George Sand: No to Prejudice

George Sand was the most popular novelist of the mid-19th century, and the pen name of Amandine Aurore Dupin. Sand wasn't looking for scandal or subterfuge by using a pseudonym, but for freedom to live and to write, which she found by dressing as a man, writing under a man's name, and loving who and how she chose. Her actions were an affront to the prejudices of the 19th century and a formidable lesson in courage. Young Aurore grew up torn between two women and two worlds: the conventional and narrow bourgeoisie of her paternal grandmother, who raised her in the countryside, and the modest, Parisian environment of her whimsical mother. Refusing to become the stereotype of femininity, she dreams of another world, where she can breathe, uncorseted, away from the strictures of social expectation. She ignores the slander and rumours that follow her, and builds a free woman's life, deeply respected by friends and contemporaries like Victor Hugo, Honore de Balzac, Gustave Flaubert and many others. Using her fame as a writer, she fights for women's and workers' rights. She is the model of an emancipated woman.