MOLL FLANDERS and Feminism

[ConnieAnnKirk]

Consider this quote from Virginia Woolf in _The Common Reader_ (1925):

"The advocates of women's rights would hardly care, perhaps, to claim Moll Flanders and Roxana among their patron saints; and yet it is clear that Defoe not only intended them to speak some very modern doctrines upon the subject, but placed them in circumstances where their peculiar hardships are displayed in such a way as to elicit our sympathy. Courage, said Moll Flanders, was what women needed, and the power to 'stand their ground'; and at once gave practical demonstration of the benefits that would result."

How does MOLL FLANDERS hold up, do you think, in the context of contemporary issues for women? Is it a "feminist text?"

[GrandmaJean]

I see Moll as a woman ahead of her times regarding her thinking about women.  She really had to work against the times as to where women stood and what they could or could not do.  She would fit right in with women of today and be proud of what women have achieved.

femminist text?  I don't like the word as much as I do "women".  Femminist conjures up a different feeling for me.