Victorian Women Research Articles

The “deliberate calculation of dress”: Strategic Uses of Fashion in George Egerton’s Keynotes and Discords

Abstract This article argues that George Egerton uses fashion as a sign system in the short stories included in Keynotes (1893) and Discords (1894). By utilizing minimalist physical descriptions of her protagonists’ dress, she privileges interiority and emphasizes how women achieve mobility of mind and body when they are freed from the physical suppression and psychological scrutiny associated with expectations for fashionable dress. In addition, she strategically manipulates the signifiers of bourgeois femininity by separating fashionable objects from the female body—often at the stress point of a story’s closure. Using a material culture approach that situates the stories within the context of late Victorian fashion plates, the article shows how Egerton delineates her primary theme—that women are defined by their interiority and not by the hyperfeminine, fashionable objects that are fetishized as integral to Victorian womanhood.

Debunking Patriarchy: A Feminist Critique of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Charlotte Bronte (1816-1855), a renowned Victorian woman writer, is best known for the novel Jane Eyre (1847), which portrays the struggles of the protagonist Jane Eyre for becoming a successful and self -reliant woman in a male dominated society. In this novel, the writer focuses on class conflict, women’s identity crisis and inequality of sexes, and thus tries to establish equal rights for both male and female by portraying the brave character Jane Eyre who is not like other traditional women of Victorian age because she has tried to be a successful woman in life fighting with her ill fate and social taboos of patriarchal society throughout her journey of life. This paper, using feminist lens, tries to explore the obstacles of women to become successful and self-reliant in a male dominated society by focusing on Charlotte Bronte’s female protagonist Jane Eyre who, as we know, is the representative of Victorian women.

The effect of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions on women’s alcohol consumption in Victoria, Australia – an event-level study

ABSTRACT Background The aims of this study were to assess the impact of the lockdowns on Victorian women’s alcohol consumption and to examine impacts by age. Methods 149 Victorian women (Mage (SD) = 42.6 (12.7)) completed 2,416 weekly surveys between May 2020 and February 2021. Multi-level models were estimated to assess the impact of COVID-19 lockdown period and age on the frequency and quantity of participants’ weekly drinking. Results Overall, reductions in Victorian women’s alcohol consumption were observed during both lockdowns, although greater reductions were apparent during the stricter lockdown with curfew. Both lockdowns also resulted in larger reductions in weekly drinking quantity, with fewer changes to drinking frequency. Conclusions The COVID-19 lockdowns resulted in overall reductions in the quantity, and to a lesser extent, the frequency of women’s drinking in Victoria and these effects were significantly larger for younger women (aged 18–29).

Obesity in women giving birth in Victoria, 2010-2019: a retrospective cohort study.

To assess the prevalence of obesity in pregnant women in Victoria, 2010-2019. Retrospective cohort study; analysis of Victorian Perinatal Data Collection data. Women who gave birth in seventeen Victorian Department of Health areas (eight metropolitan, nine regional), 2010-2019. Proportions of births to women with obesity (body mass index ≥ 30 kg/m2), by Department of Health area and year. A total of 710 364 births with records that included the mothers' BMI were recorded in Victoria during 2010-2019. The proportion of births to women with obesity rose from 19.6% (95% confidence interval [CI], 19.3-19.9%) in 2010 to 21.5% (95% CI, 21.2-21.8%) in 2019; the proportion of births to women with normal weight declined from 49.0% (95% CI, 48.6-49.4%) to 46.8% (95% CI, 46.4-47.1%). In metropolitan areas, the proportion of births to women with obesity rose from 17.7% (95% CI, 17.7-17.8%) to 19.4% (95% CI, 19.3-19.4%); in regional areas, it increased from 25.0% (95% CI, 25.0-25.1%) to 29.1% (95% CI, 29.0-29.2%). The increase in prevalence of obesity was greater among women living in the lowest socio-economic standing (Index of Relative Socio-Economic Disadvantage) quintile than for those residing in the quintile of least disadvantage (adjusted rate ratio, 2.16; 95% CI, 2.12-2.20). The proportion of births to Victorian women with obesity rose during 2010-2019, particularly in regional areas. Ensuring that regional health services are adequately resourced to meet the needs of the increasing number of women at risk of obesity during pregnancy is vital.

