Although Victorian women were often idolized for their beauty in portraits, they were in fact very much repressed by the patriarchal society at the time. Author Kathy Alexis Psomiades explains in Beauty’s Body: Femininity and Representation in British Aestheticism@Psomiades, Kathy Alexis."Beauty's Body: Gender Ideology and British Aestheticism"Victorian Studies 36.1 (1992): 31-52. Web. that women were socially, intellectually, and sexually repressed within a male-driven society. Psomiades argues, however, that women became empowered during Aestheticism because their beauty was responsible for driving the movement forward. She explains that, “A certain figure of femininity is not merely the content of Aestheticist works … but rather the linchpin of the symbolic system through which Aestheticism thinks itself." Psomiades looks at the ways in which the figures produced the institution, suggesting “aestheticism is radically dependent on the images it uses to represent itself to itself” and that “the foundations of aestheticist ideology [is] itself in the logic of these iconic images of femininity.”@Ibid. See page 31. One of these iconic women was, of course, the Mona Lisa. Without the simple woman that once sat smiling in front of da Vinci, Pater’s work would have never existed. Her beauty inspired his impressions and his writings because as Psomiades states, “images of femininity is what makes it possible for Aestheticist artists to think them and perform them at all."@Ibid. See page 33.

The trope of the sinister or “bad” female is referred to in popular culture as the “femme fatale.” The roots of this idea can be traced back to biblical and classical mythology, in such characters as Lilith, the first wife of Adam, as described in the Talmud. For centuries, it was undesirable for women in Western civilization to be perceived in this way. However, in nineteenth century France and Britain, the femme fatale entered the mainstream. University of California professor of English literature, Bram Dijkstra, explains in his book, Idols of Perversity, that “in the years around 1900 it became fashionable among society ladies to have themselves painted as femme fatales”@Dijkstra, Bram. Idols of Perversity: Fantasies of Feminine Evil in Fin-de-siecle Culture. New York: Oxford UP, 1986. 252. Print. . The book contains many examples of such paintings of women in seductive positions. If life truly does imitate art, then artistic works such as the Mona Lisa and interpretations of it as seen in Field’s “La Gioconda” must have helped to embolden and empower women of the times. In this way, the work of Michael Field can retrospectively be seen as early feminist poetry that helped to change societal trends.

Jill Ehnenn, professor of English at Appalachian State University, postulates that Michael Field “anticipated feminist and queer strategies of seeing...”@Ehnenn, Jill. "Looking Strategically: Feminist and Queer Aesthetics in Michael Field's Sight and Song." Victorian Poetry 43.1 (2005): 110. Print. , and were therefore years ahead of their time. For Ehnenn, this is most evident in Sight and Song, a text that is critical of Victorian ideologies, particularly of the “heteropatriarchy” that defined this era. This system, in which heterosexual males were the primary holders of economic and social power, was also reflected in the arts. Art criticism was a field dominated by men since its inception in the eighteenth century. One possible reading of “La Gioconda” that is available draws attention to this fact, and thus this poem becomes a criticism of art criticism. All those who look at art can have opinions of it, but in this patriarchal system, only the opinion of learned men are taken to be authoritative. In this sense, the male gaze becomes their voice, and the male voice dismisses or ignores the female. This is what Ehnenn refers to as the “institutionalized silencing of women under the male gaze”@Ibid. See page 114.. By describing the Mona Lisa from a female perspective, Michael Field was drawing attention to and criticizing this very silencing. Walter Pater was quick to offer his own interpretation of the famous painting (as defined above), yet he never acknowledged the autonomy of the mysterious female depicted. For these male art critics, the female model’s side of the story was inconsequential. Therefore, when men expressed their ‘authoritative’ views on a piece, it was an imposition of values, rather than a dialogue with the female subject. Even though Pater’s interpretation of the Mona Lisa was similar to Field’s, it emerged from the same patriarchal tradition that denied the female voice. When these two women invoked the same imagery as Pater, they were exposing the subject’s infamy as “a narrative attributed to her, rather than a story of her own telling”@Ibid. See page 114..