New and Old Women

Intergenerationality and Contested Spaces in New Woman and (Anti-)Suffrage Writing

by Maria Hofrichter

Book cover: New and Old Women

Extent: 298 pages

Publisher: Universitätsverlag Winter

Subjects: Gender & Sexuality, Literary Studies

Series: Regensburg Studies in Gender and Culture

Series volume number: 12

Language: English

Hardback (Published)

(April 2025)

ISBN: 9783825396275

6.5 x 9.65 inches

Price: $58.00

In stock

The generational divide between ‘new’ and ‘old’ women was a recurring theme in late Victorian and Edwardian literature and culture. This divide not only reinforced a rhetoric of difference but also encouraged discussions about productive exchange and collaboration between women of different age groups. Within the context of a rapidly modernising British society, these intergenerational dynamics were intricately linked to broader debates surrounding middle-class women’s evolving roles in society and their responsibilities towards their families. Through a comprehensive analysis of periodical and literary writings from the period, this study examines how cultural perceptions of gender, age(ing), and space shaped middle-class women’s aspirations to lead self-determined lives. It also highlights motherhood and the mother-daughter relationship as central tropes of female experience, analysing them against the backdrop of spatial conceptualisations and a renegotiation of female space.

  • By (author) Maria Hofrichter