Gender Roles and "New Women"

The great changes in the Victorian period also affected gender roles undoubtedly. In British history, the 19th century is seen as a moment of modernity and change. It sheds light to the lives of "new women" in the Victorian patriarchal circles by reflecting how they transform into self-supporting, self-assertive and independent individuals in society. "Women were mainly responsible for creating and maintaining the house, its contents and its human constituents" (20: 360).

They were not on equal terms with men and men respected them because of their appearance, rather than their identity. However, through the end of the nineteenth-century "women were fighting to be recognized as persons, the 'new woman' was also taking steps to control her body, reconstitute her appearance, and register her presence in public life" (14: 115).

The divisions of public and private sphere started to disappear with the woman type who are willing and courageous to take place in every square of life. As Jane Lewis observes, "women made substantial progress in moving into the public sphere during the period, but the role of men within the home showed little change" (21: 1).

Women's struggle was against patriarchy for the sake of their equal freedom to men. They wanted to get rid of being seen as 'the other' in society like a secondary citizen. "Before suffrage, the identity of women rested on institutions entirely defined by masculine authority after female suffrage was granted in 1918 and 1928, now that they were in, and claiming equality, the differentness of women had to be more finely graded" (14: 116).

They were not bound to be victimized or sacrificed by patriarchy; on the contrary, they started to threaten the domain of men. On the other hand, "women's position in the family also appears to have undergone dramatic changes between 1850 and 1940" (21: 3).

There was a general decrease in the number of children in families from the late nineteenth century by 1940 and the infant mortality decreased substantially. The more social and educated women became, the more conscious they became about the quality of their lives. Working-class women were more engaged in paid employment such as teaching, rather than middle-class women and this led to great improvements in their domestic life materially at this period.

At the beginning of the nineteenth-century, gender roles were determined sharply by society, which makes men active in public sphere, while women are active in private life. The roles of men and women in practical life were separated with certain lines. The woman was the master of the house, while the man was the master outside. The woman acts with her emotions, whereas the man acts with his mind. More importantly, obeying is indispensable for the woman, although the man is honoured with commanding. If these roles are not practised properly, it is believed that everything will turn out in confusion and disorder.

The woman was regarded as the angel in the house with a spiritual elation as if she gained the title of domestic sainthood. Religious and biblical references, associations and resonances played great roles in the formation of the clichéd woman position. As Altick puts it, "woman's serfdom was sanctified by the Victorian conception of the female as a priestess dedicated to preserving the home as a refuge from the abrasive outside world" (10: 53).

The social pressure imposed upon women and the ideal image of woman drawn by patriarchal structure of society underlie all stereotypical depictions and representations of women. Women are forced to take for granted whatever is attributed to their nature as if they were their own characteristic features by birth. There is a fear and dislike about the freedom of women on equal conditions with men, and so there is an effort to make women the legal servant of their husbands. She is circumvented by laws and marriage swears. She cannot do anything without the permission of her husband. When we examine a woman's position in marriage under the common law of England, we see how helpless and disadvantageous she is in the face of the man. John Stuart Mill explains the sanctions applied upon women by society like this: "All women are brought up from the very earliest years in the belief that their ideal of character is the very opposite to that of men; not self-will, and government by self-control, but submission and yielding to the control of others" (22: 21).

According to Mill's view, the woman is like a statue that society gives shape and moulds. She exists for the sake of others by denying herself. She is beyond herself in the real sense, and hidden under the role of sacrificial woman as the angel of the house in the patriarchal society. It is imposed upon them by society that she is the weak sex who is the slave of her emotions and in stark contrast to the men in nature. This is the stereotypical woman image drawn by hypocritical male-dominated society.

Through the end of the nineteenth-century, educated middle-class women experienced a developmental process from a traditional position to the new woman position through modern views and improvements in social status and roles, and domestic life. This new woman challenged conventionality and fought to be the master of her own life without being exempted from anything men can reach, and to gain as much influence in public life as domestic sphere.

The broadening employment of women led to new liberties in public life by forcing the world to accept their independence. The new women were new in their ideals such as education, marriage for love, social usefulness, economic independence and equal opportunities for both genders. Their novelty was their attempt and deep devotion to women's emancipation. What made them new was the desire to be recognized as human and to fight for freedom equal to men in late-Victorian Britain.

