Women: If you lived 100-200 years ago, what would you be like?

With respect to....

Profession (For instance some common female friendly jobs from the eras... nurse, midwife, teacher, agricultural work, domestic work etc.)

Locale- What part of the world?

Political beliefs- (remember, pre-feminism)

And anything else you can think of.....

Osmorris: FYI, doctors did not have the same public reverence they do today. During the early 19th century doctors were feared by most of the public, consider that medicine was not advanced in the least, no anesthesia, no sense of sterilization, etc. There were even laws preventing doctors from preventing autopsies on women without a female witness. Evident of the public's immense distrust of physicians.

Midwives were who families called on to come to their homes when someone was sick. Sure birthing was their "main event" but they also made many house calls regarding various health concerns. At this time, doctors didn't.

Google: Martha Huber

I would have been burned at the stake, because I would have been to unconventional...ugh...I prefer this century. There were no opportunities back then and if you had no father or husband you had three options: nanny/maid, go to a convent or prostitution.

I would have had too advance ideas for those times, so I would have been accused of being a witch..scary :-(

Edit to Planet A.: You are a relative from Amelia Earhart?!!!
WOW!!! :-) She is one of my heroes! Therefore I play "Flight Simulator" (cheaper than buying a plane lol)

Hmmm, well, since I'm American, black and have southern roots, I would've probably been a slave 200 years ago.

Needless to say, I'm pretty happy to have been born in 1970!
:)

I would have been a rancher...out West....the idea of building a community from the bottom up excites me.

Dead. 100-200 years ago if a women was infertile it was because she's evil and they killed her.

If for some reason they didn't kill me, teacher. Probably here (Seattle) or Ireland (that's where we came from).

Had I lived between 1807 and 1907 I wouldn't have had a profession. I would be married with hundred kids by now. Probably in Scotland or Denmark as that is where my ancestors are from and my political beliefs would have been whatever my husbands beliefs were. Not that it would have signified because women couldn't vote then.

Thumbs down? Sorry, but we would have been socialized with 19th century values not 21st century values and that was the way it was for all but a very, very small minority.

One of my female ancestors wrote the first history book on the Revolutionary War and she's been documented as being a ghost writer for a male doing political editorials of that era. I'm also related to Amelia Earhart, and 100 years ago three of my female aunts ran the only newspaper in town. Feminism is in my family DNA (or at least the values of community action and feminism has been passed down from generation to generation). So I have no doubt that I would have been the same person a 100-200 years ago as I am now, only the issues that I'd care about back then would be different---same book, different chapter so to say.

Hard to say. It is hard to think of situation where a woman isn't doing lots of laundry by hand, and I hate housework. With my luck, I'd be a maid.

Considering that I am East European Jewish, I'd probably be a farmer's wife living on a Shtetl, fearing that the Cossacks were going to wipe out the town.

I would probably have been first a bluestocking since I love to read almost anything. My profession would more than likely have been a healer. I know women were not able to be doctors ( usually just midwifes), so more than likely I would have to have been self taught, or found someone who did not mind a female apprentice. Most of my ancestors were from England, ( some from Italy), so more than likely I would have been a London Bluestocking. :) Interesting question by the way! :)

Where would I be? In prison for "rabble rousing," probably. I'm not one for keeping my mouth shut, my head down and putting up with injustice.

I must say, I am really enjoying these answers. Great question, btw.

I can't think of much more than "wife and mother living in Canada" for my answer. I'd like to think that I'd still feel free enough to speak my mind, (even if someone doesn't ask me directly. :P) even one or two centuries ago. If my family back then were as political as they are today, I very likely would be.

Thanks for all the great answers everyone! Starred!

I would have been a dirt-poor peasant or serf in Eastern Europe, barely scratching a living from the earth and the few scrawny farm animals we could afford. I would have not been able to read or write and been completly uneducated. My husband would not have been much better. I would have been married off by my parents at the age of 13 or 14. My husband would have beaten me regularly and I had no recourse or hope from anyone, because that was accepted behavior. I would have had one pregnancy a year, and lost most of the the babies. There would have been no medical care for anyone in my family. I would most likely not have lived past the age of 40 - 50 max. There was no such thing as shopping. You grew what you ate, raised the sheep for the wool you made into cloth and sewed into clothes. You bartered for what you needed, or sold the milk or eggs your cows and chickens produced. Itinerant peddlers would come by every so often and sell exotic goods you couldn't make on your own. Political beliefs? Hah! I would not have known what country or province I lived in, only the name of my village. I may have heard there was a city on the other side of the mountains, but I would never have expected to visit there even once in my life. The biggest thing in my life, other than keeping my family and me alive, would have been the Church. It was the center of life, the core of the social structure I knew. My faith would have underscored everything I did. It was there for the three biggest days in my life: when I was born, when I got married, and when I died. The only record of my life was what was written down in Church records. I would have had no idea what was happening in the rest of the world, as late as the 20th century. There was no such thing as progress in my world . . . only raw, harsh survival.

