Women at Jonathan Swift.

An Introduction

“Throughout the 18 'th century a skirmish went on between conservatives who argued for
the grand principle of subordination and progressives, who, guided by the clear light of
reason, contended for woman’s rational and social equality.”[1]
The married woman was considered to have neither rights nor property due to the fact that
with the marriage all her property exchanged automatically to her husband. The ideal of
marriage in the 18th century is described by W.L. Blease:
“ … the ideal of marriage had been brought to its lowest possible level […] it emphasized
the sexual side of the connection, and almost entirely disregarded the spiritual.”[2]

The average age for marrying by women was17 years. The only profession women could
have was that of a wife and mother; as Blease said “A respectable woman was nothing but
the potential mother of children.”[3].

There was the problem of a surplus of women. „Some women had the possibility to teach
children, which was not very high regarded. Most women, however, had only the possibility
to prostitute themselves which was a crucial problem of this times „(Einhoff, 1980: 35).

Terms like ‘the fair sex’, ‘the soft sex’ and ‘the gentle sex’ designated the relationship of the
sexes; the weak and tender woman needs to be protected by the strong man, which disguised
the reality of absolute subordination of most women. It is also remarkable that there were
only a few legal divorces which can be interpreted as a sign for the tacit sanction of
adultery, the general standing of the value of marriage and the hopelessness of a divorced
woman without rights and financial resources.

The education of women maintained in a shadowy existence; most women received no

education at all and poor women could neither read nor write, nor cast up accounts (ibid:
36). So-called ‘charity schools’ were founded for boys and girls of lower social levels to
teach basic knowledge like reading and writing. Higher education was a privilege for some
girls of the middle and higher social levels who were educated at ‘boarding-schools’ in
subjects like English, French, Dancing, Music and Needlework. The education was finished
at the age of 15 or 16 due to the early marriage of women. After this education in school,
women were allowed to educate themselves e.g. by the library of their husbands but most
did not. The few ‘learned ladies’ and their literary work mostly remained covert so that it
could not be criticized or made ridiculous (ibid: 37). A certain emancipating act can be seen
in the literary work of these women because they tried to get rid of the usual (even) mental
suppression and rendered outstanding services to female abilities on intellectual areas (ibid:
38).
Legally and economically the status of women in this period under consideration was
marked by a subjection to man difficult to understand in the present age of relative equality
for both sexes. Man was a superior being, and the laws were made for him, with little or no
regard for the rights of women. In the event of an altercation with her husband, a wife had
no real recourse to law. She was rarely allowed to forget that she existed as an inferior
creature and that it was unladylike to assume the aggressive attitude commonly reserved for
husbands. (Hayden, 1966,p. 7)

But what about the image of women at Swift?

Swift might have been a misogynist ,or not, but everyone agrees that he was first and
foremost a misanthrope. To suggest, then, that he disliked females disproportionately to
males would be to claim that he thought females less than human, for misanthropy requires
an impartial disdain for the entire human race. By examining some of Swift’s writings and
the historical context surrounding them, I believe that we can come to the conclusion that
Swift equally despised all humans, regardless of sex. And to be clear, Swift did not despise
humans inherently – he despised their choices. He did not despise males and females – he
despised men and women and all their gendered baggage. When we apply this perspective
to Swift’s poem, “A Lady’s Dressing Room,” we will find that Swift was actually more so a
radical feminist than a misogynist.

Jonathan Swift was the subject of gossip and criticism in his own time concerning his
relations with women and his representations of them in his writings. For over twenty years
he regarded Esther Johnson, "Stella," as "his most valuable friend," yet he is reputed never
to have seen her alone. From his time to our own there has been speculation that the two
were secretly married--since their relationship seemed so inexplicable then and now. For
thirteen of the years that Swift seemed committed to Stella as the acknowledged woman in
his life, he maintained a clandestine--but apparently also nonsexual--relationship with
another woman, Esther Van Homrigh, or "Vanessa."

„Swift as a man enjoyed the company of a number of women as pupils and as ministrants to
his various needs.Swift, a man with a complex private life, was also a writer whose satiric
portraits of women could be unsparing. While Swift often criticized women for frivolous
pastimes and idle chatter, his most notorious texts on women image their bodies as
loathsome: as he once wrote in a serious political tract, a woman is a "nauseous,
unwholesome carcass." Such representations cross a line by showing a repugnance for
women as a sex, the biological other. They have led, not surprisingly, to repeated charges of
misogyny.”