Women 'haunted' by Victorian novels

Images of Jane Eyre affect modern businesswomen

Images of female characters in 19th century English literature prevent women achieving top jobs, a Tyneside academic claims.

Dr Andrena Telford, of the University of Northumbria in Newcastle, says professional women are haunted by images created in novels by Bronte, Gaskell, Dickens and Thackeray.

Dr Telford, a senior lecturer in human resource at the university's business school, has examined the "moulding" of women through the literature they read.

She says modern women are approved of for undertaking caring roles but have problems when they have to exercise power.

Very often, very successful women are still perceived as unhappy, frustrated creatures

Dr Andrena Telford, University of Northumbria

Dr Telford undertook extensive research into the historical stereotyping of women.

She analysed how female archetypes found in Victorian novels continue to have an impact on the lives of working women today.

She defined four types of woman - maiden, mother, mistress and monster.

She said: "If you look at the positive and negative aspects of these four stereotypes, you can still find examples in modern society - albeit not so blatantly.

"They continue to have an effect on the way women managers are perceived both by themselves and their colleagues.

Women distrusted

"There is still some nervousness about allowing women to wield power linked to a distorted view of the female body.

"This relates back to their portrayal in Victorian literature when there was a deep distrust of femaleness.

"There was a belief that female power was potentially a dangerous and unreliable thing."

Dr Telford has focused her research on novels by Bronte, Gaskell, Dickens and Thackeray.

In Jane Eyre, she claims, the heroine is perceived as a "maiden" who resists her own desires while the mad Bertha Rochester - the stereotypical "monster" - uses her physical power to wreak havoc.

'Gender differences'

Dr Telford added: "To this day women are still approved for undertaking nice, caring, roles but it becomes far more problematic for them when they have to exercise power.''

"Very often, very successful women are still perceived as unhappy, frustrated creatures, isolated and embittered by the very power and success they thought they craved.

"Much of the attitudes that prevail in the workplace, from both women and men, is absorbed from fiction, both historical and contemporary, and from films.

"While the gender differences need to be acknowledged, we should be looking to capitalise on what both men and women can bring to management without letting the negative perceptions become uppermost.''