I know this to be true because I looked it up and interviewed the senior members of my family while they were still alive. My nieces, alas, have no such interest. As far as they're concerned the world began with them.

For some reason people like to think they were descended from royalty. Not me - I'm descended from peasants and damn proud of it.

I would have been one of those women you read about in historical romance books..lol. A fiery farm girl who gets swept off her feet by a handsome, seductive member of the ton w/ a bad reputation. :)

i'd probably be heading into the pacific northwest (in the US--as all my ancestors were here by then, some for centuries) to settle there, tending & teaching the kids & healing people's wounds & illnesses... being a midwife would be great, i could do that! (actually been thinking about studying that now)

trying to stay away from those that would hang me or burn me at the stake! lol...

edit: i'm certain that i would continue my education past primary school, even though women were not allowed back then, because i'm very curious & would not have been able to help but learn from anyone & anything i could...

how do i know? while i would love to say that my personality, value system and beliefs would be the same....would that be true in another century?

i am a child of this world, not the world a hundred years ago. i think that i would still be a "strong and good" person, but would i still have feminist ideals? maybe, but likely, i wouldn't even know those existed.

I would probably be a teacher in the Canadian prairie who wrote treatises in favour of women's rights in her spare time.

In an insane assylum. I am Epileptic and back then, they were aware of epilepsy but, if you did not have a family that was wealthy enough to take care of you as someone like me would be in-eligible for marraige, then you were thrown in an assylum, in all likelihood abused, until death.

I would have been a dirt-poor peasant or a dirt-poor household servant or textile factory worker. I wouldn't have had much in the way of political beliefs because at most, I would have been only semi-literate. In all liklihood I would have been completely illiterate: who needs to know how to read when your life revolves around strangling chickens and milking the goat? I would have been either Protestant or Catholic, and had no clue that perhaps there is no god??? I would have been devout, and a good servile girl. I would have had few rights, and its entirely possible that my husband would have beaten me. I would have cranked out 6 kids or so - then, some dread disease - perhaps influenza virus - would have killed me off. Either that, or I would have died agonizingly in childbirth.

Wasn't that just a laugh a minute?

I'd be Charlotte Bronte... in fact, sometimes I think I was... if you believe in reincarnation that is.

I also get a weird vibe from Jane Austen...

Probably women would be more submissive to men then today.

Well, I'm a Hatfield (if you are familiar with the Hatfields and McCoys) so I would be a charming feminine Southern girl with a gun in her hand and a ruthless attitude.

This question reminds me of when I saw "manor house." It's one of those living history programs, where people live as if it's the early 1900's, to experience what life was like for people in the past. One family got to be the wealthy "owners" of the "manor house." Other individuals got to be the workers. It was incredible how hard the working classes had to work. The only break they really got was the hour long walk home from church once a week. Half way through, one of the female kitchen workers said if this was really her life, she would honestly prefer to be drunk all the time and make her living as a "common street walking prostitute." Two scullery maids literally ran away in the middle of the night.

But as for me, I suspect I'd be something of a bohemian, or a member of the demi monde. Maybe an actress (not a very respectable career back then, though), occasionally taking work as a nude art model when I could. If I had the skill, perhaps I'd become a courtesan.

Profession - Probably a street dancer or school teacher, if not living a nomadic lifestyle with my family, then married to a farmer, whom I help tend our land, and as my grandmother, involved in esoteric practises.

Locale - Spain, in the Andalusian city my mother is from.

Political beliefs - Closely related to Libertarianism.
I would challenge the "system" of that time, in well-thought-out and cautious manner, I would prefer to educate and build our way up (towards equal rights) slowly, strongly and securely, similar (though not exactly) to Howard Zinn's approach, who's work I value.
I would expect challenges, such as rejection from family, beatings or any other form of mistreatment, as that sort of mentality in a woman (at that time and place) was not common, although there were other aspects of the Gitano (Spanish Gypsy) culture that were slightly liberal, most were not.

good question!

i would hope to be someone like Nelly Bly who wrote for the NYC newspaper and travelled around the world - without an escort for 72 days (less than Philleas Phebes (sp?), the fictional character) back in the 1880s.

maybe i'd be a Harvey girl and work on the railroads out west.

or maybe a prostitute - so i could enjoy sex without all the guilt and repression (although that 's the last profession on earth i'd be willing to do now, in 2007)~

certainly, i'd be a spinster~

;-)