Word: frasers
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...Fraser emphasizes with this and other examples that education was a significant influence on women's conditions. After the reign of Elizabeth and the collapse of the convent schools during the Reformation, women's education suffered serious reversals. Basua Makin, a female educator, wrote in 1673 that women ought to be taught Greek and Latin to make them "less idle" and better able to "understand Christ." But for all her progressive reform, she did not advocate a classical education for the majority of women...
Just as war tends to liberate women from traditional roles, women become politicized during revolutions. Women fought for radical social equality in the Diggers' and Leveller movements. From woodcuts of the period, Fraser points out that women were shown in the crowd at the execution of Charles I "anticipating the tricoteuses of the French Revolution by 150 years...
Women who sought a livelihood could be shopkeepers, petticoat authors, peddlers or midwives. Perhaps the career with the greatest risk and the greatest social mobility was that of a courtesan. Fraser's wit any style are at their best in this passage...
...Fraser goes on to recount anecdotes from the lives of famous misses or mistresses, like Catherine Sedley, who as James II's mistress had a "long nose" and was "too thin...
Female actresses had been allowed onstage by royal warrant since 1660. Fraser estimates that while one quarter were professionals, most women used the stage to display their wares and attract protectors. Elizabeth Barry, considered the leading actress of the Restoration, was involved with the Earl of Rochester and bore him a child in poverty...