Women in England During Imperialism
English women during the 1800's time took up with men in the quest to explore and take over foreign lands. In their travels, they encountered new cultures with different problems and different maltreatment of women. In Egypt for example, women were not allowed to pray to Allah because they were not viewed in their society of worthy: “She is too low in the scale of humanity to make her tribute to the Almighty worthy of acceptance,” (Fawcett, 557) and women did not have the appropriate preparations needed to take care of their children, resulting in a lot of infant/child deaths. English women traveling in these countries not only felt privileged to have had the upbringings they had, but also privileged to be able to use their knowledge to assist them in assuaging the issues these “oriental women” faced. This sort of power that the English women felt over foreign women, lead to the English women perceiving themselves as more powerful in their own society and more powerful that the women in these “subordinate” groups. For example, Fawcett was horrified to learn that women in China were not permitted to eat until after the men in had finished eating: “the men eat first and when they have quite finished, if there is anything left, the women are allowed to have it,” (Fawcett 558). Women used their travel during imperialism to prove that they were capable and resilient. For example, the explorer Mary Kingsley who traveled always in full skirts in order to conserve her perceived femininity while carrying these heavy skirts through dense jungle, doing more than the men in light pants (Kingsley, 151).
