Boys Like Girls Like Boys - 2nd Essay Intro

“Few women could think more of their personal appearance than [Sir Walter Elliot] did” (Austen p. 6). In eighteenth-century Britain, gender inequality was extremely pervasive and the men and women of the time experienced radical differences in class, acceptance, and rights.  However, of course, this was normal at the time, and no one thought it to be surprising or offensive. In Jane Austen’s novel Persuasion, the characters all live with this inequality but it is apparent to the modern-day reader that these standards are often unfair and hypocritical.  Sir Walter Elliot is a highly respected member of the community, but this is solely because he is a man.  His feminine traits would be scorned upon in the twenty-first century and would give him no respect if he were a woman in the eighteenth century, but because he is a man it does not matter. There are many other characters in Austen’s novel, as well as in Laurence Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey, who demonstrate opposing gender characteristics to a large extent.  Though they use different styles and techniques, like free indirect discourse versus first-person narration with parody, Austen and Sterne manage to depict similar ideologies of the time: even with extreme gender inequality in society, eighteenth century men can be just a feminine and indecisive as women and the women can be just as outspoken and demanding as men.