Prof. Derek P. Royal

ENG 442 – Survey of American Literature II

The New Woman

As a phenomenon, the New Woman was described by the mainstream media as a feminist revolutionary social ideal which emerged in the final decade of the nineteenth century and running into the first two decades of the twentieth. This image came as a reaction to traditional gender roles, characterized primarily by the Cult of Domesticity, which was ascribed to women during the larger part of the nineteenth century. The popular image of the New Woman was related to a variety of culture issues, including:

• A new consumer and leisure ethic
• Female health and dress reforms
• Rising pressure from woman’s suffrage
• Gains that women had made in their access to higher education
• Expanding service and public sector occupations

Advocates of the New Woman ideal were found among novelists, playwrights, journalists, pamphleteers, political thinkers, and suffragettes. These writers and thinkers created a body of work that explored the new social and psychological possibilities in women’s lives—as well as the limitations. The literary images of women of the New Woman varied, but it included: women trapped by social conventions and whose lives were devastated by a lack of choice; women who challenge the racial and political orthodoxies of the day; and women who reimagine history and myth from feminist perspectives.

Some of the general characteristics of the New Woman included:

• The achievement of a satisfactory education—primary, secondary, and preferably some college—and to be able to use that knowledge wisely
• The ability to earn her own money and thus be financially independent
• Participation in political discussion and decision-making processes
• The willingness to decide for herself if, when, and whom she wants to marry and how many children to have (if any)
• A demonstration of her difference by wearing less traditional—and less constricting—clothing, where comfort is privileged over fashion
• Overall, a desire to defy convention and social norms in order to create a better for all women (and men as well)