Sounds like the Victorian era women who were advancing from a poverty stricken situation to a middle class situation were looking for the type of information found in modern "self help" books. Sounds like the Victorian era was the birth of the self help book.
So I just learned that I am definitely not a Victorian Era Housewife! I am more of a Victorian Era Servant that can cook... So at least I do cost a lot of money right? 🤣
You might COST money, because your employer has to pay to feed and house you... but you probably don't MAKE much, unless you're a very high-status cook in a high-status household, supervising a lot of under-cooks.
@@delphinidin You are right. But my employer might show me (and my skills) off to guests. That would be more appreciation than in my current workplace...
As I watch this video, I am for once actually glad I am born and bred in the working class. ;) Cooking, cleaning, working with your hands, my parents made sure we knew how to get by without spending money on professionals. :D
At victorian era working class didn't have much to cook with, which limited what they could learn. And those generational skills are still not a given, I know people in the working class who aren't able to do much in the kitchen. Kids who think they don't like read meat, because they have only ever eaten it cooked badly.
The one about victorian era housewives not knowing how to cook was an interesting one. I remember reading David Copperfield and remember David's first wife being portrayed as being very flighty and silly, and her not knowing how to cook being something that counted against her?
I am very much a Victorian housewife... nodding along to all the points :) Victorian era history is absolutely fascinating.. thanks heaps for this video, hope to see more amazing videos from you soon :)
Most of these I identified with 😔 I also have the ideal traits to be viewed as a refined lady... instruments, languages, interest in all subjects, adjust to other's communication styles, sickly and weak. Was a natural follower of wanting to be gentle and honest until I had the opportunity to experience the wider world...ideal for receiving the guests in the parlour...there isn't really a job like that today 😭 though I'm glad I was born in our current era, as more fitting a role it would have been, it can't beat the comforts of the 21st century, because I certainly wouldn't have had access to anything that made it possible for me to gain any of those traits in the first place.
OMG! When I saw the title of this I cracked up laughing and showed my husband and said "I bet I have all 10 things!! " I was pretty close had about 7-8 of them, I do know how to cook and do so every night for my family and yes I do the dishes also...but the fact that they hated to exercise and prefer walking everywhere is me to a tee! I thought of one more, I don't really know if this would be accurate or not but if you still use hot rollers, because I remember reading somewhere that the Vic ladies like to have lovely hair dos and it was hard to find servants who knew how to handle a curling iron (one warmed in the fireplace mind you) . I love your channel just discovered it the other day.
Ah yes. Well, Mother said I never needed to read that book ... so popular with my first and second maids though ( as I have heard). We’ve had a French head of the kitchens for a few years now. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Today I learned that I am definitely not a Victorian house wife. In normal times I like to go to the gym, but I'm waiting till I'm fully vaccinated. I miss deadlifts and weighted squats. In the mean time it's still home gym and walking. I don't remember the last time I looked up some basic thing I needed to know. I have been able to cook since I was about 10ish. My parents love cooking, my father is a baker, I like cooking and baking. I read food labels because I have food related allergies, so I have to be careful. I don't wear makeup and if I'm not planning to show my legs, I'm not shaving. Edit: I forgot to add I despise "health" fads. Most of them are unhealthy. The only reason you should want an empty colon is because a doctor is going to do something with it. You don't want a doctor having to do something to it. Trust me, my mother just went through that shit (pun intended). I have to admit to using my dust sucking servant, clothes washing servant, and baking servant quite regularly. I wish I had a dish washing servant. A clothes drying servant would be nice to have once in a while. Waiting for your favourite item of clothing to dry is annoying.
I only found your channel yesterday, but I've watched maybe 15 of your videos already. I love your stuff! It really makes me appreciate living in the modern era.
Believe it or not , a properly fitted corset (preferably custom made for your body) is incredibly comfortable. I find it more comfortable than an underwire bra. I'm speaking of a Tudor corset which was called "a pair of bodies." But I have heard from other historical reenactors that the same applies for The corsets of other eras.
