Jane Anger (1)

JANE ANGER
her Protection
for Women.

To defend them against the
SCANDALOUS REPORTES OF
a late Surfeiting Lover, and all other like
Venerians that complaine so to bee
overcloyed with womens
kindnesse.

Written by Ja: A. Gent.

At London
Printed by Richard Jones, and Thomas
Orwin. 1589.

Jane Anger - [Her Protection for Women]
Little is known of Jane Anger, whose name has come down to us because of her authorship of Her Protection of Women which was the first full length pamphlet to be published by a show more women in defence of her sex. This is not a gentle riposte to the many and varied slanderous pamphlets/books written by men against women, but a full throated roar of outrage. She says in her introduction to The Gentlewomen:

"I will not urge reasons because your wits are sharp and will soone conceive my meaning, ne will I be tedious least I proove too too troublesome, nor over darke in my writing, for feare of the name of a Ridler. But (in a worde) for my presumption I crave pardon, because it was ANGER that did write it: committing your protection, and my selfe, to the protection of your selves, and the judgement of the cause to the censures of your just mindes"

She aims her first barbs at the male writers who she says are so carried away with their own vanities that they write beyond the boundaries of their own wits and when they have exhausted their arguments they can always turn to a safe (for them) subject: the castigation of women, because they know that male readers will support their views and there will not be women brave enough to refute them: "and they think we wil not write to reproove their lying lips:"

Jane Anger soon makes herself clear where in her view the fault lies and that is the lust and lechery of men;

"If we wil not suffer them to smell on our smockes, they will snatch at our peticotes:"

Their unbridled lust causes them to lie, to cheat, to dissemble and they are never satisfied. Jane Anger points out that from Roman times laws have been passed to keep lechery in check, but this does not stop men from pursuing women for their own ends. It should be noted here that this is very much an us and them invective; as most women are tarred with the same brush in male writing then Anger is doing something similar here. It is clear there are few exemptions, few real gentlemen.

Anger delves into classical writing to give examples of how male authors have continued to interpret myths and stories to denigrate women. She also comes up with a few stories of her own. Her writing is lively and direct and strangely entertaining, reading it some 400 years plus after it was written. However as Anger herself points out those women that she was trying to protect were often in life or death situations when deciding as to their course of action following sexual advances from men. What is writ large in her advice is; do not believe a word a man says when being flattered; folly, vice, mischief, lust, deceit and pride will be motivators for the actions of these men. I found this document amazing for its forthright views; there is no heavy handed religious moral story here and no prudery, this is a woman speaking out against a male dominated society, where those men are using whatever means possible to subject women to their needs/lusts. Jane says:

"It hath bene affirmed by some of their sex, that to shun a shower of rain, & to know the way to our husbands bed is wisedome sufficient for us women: but in this yeare of 88, men are grown so fantastical, that unles we can make them fooles, we are accounted unwise."

A four star read and a quote in the form of a poem on cuckoldry where Jane is saying cuckolds deserve all that is coming to them:

The Gods most just doe justly punish sinne
with those same plagues which men do most forlorn,
If filthy lust in men to spring begin,
That monstrous sin he plagueth with the horne.
their wisdome great wherby they men forewarne,
to shun vild lust, lest they wil weare the horne.

Deceitfull men with guile must be repaid,
And blowes for blowes who renders not againe?
The man that is of Coockolds lot affraid,
From Lechery he ought for to refraine.
Els shall he have the plague he doth forlorne:
and ought perforce constrain'd to wear the horne.

The Greeke, Acteons badge did weare, they say,
And worthy too, he loved the smocke so wel,
That everie man may be a Bull I pray,
Which loves to follow lust (his game) so well.
For by that meanes poore women shall have peace
and want these jarres. Thus doth my censure cease. show less