Women's Daily Life

During the renaissance period, “gender and social class affected many aspects of daily life”, especially for women (“Daily Life”). Women’s jobs, education, and entertainment differed from men just because, women could not get “down and dirty” as much as men could, since “women had less freedom and independence” (“Daily Life”).

In this time period, women’s education depended on what social class they were in and what they wanted to do. Most topics taught were, “history, statecraft … useful knowledge”, “Latin, geography, and composition” (Sider 282, 283). Sider stated that, when young women were being taught Latin and Greek, in Western Europe they had tutors so they would not have to go to school, or just because they had the money to buy a tutor (285). According to Sider, because the upper class could afford a tutor, most of the time the ladies had an education that would help them act like role models, especially if they did not want to be a nun, then they would be taught how to “run a household… through spiritual and religious training” (Sider 283,284). Everything that the women were taught helped figure out what they would do for a job, when they grew up.

Most of the jobs women had were “subordinate but not powerless” (Forgeng 42). Brown and McBride stated that child-care, since that relied on women fully, and family business such as domestic work were some jobs that women could do (90, 92). Young girls would have to know how to spin and sew so they could tend to local shops in which, they would weave and sew (Brown and McBride 93, “Daily Life”). Any jobs that women had depended on the lifestyle they lived in and where they lived (Brown and McBride 94). The jobs that the upper class women had were to make sure the children...

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...nts of things that women could do compared to men, since during the renaissance era, men were looked above females.

Works Cited

Brown, Meg Lota, and Kari Boyd McBride. Women's Roles in the Renaissance. Westport: Greewood, 2005. Print.

"Daily Life." Renaissance: An Encyclopedia for Students. Ed. Paul F. Grendler. Vol. 2. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2004. N. pag. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 3 Apr. 2014.

Emerson, Kathy Lynn. Everyday Life in Renaissance England from 1485-1649. Cincinnati: Writer's Digest, 1996. Print.

Forgeng, Jeffery L. Daily Life in Elizabethan England. 2nd ed. Santa Barbara: Greenwood, 2010. Print.

Picard, Liza. Elizabeth's London. New York: St. Martin's Griffen, 2003. Print.

Sider, Sandra. Handbook to Life in Renaissance Europe. New York: Facts on File, 2005. Print.