Gender In Rider Haggard's About Fiction
The presentation of gender in Rider Haggard’s About Fiction
During the 1850s, Victorian Britain experienced a social change which came to be known as the first wave of feminism, during which women fought for the advancement of social, economic and political rights. Educated women encouraged younger women to complete their schooling and strive for independence, and literary works of art from female authors slowly began to rise in popularity among the primarily patriarchal society of the late nineteenth century. However, despite the way in which women and female authors strove for the same respect and acknowledgement as their male counterparts, masculine works of literature in the 1900s still displayed the unequal gendered views of male superiority …show more content…
Haggard explains that society had created rules for the benefit of the whole community, and that individuals must keep their passions within fixed limits so that, if they do anything that may produce “mischief of one sort or another”, they do not cause ruin to the transgressor, “especially … if she be a woman.” (176) This belief conveys the societal expectations women were forced to uphold in Victorian Britain despite the inequality and double standards that first wave feminists were battling against. It is also Haggard’s belief that women, especially younger ones, need to be protected from the ideas of Romance fiction by saying that a “young lady, wearied with the account of how the good girl who jilted the man who loved her when she was told to, married the noble lord, and lived in idleness and luxury for ever after” (177) would only need to turn to the evening paper to see that this idea of romance in novels was a false picture of life. Consequently, this is also why, according to Haggard, men hardly ever read novels, because they are “for the most part rubbish,” and represents life in a way that is desirable for “schoolgirls”.
During the 1850s, Victorian Britain experienced a social change which came to be known as the first wave of feminism, during which women fought for the advancement of social, economic and political rights. Educated women encouraged younger women to complete their schooling and strive for independence, and literary works of art from female authors slowly began to rise in popularity among the primarily patriarchal society of the late nineteenth century. However, despite the way in which women and female authors strove for the same respect and acknowledgement as their male counterparts, masculine works of literature in the 1900s still displayed the unequal gendered views of male superiority …show more content…
Haggard explains that society had created rules for the benefit of the whole community, and that individuals must keep their passions within fixed limits so that, if they do anything that may produce “mischief of one sort or another”, they do not cause ruin to the transgressor, “especially … if she be a woman.” (176) This belief conveys the societal expectations women were forced to uphold in Victorian Britain despite the inequality and double standards that first wave feminists were battling against. It is also Haggard’s belief that women, especially younger ones, need to be protected from the ideas of Romance fiction by saying that a “young lady, wearied with the account of how the good girl who jilted the man who loved her when she was told to, married the noble lord, and lived in idleness and luxury for ever after” (177) would only need to turn to the evening paper to see that this idea of romance in novels was a false picture of life. Consequently, this is also why, according to Haggard, men hardly ever read novels, because they are “for the most part rubbish,” and represents life in a way that is desirable for “schoolgirls”.