In Gissing’s mind, women aren’t meant to stay at home and take care of the children, nor are they naturally good at teaching children. Big and long skirts, gloves, hats, corsets, everything prevented free movements. Visitors commented how uncomfortable women’s clothes were compared to men’s. It was very educational, as it showed the paintings but actual clothes as well. As you can guess from the title, it was about fashion in the paintings by impressionist painters. I’ve been to an exhibition Les Impressionistes et la mode. Women seem weak but their clothes prevent them from free movements and impair physical activities. In his time, women never learn how to swim, not because nature made them unable to swim but because their clothes are not practical. Are women and men equal human beings or are they different in their mind because of their biological differences? For Gissing and for me, it is clear, we are the product of our society. It’s an important source of debate, even now. Deep down, Gissing questions the idea that women are different by nature and advocates that everything comes from education. Personally, I never understood how societies could waste half of their brains by keeping women at home. In the same way society does its best to create a criminal class, and then rages against the criminals. Men have kept women at a barbarous stage of development, and then complain that they are barbarous. Our civilization in this point has always been absurdly defective. Gissing questions the way his society treats their women. This statement is already a revolution for conservatives. This is based upon a daring assumption: women are as intelligent as men and are able to learn as much as them.

The first cause that Gissing defends is the right to have a proper education. Through his characters, Gissing questions everything regarding the status of women and his arguments are very modern. The conservative ways are represented by Mr Widdowson and Mr Mickelthwaite. Three characters are feminists: Miss Rhoda Nunn, Miss Barfoot and Everard Barfoot. As I mentioned in my previous billet, this is a militant book. After my entry regarding the plot of the book, I wanted to write something about the feminist message brought by The Odd Women.

The odd women