In the academic novel of the 1980s, which Elaine Showalter dubs the feminist towers, women characters are not limited to beautiful and seductive students or faculty wives, whose husbands’ academic career appears to be also their own goal. Although the very presence of women in academia is often interpreted as a threat to the male reign over the ‘small world,’ female scholars are determined to expose and fight against gender inequity and inequality in order to be perceived and valued as fully-fledged scholars. Paradoxically, even if women are considered serious candidates for different university positions, they cannot indulge in the same intense pleasures of academic life as their male counterparts due to the overpowering feeling of being the other.
An analysis of female scholar characters and their diverse attitudes towards feminism is based on two academic mystery novels written in the 1980s,