The so-called "New Woman" -- that determined and free-wheeling
figure in "rational" dress, demanding education, suffrage, and a
career-was a frequent target for humorists in the popular press of
the late nineteenth century. She invariably stood in contrast to
the "womanly woman," a traditional figure bound to domestic
concerns and a stereotype away from which many women were
inexorably moving.
Patricia Marks's book, based on a survey of satires and
caricatures drawn from British and American periodicals of the
1880s and 1890s, places the popular view of the New Woman in the
context of the age and explores the ways in which humor both
reflected and shaped readers' perceptions of women's changing
roles.
Not all commentators of the period attacked the New Woman; even
conservative satirists were more concerned with poverty,
prostitution, and inadequate education than with defending
so-called "femininity." Yet, as the influx of women into the
economic mainstream changed social patterns, the popular press
responded with humor ranging from the witty to the
vituperative.
Many of Marks's sources have never been reprinted and exist only
in unindexed periodicals. Her book thus provides a valuable
resource for those studying the rise of feminism and the influence
of popular culture, as well as literary historians and critics
seeking to place more formal genres within a cultural framework.
Historians, sociologists, and others with an interest in
Victorianism will find in it much to savor.
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