The New Woman and Changing Social Roles
Writer Henry James popularized the term "New Woman", a figure who was represented in the heroines of his novels, such as Isabel Archer in Portrait of a Lady, and Daisy Miller in the novella Daisy Miller. According to historian Ruth Bordin, the term New Woman was
intended by him to characterize American expatriates living in Europe: women of affluence and sensitivity, who despite or perhaps because of their wealth exhibited an independent spirit and were accustomed to acting on their own. The term New Woman always referred to women who exercised control over their own lives be it personal, social, or economic.Read more about this topic: New Woman
Famous quotes containing the words woman, changing, social and/or roles:
“If woman is inconstant,
good, I am faithful to
ebb and flow, I fall
in season and now
is a time of ripening.”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)
“The spectacle [of American politics] resembles that of swarms of insects changing from worms to wings. They must get the wings or die. For our salvation, Mr. Wilbur Wright is providing wings. He will also have to provide a new insect to use them.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“... too much attention is paid to dress by those who have neither the excuse of ample means nor of social claims.... The injury done by this state of things to the morals and the manners of our lower classes is incalculable.”
—Mrs. H. O. Ward (1824–1899)
“Modern women are squeezed between the devil and the deep blue sea, and there are no lifeboats out there in the form of public policies designed to help these women combine their roles as mothers and as workers.”
—Sylvia Ann Hewitt (20th century)