Equally Free
Sir Joshua Fitch urges Victorian society to let women make their own career choices – whatever they may be.
1906
Imperial War Museums Collection, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
An unidentified draughtswoman works on a drawing of a 25-pounder gun in 1942. Fitch’s point was not that women should be enticed or pushed into roles they do not relish, simply to achieve statistical equivalence – it was far more radical and genuinely egalitarian than that. His point was that each and every woman should be left free to pursue whatever she herself finds fulfilling.
Introduction
Sir Joshua Fitch (1824-1903) was a leading Victorian educator who played a decisive role in promoting the education of girls on equal terms to boys. He did not believe, however, in making girls do as boys do. He believed that if boys can do as they please, so can girls, and that no one should dictate what that should be.
abridged
THE world is made poorer by every restriction whether imposed by authority or only conventionally prescribed by our social usages which hampers the free choice of women in relation to their careers, their studies, or their aims in life. Hitherto every step which has been taken in opening out new forms of active work and increased influence to women has been a clear gain to society, and has added much to the happiness of women themselves.
It is, therefore, not merely the chivalry, or even the sense of justice, but also the enlightened self-interest of man, that are concerned in the solution of this problem. It is not his duty to urge women in the direction of employments they feel to be uncongenial to them; but it is his duty to remove as far as possible all impediments and disqualifications which yet remain in restraint of their own discretion, to leave the choice of careers as open to them as it is to himself and to wait and see what comes of it. Nothing but good can come of it.
abridged
Abridged from ‘Sir Joshua Fitch: An Account of his Life and Work’ (1906), by A. L. Lilley.
