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Briana Thornton
English 301
Professor Basu
Decoding the Gender Bottom Line
In ostensibly different texts like “Little Red Riding Hood” and Arthur Conan Doyle’s
Sherlock Holmes story “The Speckled Band,” the representation of the gender bottom line is
illustrated through similar plot and character themes. The gender bottom line, according to Susan
Brownmiller, claims that “women are at once victims of male violence even as they must
position themselves as beneficiaries of male protection” (Tatar, 8). This notion is clearly
perpetuated through the sweet, innocent character of Little Red Riding Hood and her need to be
saved by the good and powerful male hero. Unlike “Little Red Riding Hood,” however; the text
of “The Speckled Band” does not confine this gender bottom line to the literal female characters
of the story. The explicit significance of the protagonist as a dependent, naïve young girl in
“Little Red Riding Hood” foregrounds the gender bottom line through an emphasis on the
victimization and need for protection on the part of the female individual. Since each female
character is portrayed with these weaknesses (Red Riding Hood and the grandmother) and each
male character (the wolf and the huntsman) is depicted through his dominance and power, the
reader constructs the gender bottom line as a stable argument that clearly instates Brownmiller’s
argument.
In the Brothers Grimm version of Little Red Riding Hood, both Little Red Cap and the
grandmother become victims of the wolf. Not only are they victims of the wolf’s violence, but
they are defenseless victims which reinstates the idea of the weak female. We can assume the
female characters are defenseless because, in most versions, neither is capable of any attempt to
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escape the wolf, and they are both forced to rely on another male character, the huntsman, to
save them from the wolf’s stomach. As soon as the wolf had “satisfied his desires,” the huntsman
is immediately introduced as a means to save the female victims (Tatar, 15). The female
characters are now directly shifted from the victims to the helpless, dependent damsels in
distress, allowing no time or possibility for either of them to be identified as anything else. In
this particular version, the masculinity of the wolf and the huntsman exemplifies Brownmiller’s
claim regarding the gender bottom line, not only identifying women as victims and dependents,
but by identifying men as either protectors or adversaries.
In the version of Little Red Riding Hood titled “The Story of Grandmother,” the female
protagonist is once again represented as the victim; however, she becomes not only a victim of
physical violence, but a victim of sexual violence as well. In this version, the child is instructed
by the wolf to take off her clothes and climb into bed with him. Then, “When she asked the wolf
where to put all her other things, her bodice, her dress, her skirt, and her stockings, each time he
said: ‘Throw them into the fire, my child. You won’t be needing them any longer’” (Tatar, 11).
While the act of sex is not explicitly rendered during this scene, it is evident through this text that
Red Riding Hood has become victimized by the male character by being sexualized. The actions
that take place in this scene are described in a slow, almost leisurely manner which creates the
illusion of a strip tease. By obeying the wolf’s commands and falling willingly into this
portrayal, the girl becomes subject to his authority and allows her sexuality to eliminate her own
agency. Some may argue that because Little Red Riding is willing to fall into a submissive role
that she does have agency and, therefore, breaks the gender bottom line. Others can argue as I
do, however, that this willingness is not a choice, but rather a need for survival. Red Riding
Hood only performs the “strip tease” in order to escape from the villain. This is proven in the end
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of the story when Red Riding Hood frees herself from the rope and runs home towards safety
(Tatar, 11). Her desire to escape reinstates her position as the victim and diminishes any real free
will she potentially could have had.
