Unlike their American counterparts (Herland, Mizora) British Victorian, feminist utopias tend to portray men still existing in society in some respect. In New Amazonia, their position in politics and the workforce is diminished, and in Gloriana, Isola, and Margaret Dunmore, like-minded men work alongside women to achieve feminist revolution. Men exist in nearly every text, though their role is typically not central. Oftentimes, women take on more “masculine” social roles, defending themselves, having jobs, and running the nation, but, at the same time, many of the texts sympathetically and positively portray “good” men who accept the feminist agendas of female characters.

    Gaskell’s Cranford serves as a strong example of this model. As discussed in the social systems chapter, the women of Cranford take on a more masculine social role; they own all property, dictate social mores, and drive away new male residents who are unwilling to cooperate with the unique rules of the village. However, in chapter two of the novel (excerpted in this chapter), the ladies of Cranford begin to admire and accept the new resident, Mr. Brown, due to his abject poverty (one of the social mores of Cranford) and his willingness to care for a sick daughter. Only Miss Jenkyns continues to resent him, but it is because Mr. Brown prefers the works of “Mr. Boz” (presumably Dickens) to those of Ben Johnson. This source of dispute, in combination with Mr. Brown’s attempt to make amends through making a wood stove for Miss Jenkyns, suggests she is being a bit irrational, and that there is no good reason for even the ladies of Cranford to reject a man like Mr. Brown, who respects their laws. After his death, the Cranford ladies attempt to take on a further masculine role by financially supporting the Brown daughters, but willingly cede this position to Major Gordon, an old military friend of Brown who, similarly, does not violate the social code of Cranford. In spite of Cranford’s reputation, the matriarchs seem very willing to turn over their social position to men of whom they approve.

    Again, only Miss Jenkyns (who is, perhaps, the foremost matriarch of Cranford prior to her sudden death) persists in her rather unfounded disapproval of Brown, though, ultimately, she does treat Major Gordon rather kindly and supports his relationship with Jessie Brown. Rosenthal, writing in the same “Gaskell’s Feminist Utopia” essay which first presented the novel as a feminist utopia (as discussed in section two of the anthology), quotes from earlier scholars, like Martin Dodsworth, who “argues that Deborah (Jenkyns) represents the text’s ‘dangerous elements of...feminism’ (143), which must be purged before ‘the community of Cranford is restored to a fuller life’” (Rosenthal 78). Rosenthal then disputes the claim that the novel presents such an anti-feminist message, asserting that            

Deborah...neither represents nor exemplifies feminism, but she does instead illustrate the fairly common role of deputy husband...what Deborah does, and perhaps widely, is to recognize the possibility for the attainment of power through cooperative participation in the very political system that limits her. She chooses to maximize her opportunities and, as a result, gains as much control as a woman might under her circumstances (78-79).

In other words, Miss Jenkyns takes on a masculine role within a patriarchal society when she sees opportunities, but never operates with an explicit intent or attempts to take down such a system. Thus, she does not fully “exemplify feminism”. Such an assertion, however, seems to dismiss the fact that multiple Cranford women take on this pseudo-masculine role. Cranford is not a “patriarchal society”, but rather exists as a sort of refuge from a larger patriarchal society (England), with an extent of gender role reversal. Furthermore, in spite of the (per Rosenthal) apparent antifeminist agenda of Dodsworth, his assertion that Miss Jenkyns represents a “dangerous feminism” does not appear totally unsubstantiated; again, Miss Jenkyns’ hatred of Brown seems deeply irrational, and she softens regarding Major Gordon only shortly before her death. I do not intend to argue that Cranford is an anti-feminist novel, but, rather, one that seems to purport support for sympathetic men as part of its feminism. Unlike the other matriarchs, Miss Jenkyns truly, irrationally hates Mr. Brown, despite his following of the Cranford social code and lack of challenging the town’s female leadership. Thus, Miss Jenkyns seems to be portrayed rather negatively and, of course, ultimately dies early in the novel. Her differentiation nearly recalls more modern feminist arguments, which, in attempts to gain sympathetic audiences, purport that feminists “do not hate men” or appreciate male allies. Perhaps Gaskell attempts something similar in order to obtain a larger audience or more sympathy: a lightly feminist novel, which portrays a rather stereotypical, overly radical woman as out of touch. Essentially, the feminism of Cranford seems to lie mainly in its gender role reversal, with the town’s matriarchs taking on a more masculine role and emasculating men who will not cooperate. That said, the men who will cooperate are protected and even revered, suggesting, once again, support of a sort of early male allyship, as opposed to more total matriarchy presented in other novels. Although Cranford, is not, per se, a New Woman novel, it seems to establish this model of value in a slight gender role reversal; later novels like New Amazonia, Gloriana, Margaret Dunmore, and Mercia all operate similarly. Men still exist, and are generally relatively well-off, but women take on much of their role and power, leading to utopian society.

