Subversion of the Victorian Gender Biases Against the Working-Class Women in Janet Hamilton’s Poems, Essays, and Sketches

Abstract

Contrary to the women of the upper-class who found relatively ample space in the literature of the Victorian period, working-class women were not given due consideration, denigrated into a morally inferior position and pushed into the peripheries of the society. Janet Hamilton (1795-1873), however, appears as a Scottish working-class essayist and an exceptional poet who takes women of working-classes as her foremost concern. Hamilton, in her poems, represents the difficulty of becoming socially, culturally, and politically under-privileged women of the working-classes in a class and gender-biased world of the Victorian Britain. Reducing the distance between the working-class women and the mainstream society, Hamilton’s poems have an avid propensity to construct a communal bridge across class and gender divisions, restore the moral dignity of working women and solicit sympathetic identification with the everyday plights of the working-class women. The purpose of this study is to read a selection of Hamilton’s poetry in Poems, Essays, and Sketches (1780) to unveil Hamilton’s representation of working-class women whose participation in Britain’s industrial development has been largely evaded. The study further reveals Hamilton’s rebellious pursuit of social justice and equality for the stigmatized and marginalized women of the working class.

Keywords

• Janet Hamilton
• Victorian Poetry
• Working Class Women
• Gender Biases

Janet Hamilton’ın Poems, Essays, and Sketches Adlı Eserinde Viktorya Dönemi’nin İşçi Sınıfı Kadınlarına Yönelik Cinsiyete Dayalı Önyargılarının Yıkılması

Abstract

Viktorya dönemi edebiyatında nispeten geniş bir yer bulan üst sınıfa mensup kadınların aksine, işçi sınıfı kadınlarına gereken ilgi gösterilmemiş, ahlaki açıdan aşağı bir konuma düşürülmüş ve toplumun dış çeperlerine itilmişlerdir. Bununla birlikte, İskoç işçi sınıfının eşsiz bir şairi ve deneme yazarı olan Janet Hamilton (1795-1873), işçi sınıfının kadınlarını odak noktasına almıştır. Hamilton, şiirlerinde, Viktorya Britanya’sının cinsiyete ve sınıf ayrımına dayalı dünyasında, sosyal, kültürel ve politik haklardan mahrum bırakılmış işçi sınıf mensubu kadın olmanın zorluklarını ustaca temsil etmektedir. İşçi sınıfı kadınlarla, egemen toplum arasındaki mesafeyi azaltmayı amaçlayan Hamilton’ın şiirleri sınıf ve cinsiyet ayrımlarının ötesinde ortak bir köprü oluşturarak işçi sınıfı kadınların ahlaki saygınlığını iade eder ve bu kadınların günlük sorunlarıyla sempatik bir özdeşleşme kurar. Bu çalışmanın amacı, Hamilton’ın Poems, Essays, and Sketches (1780) başlıklı eserindeki bazı şiirleri inceleyerek, Britanya’nın endüstrileşme sürecinde yadsınamaz katkıları olan, fakat büyük ölçüde görmezden gelinen işçi sınıfının kadınlarının temsilini ele almaktır. Bu çalışmada ayrıca, işçi sınıfının ötekileştirilmiş ve damgalanmış kadınları için Hamilton’ın vermiş olduğu sosyal adalet ve eşitlik arayışı ortaya konmaktadır.

Keywords

• Janet Hamilton
• Viktorya Şiiri
• İşçi Sınıfı Kadınları
• Cinsiyet Önyargıları

Ethical Statement

Bu çalışmada etik kurul onayı almayı gerektirecek herhangi bir deney kullanılmamıştır.

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