“The Lady’s Dressing Room” was written by Johnathan Swift and first published in 1732 during the reign of George II. During his reign, and many that followed, gender and class roles were defined through a patriarchy. Women were restricted to domestic and matriarchal tasks primarily because society felt that domesticity and motherhood were all that women were capable of. Women lived in the private arena of the home while men lived in the public arena, focusing on business, politics, and sociability(Abrams). Because of the privatization of women’s affairs their image became distorted and idealized through art and literature that depicted a misogynistic view of them.

Johnathan Swift, arguably the greatest prose satirist in the history of English literature(PF Swift), was considered by his peers as well as readers today to be the biggest misogynist of his time. Swift prided himself on his misogyny and was quoted saying that he perpetually despised women for limitless reasons(Rogers 366). To no surprise, his work in general is largely composed on the satire of women. Although this genre and topic was popular amongst other authors and artists of the time, Swift went above and beyond his peers in his harsh criticisms. “The Lady’s Dressing Room” is Johnathan Swift’s bitter satire of the idealization of women’s beauty as made-up dolls. In it’s bitter and harsh descriptions of a lady’s dressing room through the eyes of a wandering Strephon, Swift reveals his deep-rooted misogynistic nature as well as the misogynistic nature of his peers in 18^th century England.