Objections Of The Croquette And Hoop Skirt

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Recommended: Women during the 18th century

While reading selections from The Tatler and The Spectator, two subjects that I found most interesting were that of the coquette and her place in society, and also that of fashion, in particular, the hoop skirt.
The Webster’s Dictionary defines a coquette as "a woman who flirts." One of the reasons why ‘she’ appears so frequently in these essays is because these men sense a danger in them. The croquette is a figure of self-sufficiency and 18th century women were not supposed to be self-sufficient. Women of the 18th century were supposed to be ‘sugar and spice and everything nice’ and, above all, dependent on men. When a croquette comes into the picture, however, the men are the ones who can’t handle themselves. The croquette is a flirtatious woman who knows very well the powers of her sex and uses them to her advantage. Just by looking and acting a certain way around men, she learns how to ‘control’ them to a certain degree. Although the men realize what she is doing, they are powerless to stop it. It is also apparent to these men that women are able to be deceitful, and that the coquette may not be the beginning or the end of this deceitfulness. And they find this to be very dangerous to the ideas of knowing your respective places in their society.
Addison and Steele seem to think that the croquette is not only a lady who tends to flirt with every man she comes into contact with, but any young lady who outwardly makes every attempt to find a suitable marriage partner. In No. 110, of The Tatler (478-482), Addison speaks of a certain young woman being accused of catching the lust of several young men and breaking their hearts. He explains how she seems very innocent when proposed with the accusation and that this is how she obtains that she is not in the wrong. The way he words this essay makes me think that he believes that it is criminal for a woman to use the "Motion of her Eyes and Turn of her Countenance"(p 479) to capture the eyes of a possible suitor. Because a woman is able to use her ‘special powers’ in such a way is deceitful and therefore may lead to other wrongful doings which, in turn, disturbs the way Addison believes the opposite sexes serve opposite sides of society.

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