George Eliot and Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s writings redefined my understanding of the separate sphere of women in the 19th century. Not all women were content with their station in life, the position of housewife that they were assigned by their male counterparts and society as a whole, and the only position they were deemed fit for. In “Silly Novels”, George Eliot satirizes the sudden increase in female authors and why it was having a detrimental effect on perception of women, the exact opposite of what female authors intended. Society had expectations and goals for women, expectations that were inflexible and designed to keep women at home, taking care of the children and being superficial. Eliot wrote that to exceed those expectations, or deviate in any way from them, made one subject to criticism and disdain from society. 
In other words, to be an educated woman with her own opinion during this time meant you were opening yourself up for attack by others. Despite this, many women desired and tried to break free from the sphere of the home and saw writing as a pathway to that aim. Writing became commonplace among women because “society shuts them out from other spheres of occupation” (1368) and there was no better way to quickly have one’s voice heard. The allure of writing, and the fact that it became a trend of sorts, made it quite attractive to women.

The unfair representation of women’s intelligence as a result of the boom in female authors was the core of George Eliot’s concern. Eliot worried that the sudden boom in female authors could skew their intelligence and capability as thinkers and writers, and said that many women became “encouraged by the extremely false impression that to write at all is a proof of superiority in a woman” (1367). Eliot’s main complaint with women trying to become more independent was not their act of doing so, but rather how they were going about it. Female authors were not putting enough effort into their writing, and instead sculpting their works to fit specific archetypes so that nothing particularly special, save a handful of skilled authors such as Margaret Fuller and Mary Wollstonecraft, rose above the rest as shining examples. Eliot feared that female writers were saturating society with lesser literature that would have the opposite effect intended by these women. Rather than make women appear intelligent, proponents of keeping women separated from predominantly male areas would use this as ammunition. 

In “Aurora Leigh”, author Elizabeth Barrett Browning discusses her progression from childhood into adulthood and the education that was designed for her by her mother. Browning’s description of the strict educational regiment she was taught as a child, and the parts of her education her mother omitted, illustrates a clear picture of what was and wasn’t expected of women. Her education taught her the typical skills expected of women then, such as cross-stitching, drawing, dancing and music.
