The portrayal of the liberation of women in Victorian society can also be further depicted through the lack of it in historical primary sources. The photo of E.C Nickerson with his mother that is shown on the left, further drives this point. Photographs captured from the nineteenth century offer a visual flashback into the routines, hobbies, and norms of life in this era. However, when searching, the majority of photographs that involved women showcased them as domestic and in contrived roles such as portraits, or of activities such as knitting, and cooking; while men were shown to be photographed in more recreational type activities and in a much more lively manner. This shows that the portrayal of women is meant to be seen as serious, restricted and submissive. As shown by the photo, it casts the mother in the basic category of a caregiver and nothing else, it shows no substance or anything underneath the surface other than the fact that she is a mother and she loves her son. When comparing "The Renaissance of Venus" with this photo, the two images engage by showing the ideal liberated woman; sexuality and freedom, and contrasting it with what was expected as the norm of what a Victorian woman should embody; passiveness, submission and domestication. This and the lack of images of women doing anything but this from the time era, conveys that women were not expected or wanted to be liberated in any way including sexual and that the painting of the “Renaissance of Venus” along with the short story “The Bohemian Girl” offered something new and refreshing to women of the time and also acted as a stark deviance from what was wanted of women as they both show prominent roles of sexuality. The "Renaissance of Venus" opposed the conventional roles that this photograph emits, and the story "The Bohemian Girl" has the main character Nina, act in a way that is completely different from the tone of the female in this photo. Nina does what she wants, when she wants, however she wants. This casts the idea that women are free willing agents instead of props to appear and act a certain way.

The emergence of the free willing woman grabbed the attention of many in the nineteenth century. A periodical magazine had began being published in the 1830s, however as the new wave of feminism and the ‘New’ Woman began to flourish in the 1890s, so did the magazine. It was called Godey’s Lady’s Book and it ran from 1830 to 1898; Louis Antoine Godey published this magazine in Philadelphia. It was intended as a form of entertainment and information for women of the time and included aspects such as sketches, stories, poems, fashion news, handcrafts, sheet music, beauty, etc (Miller n.p.). As the years followed, the magazine began taking focus of the emerging and liberated woman and even posted a few articles on it. One of the stories was titled “The New Woman in Office” and it was written in January of 1896. It mentions the changing roles of women in the 1890s and their advancement and it even mentions the actual term, ‘new woman’. The entry goes on to say how women are beginning to have unconventional ideas and employ independence in society, in many aspects of their lives such as work, politics, sex, and fashion (Miller n.p.). This further argues my cultural context and claim as it enforces the new role women had begun to take in the nineteenth century and how prominent it had started to become. In turn, this also relates to my selected text and image from The Yellow Book as it happens that The Yellow Book was also known to be a very popular quarterly magazine, which also distinctly portrayed these avant-garde ideas through the painting of the “Renaissance of Venus” and the short story “The Bohemian Girl”.

Through the analysis of sources pertaining to feminism and female liberation in the nineteenth century Victorian era, I will aim to further argue how oppressed women in the time were and how much of a radical change the emergence of the ‘New’ Woman would produce. Sex and the topic of marriage/courtship in the fin-de-siècle were seen as strictly set values (Mathieson n.p.). The idea of pleasure and free willing sex without any commitment was seen as highly unrespectable for a woman of this time period, and it was mainly assumed that sex should only be used for pro-creation. Women were expected to marry and to marry young so that childbearing wouldn’t be an issue (Mathieson n.p.). If this was not followed through, then a woman would be taken as abnormal, giving the perception that women in this era were seen as more of an object. Pertaining to my cultural context, this shows the counteracting feminist ideals that 1890s Victorian society held, and it also portrays the way that the emergence of the liberated and ‘New’ woman did not want to be accepted. In the text “The Bohemian Girl”, Nina hated the idea of marriage and also did not have the fixed Victorian female outlook on life because of the way her father raised her, she also had relations with men and was flirtatious, and even had a child without being committed to a spouse; things that would be considered outrageous in the time era. Hence, she was noticed with shock because of the unconventional way she lived her life. Similar to Walter Crane’s painting of the “Renaissance of Venus”, Venus’ nudity and sexually liberated stance is also noticed with shock and disapproval.

The Yellow Book also featured many writers, including many woman writers who were also themselves ‘New’ women. This shows how the quarterly adopted a gender dynamic and avant-garde idea by going against societies perception of women’s expectations. Many of these women who were writing for The Yellow Book also had their own complete careers and were independent and liberated, they ignored conservative mindsets on female sexuality (Hughes 860).  An interesting facet to note is the amount of women poets and male poets in The Yellow Book throughout the volumes. It seems that in the early and middle volumes, male poets surpassed women every volume; however in volumes 8 to 11, the amount of women poets grew and even surpassed the men (Hughes 861). This exhibits the more prominent role women had begun to have in Victorian society, letting go of the traditional passive function of before. Also, the content that women would be posting to The Yellow Book included themes and material having to do with desire, sexual topics, sexual freedom, and decadence more than ever before (Hughes 859). Even the male authors in the last volumes of The Yellow Book were influenced by the ‘New’ woman writers, such as Stephen Phillips in his text in The Yellow Book called “The Question” where he seems to be directing it towards the idea of ‘New’ woman writers (Hughes 864). Essentially, this conveys that The Yellow Book’s content and writers adapted to the ever emerging liberated woman and sexually autonomous woman of my cultural context. It shows the influence that the emergence of women’s liberation had in nineteenth century Victorian culture, through the transition of its disapproval to the subtle acceptance and integration of it in society.