Sitting in the mess: Miss Havisham, a representation of frozen trauma

ABSTRACT In this case study, the character of Miss Havisham, from Dickens’ novel Great Expectations, is explored as a representation of frozen trauma. Support is offered for the usefulness of fictional case study to therapeutic understanding and practice, and some of its limitations noted. The frozen nature of traumatic experiencing is elucidated and defined from a person-centered perspective. A brief synopsis of the story and character of Miss Havisham is offered, and the relevance of her early life considered together with her environment and her social context as a Victorian woman. A case is made for a body response to working with trauma which draws upon Gendlin’s focusing approach and Prouty’s model of Pre-Therapy. Limitations of both are noted. Using fictional case study as a creative method of inquiry, its potential for offering real world understanding around trauma theory is established. The primacy of the body in experiencing trauma, and healing from it, is affirmed. A resonance is illuminated between current thinking around traumatic wounding and healing, and a relational therapeutic approach which has the organism at its heart. Insights have arisen from the therapist’s exploration of ‘tidy[ing] up’ the mess and real change has been experienced in practice with clients.

‘The Hideous Old Lady of Fashion’: dressing the ageing body in Victorian Britain

Abstract This article explores how the biological realities and cultural constructions of ageing combined to influence a daily decision taken by Victorian women: what to wear. The cartoons found in Punch, and the guidance given by fashion papers and journalistic and literary sources highlight the individualized experience of dressing the ageing body, and the knowledge and skill needed to chart a course of compromise between ageing and the expectations that came with longer-held identities such as class, gender and sexuality. The difficulties in navigating this transition demonstrate how ageing was an art, and doing it well was a merit.

The ‘wilds of Brompton’: Mapping Nineteenth-Century Women Writers’ Early Careers in the Sociable London Suburbs

ABSTRACT In this paper, we geocode the residences of nineteenth-century Brompton residents to the level of the building in order to argue that literary sociability and propinquity – leading to face-to-face interaction with writers, editors, artists, actors, and publishers – may have played a more important role in the formation of women’s literary careers than scholars have yet recognized. Taking the popular novelist and poet Dinah Craik as our case study, we argue that the walkability as well as the informal and inexpensive literary sociability of the area made Brompton a fertile ground for the early careers of nineteenth-century women writers. Following Alan Liu’s work in Critical Infrastructure studies, we attempt through mapping to reanimate connections that have been lost to time, establishing the importance of Brompton as a literary, artistic, and intellectual neighbourhood in the nineteenth century, and of propinquity in supporting the careers of women writers. Expanding on Sarah Bilston’s recent work on the suburbs as fertile grounds for the careers of Victorian women writers, we add a spatial dimension to Robert Darnton’s well-known print network, placing the private home, a site of literary sociability, as a central node in public print networks.

Unruly Female Characters in Augusta Webster’s Selected Poetry

With her unfaltering dedication to fight against patriarchal convictions in Victorian Britain, Augusta Webster (1837-1894) is featured as a groundbreaking activist poet who grapples steadfastly with the problems of gender discrimination and dualistic constructions of womanhood. At the center of Webster’s feminist agenda are Victorian women’s educational and suffrage rights, equal employment opportunities and economic freedom. Webster’s reformist character is profoundly manifested in her choice of nonconformist, radical female characters as the spokesperson of her ideas, who are condemned and marginalized by the Victorian society. The main concentration of this study, hence, is to analyze these maverick female characters in “Medea in Athens”, “A Castaway”, and “Sister Annuciata” to unravel Webster’s political, activist impetus to destabilize dichotomous conceptualizations of womanhood, either as the angel in the house or the fallen woman in Victorian society.

Australian women's motherhood aspirations: I've always wanted to be a mum. But at the same time, I wanted the career and everything too

AbstractTo better understand the discrepancy between women's motherhood aspirations and outcomes, this study explored the impact of socio‐cultural structures of gender. Taking a qualitative phenomenological approach, interviews were conducted with 24 Victorian women aged between 25 and 45 years. Three themes resulted from data analysis, reflecting the meaning women gave to their lived experiences: Motherhood is central to womanhood; motherhood ambivalence; and the tension of navigating motherhood and career aspirations. Most women aspired to be valued as women who could balance motherhood with a rewarding career. However, hegemonic gender, particularly in the workplace, continues to ensure that these roles remain incompatible, forcing women to anticipate career pauses, changes and/or absences. Overall, these themes demonstrated how socio‐cultural structures of hegemonic gender continue to shape women's lived experiences of gender inequality and constrain their ability to achieve their aspirations for their future lives.

