Murder At The Fitzwilliam

I like the premise.

I like Daniel Wilson.

I dislike Abigail. She doesn't read like a Victorian woman. She reads like a modern woman and a whiny modern woman at that. It's hard to remember that this is supposed to happen in the late 19th century.
She has a sister, and the description of this sister is... er... pretty awful. She's basically slut shamed. She is told to be sort of boy crazy, while she never shows any such behavior, and marries the first guy she is said to be interested in. Just because she's small and curvy and pretty and girly-girly, while Abigail is not. (She wears her corset too tight, to enhance the hourglass figure. sigh)
I suppose Abigail is supposed to be “not like other girls” and “a strong woman”. Or something. She isn't, though. Well, she is not like other girls, because she's another modern woman inserted in historical fiction, so of course, she isn't like all the normal people around her. But she is whiny, throws temper tantrums over nothing, is supposed to be this discriminated woman in the Academical world, while she really isn't. She's an archaeologist who has been working in diggings in Egypt and Syria. And she has a job at Fitzwilliam museum in Cambridge. A real job. People are letting this unmarried, unaccompanied woman walk around in the Museum and university area as she pleases. Just like any other female in today's world would.
Of course, there are some scenes where the misogyny of Victorian society is displayed, but it's so forced and staged it feels like an advertisement break in a tv show. It never really has any consequences or follow-ups. It's just every now and then the characters remember that they are supposed to be these patriarchaic supremacists and they say or do something disrespectful, discriminatory, offensive so that Abigail can react, and Daniel can show what a feminist he is. sigh

I am reading The Witch's Head by Haggard, published 1885, and the women are more equal, more natural... I mean, they KNEW they were equal. Women and men just had different jobs.
In Dracula (published 1897) the guys agreed that Mina was the smartest one of them all. No one took it as a challenge or anything upsetting or unnatural.
In Kate Chopin's Awakening (published 1899) Edna just calmly moves from her home and husband to live with her lover as if it was totally normal, and no one seems to be bothered by it.
I'm thinking about North and South (published 1854), I'm thinking about Jane Eyre (published 1847), I'm thinking about Rose in Bloom (published 1876), I'm thinking... uh.
I wish people who write Victorian fiction actually studied real Victorian literature, and the attitudes, women's self-worth, the true, natural feminism exhibited in these books, how the Victorian women, in reality, manifested their power and influence. These women weren't emotional fools like we are. Self-control was not only a virtue, it was an essential part of being an adult.
Uh.
It is hard for me to explain this, words aren't a natural way to express myself. I dislike the nature of people in historical novels being wrong, and I cannot explain why it's wrong, but I know it's wrong.
I mean... you could read Edith Nesbit and Louisa May Alcott to understand how to talk about equality, feminism, suffragettes, social injustice in a Victorian novel. I think Sarah Perry got it right in The Essex Serpent.