womensbeauty

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Women's Beauty

Formal Dress, 1775-1800. Drawing by Maria Macgregor. For the Friends of Fashion, Museum of London.⁵⁴

The stance the Female Tatler assumes towards women's physical appearance forms one of the more "feminist" of the magazine’s positions. The authors consistently suggest that focusing on personal beauty, though tempting, diverts women from more weighty pursuits, such as education.

Early on, by the end of the Female Tatler’s first month, Mrs. Crackenthorpe introduces herself as a physically unattractive woman. Responding to a gentleman who compliments her in a letter, she writes: "But if he saw my face he’d think no more of adoration" (no. 8). Such uncomely features define her family line: when recounting her ancestry, she notes that the Crackenthorpes "were never reigning beauties" (no. 43). Because Mrs. Crackenthorpe establishes herself and her family as the ultimate ideal—claiming, for example, that the "Crackenthorpe’s [sic] were what every true English family ought to be"—her disclosure of her lack of beauty forms not so much an admission of imperfection as a de-emphasis of the import of personal beauty.

Mrs. Crackenthorpe recognizes some value in beauty, conceding that, "‘Tis true . . . when a fine woman shall deliver herself in an elegant manner, her beauty, like sweetening a note in music, is a grace to her expression" (no. 8). However, she points out that fixation on personal beauty distracts women from the more profitable endeavor of developing their intellect: "If gentlemen would not value a woman chiefly for her person . . . our sex would employ some time in cultivating their minds, and take more pains with their words, than their patches . . ." (no. 8). By using the phrase "if gentleman would . . .", Mrs. Crackenthorpe locates a degree of power in men’s hands. Women cannot be wholly blamed for their focus on beauty, she insists. By placing supreme value on women’s appearance, men encourage them to spend their energies adorning their aspects rather than refining their minds. Still, women cannot evade responsibility. She entreats her readers: "young ladies, though it may be thought a hard doctrine, should value themselves more upon good qualities, than good features" (no. 49).

By drawing attention to the detrimental effects of over-valuing women’s beauty, the Female Tatler forms a notable precursor to the works of influential nineteenth-century women’s rights advocates such as Mary Wollstonecraft and John Stuart Mill. Wollstonecraft encouraged women to develop their intelligence over their appearance, while both she and Mill persuasively articulated the ways in which men engender women’s lack of intelligence and capability by esteeming them largely for qualities such as beauty. Accounts of feminist history generally do not credit the Female Tatler as a forerunner to the works of Wollstonecraft and Mill, perhaps in part because of its relative obscurity and lack of feminist politics on topics other than women’s beauty and education, such as their place outside the home.

Portrait of a Lady in Blue. By Thomas Gainsborough. 1777-79. ⁵⁵

Unlike Mrs. Crackenthorpe, a few of the women who make up the Society of Ladies claim to be attractive—Emilia writes, for example, that "some of us are young and handsome"—and the Female Tatler largely abandons its arguments against over-valuing beauty during their tenure (no. 85). However, Artesia goes beyond Mrs. Crackenthorpe’s suggestion that men’s valuing of women’s beauty inadvertently discourages more important pursuits to argue that men purposely encourage women to focus on adorning their appearance in order to distract them from their predicament as oppressed creatures. She writes, "How can people in their senses think that the fine clothes, and all the trinkets that are given us are bestowed upon the sex any other ways than playthings are given to children, to amuse, keep their thoughts employed and their hands from doing of mischief?" (no. 88). Given that the rest of this issue focuses on how men mistreat and enslave women (the tone and content of this issue differs markedly from those of other issues; for a complete discussion see War of the Sexes), the "mischief" noted here clearly involves efforts toward female education and emancipation. A fixation on personal beauty emerges in this issue not as incidental to eighteenth-century women’s lack of developed intellect, but as central to men’s scheme to keep women from acquiring education and political rights.

For an examination of some tensions surrounding issues of women’s appearance in marriage, see the discussion of artifice in Marriage and Courtship.

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