In this essay, Elin Diamond seeks to point out the hypocrisy and misogynistic view pointed towards women, though of course this all has to do more with men than women, other than them being the unfortunate object of desire. Diamond highlights how women at this time have very few rights if any at all. Women go from being the property of their father to the property of their husband, or the nunnery if they were not quite so lucky. However, this feeling of owning women seems to extend to women that men did not even have any familial or marital relations with. For example, by being an actress you acknowledge that you are sexually available. Period. It does not matter if for some reason you are already married or you are uninterested in sex, if you are up there on stage displaying yourself in an appealing manner, you become fair game to anyone who wants you. …show more content…
Women are seen as whores for a number of different reasons, but the main one being having sex, even though it is almost guaranteed that men are always initiating these situations. Women were also seen as whores for being pretty on and off stage, which is pretty odd when you think about it. This more has to do with, as usual, men's idea of what women should be compared to what women actually are. A man who is taken backstage is shocked to find that women are still wearing "a mask" and he feels as if he is being lied to, obviously making women liars, whores, and deceitful. Women of the time are considered deceitful, as is their art of makeup since men could not tell the difference between a performance and women off stage. Aphra Behn is shown to also be referred to as a whore, or a prostitute, herself because she is making a living being a playwright. In this time, loose lips are equal to loose morals in a woman, so if she was a "poetess" she must be a "punk" as