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For the New Woman, this double standard prevents women from subverting constructions of themselves as sexual subjects and keeps them subordinated as sexual objects. Though the femme fatale does construct herself as an object of male desire for the purpose of capitalizing on the vulnerability of eligible, aristocratic bachelors, she similarly shows that bourgeois men have forced middle-class women to be the upholders of decency and examples of male-defined morality, a dehumanizing burden. In retaliation, the femme fatale corrupts Victorian conceptualizations of a woman’s purity.
The New Woman is an agent of social and political transformation while the femme fatale warns middle-class female readers that marriage disempowers a woman unless she can exert more control over the marriage market by determining her value and marrying above her social rank. Hence, femme fatale characters may indicate the need for social and political change or different alternatives for women; but unlike the revolutionary New Woman, the femme fatale really desires power without making any sacrifices.
My definition demonstrates that the femme fatale disempowers male-defined representations of women. In contrast to the Angel in the House or the fallen woman, the femme fatale gains agency by threatening male dominance. She contemptuously communicates her indifference toward dominant bourgeois ideology by treating social codes, domestic ideals, and respectable manners as role-playing devices that allow her greater power within the social class system, meanwhile meeting her needs at the expense of other characters. Though such craftiness may be expected among femme fatale characters, respectable aristocrats are also culpable, attempting to use her for their own selfish purposes.
Literary images of these complex, manipulative, and shameless, yet unconventional, and strong female characters illustrate women’s struggle against sexist oppression in Victorian England. It is certainly not my intention to show the femme fatale as yet another stereotype, but to prove that the femme fatale reflects the socioeconomic struggles of nineteenth-century British women, and that ambitious Victorian women must take unorthodox measures in order to reverse their cruel economic circumstances.