Crinolines and hoops.

In Pope’s The Rape of the Lock there is a very powerful description of high class women in the XVIII century. They’re very beautiful, yes, but inactive, vain and stupid. Belinda actually breaks molds when she has a fit because her fiancé has dared to cut one of her locks. In fact, it can be said that was proto-feminist and all.

No, really. She’s the protagonist, she’s active at the end of the poem, and she’s perceived by other people and even the poet as a ridiculous young lady with no class (and PMS, as Pope so subtly suggests).

I’m not saying there were no intelligent women at the time. Even those who weren’t poetical genius weren’t dumb either. But their physical attractiveness was their only way to show some energy and stand out, so they (I mean high-class women) spent a preposterously great amount of time dressing up. Obviously, the clothes they wore were imprisoning them too.

The hoop at the time didn’t reach the floor, so women would be able to walk in very elegant short steps, and made them occupy the place of three people. Imagine the spectacle, one woman walking very carefully not to throw anything on the ground, unable to run, occupying a whole sofa, … it was like a walking cage. In fact, it reminds me of the Chinese noble women’s feet. Google that and look at the images; it looks worse than it sounds.

Pope is very ambivalent toward women, but he at least conceded some thought to that; women’s behaviour is not portrayed as entirely stupid; Clarissa is given a good monologue about common sense and humour (she also aides the Baron, so well… an ambiguous character) and Belinda has some psychological profundity, though the poet finally didn’t see the importance of the matter; he, at least, tried to understand why, instead of accepting the common theories of the time (do women have a soul? They really doubted it).