Help with housework: 1889

Most women heartily despise a "Betty," by which is usually meant a man who pokes his nose into the details of household affairs, dabbles in the work of the kitchen and irritates the housewife by assuming, regularly or occasionally, functions which she deems exclusive to herself. The dislike of women for this kind of man is in the main wellgrounded. The average man is unfortunately unable to make himself useful in household work, without making himself, also, more or less a nuisance....

...There is no reasonable reason why a man should not be able to broil a steak, boil or bake potatoes, cook an egg, make coffee or tea and prepare other articles of food should an emergency arise to make it desirable (and such emergencies do often arise), and do it too without turning the kitchen and diningroom topsy-turvy in the operation. Some men can and do accomplish such work, and even make biscuits, griddle-cakes and the like.

--From Good Housekeeping--

This article was written by a man, trying to convince women to let men who were able, help them around the house. The big problem for women wasn't that men didn't help with housework, but that they tried to!

Women in the workforce: 1888

In the entrance of women into the occupations of men, the former have done so well in their ventures that the men are complaining about the competition. In 1840 there were but seven occupations outside of domestic industry that were open to women; the number had risen to 287 in 1880 and every year adds to the list. These occupations call for ability to understand the work of machinery and to operate it; and in such an industry as the making of boots and shoes, which employs a large amount of machinery in all departments of the work, more than one-sixth of those employed are women.

In the occupations that call for business knowledge women are pushing everywhere; they are found in insurance, in real estate business, in mercantile establishments, in manufactories, in lawyers' offices, doing portions of the work of management, of marketing goods, of correspondence and of driving bargains.

--From Good housekeeping--

The Victorian Era: a time of changing gender roles and a greater self-awareness among women of their ability to compete with men.