ASIN: B00F3EVQHE
Publisher: unknown
Pages: 19
In the study of the British Empire, rhetoric and reality are often far apart. The imperial enterprise has always been one of sharp contrasts; and so it is for women and Empire. This essay establishes a gap between the female rhetoric in Britain, regarding the role women should play in British Imperialism, and the reality in the colonies. Victorian female writers at home saw the colonies as a way to solve the problem of the ‘redundant’ unmarried woman. In reality, most women did not go to the colonies to get married, but to exercise agency and independence. First, I outline the doctrine of separate spheres between men and women; second, I survey the rhetoric of the redundant women and the colonies in Victorian Britain by looking at contemporary female writers; third, I look at the precedent of female colonial participation; fourth I evaluate the role of women in the British Empire by ...
