‘Woman as an Invader’: Travel and Travail in George Gissing’s The Odd Women

Abstract

“‘Woman as an Invader’”; such was the title of Mary Barfoot’s lecture in The Odd Women (1893) to the young girls in her “ ‘old maid factory’ ” (pp. 55, 151), as one of her new recruits, Monica, calls it, or her training place for young women entering new professions in office work. The Odd Women, the novel by George Gissing detailing the ascendancy of this “new” or “odd” woman who in all likelihood would remain single and hence must make her own living, is even today a remarkable consideration of the “war” between the sexes. Yet, despite the portrayal of remarkable women in this novel, Gissing comes off both as an advocate for women’s rights and as a misogynist. This mixed view is justified by his ambiguous attitude toward women. There are women like Rhoda Nunn and Mary Barfoot of The Odd Women and Amy Reardon of New Grub Street whose upstart feminism causes problems in their relationships to men; then there is the pliant Nancy Lord from In the Year of Jubilee who is contrasted with the violent Ada Peachey (modelled on Gissing’s then wife Edith), who finally acquiesces to her husband. As the title to Mary’s talk implies, Gissing examines the modern male’s resentful view of women who are becoming increasingly powerful with newly won opportunities and freedoms. Some of these were legal, like the Married Woman’s Property Acts that provide Amy with the right to control her own fortune, and some were technological, like the typewriter that allowed Rhoda and Mary Barfoot to train a new fleet of working women.KeywordsPublic TransportRailway StationAnonymous AuthorTraining PlaceSecret LifeThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.