The Women | Social Darwinism in the Powder Room: Clare Booth’s The Women
In the following essay, Maddock asserts that, rather than being a misogynistic play for its unattractive portrayal of women, Boothe’s play is more a reflection of societal pressures on women during the depression.
In The Women (1936), Clare Boothe puts together a rogue’s gallery for her era. Like Juvenal in his Satires, Boothe shows us decadence and corruption everywhere, in women (explicitly) and men (implicitly), high and low, from servant class to patriarchs. No quarter escapes her cruel humor. The Women, which Burns Mantle called ‘‘the most brilliant social satire of its time,’’ is a comedy of manners like Etherege’s Man of Mode, but a sour one, and one presenting a female point of view. As John Gassner comments, ‘‘No American writer has ever...
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