Often compared to a flower, a kitten, or a child, she was modest and pure minded, unselfish and meek. She [the idealized mid-Victorian woman] knew her place well; naturally fitted to the common round of household duties, she could make a home of a hovel by ministering to the needs of her husband, either as uncomplaining drudge or angel on the hearth. Nothing in herself the littlest and the least of all creation, she achieved greatness not in her own right but in her relatedness as daughter and wife and, is she survived the rigors of childbirth, as mother and grandmother. This Victorian Iphigenia, the “womanly woman,” was one of the nineteenth century’s most memorable myths, not only because she was fashioned after a Queen who ruled both house and country, but because rapid social changes made her existence untenable.
Her less plaint, more outspoken sisters, however, not content with a life so circumscribed by female obligations, drew their skirts in a wider circle. These New Women, who wanted all the advantages of their brothers, asked for education, suffrage, and careers; they cut their hair, adopted “rational” dress, and freewheeled along a path that led to the twentieth century. In the hue and cry that followed the determined figure in bloomers, the popular press was among the loudest.