ABSTRACT

In the first volume of Gissing's The Whirlpool (1897), when the middle-class heroine Alma Frothingham is pursuing an independent lifestyle in Germany in the hope of becoming a professional violinist, she is horrified at the proposal of the millionaire Cyrus Redgrave that she accompany him to his Italian villa:

Alma's shocked reaction condenses a number of key issues about the sexual behaviour of the working woman and the kinds of 'grotesque proposals' and illicit meetings she invites by entering the public sphere. As Judith Walkowitz has argued, 'entering public space placed women of all classes, whether shop girls or shopping ladies, in a vulnerable position' (Walkowitz, 1992, p.46): outside the safety of the private sphere they ran the risk of compromising their respectability by interacting with unknown men. By occupying the city for the purposes of work and leisure, the young woman may be 'approach[ed] with strange ideas' or 'stand in peril of indignity' if she does not heed the warnings: the chance encounter which Alma fears was one of the dangers of the metropolitan lifestyle, according to an 1892 article by Evelyn March Phillipps on the 'working lady in London' (Phillipps,

p.200).Whatinterestsmehereisthesetofassumptionsinvokedaboutthesexual behaviourofwomeninoccupationswhichrequirethemtodisplaythemselvesin public.AlthoughasaladyAlmaseekstodistanceherselfinclasstermsfromshopgirlsandactresses,asanaspiringprofessionalmusiciansheplacesherselfontheir levelsexually:liketheactress,shehastoface'theriskofbeingtemptedinto prematurepublicity'byunscrupulousagents,andsheisasliableastheshop-girlto becommodifiedand'insulted'bymen.Gissing'sknowingreferencetothe'moral vicissitudes'ofshop-girlsandactresseswhoneedto'guard'themselvesagainst unwantedmaleattentionreliesonacceptedviewsoftheiruncontrolledsexual availabilityandentrenched'judgementsabout[their]sexualmoralityandconduct' (Davis,p.xiv).