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For Boleslaw Prus
Boleslaw Prus

Boleslaw Prus , whose actual name was Aleksander Glowacki, was a Poland journalist and novelist who is known especially for his novels The Doll and Pharaoh ....
's 1893 novel, see The New Woman.


The New Woman was a feminist
Feminism

Feminism is the belief that women should have equal political, social, sexual, intellectual and economic rights to men. It involves various movements, Theory, and philosophies, all concerned with issues of gender difference, that advocate equality for women and that campaign for women's rights and interests....
 ideal that emerged in the final decades of the 19th century in Europe
Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
 and North America
North America

North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and almost totally in the western hemisphere....
.
iction, New Woman writers were Annie Sophie Cory
Annie Sophie Cory

Annie Sophie Cory was the author of popular, racy, exotic novels under the pseudonyms Victoria Cross , Vivian Cory and V.C. Griffin....
 (Victoria Cross), Sarah Grand
Sarah Grand

Madame Sarah Grand, born Frances Bellenden Clarke in Rosebank House, Donaghadee, Co.Down, Ireland was a feminism writer active from 1873 to 1922 in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland....
, Mona Caird
Mona Caird

Mona Caird was a Scottish novelist and essayist whose feminism views sparked controversy in the late 19th century....
, George Egerton
George Egerton

Mary Chavelita Dunne Bright , better known by her pen name George Egerton, was a "New Woman" writer and feminism. Widely considered to be one of the most important of the "New Woman" writers of the nineteenth century fin de siecle, she was a friend of George Bernard Shaw, Ellen Terry and J....
, Ella D'Arcy
Ella D'Arcy

Ella D'Arcy was an author of novels and short stories of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century....
 and Ella Hepworth Dixon
Ella Hepworth Dixon

Ella Hepworth Dixon was a British author during the late Victorian period.Her best known work is the New Woman novel The Story of a Modern Woman....
. Some examples of New Woman literature are Victoria Cross's Anna Lombard (1901), Dixon's The Story of a Modern Woman and H. G. Wells's
H. G. Wells

Herbert George Wells , known by his pen name H. G. Wells, was an England author, best known for his work in the science fiction genre. Wells and Jules Verne are each sometimes referred to as "The Father of Science Fiction"....
 Ann Veronica (1909).






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For Boleslaw Prus
Boleslaw Prus

Boleslaw Prus , whose actual name was Aleksander Glowacki, was a Poland journalist and novelist who is known especially for his novels The Doll and Pharaoh ....
's 1893 novel, see The New Woman.


The New Woman was a feminist
Feminism

Feminism is the belief that women should have equal political, social, sexual, intellectual and economic rights to men. It involves various movements, Theory, and philosophies, all concerned with issues of gender difference, that advocate equality for women and that campaign for women's rights and interests....
 ideal that emerged in the final decades of the 19th century in Europe
Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
 and North America
North America

North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and almost totally in the western hemisphere....
.

Literature

In fiction, New Woman writers were Annie Sophie Cory
Annie Sophie Cory

Annie Sophie Cory was the author of popular, racy, exotic novels under the pseudonyms Victoria Cross , Vivian Cory and V.C. Griffin....
 (Victoria Cross), Sarah Grand
Sarah Grand

Madame Sarah Grand, born Frances Bellenden Clarke in Rosebank House, Donaghadee, Co.Down, Ireland was a feminism writer active from 1873 to 1922 in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland....
, Mona Caird
Mona Caird

Mona Caird was a Scottish novelist and essayist whose feminism views sparked controversy in the late 19th century....
, George Egerton
George Egerton

Mary Chavelita Dunne Bright , better known by her pen name George Egerton, was a "New Woman" writer and feminism. Widely considered to be one of the most important of the "New Woman" writers of the nineteenth century fin de siecle, she was a friend of George Bernard Shaw, Ellen Terry and J....
, Ella D'Arcy
Ella D'Arcy

Ella D'Arcy was an author of novels and short stories of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century....
 and Ella Hepworth Dixon
Ella Hepworth Dixon

Ella Hepworth Dixon was a British author during the late Victorian period.Her best known work is the New Woman novel The Story of a Modern Woman....
. Some examples of New Woman literature are Victoria Cross's Anna Lombard (1901), Dixon's The Story of a Modern Woman and H. G. Wells's
H. G. Wells

Herbert George Wells , known by his pen name H. G. Wells, was an England author, best known for his work in the science fiction genre. Wells and Jules Verne are each sometimes referred to as "The Father of Science Fiction"....
 Ann Veronica (1909). In drama, Henry Arthur Jones's
Henry Arthur Jones

Henry Arthur Jones was an English dramatist....
 play The Case of Rebellious Susan (1894) deserves mentioning in this context. Kate Chopin's
Kate Chopin

Kate Chopin was an United States author of short story and novels, mostly of a Louisiana Creole people background. She is now considered by some to have been a forerunner of feminist authors of the 20th century....
 The Awakening (1899) also deserves mention.

