BATTLE OF THE SEXES

Battle of the Sexes


The most captivating detail concerning a Victorian woman is her ability to be alluring modest, and mysterious. Women of the eighteenth century pride themselves on being presentable, and respectable to themselves and their appearance. Jonathan Swift uses Victorian women’s modesty as a mechanism to humiliate publicly, as he wrote The Lady’s Dressing Room. This piece of work would offend any woman living in this era, not to mention most women writers, which is why Lady Mary Wortley Montagu wrote The Reasons that Induced Dr. Swift to Write a Poem Called “The Lady’s Dressing Room.” Montagu included tantalizing details of experiences in Swifts life, as evidence to prove what she believes, is the reason for his cynicism against the female race.
In Swift’s poem he takes the narrators position, using characters for the basis of his reasoning. Strephon, who is mesmerized by Celia’s beauty, believes her to be a “Goddess” (3). As he unla...