In a particularly sharp contrast, Annie Denton Cridge’s Man’s Rights; Or, How Would You Like It presents a complete gender role reversal with essentially no sympathy or positivity demonstrated towards men. Cridge presents the short narrative as a series of dreams that the narrator has; dreams one through three are excerpted here. In Man’s Rights, the narrator dreams of a detailed world in which men have taken on an entirely feminine role: they do all housework, can only get jobs as maids, love fashion and sewing, and live only to marry a woman. Like women, a few men in this fantasy world have obtained degrees or published books, making the narrator ponder why they cannot be equal to men. The narrator portrays the men as deeply unhappy in their oppressed position (one male maid dreams of stabbing his supervisors with a knife). Subsequently, the men use a new form of technology, a fantastical machine that can cook and clean very quickly for them, which makes them very happy. In a later dream, the men have developed the titular “man’s rights” movement, attending meetings where they demand social and political equality, like women of the time. Essentially, Cridge appears to be using this total reversal of masculinity and femininity in an attempt to reveal women’s anger and pain to a male audience. She essentially asks men to imagine themselves as women, and, as the title suggests, ask themselves how they would ‘like it’. Cridge is unsympathetic to her male reader, seemingly suggesting that he has never critically considered the plight and pain of women, and, tonally, certainly appears much angrier and more resentful towards men than Gaskell or Clapperton--perhaps even slightly more so than Corbett or Dixie. This explicit anger recalls, Beaumont, writing in Utopia Ltd, who quotes an unnamed female reader of Victorian utopian fiction: “These novels gave me a fictional representation of the unexpressed anger I felt at abuses I saw daily but felt powerless to stop” (87). Cridge’s reversal of gender roles and eschewing of men’s lack of attention seems to epitomize this idea of bringing hidden anger to the surface in these novels, more so than many of her English contemporaries. Cridge did emigrate from England to the United States, where texts like Herland and Mizora similarly appeared angrier and more radical than their British counterparts; perhaps Cridge was drawing from themes more common in her new homeland. Regardless, the treatment of men and reversal of gender roles within her text suggests a level of anger unseen in most of her contemporaries.

Perhaps the only included writer who may rival Cridge in this respect is Rokeya Hussain, whose short narrative Sultana’s Dream is excerpted here. In the excerpt, the narrator dreams while thinking of the “condition of Indian womanhood” (recalling the unnamed narrator of New Amazonia); she meets someone named Sister Sarah, who tells her about the new, utopian nation they are in, called Ladyland. Ladyland possesses a somewhat similar reversal of gender roles; men must live in the domestic sphere and are shunned indoors all the time. Women run the political and public sphere. Sister Sara posits this arrangement as logical, stating that men are “fit for nothing” and that they cause harm to women and social discord. Like Man’s Rights, this reversal in feminine/masculine roles and explicit resentment and castigation of men suggests a level of women’s anger not seen in other included texts. In sharp contrast with Cranford or even the male allies of Gloriana and Isola, Sultana’s Dream presents men as a problem or enemy and suggests that they should experience the same sort of life that women have for years. Much like Man’s Rights, this construction, which, again, differs so drastically from many of the other included texts, may be attributed to nationality. Roushan Jahan, writing in the introduction to the 1988 Feminist Press edition of the text, explains that the text responds directly to purdah, or the “seclusion and segregation of women” in Victorian Indian society (Jahan vii). Jahan writes, “The Indian context (of Sultana’s Dream) is unmistakable...through the dialogue of Sultana and Sister Sara, the untenability of many of the prevalent Indian notions of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ character are demonstrated...In Ladyland, men are part of the society but are shorn of power, as women were in Rokeya’s India” (3-4). Hussain responds not to the global plight of women, but to the specific “seclusion and segregation” that men force upon women in India, the purdah. Thus, her concerns diverge greatly from those of white English women, which explains her unique level of anger and radical ideas regarding the social position of men.

It is not clear why white, English New Woman writers tended to take a more moderate position regarding men; perhaps, as I speculated regarding Cranford, they desired to not be viewed as so radical and hysterical. As discussed in the general introduction, New Woman identities often led to harassment and moral panicking; though many included texts can be called feminist, even radically so, they still tend to protect and support men who believe in their respective causes. Sultana’s Dream, and Man’s Rights present a radical divergence in how men and masculinity are usually treated in the included texts, as they are written by women more unconcerned with the negative attention that generally white, British New Woman writers received.