New Woman was also a term popular for post-operative and post-transition transsexual women in the latter half of the 1980's and early 1990's, intended to assert the woman's position as a woman rather than 'a transsexual'. See for example http://128.218.135.42:8080/searchblox/servlet/FileServlet?url=%2FUsers%2Fsweigle%2FDesktop%2FFOCUS_PDF%2F1998%2FFOCUS0198.pdf&col=5 definition here.

Quotation


[…] The finest achievement of the new woman has been personal liberty
Liberty

Liberty, the freedom to act or believe without being stopped by unnecessary force, is generally considered in modern time to be a concept of political philosophy and identifies the condition in which an individual has the right to act according to his or her own free will....
. This is the foundation of civilization
Civilization

A civilization is a society or culture group normally defined as a complex society characterized by the practice of agriculture and settlement in towns and city....
; and as long as any one class is watched suspiciously, even fondly guarded, and protected, so long will that class not only be weak, and treacherous, individually, but parasitic, and a collective danger to the community. Who has not heard wives commended for wheedling their husbands out of money, or joked because they are hopelessly extravagant? As long as caprice and scheming are considered feminine virtue
Virtue

Virtue is morality excellence. Personal virtues are characteristics Value as promoting individual and collective well-being, and thus Goodness and value theory by definition....
s, as long as man is the only wage-earner, doling out sums of money, or scattering lavishly, so long will women be degraded, even if they are perfectly contented, and men are willing to labor to keep them in idleness!


Although individual women from pre-historic times have accomplished much, as a class they have been set aside to minister to men's comfort. But when once the higher has been tried, civilization repudiates the lower. Men have come to see that no advance can be made with one half-humanity set apart merely for the functions of sex; that child
Child

A child is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty. The legal definition of "child" generally refers to a minor , otherwise known as a person younger than the age of majority....
ren are quite liable to inherit from the mother, and should have opportunities to inherit the accumulated ability and culture and character that is produced only by intellectual and civil activity. The world has tried to move with men for dynamos, and "clinging" women impeding every step of progress, in arts, science, industry, professions, they have been a thousand years behind men because forced into seclusion. They have been over-sexed. They have naturally not been impressed with their duties to society, in its myriad needs, or with their own value as individuals.


The new woman, in the sense of the best woman, the flower of all the womanhood of past ages, has come to stay — if civilization is to endure. The sufferings of the past have but strengthened her, maternity has deepened her, education is broadening her — and she now knows that she must perfect herself if she would perfect the race, and leave her imprint upon immortality, through her offspring or her works.
Winnifred Harper Cooley
Winnifred Harper Cooley

Winnifred Harper Cooley was a U.S. author and lecturer. She was the daughter of Ida Husted Harper. In her 1904 publication, The New Womanhood, she advocated the feminist ideal of the New Woman....
: The New Womanhood (New York, 1904) 31f.

See also

  • Gibson Girl
    Gibson Girl

    File:Gibson Girl.pngThe Gibson Girl was the personification of the feminine ideal as portrayed in the satirical pen and ink illustrated stories created by illustrator Charles Dana Gibson during a twenty year period spanning the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in the United States....
  • Flapper
    Flapper

    The term flapper in the 1920s referred to a "new breed" of young women who wore short skirts, bob cut their hair, listened to Jazz#1920s and 1930s, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior....
  • History of feminism
    History of feminism

    The history of feminism is the history of feminist movements and their efforts to overturn gender inequality. Feminist scholars have divided feminism's history into three "waves"....
  • Modern girl
    Modern girl

    The term Modern Girl in 1920s Japan came to symbolize the changing gender roles and social shifts in women's gender roles. Much like their Western counterparts; the Flappers, Modern Girls often lived in the cities, were financially and emotionally independent, chose their own suitors, were rebellious in nature and apathetic towards politics...


Further reading

  • A New Woman Reader, ed. Carolyn Christensen Nelson (Broadview Press: 2000) (ISBN 1-55111-295-7) (contains the text of Sydney Grundy
    Sydney Grundy

    Sydney Grundy was an English people dramatist. Most of his works were adaptations of European plays, and many became successful enough to tour throughout the English-speaking world....
    's 1894
    1894 in literature

    The year 1894 in literature involved some significant new books....
     satirical comedy actually entitled     The New Woman)
  • Martha H. Patterson: Beyond the Gibson Girl: Reimagining the American New Woman, 1895-1915 (University of Illinois Press: 2005) (ISBN 0-252-03017-6)
  • Sheila Rowbotham
    Sheila Rowbotham

    Sheila Rowbotham is a Great Britain socialist feminism theorist and writer....
    :     A Century of Women. The History of Women in Britain and the United States (Penguin Books: 1999) (ISBN 0-14-027902-4), Chapters 1-3.


Patterson, Martha H. The American New Woman Revisited. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2008.

External links