At one point, a male character tells Fanny (Bronwyn James), “Women will always be at the mercy of men’s power,” and she offers her own insight: “It’s not your power that we’re at the mercy of. This season doubles down on all of this, including exploring the hypocrisy of men and how they maintain the current power structure to keep women dependent. Margaret also still appears to have a conscience and regrets that raising her two daughters Charlotte and Lucy (Eloise Smyth) into the life, which includes auctioning off their virginity, wasn’t the only way she could succeed in life. Of course, the big difference is that Golden Square perpetuates rape – providing unwilling virgins to sadistic men – while Greek Street provides consenting women who want the protection of a house, instead of just freelancing in the back alleys. Quigley is the Georgian counterpart of this, and thus, even though she continues to put women – young girls, in fact – in horrifying positions, she’s only a few shades of grey morality-wise from Margaret. Jessica Brown Findlay and Samantha Morton, “Harlots” One of the many results of the current #MeToo movement is the revelation of just how much women, driven by trying to advance or survive in a patriarchal world, have helped to perpetuate the abuse and oppression of fellow women. Nevertheless, in this way, it is realistic. This feels like the classic “crabs in a barrel” concept in which one crab will keep another crab from escaping by dragging it down, thus dooming everyone. One of the problematic narrative issues with “Harlots” is its focus on women tearing down other women, which seems counterproductive when they’re all dealing with lives that are already hard enough as it is. This seeming betrayal, however, is part of her revenge scheme to take down Quigley, who is responsible for having forced her mother into whoring as a child, which in turn forced her subsequent children into the life. The series picks up with in-demand harlot Charlotte Wells (Jessica Brown Findlay) having abandoned her mother Margaret’s (Samantha Morton) brothel on Greek Street for Golden Square, the high-end house of rival bawd Lydia Quigley (Lesley Manville). “The Handmaid’s Tale” may have just ended its latest season, but the commentary on female oppression continues on Hulu with the return of “Harlots.” Now in its sophomore season, the drama about warring brothels digs deeper into the underlying issues that have created the enmity, along with the gender inequality that has forced the women into such cutthroat circumstances in 18th-century Georgian London.
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