I like having human rights, healthcare, modern technology and so on. in conclusion: I'm very much not a victorian housewife. besides not being a woman I do enjoy 1890's "women's" clothes, not going to the gym or shaving my legs anymore.
I do feel the need to point out that shaving body hair mostly became common due to safety razor marketing, around the 1910s and 20s. The ad campaigns for them would kinda make up stuff about ladies shaving their legs/arms being hip in Europe and other things like that, so the pressure was on. Once straight razors weren't the only way to shave, it became easier and therefore advertisers decided to sell to women too.
How about doing some videos on extracts from Mrs Beaton? I've read parts of it and it's very informative, especially the bits about how to raise children.
Well-off post-war housewives were actually very bad at cooking and killed a lot of people because they grew up in houses with servants and now suddenly had to do it themselves. This is part of why they focused so much on teaching girls how to cook and feed a family. I am apparently an anti-housewife. The only thing I like is walking but the idea of strolling sets my teeth on edge. I think I would have been a good cook organizing a kitchen full of helpers.
Would love more info about class shifts. Changes these women and men went through for the better or worse when when they switched from lower to middle class. And always interested in the aristocracy who lost money snd had to marry down.
In the post war era middle class British women were the first generation that couldn't afford a cook or other servants which was a somewhat traumatic experience for them. It was also deadly because they didn't know how to properly handle raw chicken and many died of salmonella.
The only thing I have in common with the Victorian housewives is that I hate the gym and I wax like crazy, but I am afraid I do know how to cook and I can't live without my red lipstick. Your video was very funny!
I'm gay. I do NOT belong in the Victorian era. That being said, I'm pretty sure Bernadette Banner did Victorian-era exercises in a period-appropriate corset.
When u said how do u learn how to cook no youtube i thought mrs beaton. And then bam thats your next statement. You know whats crazy my gran became a house wife in the late 40s early 50s and she was given a copy of mrs beaton...that book to this day is truly full of great tid bits.
With the whole makeup being associated with ladies of the night it was because a lot of actresses were also ladies of the night and they were a lot of makeup on stage so they could be seen while performing.
in the victorian times I d probably be so poor in a workhouse and the fact that my son is severely autistic means they'd probable had him locked down in one of those dungeons they named mental facilities, my life would be so horrid I can't even imagine.
1.✓ 2.✓ 3.✓ 4. Nah I like to cook. 5.✓ 6. I wish.... 7. Been there done that but over it now. 8.✓ Agree on that. 9. ✓ yes! Why does everyone need to use foundation? 10.✓ Started shaving my legs when I was 12. ...Congratulations! Now you know all about me. 😄 Oh, yes! I'm also into flora and fauna, dry and press flowers... for reals!
I'm genderfluid and pan and also sixteen years old and like lower-middle class and definitely pursuing a career but it turns out I have a surprising amount in common with a victorian housewife
I fit all except 3: I HATE health fads with a passion, they make me feel shit abut myself and my husband recovered from an eating disorder years ago but can still have bad thoughts because of that shit, I do not wear make-up because I can't be fucked and I do actually read most food labels because our diet is like 90% vegetarian so I have to check. Otherwise, pretty spot on :D
Your first point is really interesting, Ellie. And I wonder if that aversion to exercise - or those ideas around what being "ladylike" was really about, carried across into other cultures. I'm thinking in particular of the subcontinent.....
