“The Eastern potentate who declared that women were at the bottom of all mischief should have gone a little further and seen why it is so. It is because women are never lazy. They don’t know what it is to be quiet. They are Semiramides, and Cleopatras, and Joan of Arcs, Queen Elizabeths, and Catharine the Seconds, and they riot in battle, and murder, and clamour, and desperation. If they can't agitate the universe and play at ball with hemispheres, they'll make mountains of warfare and vexation out of domestic molehills; and social storms in household teacups... To call them the weaker sex is to utter a hideous mockery. They are the stronger sex, the noisier, the more persevering, the most self-assertive sex. They want freedom of opinion, variety of occupation, do they? Let them have it. Let them be lawyers, doctors, preachers, teachers, soldiers, legislators – anything they like – but let them be quiet – if they can.”
- Lady Audley’s Secret, Pg. 207
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| Joan of Arc |
After bowing to Clara Talboys’ wish that the search for George be continued, Robert Audley embarks on a rant against the faults and evils of the female race. According to Robert, women’s chief fault lies in their inability to be lazy. He compares them to Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, and Queen Elizabeth to demonstrate women’s need to always be busy and engaged in a “noble cause.” However, Robert’s true annoyance with women lies not in their own industry, but in their insistence on moving men to action as well. Robert complains that women make “mountains… out of domestic molehills.” As a result of their “noise,” “perseverance,” and “strength,” Robert feels that he is ruled by a “petticoat government” and deprived the pleasures of leisure and idleness. Thus, Robert’s misogynistic feelings are not founded in a desire to deprive women of “freedom of opinion” and “variety of occupation.” Instead, Robert merely wants women to “be quiet – if they can” so that he himself may do as he chooses. Robert’s feelings of frustration towards the female race are a clear example of the gender role-reversal described by Herbert Klein in his essay “Strong Women and Feeble Men.” In a reversal of the typical Victorian gender relationship, Robert, as the man, finds his weaker, more indolent nature subjugated to the powerful and action-bent will of Clara. Robert’s obvious indignation at this newly-experienced subjugation is representative of the frustrations faced by dependent Victorian wives and illustrates the inherent inequalities of typical Victorian gender relationships.