A vindication of fallen women : Victorian women writers reconceiving gender.

In my dissertation, “A Vindication of Fallen Women: Victorian Women Writers Reconceiving Gender,” I argue that nineteenth-century women writers rework Mary Wollstonecraft’s pioneering feminist text A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) to generate a new ideology of gender. Using feminist and queer theory to read George Eliot, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Anne Brontë, I contend that this ideology challenges conventional Victorian conceptions of femininity and prevailing scholarly assessments of the figure of the fallen woman in the work of these major authors. Through their representations of women’s reproduction, education, civic participation, and queer friend/kinship, these authors rehabilitate “fallen” women of the nineteenth century by creating an ideology of gender in which that rehabilitation is no longer necessary. By tracing how women novelists engage Wollstonecraft to argue for women’s education, reproductive rights, economic agency, queer resistance, and citizenship, this dissertation contributes to a critical understanding of the development and limitations of Western feminism.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Grantor

Baylor University.

Year dc:date.issued

2026

Author dc:creator

• Fitzpatrick Vines, Reilly, 1997-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Pond, Kristen A.

• Victorian studies.
• Feminist and gender theory.
• Mary Wollstonecraft.
• Queer theory.
• Elizabeth Gaskell.
• George Eliot.
• Fallen women.
• Anne Brontë.
• Education.
• Feminist movements.
• Abortion.
• Queer kinship.
• Women writers.
• Socialism.

Statement dc:rights

• Baylor University works are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. Contact libraryquestions@baylor.edu for inquiries about permission.

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/2104/14690

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:baylor-ir.tdl.org:2104/14690