The accepted reasoning was that the career for women was marriage. To get ready for courtship and marriage a girl was groomed like a racehorse. In addition to being able to sing, play an instrument and speak a little French or Italian, the qualities a young Victorian gentlewoman needed, were to be innocent, virtuous, obedient, dutiful and be ignorant of intellectual opinion.
Large numbers of working class women worked in factories, in the garment industry or in laundries. From the mid-1850s nursing became a respectable occupation for women. Large numbers of women worked as nurses in the American Civil War, and in England nursing schools were started to give women a proper training.
In the early part of the Victorian era, girls of the upper and middle class were educated mainly in fashionable 'accomplishments' like French, drawing, painting, singing, dancing, the piano etc. However, in the later part of the century girls education was taken more seriously and schools were started which offered girls an education broadly modelled on that of boys of the same class, with an emphasis on academic subjects and outdoor games. Though it wasn't until the 20th century that they gained full acceptance by the universities.
Despite the fact Britain's head of state was a woman, Queen Victoria, women could not vote. Many women did not consider the vote to be of much importance anyway, and some women were opposed to the idea of women getting involved in politics, they thought women would be better occupied concentrating on improving the lives of other women and children though working to improve healthcare, education, and social services.
