Alan Bennett presents the attitudes towards women in The History Boys in a variety of different ways. One way that Bennett does this is by highlighting the lack of female characters in the play. There are only two female characters in the whole of the play, with only one of these characters having any lines. Mrs. Lintott is another history teacher at the grammar school, who can arguably be considered as one of the most important characters in the play. Shes a very assertive, caring, and intelligent individual who knows a huge amount about the subject. However, although she helped the students achieve excellent A level results, Mrs Lintott still isnt seen as being good enough to get the boys into Oxbridge. Her key role in the play is to contradict the traditional idea of women being submissive to men, and although shes only one of two women in The Histo
ry Boys, she uses her position to emphasise how women are muted in society. This can be seen where she states that women never get around the conference table, and that historys not such a frolic for women as it is for men. She acts almost like a maternal figure towards the boys, which is a big difference compared to how the men in the play treat the other women around them. Fiona is the other female character in the play, who is the Headmasters secretary. She is sexualised throughout by both the Headmaster and Dakin, who explains to the other boys how interested he is to have sex with her. One can also find out that the headmaster has been trying to cop a feel of Fiona, as well as chasing her around the desk. Its only when Dakin learns about this that he begins to show a level of respect towards her as an individual, not just treating her as an object.