In regards to the context of fairy tales, the gender bottom line is easily exposed in these
stories because of their highly common plot, characters, and themes. This is not the only genre,
however, that is capable of establishing a gender bottom line within its text. Although slightly
more ambiguous, Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective series of Sherlock Holmes establishes a
gender bottom line that is commensurate with Brownmiller’s argument regarding the problem in
“Little Red Riding Hood.” This can be seen in the Sherlock Holmes story of “The Speckled
Band” which contains analogous concepts previously mentioned in the various Red Riding Hood
tales. In this story, a young woman named Helen Stoner employs Sherlock Holmes and Watson
to investigate the death of her sister, Julia. During this time, Helen lives with her ill-mannered
step-father Grimesby Roylott and is to be married soon which will enable her to inherit the
money which her deceased mother has left her. Throughout the case, Holmes becomes
suspicious of the seemingly villainous step-father and soon finds out that he is, in fact, not only
responsible for Julia’s death, but of the attempt on Helen’s life as well. The main female
character of the story, Helen, is distinguished by traits similar to those of Red Riding Hood,
including her need for protection and her weak femininity which easily falls prey to male
violence. A major motif presented throughout the story that demonstrates this claim is the idea of
women as property. According to Rosemary Hennessy and Rajeswari Mohan, “Helen, poised
ambiguously between the conditions of property and property owner, cannot be granted her
independence, of speech any more than of capitalistic or social status” (Hodgson, 389). This
argument recognizes Helen’s identification as property because of her dependence on male
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characters, the first of which is her stepfather and the second her soon to be husband. With this
type of societal position, Helen is unable to escape the oppression of patriarchal representatives.
The claim that Helen’s independence of speech is eradicated because of her social status and
objectification is established in the story when she chooses not to disclose the entire truth about
Roylott. Holmes reveals to Helen that she is “screening [her] stepfather” and has “been cruelly
used” (Hodgson, 159). After observing this scene, it is evident that Helen’s speech and actions,
or lack thereof, are greatly influenced and hindered by the patriarchal position of Roylott.
Because of her stepfather’s overbearing power, Helen, like Red Riding Hood, becomes
victimized by male authority and forced to depend on this same authority to escape further
victimization.
Also commensurate with Brownmiller’s argument of the gender bottom line, is Helen’s
need to be protected by the masculine figure. While Helen becomes victim to Roylott as Red
Riding Hood falls victim to the wolf, Helen also depends on Sherlock Holmes to save her as the
huntsman saves Red Riding Hood. In this context, although still a patriarchal figure, Holmes is
identified as the hero of the story. According to Hennessy and Mohan, “[The story] presents
Holmes as woman’s protector, rescuing her from the villainous patriarch’s domination and
defending her right to control over her own property and person” (Hodgson, 390). The reader
assumes Holmes position as protector because Helen depends on him to solve her sister’s murder
and save her from experiencing the same horrid fate. Although Holmes is labeled the protector
throughout the story for these reasons, it can be argued that he is merely a manager who
successfully contains the possibility of Helen becoming an independent woman. Holmes takes on
this managerial position by creating a solution that serves the purpose of expediting Helen’s
swift transition from daughter to wife (Hodgson, 390). By detaining Helen within these two
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spheres, Holmes is removing her from one male patriarch just to place her in the possession of
another. In regards to this argument, therefore, Holmes can serve as the woman’s protector, but
Helen will not escape being a victim of male patriarchy because Holmes will not allow it. Since
Holmes manages Helen’s position throughout the story, he becomes the most influential male
figure. Therefore, although slightly deceiving, Holmes does not oppose traditional patriarchal
domination, but merely represents a “new” type of patriarchy. In other words, as Hennessy and
Mohan state, “this ‘newness’ is more a re-articulation than a transformation of the sexual
economy of patriarchy” (Hodgson, 395). To better understand this re-articulation, it is helpful to
observe the social relations taking place during this time period. With the rise of the Industrial
Revolution also came the rise of a new professionalized middle class. At the same time, the
aristocracy is falling which gives way for the emergence of a new patriarchal figure. In “The
Speckled Band,” Holmes, as a middle-class restrained gentleman, represents this figure. Roylott,
on the other hand, is representative of the failing aristocracy because of the apparent dissipation
in his wealth. To add even more to these social relations, Holmes’ method is closely tied to the
workings of the State. Through acts such as the Married Woman’s Property Act which “[gave]
women control over their property; but by doing so in term of male protection” and the Criminal
Law Amendment Act which “[affected] the status of woman outside the home in raising the age
of consent for girls from 13 to 16,” it appears women are given more rights when in actuality,
their positions are merely being readjusted by the State. Such as Holmes readjusts the position of
Helen from recipient of her step-father’s protection to recipient of the fiancé’s protection, the
State serves as the same patriarchal figure towards women. Through this analogy, Brownmiller’s
claim on the gender-bottom line holds true and contains any potential threat to it.
