Sharp challenges the normative idea of women through her character Anna. By giving her the adventure that many women in the 1890's may have felt, wanting to escape the scrutiny of clothing and potent grace, Anna is able to experience what it felt like to be in a lower class occupation and generally feel happy about it. In the same way, D.Y. Cameron displays the women in his picture to be wearing a lower cut dress that reveals her breasts, an image that would have caused uproar in the public view. Through women representation, The Yellow Book is able to depict their own images of ‘deviant’ females through their front covers of women reading, prostitutes, actresses, masqueraders, and un-courted women dancing (B. J. 5). By embracing women's bodies and personalities as unique characteristics, ex. models,  rather then all women having to abide by one uniformly option, ex. the housewife, The Yellow Book enhanced Women's potential for equality in the public view, even if they were against it. 

According to Roberts, author of A Woman’s Place: An Oral History of Working Class Women 1890-1940, women often went to finish their schooling, find a job and await for their marriage proposal, in which they would have to quit everything prior to and raise a family (64). However, The Yellow Book incorporates a freedom where women could be represented in anyway they wished and not necessarily have to do what was socially expected of them. Such was the case for Anna when she made her own career choice and the un-certainty if she marries Askett for love or not at all. Cameron's “Vanity” also shows a women's freedom of choice through her spontaneous clothing.


         Both "Vanity" and "The Other Anna" include the symbolization of a ‘mirror’ as  The Yellow Book is able to take the normative of women holding value only through their physical appearance and turn it around as a sense of empowerment instead. For instance, although women were held of value based on beauty, “Vanity” and “The Other Anna” indicate that they will take this ideology but on their own terms and use it as a means for empowerment, hence becoming a model or by wearing a revealing, deep cut dress.