Rossetti and Maria both volunteered at the St Mary Magdalene Penitentiary.
The St Mary Magdalene Penitentiary was a ‘house of charity’ and refuge for former prostitutes and ‘fallen women’.
Many of Rossetti’s poems express a distaste for the double standards of women at the time, particularly regarding sexual morality.
Rossetti appears to dislike the duality of women and is angry at men who ‘get‘ women into trouble and bear no responsibility for their part in ruining women’s lives.
Rossetti has a relativly progressive view that a sexual mistake or misdemeanour should not condemn a woman for the rest of their life.
Women’s rights changed enormously during the Victorian era, but for the majority of the time that Rossetti was writing, married women could not own property or have a career.
In the 1870s Rossetti was asked to support a campaign to give women the right to vote but she refused believing that men and women have different qualities and to treat them equally would imply a false sense of entitlement.
Rossetti’s beliefs on women were not uncommon Victorian views, while some people did abide to the stereotypical view modern readers have of Victorian women, some saw women as essential leaders of the domestic, moral, and spiritual life.
