The Women, by Clare Booth Luce is an important story because it has an entirely female cast and shows the cattiness and deception of conniving women in a way never shown before. It makes a social statement about the society at the time, and points out clearly the difference between the working class women and those in the leisure class. It focuses on the time and money spent by these socialite women on looking and feeling good, and clearly distinguishes them from the working girls who help them do so.
The story of The Women is of Mary Haimes, a socialite, deeply in love with her husband of 12 years, a marriage which has produced two children (Luce, 1936). The husband, Stephen, then fall into the clutches of a salesgirl, Crystal Allen. Mary is egged on by her friends to ignore hr mothers advice to let the affair runs its course, and heads to Reno for a divorce. After two years as a divorce, and desperately unhappy with her situation, she decides to swallow her pride and fight to get her husband back.
Much of the action takes place in a beauty salon where crystal works and where Mary visits for her manicures and hairdressing (Luce, 1936). It is here that she overhears through the gossip mill about Crystal's Affair with her husband, and she hears Crystal talking about her husband, which confirms the awful truth while in a dressing room. Crystal tries on a dress, and is heard to say, "Stephen would like this." Every scene in the beauty salon is full of catty remarks and backstabbing comments, which makes the world of women seem very conniving and underhanded.
The characters in The Women are given the opportunity to play "real women" on stage, women at their worst, their snippiest, their cattiest. It displays perfectly the gossip that goes on among women in these places and displays it in its worst light. Although set in the 1930s, the actions, feelings and attitudes of the women are pretty well te same as those f...