The Duchess of Malfi and the Criticism of Women

 The Duchess of Malfi - John Webster


BOSOLA: So, so, there's no question but her tetchiness and most vulturous eating of the apricots are apparent signs of breeding. 

            [Enter an OLD LADY]

Now?

OLD LADY: I am in haste, sir. 

BOSOLA: There was a young woman waiting- woman had a monstrous desire to see the glasshouse - 

OLD LADY: Nay, pray, let me go. I will hear no more of the glasshouse. You are still abusing women!

BOSOLA: Who, I? No; only, by the way now and then, mention your frailties. The orange-tree bears ripe and green fruit and blossoms all together; and some of you give entertainment for pure love, but more for more precious reward. The lust spring smells well; but dropping autumns tastes well. If we have the sale golden showers that rained in the time of Jupiter the thunderer, you have the same Danaes still, to hold up their laps to receive them. Didst though never study mathematics?

OLD LADY: What's that, sir?

BOSOLA: Why, to know the trick how to make a many line meet in one centre. Go, go, give your foster-daughters good counsel: tell them, that the devil takes delight to hang at a woman's girdle, like a false rust watch, that she cannot discern how the time passes.  (2.2.1-23)


https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2021/01/13/the-state-of-online-harassment/

"Women, on the other hand, are more likely than men to report having been sexually harassed online (16% vs. 5%) or stalked (13% vs. 9%). Young women are particularly likely to have experienced sexual harassment online. Fully 33% of women under 35 say they have been sexually harassed online, while 11% of men under 35 say the sam"


I chose to compare this scene from The Duchess of Malfi and this article about online harassment, because all I could think about when reading this scene was how horrible women are constantly treated and talked about! It got me thinking about how women are treated today, so I found this article full of statistics. While men also experience online harassment, it seems as though women experience this tenfold. It raises the question of why have men always considered themselves, and been considered, better than women? Women being seen as less than is not a new concept, in fact I see it in many of the texts that we read for class! 




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