In an age of post-feminism and post-modernism, the Victorian idea of the “New Woman,” represented in Bram Stoker’s essential vampire novel Dracula through the character of Mina Harker, may seem as far removed from a girl-power TV series like Buffy as one can get. However, just as Buffy draws on some of the classic representations of the Gothic that are presented in Dracula, the show also has its own version of the “New Woman” in the character of Willow Rosenberg. By exploring the similarities between Mina and Willow, including their associations with education and technology, not only can we see that our society is not all that removed from that of the Victorians, but also that we still harbor some latent fears about women who violate social norms and the consequences for sexuality and reproduction. By using Stoker’s Mina as a lens through which to view Willow, one can argue that though being educated, independent young women enables these characters to “fight the good fight,” they are also what makes these women vulnerable to the very evils that they are fighting against and more susceptible to slipping into the “Other.” I argue that reading these characters as parallels not only demonstrates the historical significance of both texts in terms of societal views of gender, but that it complicates and possibly undermines viewing Buffy as a feminist text.