So today when we were talking about gender studies in North and South we kept using words like “feminine” to describe weaker characters (like Mr. Hale) and kept calling Margaret “masculine.” When I read over the usage of these words in my notes tonight, I couldn’t help but look at North and South from the viewpoint of a modern feminist literary theorist. I think that I have an issue with Victorian literature at large because I hate how we use the terms feminine and masculine to describe characters as weak or strong, but when it comes to Victorian Literature and to the social conventions that is the best words to actually use for the descriptors. However, looking at the terminology from a modern feminist one finds fault with it and how it portrays women in so item at large. I think that’s shown in the time period of the Victorian age as well, as we talked about today in class with how women are were seen (examples being that they were always fainting and more easily seen as insane). We see this issue in other literary and historical movements as well (especially with tropes like the Southern Belle) and I wish that over all we didn’t associate “feminine” as a weaker character (regardless of sex) and “masculine” as the stronger character (again regardless of sex).