ESCRITORAS EN LENGUA INGLESA: FIN - DE - SIÈCLE NEW WOMAN

The Victorian “fin de siècle” was an age of change due to the emergence of new theories and
challenges to tradition which revolutionized politics, art, science and society. Another important
thing was a change in the role of women because of the increasing number of opportunities
available to them in a male- dominated world. Thanks to the prospects improving for women in
education and employment, getting married was no longer seen as the only way to have a level of
financial security.

During this period also emerged a new air of sexual freedom but it was still a controversial subject.
As mentioned in Greg Buzwell’s article, there were writers like Thomas Hardy and George Moore
who addressed sexual desire head on in their novels. This emphasis on the importance of pursuing
new sensations also led to sex and sensuality being an important part in the search for new
experiences.

The role of the new woman was also controversial some times, many men thought that the idea of
women making their own way in the world was on one hand sensible and on the other desirable
while many women were against female emancipation and also the role they had to take in marriage
and motherhood.

The origins of the term “new woman” is thought to come from 1894 when it was used articles
written by the novelists Sarah Grand and ‘Ouida’ (Maria Louise Ramé) in the North American
Review. The term became popular later to describe the new breed of educated and independent
women.

The New Woman could be described as a feminist and social reformer, a poet or playwright who
dressed female suffrage. The role of new women in literature was a woman character in a novel or
play who frequently took a different form. Some examples mentioned in the article are the character
Nora in A Doll’s House (1879) by Henrik Ibsen, Lyndall in The Story of an African Farm (1883) by
Olive Schreiner or Grace Melbury in The Woodlanders (1887) by Thomas Hardy. However, in the
mid- 1890’s, New Women fiction had its heyday, we have the examples of Sarah Grand from her
article The New Aspect of the Woman Question or her novel The Beth Book. Other examples are
Grant Allen’s novel The Woman Who Did (1895), Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure (1895) and
George Gissing’s The Odd Women (1893).

The article Daughters of decadence: the New Woman in the Victorian fin de siècle also shows the
role of new woman in relation with sex. The traditional view of woman’s role during the Victorian
society is described by the author of the poem The Angel in the House (1854), the author describes
her as a loving wife devoted to her husband and a mother devoted to her children. Regarding the
ideal of woman sexual desires, William Aton says:

As a general rule a modest woman seldom desires any sexual gratification for herself. She submits
to her husband, but only to please him and, but for the desire of maternity, would far rather be
relieved from his attention.

The fin de siècle fiction fought against those traditional ideas in different ways while male writers
tended to cast the New Woman as a sexual predator or as an over- sensitive intellectual who is
unable to accept er nature as a sexual being. We can also find examples, in Bram Stoker’s Dracula
(1897), Lucy Western is an example of the former, however, in Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure,
Sue Bridehead represents the latter.

Regarding the thesis of Charlotte Hendrikx Male Perspectives on the New Woman in works of
Bernard Shaw, Grant Allen and George Gissing, she also includes in the rise f the New Woman a
public debate called the Woman Question which was first raised in England by Mary
Wollstonecraft in The Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). She declared that if women were
educated properly, they would develop their rational qualities, according to her, education for
women wasn’t incompatible with the role of women as mothers or wives.

Gender inequality was in aspects of life like education, voting rights or the right to own property.
There was also a notion where women were the “weaker” sex and therefore they had to be
controlled by men. Jeanette King states in The Victorian Woman Question in Contemporary
Feminist Fiction (2005) that Christianity has been one of the most important influences in defining
the role of women, the Bible introduced Eve and Virgin Mary as two role models of vice and virtue.
Deborah Gorham in her work The Victorian Girl and the Feminine Ideal (2013) she defines the
Victorian woman as innocent, pure, gentle and self-sacrificing but possessing no ambitious striving
she would be free of ay trace of anger hostility, she is also more emotional than man and capable of
self-renunciation. Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar in their study The Madwoman in the Attic
(1979), they state that in men’s literature, the female characters were identified as angels or
monsters and explain that women writers had to examine, assimilate and transcend the extreme
images of angel and monster that male authors generated for them.

Men and Women were also classified in relation to separate spheres, men belonged to the public
sphere and women to the domestic or private sphere. Men were supposed to be the movers and
actors in public life and women were defined as the passive and submissive responders and this
make the gap between sexes even larger.

In the beginning of the 18th century, education for girls was the main focus, next to that there was
change in consciousness to be more important than social or political change. Several decades later,
in !850s and 1860s, Janine Tell in her article The Woman Question focuses on issues of particular
material concern to women like marriage, property, employment or education. Social and political
change had become very important during these decades and it is around this time that women
movements started organizing campaigns against the female oppression and led by middle-class and
liberal women who had the liberty to do so financially. One of the main concerns was the
acquisition of knowledge and to increase job opportunities as well as the constitution of marriage
and sexuality.

at this point, both men and women were for and against the division in education and profession.
We have antifeminists like Sarah Sewel who was a supporter of this division and against women
taking male subjects or John Ruskin who said that women only needed to have the necessary
knowledge to sympathize her husband’s pleasures, this is to say that the purpose of women’s
education was only to the advantage of men. On the other hand we have feminists like Josephine
Butler and John Stuart Mill who were active supporters of women’s education and employment
outside marriage and motherhood.

In the second half of the 19th century, porto-feminist had success in providing education for
women., this resulted in private initiatives for opening schools and colleges for women. They kept
fighting for other central points on the Woman Question like marriage and sexuality, women were
prepared and educated for marriage and motherhood. Also, the rights of married women were
limited, any money earned or received by a woman or her inheritance, became property of her
husband upon marriage; with divorce husband had complete control over their property and they
would also be assigned the custody over their children.

The role of New Woman became more widespread during 1890’s but the role of women has been
questioned as early as the late 18th century. First focused on improving women’s education, later
other concerns of gender equality as marriage, property and employment.