More democratic and rationalistic, the modern industrialized society required the old patriarchal laws to meet the needs and expectations of the rapid transition in the social and economic position of women. The role of women in the male-dominated Victorian society changed tremendously through the end of the nineteenth-century as women gained economic independence, entered into the labour market, and gained greater choice of occupation due to the demands of an increasingly industrializing world.

Their protest against the limitations on their sex expresses a conflict between the greater freedom they pursue and the restrictive concepts of womanly nature and duty imposed by external factors. Within the concept of woman as a domestic being, they strived for the amelioration of their rights and liberties by active contribution to society rather than maintaining their existence as useless, passive and idle identities.

It was ideal to undermine the constrained social roles for women and reconstruct them to encourage women's contribution to social life. It was possible within the enlargement of their social rights and reformation of their repressive living conditions. The new woman was new in her ideals such as education, marriage for love, social usefulness, economic independence and equal opportunities for both genders. Most of the time she was offended by anti-liberalist, oppressive, male-dominated Victorian society and so alienated from life in which she could not find her proper place and her beloved, worthy of her high convictions and feelings. In addition, her distinguished, singular ideas and status were mostly repressed. However, she did not give up for the sake of her high cause.

The patriarchal nature of their society did not enable all these new women to practice their own rules and be happy and were doomed to death and despair in this world of failures unless humanist tenets such as love, justice, equality and freedom dominate the earth. Nevertheless, they left an invaluable legacy behind that next generation of women will build on for more social, political and economic prominence. Their novelty was their attempt and deep devotion to women's emancipation. What made them new was the desire to be recognized as people and to fight for freedom equal to men in late-Victorian Britain.

When we look at the literature in this period, we see very clearly how women started to change with the reformed social rules under the effect of industrialization by the end of the nineteenth-century. For instance, in Mrs Warren's Profession the character of Vivie symbolizes the new woman type who is educated and ready to earn her own money in business life. She is independent and rebellious against the old image of women. On the other side, her mother's and her aunt's heavy working conditions picture the misery of working-class. While mentioning her sister's pathetic end, Mrs Warren also sheds light upon the wretched working conditions of the period in this way: "One of them worked in a white lead factory twelve hours a day for nine shillings a week until she died of lead poisoning. She only expected to get her hands a little paralyzed; but she died" (23: 122).

It is a fact that this kind of harsh and unfair working conditions in which women are underpaid and overworked drove some women to prostitution for survival in life. Nevertheless, it is not the only way to stand on your feet as Vivie defends. The new woman is not the slave of conditions or traditional patterns imposed by society any longer.

There was an antipathy to domestic life and femininity as understood from Vivie's rebellious words: "I should not have lived one life and believed in another. You are a conventional woman at heart. That is why I am bidding you goodbye now" (23: 160). These words also reveal that the new woman wants to be respected and honoured because of her manners and view of life that refuse to be dependent upon the money of men, but inhabits the idea of self-help and self-sufficiency.

In The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence, Ursula, is another representative of the 'new woman', who wants more freedom and independence. She is educated and cannot accept her pregnancy and the belonging one part of hers to a man. She decries domesticity and draws an unconventional woman profile. It is a fact that as time passes, women start to want more, considering the lifestyles of Lydia, Anna and Ursula respectively in the Victorian period.

As the Rev. Binney observed, "women are not to be men in character, ambition, pursuit or achievement: but they are to be more; they are to be the makers of men" (24: 167). In the novel, there is the clash of love and hate between men and women. They could not understand each other. The man is keen on the earth, materialistic world, while the woman wants to reach infinite world, the world beyond. Not satisfied with the form of life they are presented, women are pursuing for their ideal world. Lawrence compares Ursula's way of life with the taken-for-granted woman life through inner confrontation and questioning and make us realize once again what the ideal life for a woman is in the eye of society as seen:

She had been wrong, she had been arrogant and wicked, wanting that other thing, that fantastic freedom, that illusory, conceited fulfilment […] was it not enough for her, as it had been enough for her mother. She would marry and love her husband and fill her place simply. That was the ideal (25: 448-9).

As these lines show, the expectations of society from a traditional woman conflicted with the desires and ideals of the new woman. The new woman was not satisfied with what she was already given. She was inaccessible in that she was the product of her own illusionary world in her imagination. In addition, this can drive a woman to disappointment sometimes like Ursula's condition. The realities of the society may not permit the new woman to live happily, however she wants. Thus, for the rebellious new woman the society is, most of the time, a barrier against her and her desires.