literary women

Some things haven't changed that much indeed concerning the treatment of women deemed to have transgressed their 'proper' place or certain social and cultural boundaries.

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To be pointed at - to be noticed & commented upon - to be suspected of literary airs - to be shunned, as literary women are, by the more unpretending of my own sex: & abhorred, as literary women are, by the more pretending of the other! - My dear, I would sooner exhibit as a rope dancer.

--Mary Brunton, 1810 [qtd. in E. Eger, C. Grant, C. O' Gallchoir, and P. Warburton, eds. Women, Writing and the Public Sphere, 1700-1830 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 1.]