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Quote by Lucy Worsley

“The gradual change, from her [Victoria] dominance to his [Albert], was taking place not just in ballrooms but more widely in British society. The genders became more clearly and hierarchically distinguished as the 1830s gave way to the 1840s. A successful marriage, thought Sarah Ellis, writing in 1843, was founded on one important truth. "It is," she counselled her female readers, "the superiority of your husband as a man." "You may have more talent, with higher attainments," she advised them, "but this has nothing whatever to do with your position as a woman, which is, and must be, inferior to his as a man.”

Quote by Lucy Worsley

Book:Queen Victoria: Daughter, Wife, Mother, Widow
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Queen Victoria: Daughter, Wife, Mother, Widow

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Lucy Worsley
Lucy Worsley

Lucy Worsley is a British historian known for her deep research into the Victorian era, particularly focusing on women's history and social change. Her books and television programs have gained widespread popularity, making history more vivid and accessible to the public. more

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HistoryFeminismVictorian EraQueen VictoriaHerstoryAnti FeminismEnglish MonarchyQueen Victorias Diaries
Book:Queen Victoria: Daughter, Wife, Mother, Widow
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“Victoria came to understand that her depression was a distinct malady that came and went, but which affected her particularly during and after pregnancy. ... Yet Albert made sure the babies kept coming. "It is too hard and dreadful what we have to go through," Victoria complained. Men ought to "do every thing to make up, for what after all they alone are the cause of.”

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“In talking so proudly about her "happy domestic home", Victoria was prefiguring the words of John Ruskin, the commentator who'd make the best-known pronouncement on the proper role of a Victorian woman. Home, he thought, was a "woman's true place and power". While a husband had to go to brave the rough world's perils, a wife should remain behind, in a private realm where her "great function is Praise" and her great opportunity the "sweet ordering" of her household.”

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“Starvation was the first indication of my self-discipline. I was devoted to anorexia. I went the distance of memorizing the calorie content within every bite of food while calculating the exact amount of exercise I needed to burn double my consumption. I was luckily young enough to mask my excessive exercise with juvenile hyperactivity. Nobody thought twice about the fact that I was constantly rollerblading, biking, and running for hours in stifling summer humidity. I learned to cut my food into tiny bites and move it around my plate. I read that standing burned more calories than sitting, so I refused to watch television without doing crunches, leg lifts, or at least walking in place. When socially forced to soldier through a movie, I tapped my foot in desperation to knock out about seventy-five extra calories. From age eleven to twelve, I dropped forty pounds and halted the one period I’d had.”

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“I always imagined rape as this violent scene of a woman walking alone down a dark alley and getting mugged and beaten by some masked criminal. Rape was an angry man forcing himself inside a damsel in distress. I would not carry the trauma of a cliché rape victim. I would not shriek in the midst of my slumber with night terrors. I would not tremble at the sight of every dark haired man or the mention of Number 1’s name. I would not even harbor ill will towards him. My damage was like a cigarette addiction- subtle, seemingly innocent, but everlasting and inevitably detrimental. Number 1 never opened his screen door to furious crowds waving torches and baseball bats. Nobody punched him out in my honor. The Nightfall crowd never socially ostracized him. Even the ex-boyfriend who’d second handedly fused the entire fiasco continued to mingle with him in drug circles. Everybody continued with business as usual. And when I told my parents I lost my virginity against my will, unconscious on a bathroom floor, Carl did not erupt in fury and demand I give him all I knew about his whereabouts so he could greet him with a rifle. Mom blankly shrugged and mumbled, “Oh, that’s too bad,” and drifted into the kitchen as if I’d received a stubbed toe rather than a shredded hymen. Everyone in my life took my rape as lightly as a brief thunderstorm that might have been frightening when it happened, but was easy to forget about. I adopted that mentality as the foundation of my sex life. I would, time and time again, treat sex as flimsily as it started. I would give it away as if it was cheap, second hand junk, rather than a prize that deserved to be earned.”

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“My parents’ attempts to stop my habit were through guilt and force. They grounded me several times. Carl made cracks when he felt that I was eating too much and snide comments on my weight yo-yoing. They sent me to psychiatrists who tried to quick fix me by Paxil, Zoloft, and Effexor prescriptions. All were antidepressants with weight gain for side effects, which might as well have been rat poison for a bulimic.”

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“From my first stab at second base, I became obsessively concerned for my vaginal upkeep. I began shaving the day after I felt my first tongue down my throat. The first buzz was a disaster, causing horrifically itchy dull razor breakout that made me look like I made love to a poison ivy bush. Whenever I thought there was a chance of unveiling my privates, I smothered every breakout with the same foundation I used for the occasional teenage acne face breakouts.”

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