Mina As A "New Woman"

Mina begins training herself as a typist to be a partner and helper to her fiancé Jonathan, but I believe it was also more than that. She was already a woman in the "work-force", so to speak, being an assistant schoolmistress. Training herself to be a typist would likely help her to get a job in the "white-collar workforce". As Keep says, the typewriter "...contributed to the significant rise in the number of middle-class women who were able to enter the white-collar workforce." (Keep) Not only would having a job as a typist allow her to enter a different type of workforce, it was possible that she would even be able to advance her social status through this line of work, as Keep has noted in his article "...it was one of the few occupations that allowed them to earn an independent income without significant loss of class standing, and which lower-middle-class women might use as a means of social advancement." (Keep)

            Mina, in respect to technology, is embracing the idea of the "New woman", this modern more masculine form of the dainty Victorian woman. And though the typewriter opened new doors and more possibilities for the new modern woman, it was still had restrictions. According to Keep's article, the typewriter was thought of as a feminine object, as it was manufactured and marketed as such. Keep describes the design of some early stand typewriters, and they were designed to look like a sewing machine. There was even a foot pedal that controlled the return of the carriage. The decoration of the machine was with flowers and gilt, making it more feminine.  Although the typewriter was seen and marketed as a feminine object, women in the workforce caused a great debate. Women weren't necessarily welcomed into the workforce; men saw them as a threat to their own jobs, that the incoming population of women working would squeeze the men out of their own jobs. Also, women in the white-collar workforce earned half as much as men. It was even said that women being in the workforce lessened their purity, and their feminine qualities. Even though women saw the typewriter as a chance for success, there were still heavy restrictions placed upon then, and they were still mainly expected to uphold their traditional role in the home to keep that feminine purity.

Keep, Christopher. “The Introduction of the Sholes & Glidden Type-Writer, 1874.”             BRANCH: Britain, Representation and Nineteenth-Century History. Ed. Dino             Franco Felluga. Extension of Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net. Web.             September 29, 2014.