The Annotated Eliza Lynn Linton

My name is Catriona Corbett. I am an undergraduate English and Philosophy double major. After reading several of Eliza Lynn Linton's essays that criticized "The New Woman" and learning about her life, I was intrigued by Linton's anti-feminist stance despite defying the gender expectations she expected other women to adhere to. I decided to annotate her Essay "The Wild Women as Politicians" because I wanted to analyze Linton's justification for maintaining patriarchal rule in Victorian England. Understanding how Linton's beliefs contributed to The New Woman discourse of the mid to late nineteenth century can help modern readers understand why Linton sought to perpetuate misogynistically-rooted expectations that limited the autonomy of women while permitting herself to break social conventions by securing financial independence through her work as an author and journalist.