributed to significant differences in opportunity and outcome between the genders resulting in prejudice and discrimination against more women than men over time. It is in the areas of family, education and work that these differences are most pronounced.

In 1775, Sir William Blackstone explained, "by marriage the very being or legal existence of a woman is suspended or at least is incorporated or consolidated into that of the husband under whose wing, protection and cover she performs everything and she is therefore called in our law, a femme covert...". In the 1800s women were not even considered legal entities. This meant that they were not actually considered persons in the legal sense. They could not be sued. In 1894 an anti-suffragist politician, George Riddoch, in Parliament said, "Every woman who uses up her national vitality in a profession or business or in study will bear feeble, rickety children and is spending her infant's inheritance on herself." During the Industrial Revolution a husband was entitled to