{"id":1748,"date":"2021-09-20T23:44:43","date_gmt":"2021-09-21T03:44:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/?p=1748"},"modified":"2021-09-20T23:44:43","modified_gmt":"2021-09-21T03:44:43","slug":"the-i-hate-women-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/2021\/09\/20\/the-i-hate-women-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u201cI Hate Women\u201d Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"

Passage: \u201cTo call them the weaker sex is to utter a hideous mockery. They are the stronger sex, the noisier, the more persevering, the most self-assertive sex. They want freedom of opinion, variety of occupation, do they? Let them have it. Let them be lawyers, doctors, preachers, teachers, soldiers, legislators – anything they like – but let them be quiet – if they can\u201d (Braddon 208).<\/span><\/p>\n

Within the first lines, we see Braddon contrasting the phrases \u201cweaker\u201d and \u201cstronger\u201d as they relate to a woman\u2019s sex. Braddon\u2019s juxtaposition of these words helps to demonstrate the power of women throughout the novel. This comparison also allows for Braddon to bring Robert\u2019s conceptualization of womankind into fruition while simultaneously identifying specific strengths of women through the misogynistic lens of Robert\u2019s character. For example, we see the use of words like \u201cnoisier, persevering, and self-assertive.\u201d All these qualities can be interpreted as strengths, but Robert implies that they are more of an annoyance. This passage also employs repetition of the phrase \u201clet them.\u201d Braddon likely intentionally made this choice to draw readers\u2019 attention to the subsequent cluster of occupations. These were likely the occupations that women were becoming employed in for the first time throughout the Victorian era. Perhaps this passage represents Robert\u2019s unease with the idea of fluctuating gender roles, but his content with societal changes, nonetheless.<\/span><\/p>\n

Contextually, Robert\u2019s brooding in this passage serves as a build-up to the following paragraph in which he \u201csavagely\u201d thinks to himself: \u201cI hate women \u2026 they are bold, brazen, abominable creatures, invented for the annoyance and destruction of their superiors\u201d (Braddon 208). Unlike the original passage, this line elicits stronger feelings of unrest. More importantly, these passages together connect to our discussion from class about whether <\/span>Lady Audley\u2019s Secret<\/span><\/i> as a publication was invested in supporting the movement for women to have more power. Despite his passionate dislike for women, I believe that Robert\u2019s opinions seem progressive <\/span>in the context of the Victorian era. <\/span><\/i>F<\/span>or this reason, I believe that the novel did help to push notions of gender \u201cequality\u201d upon victorian society.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On a separate note, the original passage foreshadows events related to Lucy\u2019s \u2018power craze\u2019 towards the end of Volume II and leading into Volume III. I believe this is the case because Robert had recently made claims to Clara (in the prior chapter) that he knew who the individual guilty of committing George\u2019s murder was (readers are unaware that he is referring to Lucy at the time).<\/span> Additionally, \u201clet them be quiet – if they can\u201d seems to solicit a sense of action. This may relate to future events in which Robert silences Lucy by preventing her from using her \u2018indirect power\u2019 to manipulate her husband into doing whatever she wills him to do.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Passage: \u201cTo call them the weaker sex is to utter a hideous mockery. They are the stronger sex, the noisier, the more persevering, the most self-assertive sex. They want freedom of opinion, variety of occupation, do they? Let them have it. Let them be lawyers, doctors, preachers, teachers, soldiers, legislators – anything they like – … Continue reading The \u201cI Hate Women\u201d Speech<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4754,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169398],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2021-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4754"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1748\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}