Drawing was a customary component of a standard gentlewoman's education in the late
eighteenth century: cf. Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication, Chapter 12. The oddity
of its being here singled out as Elizabeth's concern is that it was not a component
of Mary Shelley's Godwinian education. On the other hand, perhaps we are to understand
that this is Victor speaking, not Mary Shelley. This, then, could be another aspect
of the inherently sexist categorizing in which he engages.