Anderson, David R.

John Cleland, author of Fanny Hill or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, employs a female narrative voice, but his novel reinforces traditional gender roles of male domination and female submission. By co-opting his female narrator, Cleland makes Fanny appear to be a willing and available sexual partner. His pornographic novel depicts sexual situations that raise virile men to the position of authority and devalue both men and women who are submissive, not "masculine." The most devalued and objectified character in the novel is Fanny herself, even though the novel portrays her as happy and satisfied.

In Daniel Defoe's Roxana and Moll Flanders, the title characters represent strong and independent women, who survive despite economic hardships. Moll, who seeks advantageous alliances, manipulates the marriage market to find good husbands, while Roxana, who rejects marriage, prefers to be a mistress. Because of these characterizations, many feminist scholars consider Defoe a proto-feminist. In doing so, however, they fail to consider the outcomes of both narratives. Although Moll and Roxana share many similarities, their fates are very different. Moll enters into a happy marriage and acquires a considerable estate, but Roxana's narrative concludes with her pain and misery. These different endings demonstrate that Defoe reinforces traditional roles for women, rather than advocating their independence from them. He rewards Moll for her decision to remain in the marriage market, but he punishes Roxana for her rejection of it.

Pulp fiction played an integral part in the development of mystery fiction through its establishment of hard-boiled fiction as a genre. Although a number of pulp magazines were popular between the 1920s and the 1940s, one of the most influential and well-remembered of these magazines was the Black Mask, which was the magazine primarily responsible for establishing "hard-boiled" detective fiction as a genre through the development of the hard-boiled fiction formula, as well as cementing the careers of some of the most well-known mystery writers, such as Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and Erie Stanley Gardner. Through a close reading of these authors and other authors who appeared in the Black Mask from the 1920s to the 1940s, changes in societal values, as well as in hard-boiled fiction as a genre, may be seen.

In Aphra Behn's comedies, disreputable women rebel against patriarchal authority by refusing to conform to conventional images of femininity. Because they believe in self-determination, they often come into conflict with the men who attempt to impose their will on them. They also come into conflict with the characters in the play who idealize love, because they give more importance to practical matters. Although they are criticized within the plays, Behn portrays them as sympathetic because they often help other characters by objecting to forced marriage. They are Behn's most aggressive and assertive female characters, and thus use patriarchy to their own advantage, often to obtain wealth. Disreputable female characters allow Behn to discuss issues of money, class, and sex.