“The lady’s complexion was almost swarthy, and the dark down on her upper lip was almost a moustache. She had a large, firm, masculine mouth and jaw; prominent, piercing, resolute brown eyes; and thick, coal-black hair, growing unusually low down on her forehead. Her expression—bright, frank, and intelligent—appeared, while she was silent, to be altogether wanting in those feminine attractions of gentleness and pliability, without which the beauty of the handsomest woman alive is beauty incomplete.” (Wilkie Collins Project Gutenberg)
The Victorians love phrenology almost as much as they love tea and biscuits. The idea that the way a person looks determines who they are is an insidious idea that is inherently racist because it holds traditionally white features in higher esteem and demeans and dehumanizes everyone else. This pseudoscience can be seen here as Walter Hartright demeans the woman’s features for not being European and Aryan enough. Large features as well as coarse black hair are seen as signs of ugliness. Additionally, this passage shows just how invested Walter is in the traditional ideas of masculinity. The intelligent features, which again is simply phrenology and there is no such thing as looking intelligent that isn’t built off of societal stereotypes that are built around the idea that rich white men are smart and capable which leads us to the ideas of social Darwinism which while I don’t believe has been put into explicit terms yet the idea of “the rich are just better” has been around since forever, are unbecoming to a woman because a woman’s role, in the mind of this fucking jackass, is to be silent and submissive which we see as he says, “while she was silent, to be altogether wanting in those feminine attractions of gentleness and pliability,” a woman’s role is to be silent, pretty, and most importantly, to fit into the cishet white patriarchy.
So long and thanks for all of the fish,
Carmine