American Women In The Victorian Era

In the nineteenth century, European and American women lived in an era described by gender inequality. Women had few of the social, legal, or political rights: they had extremely restricted control over property after marriage, they didn't have the right to vote or even testify in court, and were barred to enrolled any higher education institutions. To add more, Women were expected to remain obedient to their husbands and fathers, their occupational choices were also extremely limited.(Olson, 2009). To add more, Women were brought up to “be pure and innocent, tender and sexually undemanding, submissive and obedient” to fit the glorified “Angel in the House”, the Madonna-image of the time (Lundén et al, 147). In this era, the terms women’s rights and women’s freedom were widely used to refer to what we today would call feminism. …show more content…
A., Fleury, R. E., & Lewandowski, D. A. (1996) in their studies of Feminism, they defined feminism as “women working toward better rights for themselves, such as political power, equal pay and respect in the workplace” ( p. 4 ). Many women writers try to shed light through their writing on the notion of feminism in the world. They projected it into their writing to discuss difficulties women from Victorian era faced in their daily life. Those figures of rebellion and opposition against the patriarchal system are embodied frequently in the main characters of the novels. Such embodiment is used by two famous feminist writers Charlotte Brontë in Jane Eyre and Virginia Woolf in Mrs. Dalloway. Their novels are both important of the western literary canon; one is crucial work of Victorian literature, the other is very important for 20th century's novel. Both novels have been written in different times, historical context, and style, however, they both represent iconic and fundamental literary female icons whose life show a picture of what it is like to be a woman living in patriarchal