Was Jane Austen a Feminist?

Many people, men especially seem to cringe at the word “feminist”. It now has a negative connotation, images of seventies bra burning and Sylvia Plath are brought to mind when considering the word “feminist”. However, the true definition of a “feminist” is “someone who believes that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities” ¹. So, shouldn’t something of a feminist nature be something that appeals to both men and women? According to Judy Hall at the University of Toronto, she is asked about her take on Jane Austen being a women’s writer and she responds, ” But she is seen as a women’s writer today in a way that was not true before. Up until about the 1950s she was thought of as a writer men would like more than women would. There were women in the 1930s, 40s and 50s who said, “I’m trying to get out of the drawing room. Austen keeps me there.” The first person who called himself a Janeite was George Saintsbury, a very famous editor and professor of English literature. But today we tend to see her as a women’s writer, or as the beginning of “chick lit,” which is a term I really hate” ².

So if this is true, than why is Austen considered a writer of “chick lit”? Why do these stories, ones of love and the overcoming of obstacles, arguably similar to stories like Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre, have to be the “chick flicks” of books? They have understandably been proven to appeal to both genders so what is to say that men and women can’t both understand and appreciate the works of Jane Austen? These novels were written to appeal equally to men and women in any place, of any status as long as they can read, so are the books feminist in themselves? They seek equal attention and interest from both genders, and how much more feminist can you get?