Kate Strasdin, The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes: Secrets from a Victorian Woman's Wardrobe

Kate Strasdin, <i>The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes: Secrets from a Victorian Woman's Wardrobe</i>

Alienated Heroines in Basil, Lady Audley’s Secret, and East Lynne: A Jaeggian Reading

Abstract While the term ‘alienation’ is frequently mentioned in criticism of sensation fiction, there is a lack of a stringent definition of this term. This article aims to address this gap with a focused examination of the depiction of alienation in three sensation novels, Lady Audley’s Secret (1862) by M. E. Braddon, East Lynne (1861) by Mrs Henry Wood, and Basil (1852) by Wilkie Collins. Borrowing a critical framework from contemporary philosopher Rahel Jaeggi, the article sees alienation as an obstructed relation of ‘appropriation’. According to Jaeggi, to appropriate is, briefly, to take oneself and one’s world at one’s own command. The relation of appropriation bespeaks a more profound relationship between the self and the world than ownership. Previous studies of sensation heroines often associate their alienation with their desires for material property. With Jaeggi’s critical framework, however, this article moves forward by identifying a parallel between the heroines’ troubled desires for material possessions and their problematic relationships in life. Through a Jaeggian lens, all three texts illustrate the heroines’ dispossession of the self and dispossession of property as profoundly, even structurally, linked. A Jaeggian reading of the novels also provides new insights into the genre’s ideological function, particularly in relation to the limited social roles and precarious hold on the material world faced by ambitious Victorian women.

Diptych A. S. Byatt “Angels and Insects” as a sample of Postmodern Victorianа

Attention in this research is focused on the A. S. Byatt’s diptych “Angels and Insects”. The article analyses the specifics of the Victorian code functioning in the diptych, which forms the basis of the original Victoriana of a modern British novelist. “Angels and Insects” is chosen as a special and demonstrative example of the reception and interpretation of the Victorian era’s cultural, historical and artistic heritage by modern British writers, and “Angels and Insects” demonstrates a productive dialogue with Victorianism and, at the same time, conceptual shifts in its understanding and highlighting of the problems of Victorian life that were on the margins of Victorian narratives. Since the Victorian code defines the diptych’s architectonics, then the purpose of the article is a study of the Victorian code features and peculiarities of its representation in the diptych “Angels and Insects” by A. S. Byatt. In the article we used such methods as hystorical-literary and historical-cultural, as well as elements of gender analysis method. A. S. Byatt reproduces the Victorian era with the help of stylization and pastiche. The atmosphere of Victorianism is created through the depiction of a vivid panorama of the Victorian: key Victorian ideological and philosophical trends and antinomies, scientific and religious controversies, Victorian values, a special Victorian lifestyle, estates and interiors, traditions and customs, the distribution of male and female roles in society and the family, the circle of everyday interests and leisure. At the same time, Victorianism is reinterpreted as postmodern vision and with the help of a postmodern writing strategy. A. S. Byatt draws attention to what was hushed up and marginalized in Victorian times, raising the topics of incestuous and homosexual relationships, creating different types of Victorian women, including images of the new Victorian woman (Matty Crompton, Emily Tennison): intelligent, talented, and independent. A. S. Byatt updates the classic realistic Victorian novel’s tradition (dating events and specific names of action’s places, realistic details of the material world, portraits and landscapes), but does so in a language accessible to the modern reader. The identification of the Victorian code key components in the diptych constitutes the originality of the study. The analysis of the Victorian code in “Angels and Insects” makes possible to state that there is a “Victorian text” in its both novellas. All of the above gives reason to conclude that “Angels and Insects” can be considered an original artistic encyclopedia of Victorianism.

