Will you stop at Nothing!?

            Ever since we had the chance to read Jonathon Swift’s “The Lady’s Dressing Room” I haven’t been able to get it off my mind. Perhaps taking the chance to get to talk about it more will help me not be too tempted to be quoting this lovely poem when girls around me are taking too long to get ready or doing odd and painful things in the name of beauty.

            Of course, being in true Swift fashion, “The Lady’s Dressing Room” is completely composed of playful couplets. That happens to be one of my guilty pleasures of Swift; with his syntax, style, and couplet form, I find his works to be very sing-songy and easily memorized… and repeated at wonderful opportunities that present themselves.

            After getting your giggles and your gasps of disgust and disgrace (and then some more giggles) in about this poem one major question arises; who is this poem really satirizing? At first glance the answer is clearly women. The things they do are disgusting! All the different bottles and powders, dirty clothes and cloths behind closed doors, clumps of hair and dirt. However, when you really do your close reading you realize that that is not the satire. That is purely the candy coating on the peanut butter M&M.

            The chocolate layer right under that is the satire of the men. In the beginning of the poem Stephon had no qualms with “The Goddess from her Chamber issues,/ Array’d in Lace, Brocades and Tissues.” In Swift’s satire of the men, we see that men love a lady with hair done perfectly, rosy cheeks, red lips, and soft pale skin. However, most men are never really prepared for the reality of what their girls go through to look like that. Even nowadays, the ‘natural’ look so many guys say they love includes cover-up, blush, lip gloss, and either a curling iron or a blow dryer and maybe even a straightener. Not all girls are like that mind you (I don’t even own hairspray or a blow dryer, and I’m usually the one poking at makeup asking what they heck it is and what it does), but that is common. The guys are horrified to see the things girls go through to look like that! The beauty products and dirty clothes alone are horrifying enough for Stephon, but then to top it off, she spits and “Oh! Celia, Celia, Celia shits!”? That’s just too much. Girls are… girls! Beautiful things that never have to try for it, right?

            Last but not least is the peanut butter center which would be the satire of the women. Honestly girls, is there nothing you won’t do for beauty? Hours spent prepping for a date. Head to toe primping and fluffing. It can be time consuming, expensive, and even down right painful. But they don’t care. They have guys to impress and will go to extensive lengths to do it. This has created a ridiculous revolving door of expectations. Women expect this is what she should look like and what he’s expecting, while he is expecting her to be impressing him or at least expecting him to be expecting something.