MINUS i go to the gym, PLUS walk a lot, MINUS i have firm abs MINUS one of the few thing i do very well is cooking, PLUS I guess I look for advice but most of the times i´m giving it , hmmm another PLUS (for a time ), so we have like 3 servants, a Cook a maid and a gardener, but when my father retired we moved to latin america, and when my father died it was just my mum and me, so we mover to a smaller house.MINUS i hate fads, but I like fashion to a certain point, PLUS I never ever read food labels, not even look at them PLUS I don´t use a lot of make up and is very natural looking, and another PLUS, shaving my legs, so with 6 out of 10 I´m barely there
I am really NOT a Victorian housewife. 😔 I don't really LOVE cooking and, oh, if only I had servants to clean for me! - but I was raised to exercise and cook and do things for myself. I'd feel weird without it. Of course, my ancestors were bakers from a needle-making village - probably doesn't count as middle class! I do know the value of coconut oil and use such minimal makeup my virtue is clearly unshakable! 😄
I've been doing research to obtain the best knowledge for me from all eras in becoming a homemaker with children. I'm kinda bummed the Victorian era doesn't sound like it'd apply. 😆
I've been meaning to ask you if Ellie Dashwood is your pseudonym, as inspired by Elinor Dashwood, or indeed the name you were born with. Also, you also like the no make up makeup look. Love your lady-like style!
Ha! This is great! I totally get my exercise by walking every day. But I can cook! That's totally generational knowledge, too. I think my ancestors in the Victorian Era were totally cooking, though. They were immigrants from Europe to the US during that time of mass migration, and they were pioneers. Pioneers are very self-sufficient, my ancestors were weavers and farmers. They likely had no trouble cooking or cleaning. They were kind of outside the European class system, though if they were evaluated according to that system, they were likely lower class. They owned land, though, eventually. That pride in self-sufficiency, in frugality, in teaching skills to their own children as well as sending them to the local school are values that have persisted as inter-generational knowledge. Their ideals of child-rearing (if you can afford it, hire someone else to do it) were very different from Victorians. I think I identify with them far more than I identify with their Victorian-era English roots. If they hired other people, they were farm hands. Or someone to help with baking and cleaning after they had a baby. They certainly didn't hire nursemaids, governesses, and cooks. I guess if I count having a dishwasher, washing machine, dryer, and vacuum cleaner as having servants, then I do. I've never put my kids in daycare though, which would be the modern equivalent of a nursemaid, I suppose. Though far more hands-on. That does mean I did a lot more cooking and cleaning on my own that a typical working mom, who probably orders take out far more often than I did and is more likely to hire someone to come in once a week or so to help with the cleaning. I do know people who have done that--not many, I'm pretty middle class--but a few. All working moms with professional positions in two-income households. What can I say? I'm a modern American. As much as I enjoy classic literature and historical fiction, I wouldn't change my place in history or location for anything. No indoor plumbing? A middle class whose major achievement was hiring a cook and paying someone else to raise the kids? I don't think so. Having a newborn is grueling, but I would never hand off my baby to someone in the village to be a wet-nurse in spite of all those sleepless nights.
Now let me see... Just 6/10. I don't walk as much, but my abs are better. And my generational + acquired skills are actually rather good, including cooking.
Human beings in every era have an amazing capacity to ignore the inconsistency of things that are CONVENIENT! 😄 Riding helped you get around, exercise was 'inessential'. So I'm guessing people just ignored the similar physicality in styling riding 'good', aerobics 'bad'. As long as you rode sidesaddle, of course - that makes ALL the difference! 😁
When I think of the Victorian era... The phrase Glove Anesthesia comes to mind. And Doctors inventing better ways for women to ummm, row their own boat.
Speaking of corsets leading to ab weakness, there has been recent discussion that bras lead to weakness of the connecting tissue supporting the breasts.
I despise cooking… so I’m either poor and therefore eating cheap bland food (fast food I guess) because I’m too busy working to survive, or I’m rich enough to have a cook (Uber eats I guess)… 🤷♀️
Hmm..... everything on this list applies to me... ...it seems my entire family are a bunch of Victorian era peasants whom accidentally time travelled to the 21st century and had recently entered the middle class
About knowing how to cook, who can forget Goldie Hawn's horror at the task while cramming a chicken into a pot, claws and all, in Overboard? Goldie/Joanna/Annie also came from generations of privilege, and had never seen cooking done.
