In the Victorian Age, females were valued for their ability to work in the home. They were not expected to attempt to work outside the home but to rely on their fathers or husbands to support the family and "bring home the bacon," if you will. The women took care of the household and the children, making sure they kept up with their education. The women who married into more affluent families spent their days with other women of similarly affluent families because they could afford to hire people to take care of the household and the children.

The women in Bram Stoker's Dracula, Mina and Lucy, were both engaged to be married. Lucy was going to be one of those more affluent women while Mina was looking forward to doing the housework. These women were perfectly content in their sanctioned roles in the household. Throughout the story, they fit their roles perfectly. They allow the men to make the decisions for them. In short, they are submissive. This is evident in the image of Dracula kissing Mina Harker. Although she is turned away from him, in fact the center of her weight is not turned to him at all, she allows him to kiss her. Her arms are still hung away from him, one firmly planted on the desk as if to ground her and keep her away from him, and he must hold her to him around the waist and force her to turn her face to him; still, she does not actively pull away from him but remains submissive to his desires.

This discursive formation, "the way meanings are connected together in a particular discourse" (Gillian 143), has not transferred so well to today. Today's women are much more independent and do not want to be told what to do by men. Women today are working outside the home more and more and are working their way up the corporate ladders. There are more single mothers today and many of them are still working outside the home. Women are far less reliant on men to tell them how to spend their lives and are doing more of what they want.

This newfound freedom is depicted in The Vampire Diaries when Elena completely ignores the wishes of both Stefan and Damon. They are thinking only of her safety and she is thinking only of the safety of those she loves. In this image, you cannot see Elena because she is inside the well. Stefan went into the well after something and found that it was filled with vervain, a plant that weakens vampires exponentially – to the point that they can be defeated by humans. Elena went down to get him out and get what he originally went down after. Caroline and Bonny, the two girls you can see in this image (from left to right), will pull them out of the well. In this scenario, the vampire, Stefan, is helpless and must rely on the girls to save him. They are not reliant on him but he is reliant on them this time.

Also fitting into today's ideas is Bella of Twilight. Edward, on the right, is Bella's vampire lover and Jacob, on the left, is her werewolf best friend. The two boys do not get along for several reasons and neither wants her to be around the other. Bella, however, persists in seeing both boys and trying to force them to get along because they are both important to her. This image is an example of Bella attempting to bring the boys together. Jacob, especially, adopts an aggressive stance while Edward is prepared to drop into his fighting stance at any moment. Bella is between them to serve as a divider and to step in should the situation escalate. The look she is directing at Jacob says she is more concerned with him attacking first than she is about Edward making the first move.

Gender Roles	Masculine Roles

Works Cited on this page

Gillian, Rose. Visual Methodologies" An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials. London; Thousand Oaks, CA; New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 2007.