4 Ways Jane Austen Was a Proto-Feminist Icon

Let’s get one thing straight up front: Feminism, in the sense the term is understood today, simply did not exist when Jane Austen was writing. Yes, it’s true that Mary Wollstonecraft’s bestselling A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, which many consider to be a founding feminist text, was published in 1792 when Austen was a teenager, so it’s by no means unreasonable to suggest she may have been familiar with some of the ideas it outlines. However, it was many more decades before an organized movement with the clearly defined objective of women’s equality established itself, and the last thing we want to do is anachronistically impose contemporary values on an author or her work.

All that being said, though, there is still a great deal of feminist inspiration to be taken from Austen’s novels, life, and legacy. Read on for four ways in which the author is the ultimate proto-feminist icon. 

1. She was educated and independent.
2. She elevated women’s interests.
3. She was a champion of equality in marriage.
4. She has always inspired feminists.

She was educated and independent.

It shouldn’t be underestimated just how much of an outlier Austen was in her time. The society into which she was born granted women few rights and viewed their education with deep suspicion. Luckily for Austen, her own father, the Rev. George Austen, was a kind and progressive man who took care to educate all of his children, including his daughters. As a girl, Austen read widely from her father’s extensive home library, and he also encouraged her to nurture her talent for writing. As a young woman, Austen enjoyed flirtations with a few gentlemen—most famously a young Irish student named Tom Lefroy (who may have been the inspiration for Mr. Darcy)—and was very briefly engaged to her neighbor Harris Bigg-Wither in 1802; she broke it off the morning after his proposal.

It was by her own choice, then, that Austen remained unmarried and instead pursued publication—a choice that would certainly have been viewed as controversial in the eyes of 19th century society, and as such, could not have been easy, even with her family’s support. 

She elevated women’s interests.

Austen wrote about the interior lives and domestic concerns of ordinary (albeit upper class) women, and in doing so, lent credence to subject matter that was otherwise frequently disregarded as trivial and unimportant [PDF]. Her novels demonstrate the importance of female friendships and familial bonds, as between Elizabeth and Jane Bennet, and Elizabeth and her neighbor Charlotte Lucas, in Pride and Prejudice (1813). And, by frequently showcasing the wit and intelligence of characters like Elizabeth as well as Emma Woodhouse in Emma (1815), the novels challenge societal assumptions of women’s intellectual inferiority.

Perhaps most significantly, though, Austen’s novels show the precarity of women’s lives in a society where they had limited rights, particularly in relation to property, money, and inheritance. In Sense and Sensibility (1811), for example, the Dashwood sisters are severely disadvantaged when their father dies and their half-brother, who inherits everything, cuts their allowance. It is fear of this same predicament that drives Mrs. Bennet’s incessant preoccupation with securing marriages for her five daughters in Pride and Prejudice. In Emma, Jane Fairfax is pitied by society when she is forced to undertake work as a governess.

In Austen’s world, the only reliable route to respectable stability was marriage; Austen’s novels highlight this even as she grants her female characters the agency to determine their own futures. 

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She was a champion of equality in marriage.

While marriage may have been the best option for many women in Austen’s time, it was by no means always an easy path: The author demonstrates the perils of making a bad match with examples like Pride and Prejudice’s Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, who are constantly frustrated by each other, or Mrs. Price in Mansfield Park (1814), who married against her parents’ wishes and now struggles to make ends meet.

Indeed, if your husband is to have complete legal dominion of your property and personhood, then it is vital you choose wisely. When Darcy first proposes to Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice, he does so while simultaneously pointing out the huge discrepancy in their respective wealth and social standing. As Robert Morrison, professor of language and literature at Queens University, Ontario, has pointed out, “the stark power imbalance between them fills Darcy with certainty that Elizabeth will be delighted to learn that she has been singled out by a man of his influence and social standing.” But he has underestimated Elizabeth, “a woman whose bravery, anger and intelligence enable her to expose the patriarchal assumptions of Darcy, and to refuse him because of them.”

It is a risky move from Elizabeth, but her unwillingness to compromise her own values and self-worth earns her the respect of both the reader and of Darcy. As his respect for her grows, and her understanding of him deepens, they are able to form a more authentic bond. Thus Austen offers a glimmer of hope: There may yet be a chance for both happiness and financial security, if you can find a tolerably wealthy husband who respects you as his equal. 

She has always inspired feminists.

Austen has been cited as an inspirational figure to feminists since the earliest days of the suffrage movement: the first professional stage production of Pride and Prejudice took place at London’s Royal Court Theatre in 1901. It was written by Rosina Filippi, actress, playwright, and bestselling author of the book Duologues and Scenes from the novels of Jane Austen: Arranged and Adapted for Drawing Room Performance (1895). Filippi was instrumental in bringing Austen’s work to the stage, and was also a noted suffragist, known for producing suffrage plays. Her adaptation of Pride and Prejudice starred Winifred Mayo—who also co-directed the play—as Elizabeth Bennet (Filippi herself played Mrs. Bennet). Like Filippi, Mayo was a prominent figure in the women’s suffrage movement: She went on to co-found the Actresses’ Franchise League and join the Women’s Social and Political Union (a.k.a. the Suffragettes), even going to prison for the cause.

In 1908, Austen was honored on a banner during the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies’ Great Procession through London, and she also appeared as a character in Cicely Hamilton’s highly successful suffrage play A Pageant of Great Women, which featured inspirational female figures from throughout history (Mayo in fact originated the role when the play debuted in 1909). In 1914, the author May Sinclair chose to dress up as Austen when she attended a Costume Dinner of Suffragists at London’s Cecil Hotel. An icon then, an icon now.

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