Gender and Society Theme Analysis

While attending her first ball, Leila learns that her society values men over women. This is apparent in how much power the men have at the dance; they select their partners, for instance, while women simply wait to be chosen. But the power of men becomes clearest when an old man tells Leila that, when she is his age, she will not be desirable to men and will no longer be able to dance at balls. In other words, while he can still dance with beautiful young women and feel accepted and valued, she can anticipate no such future; at a certain age—one that is coming soon—she will be discarded and scorned. In exposing this dynamic, Katherine Mansfield depicts how male power frays female friendships, leaves young women vulnerable to predatory men, and flippantly casts older women aside. The message that women receive is that nothing matters besides attracting a man and they have no intrinsic worth.

While Leila values her relationships with women, men are always shaping those relationships—even when they’re absent. At first, Leila seems to have a genuine friendship with her female cousins who look after her at the ball. But the cousins don’t choose to spend time with Leila, and they instead show their friendship by helping her attract men. Before the dance begins, Meg tells the other girls at the ball to help Leila find partners, and the girls respond vaguely while looking “towards the men” in anticipation. This suggests that female friendship is only valuable when convenient and can be cast aside in favor of men. Leila’s previous experiences affirm this sense that female friendship is less important than attracting men. At her boarding school, for instance, girls learned to dance with each other to prepare for dancing with men. Leila describes this experience not as a fun bonding activity with her friends, but as unpleasant, with girls stepping on each other’s toes. During her first dance with a man at the ball, however, Leila notes that “he steered so beautifully.” Leila’s female friendships seem to have no value on their own, and exist only to train girls for more pleasant experiences with men. The women preparing for the ball also disregard female friendship. Inside the “Ladies” room at the dance hall, young women compete for mirror space and fuss over their dresses. As with Leila’s dance lessons, these women are gathered together not to bond with one another, but to prepare to encounter men. This reality—in which women compete for male attention rather than befriending and helping one another—leaves women at the mercy of men.

Once the ball begins, it’s clear that the men are fully in charge. The ball itself begins at the men’s discretion, for instance. Once everyone is in the drill hall, the women and men stand separately at first. Not once does Leila think that she could approach a man herself—instead, she knows intuitively that she must wait until the men decide to come to her. Throughout the ball, the women remain passive participants, while the men seem active in comparison. They’re free to choose partners and move around the dance floor, while Leila must continue waiting for them to approach her. Men have the power to appear and disappear, seemingly at random—Leila notes that one partner appeared to “spring from the ceiling”—but Leila herself remains stationary, believing “she would die” if her partner didn’t arrive.

Leila’s powerlessness seems somewhat trivial at first—until she realizes the future that awaits her. The old man who dances with Leila reveals this insidious reality. He has been attending balls for thirty years and can continue dancing at his age only because he’s male; during their dance, he tells Leila that she “can’t hope” to dance at balls for as long as he has, since she will soon be an old woman who must watch the dance from the stage. It’s clear that a woman his age would not dream of being on the dance floor, since she would not be considered a viable romantic partner. Meanwhile, this man is distinctly old and disheveled—Leila notices his “creased” waistcoat, missing button, and bald head—but he nonetheless appears to be popular, holding a dance card “black with names.” Leila’s conversation with this man reveals a pervasive disdain for women, especially older ones. He points out the “poor old dears” watching the dancing from onstage and suggests that, once Leila is one of them, she’ll have idle conversations about how a “dreadful man” tried to kiss her daughter at the ball while secretly feeling jealous, since it’s devastating that nobody wants to kiss her anymore. His implication is that it’s better to be young and pursued by horrible men than to be old and ignored by them. Not only is this condescending and self-serving (since he himself might be the “dreadful man” he imagines), but it frames male attention as determining a woman’s self-worth.

Unfortunately, Leila seems to believe him. She herself observes the older women with unkindness, noticing that the female chaperones in the room “smil[ed] rather foolishly,” and the old women in the dressing room served only to aid the young. There seems to be no purpose for older women at the ball—or in society. Leila’s experience of the ball, then, is teaching her a horrific lesson: that her social value depends on men desiring her, and men will only desire her for a little while longer. After that, she can expect to be cast aside.