CANON OR NOT CANON: THE CURIOUS CASE OF MICHAEL FIELD

Although they wrote more than thirty plays, nine volumes of poetry, around thirty volumes of diaries, and thousands of letters, Katharine Bradley and Edith Cooper, an aunt-niece duo, incestuous lovers and poets, more famous under their joint male pseudonym Michael Field, were almost unknown to a wider literary audience until the 1970s, when these two ‘minor’ Victorian women poets were rediscovered mostly by feminist critics. What first drew critics’ attention to this poetic pair was their dual authorial persona and the nature of their relationship, culminating in Lilian Faderman’s groundbreaking book Surpassing the Love of Men (1981). In the 1990s, critics such as Isobel Armstrong, Virginia Blain, Joseph Bristow, Holly Laird, Angela Leighton, Yopie Prins, Martha Vicinus, and Chris White shifted focus to their work, first to poetry and then to dramas and diaries. Finally, the first two decades of the twenty-first century confirmed the resurgence of interest in Michael Field, with critics such as Marion Thain and Ana Parejo Vadillo exploring this poetic duo within the wider context of fin-de-siècle literature.&#x0D; This paper will delve into various possible reasons why Bradley and Cooper, in spite of early positive reviews and the recognition of some literary greats of their age, were never granted a place among canonical British writers. Some of the avenues that will be explored are their fluid, queer identity and their refusal to define their gender; their tendency to write outdated literary genres such as verse historical dramas; the fact that they were female aesthetes, whose poetry was caught between paganism and Catholicism, homosexual and heterosexual love, femininity and masculinity, Victorian age and Modernism, tradition and modernity; their unwillingness to compromise their vision for popularity or commercial success; as well as their determination to create beautiful, well-designed books, published exclusively in rare and limited editions, which made them famous only among a small circle of connoisseurs.

Christina Rossetti'nin İki Kutuplu Kişiliği Ve “Goblin Market” Şiirindeki Yansımaları

Christina Rossetti’s entire life is all about her struggle against the tension between contrasting identities: literary and religious. Thus, her work is a reflection of her endeavour to balance both the societal and religious dichotomies, generated by the contradictions and complexities of the Victorian era. The role of religious reading in Rossetti's life and its impact on her poetry is undeniable, highlighting her speculative critique of restrictive gender roles and ideals of purity coerced by Christianity. Furthermore, societal expectations of Victorian womanhood and their influence on Rossetti's self reflect the multitudinous complexities of the female identity in her work. Such is the inconclusive Christianity in her soul’s quest behind duality and vacillation in her work, stemming from and leading to a divided psyche. The study aims to investigate Rossetti’s divided psyche oscillating between rebellious and compliant through the contrasting characters of Laura and Lizzie in "Goblin Market" to explore her ambivalent imagination of the female agency and the conventional gender roles that are underpinned by the Christian theology in her poetic exploration of the Victorian woman.

Linguistic Obscurity in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness intensively presents modernist particularity shown in the form of linguistic obscurity. This paper draws on Friedrich Schleiermacher’s hermeneutics to argue that it has latent meanings and is presented through two categories: “silenced language” and “voiced language.” The former reveals the deception, death and hurt brought by colonial conquest. The latter is best exemplified by Kurtz’s Intended typified as an archetype of the Victorian woman, by which Joseph Conrad intends to criticize the self-deception of many in the colonial era. In short, linguistic obscurity respectively reveals Conrad’s critique of colonialism and his concern for humanity from the two different paths.

The Tension between Individual Desires and Societal Expectation: George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss

George Eliot (Mary Anna Evans) is considered to be one of the greatest female writers of all time. She was an extremely brilliant woman, and her writing style reflects this. She was an avid reader who deconstructed the characters as she read. She also employed this strategy in her writing style. She describes everything that is going on in the character’s thoughts, and his or her psychology is presented to the readers without any effort. Her presentation of psychological qualities in characters, according to some critics, brings life to her lifeless characters and produces distinctiveness and beauty in her works. If we remove the psychological components from her characters and works, they will perish and her work would be rendered useless. This paper examines the constraints and inequities that paralyze and confine Victorian women in George Eliot’s renowned novel The Mill on the Floss, with an emphasis on the heroine Maggie Tulliver. Initially, background information on the author is presented, and then the novel is handled from the perspective of a woman question in the Victorian Era, juxtaposing the circumstances provided to male and female children in the Victorian era, in which cleverness is regarded as a hindrance rather than a virtue. Maggie, the protagonist, scrutinizes the attributes of New Woman. The paper reveals that Victorian women were regarded as the angels in the house who needed to be protected by men, highlighting the protagonist’s dilemma between her duties and desires in a patriarchal society that limits women from educational, intellectual, and social aspects, allowing them no pleasure of life. To summarize, this paper treats The Mill on the Floss as a critique of Victorian society, which suffocates women, leaving them with little space for pleasure, intellectuality, or uniqueness, and underlines that such a culture is bad for both males and females.

