Over the course of the semester, we have read a lot of different stories, poems, novellas, etc. One thing that became extremely clear to me was that no matter what time in history we were looking at, there always seemed to be some kind of discrimination against women. This was especially apparent during the romanticism era.
The story where this type of discrimination became overwhelmingly apparent was in Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. The parts that seemed to draw my attention to the discrimination against women was the social rules that females, such as Catherine Morland, were forced to follow if they wanted to meet a man worthy of marriage. During balls young women were required to have an escort. This is why Catherine had Mrs. Allen accompany her to the first ball in Bath. Further, young women like Catherine could not speak to others, especially not men, unless they were properly introduced by their chaperone. Any woman who failed to do this was harshly gossiped about had her prospects of finding a respectable husband damaged.
To make the discrimination even more apparent women who spent time with multiple men, even if it was just a short amount of time were labeled as floozies and were almost guaranteed to end up without a man such as was the case with Isabella Thorpe. Men on the other hand did not need escorts and could talk to whomever they wanted without judgement from others. Nor did they have to worry about spending too much time with one woman or spending time with multiple women. If they got tired of the woman or no longer had interest in her men could start fresh with someone new and no one would even raise an eyebrow.
This reminded me a lot of the double standards amongst men and women today. If a woman talks to too many guys she is labeled as “a slut”. If a man does this then he gets patted on the back by his friends. Even women attribute this behavior in men as “guys being guys” while looking scornfully at other women who do the same. Although this behavior does not hurt a woman’s chance of finding a significant other as much as it did during the time when Northanger Abbey was published it can still cause men to lose interest. It is shocking that this type of discrimination of women is still present in the world over two hundred years after Northanger Abbey was published.
Brit Lit 2020 