Victorian Masculinity and Mrs Warren's Profession

abstract:This article focuses on the emergence of a new professional society in turn-of-the-century England and explores how Victorian masculinity is challenged by prostitution in George Bernard Shaw's play Mrs Warren's Profession (1893). Mrs Warren undermines Victorian masculinity by subverting the professional ideal undergirding late Victorian society. Mrs Warren challenges the Victorian acceptance of the Protestant notion of work as "duty" and alleges how work is deeply related with economic necessity. Also, Mrs Warren debunks the Victorian acceptance of the Christian notion of body and work and claims how work becomes a practice of self-formation via self-distancing not self-discipline.