Discriminative and predictive validity of risk assessment measures for women incarcerated for serious violent offences in Australia

Despite the growing population of women in Australian prisons, limited research has explored whether commonly used risk assessments – predominantly developed and tested on men – are valid for women. We investigated the discriminative and predictive validity of the Level of Service Inventory–Revised: Screening Version (LSI-R:SV), Level of Service/Risk, Need, Responsivity (LS/RNR), and the Historical, Clinical, Risk Management 20–Version 3 (HCR-20v3) for Victorian women imprisoned for serious violence (N = 79). The LS/RNR was related to any, violent, and non-violent recidivism, and both the LSI-R:SV and the H-Scale of the HCR-20v3 were related to violent recidivism, with the H-Scale demonstrating strong predictive validity for violence. Four LS/RNR needs domains demonstrated discriminative and predictive validity for any and/or violent recidivism (criminal history, family/marital, alcohol/drug problem, antisocial pattern). Findings are locally significant, showing that the LS/RNR and HCR-20v3 H-Scale are useful for the prediction and discrimination of recidivism for Australian women incarcerated for serious violence.

Queer Mrs. Ramsay, or Virginia Woolf's Geomorphic Family

Abstract: Widely regarded as a prototypical Victorian woman, Mrs. Ramsay in Virginia Woolf's novel To the Lighthouse might also be read as embodying a surprisingly queer subjectivity. Drawing from the geological sciences and queer vitalist thought, I attend to Woolf's language for limning Mrs. Ramsay less gendered as a woman and more queered as a subject of lights and darks in motion. Woolf's father Leslie Stephen uses a similar lexicon to describe mountains in his acclaimed mountaineering tracts. Woolf borrows Stephen's mountaineering vocabulary to narrate queer subjectivities as more geological than gendered and thus loosens subjectivities from heteropatriarchal orthodoxy.

A Feminist Analysis of George Bernard Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s Profession: The Concept of the “New Woman”

Mrs. Warren’s Profession was written in 1893 by the Irish critic and dramatist George Bernard Shaw, who introduced social realism to the British stage. First performed in 1902 in London, the text is a social critique satirizing the stereotypical Victorian norms. Reflecting Shaw’s feminist ideals, the play also contributed to the development of the feminist movement. Mrs. Warren’s Profession introduces the “New Woman” type who rebels against the stereotyped female representations and male-centered conventions of the nineteenth century. The play mainly revolves around a controversial taboo topic, prostitution. Shaw dramatizes this profession through the two untraditional female characters. Kitty Warren is an audacious woman running a brothel to provide her daughter with better life and education standards and Vivie is a highly-educated and independent woman who expostulates her mother for her profession. Mrs. Warren’s Profession stresses that it is the social, economic and moral ills of the society that lead women to choose this profession. This paper, from a feminist lens, links these two non-conformist characters to navigate the ways through which the concept of the “New Woman” is represented. This paper also investigates how these characters protest against the stereotypical female roles imposed on them to gain an autonomous identity within society. Thus, this study, through these two female characters, reveals how this play dethrones the myth of the “Angel in the House,” the ideal Victorian woman, and sheds light on the modern feminism.

Ideal Women for Who? A Comparative Study on Women in Traditional China and in Victorian Era

Although Gu Hongming is regarded as a master of western culture, he strongly supports traditional culture. And his ideas about Chinese women are surprisingly reminiscent of women in Victorian era. The author attempts to compare traditional Chinese women with those in Victorian period in terms of family life and marriage customs through close reading and literature review. Traditional Chinese women are similar to Victorian women as they preside over the home and assume domestic duties, which reflects that woman alike lived in a patriarchal society. Nevertheless, Chinese women and Victorian women differ in their roles in marriage customs. By making a comparison between traditional Chinese women and those in Victorian era, the readers can understand that women’s difficulties are deep-rooted and women today still need to fight hard towards equal rights.