Seen But Not Heard? Women's Platforms, Respectability, And Female Publics in the Mid-Nineteenth Century‪.‬

This article explores the role of the press in defining the boundaries of respectable feminine activity in the public sphere in mid-nineteenth-century Britain. Through an examination of the reporting of women's meetings and appeals to female opinion, it demonstrates that although women who engaged in public controversy risked ridicule and condemnation, it was possible for women's engagement in the public sphere to be portrayed as respectable and even desirable by developing the notion of a virtuous female public opinion based solely on consensus rather than controversy. This was achieved by selective reporting of women's meetings, usually excluding any reference to debates and individual speeches, and concentrating only on the outcome. The article proceeds to consider the broadening opportunities for women to address mixed audiences on topics such as female education and social reform. It concludes that the stifling of public debate between women in order to uphold an ideal of female moral purity was a price that women had to pay in order to have an influence on public opinion, and that such ideals of feminine respectability continued to shape women's access to platforms long after the hypocrisy of moral arguments against women's involvement in political debate had been exposed and the existence of a unified "female opinion" thrown into doubt. **********