Was Jane Austen a Feminist?

      

             Jane Austen’s novels, Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, seem to have dual reputations among modern audiences. If taken at face value, many readers view the stories to be romantic and idealistic with male heroes and damsels in distress, truly a peek into a time long passed where morals and manners meant everything. On the contrary, when I first read the book a few years ago, I did not enjoy it because it reveals the many difficulties women faced at the turn of the nineteenth century. I felt sorry for Elizabeth because she is an intellectual trapped in a world where most women constantly chattered about frivolous things and I was annoyed by Mrs. Bennet’s scheming to get her daughters married at any cost. Both of these reputations of Pride and Prejudice do not delve into the subversive message which Austen was portraying in her writing outlet. It might have been common for a female author to write about marriage in the nineteenth century; however Austen brings something unique to the table.

                In our discussions about Pride and Prejudice in the “History of European Women” and another class I took earlier, “Women Writers,” I found that my first perception of this novel was entirely wrong. As Dr. Wolbrink discussed today, Jane Austen not only commented on the problems with the marriage system and inheritance laws in her writing, she critiqued them and revealed their absurdities. She set her commentary within a story which could be taken at face value or which could reveal a subversive message about the plight of women and their lack of rights. 

             While Austen did want to show how little rights women had, she also highlighted their agency. For example, the characters of Jane in Pride and Prejudice and Marianne in Sense and Sensibility show how women used their “weaknesses” in their favor. Recall the scene where Marianne falls and hurts her ankle. She is not hysterical or in terrible pain, but she asks her younger sister to go tell her mother to send someone to help her walk back. Along comes Willoughby and saves the day, and for several days she uses this incident to gain sympathy from two male suitors while her mother and sisters play along. Drawing parallels, the character of Jane in Pride and Prejudice also uses an illness to her advantage (with the scheming of her mother). After catching a cold along the way to visit the Bingley sisters, she is asked to stay until she had recovered. Although she originally writes her family that she just has a headache and a sore throat, everyone seems to worry excessively about her. It seems that everyone is happy she is sick (especially Mrs. Bennet) because it gets Mr. Bingley’s sympathy and he is more likely to fall for her. Both of these examples seem to show women’s weaknesses, but if analyzed closely it is evident that Austen is showing how women played a role and worked around obstacles in a male biased society to try to control who they married.

                Because I feel that there are feminist themes in these two works of Austen, I researched what the common consensus was about whether she is considered a feminist or not. Interestingly there is a current debate which was most recently revived with the British printing Jane Austen’s portrait on their money last year. Beulah Devaney urges her audience to “stop calling Jane Austen a feminist” in her article in the Huffington Post. Devaney supports her argument by offering that feminism is a loaded and often misunderstood word that should not be used lightly; she stated that “Saying you're a feminist is to say that you believe that most women are oppressed, that the white, male privilege enjoyed by most of the people who hold power in this country should be overthrown.” I think that although Austen did not directly call for change, her stories reveal that she would probably agree with this modern definition of feminist. Oppositely, Devaney argues that it takes power away from the word because it calls into question what should qualify as active feminism and really there is no purpose for labeling people from the far past as feminists. I understand Devaney’s argument in the context of the modern women’s movement, but in the perspective of a historian I completely disagree. One thing that a women’s history class shows is that women have long been active in furthering their own progress. Jane Austen may not have known what a feminist was but she wrote with purpose. Why is there any harm in grouping her with other famous female writers such as Christine de Pisan? To me, it only highlights how many women across several centuries added to the women’s debate and ultimately the movement for change. 

                Jane Austen wrote from her own experiences as obvious in the many parallels with her personal life and her stories. Her novels were not meant only for entertainment but they give insight into the lives of women and the pressures of nineteenth century society. I now have a new perspective and respect for Elizabeth Bennet's character because as Dr. Wolbrink brought up in class today, she was the “new type” of woman which Austen seemed to say should be a role model for women. Between the Bennet sisters, as well as the Dashwood sisters, Austen showed the many types of women and paths women could take. This new educated “creature of reason” who critiqued marriage and refused to marry Mr. Collins to secure her families future showcased the way women were using their own agency to slowly make change in their world. 

Sources: 

      Leach, Sydney. "Jane Austen: A Feminist Icon?" Crisis Magazine. August 2013. http://www.crisismagazine.com/2013/jane-austen-a-feminist-icon. 

      Devaney, Beulah. "Why We Need to Stop Calling Jane Austen a Feminist." Huffington Post. October 2013. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/beulah-maud-devaney/jane-austen-feminism_b_4177203.html.