This essay takes as its point of departure the American writer Rene Denfeld’s book The New Victorians (1995). At the time of its publication it was hailed by Right-leaning critics as a common-sense corrective to the lunacy of feminism’s "extremist" fringe, regarded as creeping dangerously into the mainstream. Denham is not read widely in academic circles and, as a journalist and non-fiction writer, has since turned her attention to other subjects, but her book is representative of a cluster of trade publications which appeared in the mid to late 1990s and has a significance which continues to be felt in popular reactions to feminism. I have chosen to focus most specifically on Denfeld because she most clearly articulates a link between academic feminism and the Victorians, suggesting that contemporary political feminists seek to anchor women in a past of repression and self-denial; however, I shall also make brief reference to other popular feminist detractors, such as Katie Roiphe and Christina Hoff Sommers, with whom Denfeld shares ideological and thematic concerns.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Research Division:	Language, Communication and Culture
Research Group:	Literary studies
Research Field:	North American literature
Objective Division:	Culture and Society
Objective Group:	Communication
Objective Field:	Communication not elsewhere classified
UTAS Author:	Whelehan, IM (Professor Imelda Whelehan)
ID Code:	70550
Year Published:	2009
Web of Science® Times Cited:	3
Deposited By:	Research Division
Deposited On:	2011-06-28
Last Modified:	2013-07-15
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