Gender and Dracula

Although gender defines the masculinity and femininity of a person it also constrains and sets boundaries on a person due to their sex as it somewhat did during the Victorian era. A period where women were seem as the fragile of the sexes and men were the more governing sex in the sense that they were the “the doer, the creator, the discoverer, [and] the defender” (kiss me with those red lips, 108). But the gender barrier of the Victorian era was slowly breaking because women were being to challenge the limits of their gender by “crossing borders and redefining categories (450),” as Mina Harker did by working to help support herself and her soon to be husband. She and Bram Stoker were challenging the rules (or changing the rules if you may) by showing that they are not the weaker of the sexes who “prefer emotions to reason” (453) and should be at home running their homes and adhering to the customs and norms associated with their gender and not worrying their ‘pretty little heads’ with matters beyond their control such governmental issues or the cargos on a incoming ship.