Eliza Lynn Linton: Self-recognition or Self-hatred?

I've met women like Linton, as she is depicted in this article. You probably have too. The woman who despises other women for the same traits and behaviors she herself displays. The woman who goes on the lecture circuit telling women they should stay in the home. The woman who simultaneously wants to be "one of the guys" but mocks women as a class--whether for their femininity or for their unfemininity. The woman who has clawed her way into economic independence then argues against women's rights. And just perhaps, if her writings betray what they seem to betray, the woman who hides the recognition of her own homoerotic desires in an outspoken homophobia. If you will forgive me the completely anachronistic language.

But in being at the same time so outspoken and so candid in writing about non-conforming women, Linton also gives us a valuable chronology of public conceptions of lesbian-like identities in 19th century England. Her novels provide a useful counterpoint to the "official" stereotypes of women's identities and roles in the Victorian age. People are messy and self-contradictory. And that's an important lesson to take away from history.