New Woman

The New Woman was a feminist ideal that emerged in the late nineteenth century and had a profound influence on feminism well into the twentieth. The term "New Woman" was coined by writer Sarah Grand in her article "The New Aspect of the Woman Question," published in the The North American Review in March 1894. The term was further popularized by British-American writer Henry James, to describe the growth in the number of feminist, educated, independent career women in Europe and the United States. The New Woman pushed the limits set by male-dominated society, especially as modeled in the plays of Norwegian Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906). According to a joke by Max Beerbohm (1872–1956), "The New Woman sprang fully armed from Ibsen's brain"