'Working women'

[Sausagenbacon]

I visited the Whistler exhibition at Tate Britain, which was excellent, but one thing niggled me.
More than once, they referred to 'working women' i.e. artists in the 19th Century living with and sometimes being supported by them. Is this their prissy way of saying 'prostitute'.

Must be - but what an odd choice. Seems unlikely they meant women who took in laundry or ran boarding-houses.

I think “working girl” used to be a term for prostitute but I’ve never heard “working women” be used.

Maybe it meant women in domestic service.