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Another way that Holmes is presented as the protector in this story is by being juxtaposed
with the reverse character of Roylott through geographical means. In order to construct Holmes
as the hero, “the narrative draws upon the codes of otherness such as irrationality, lack of
control, and dissipation, set by the discourses of alterity” (Hodgson, 390). While Holmes is
presented as Western, rational, and positioned within the middle/upper class, Roylott is given
contracting characteristics in order to highlight him as the “other” within the narrative. This is
displayed through the multiple, outlandish traits that Roylott is given throughout the progress of
the story. The first instance the reader is exposed to his otherness is when Helen describes to
Holmes the terrible change that has come over her stepfather. “Violence of temper approaching
to mania has been hereditary in the men of the family, and in my stepfather’s case it had, I
believe, been intensified by his long residence in the tropics” (Hodgson, 155). The prominent
characteristic revealed in this passage is Roylott’s irrationality which is immediately presented in
opposition to the rational being of Sherlock Holmes. His temper serves as a mark of his
otherness, as well as his weakness. A more ambiguous trait that is noteworthy in this passage,
however, is the recognition of Roylott as being a former resident of the tropics. Whereas Holmes
is obviously declared to be of Western origins, the identification of Roylott as an Eastern
character immediately places him within the realm of the other. This classification remains with
Roylott throughout the entirety of the story as more of his Eastern mannerisms are revealed such
as his association with gypsies and his interest in exotic animals. It is precisely this privileging of
the Western patriarch over the Eastern man that enables the crisis of the patriarchal alliance to
gain its global and colonial scale. Also, as Hennessy and Mohan point out, because of Holmes’s
position in the narrative as subject of knowledge, the reader is able to identify with his character,
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therefore, dissociating him from any possible connections to imperial domination, patriarchal
control, and class privilege (Hodgson, 392).
In relation to the aforementioned argument of the gender bottom line, because of his
identification as the other, Roylott becomes a victim of the gender bottom line in a manner
similar to Helen and Red Riding Hood’s. According to Hennessey and Mohan, “The entangled
coding of the feminine and the Oriental as sexualized other in the Holmes story is an instance of
the ways the sexualization of woman and Oriental male re-secured patriarchal and imperial
interests across a range of class positions” (Hodgson, 400). One claim that this particular section
draws upon is Roylott’s social status as part of the declining aristocracy. As previously
mentioned, Roylott is thus a ‘failing’ man in relation to members of the professional and middle
class such as Holmes, who have greatly developed during this time period. This connection to
the global, social crisis places Roylott in a dependent role that female characters such as Helen
and Red Riding Hood are constantly found in. Since women, in general, were also identified as a
type of “other” in society, it is reasonable to assume that the similarities between Roylott and
Helen are developed to set them both apart from Holmes. For instance, both characters are given
animalistic characteristics such as Helen’s “restless, frightened eyes, like those of some hunted
animal” (Hodgson, 153) and Roylott’s likeness to a “fierce old bird of prey” (Hodgson, 161).
They are both sexualized in some way as well since Helen’s female body serves as a symbolic
ground for woman’s contradictory position as property and property owner, and Roylott is
characterized as a sexual offender by his patriarchal position and his association with phallic
objects like the cane and the snake. This type of sexual victimization relates back to the sexual
violence in versions of “Little Red Riding Hood” such as “The Story of Grandmother” and how
the sexuality of woman forces them into the gender bottom line. This textual evidence can be
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used to argue that, although a male character, Roylott is given a type of femininity that allows
him to fall victim to the gender bottom line. In tales such as “Little Red Riding Hood,” we only
see this concept in regards to the literal female characters of the story; for instance, the little girl
and the grandmother, but by expanding this notion onto a male character, “The Speckled Band”
reinforces this claim in an unconventional way that gives the gender bottom line an even greater
influence.