In An Inspector Calls, Priestley creates a masterpiece of socialist propaganda to send a message to the upper echelons of British Society that, unless they ‘learn’ that conditions in society for the working classes were in dire need of change, they would be ‘taught’ that lesson the hard way. He urged all ‘responsible’ citizens to vote Labour and bring an end to Capitalist tyranny which he believed would create a better world for all, including women.
The way women lived in every strata of society is amply illustrated in the play demonstrating that women were united at the bottom of the heap. Eva, Edna, Sheila and even ‘socially superior’ Sybil all find themselves crushed under the 'fat carcass' of the Patriarchy. Unlike the younger generation, however, Sybil accepts her place in the pecking order. Terrified that Sheila might endanger her engagement to upper class Gerald, she counsels her daughter to take caution; 'When you're married you'll realise that men with important work to do sometimes have to spend nearly all their time and energy on their business.' Initially, it appears to the audience that ‘rather cold’ Sybil is an advocate for women knowing their proper place not to interfere or that she even approves of it because it appears she is suggesting that it is something all women should accept.
Alternatively, her approach could indicate Sybil's wisdom and a demonstration of how innovative women could be in their subjugation to ensure some basic level of agency - even if it was never acknowledged or recognised as an entitlement per se. Sybil, for example, is undoubtedly the mistress of her own house when Arthur is elsewhere attending to his affairs. The audience is treated to a rehash of Arthur’s lengthy set of public duties a few times and Sybil may have benefitted from him being very busy to enjoy her relative autonomy when he was not at home. Marriage represented security for all women in 1912 and Sybil understood the importance of it. The marital home served as both a prison and a buffer between women and the 'real' world, designed for the purposes of keeping them as far apart as possible in blissful 'pink lit' ignorance.
By Act 3, Sybil appears exasperated at being forced to confront issues she has never been troubled with in the safety of her domain; 'please remember before you start accusing me of anything again that it wasn't I who had her turned out of her employment – which probably began it all.' Sybil truthfully maintains her stance as a powerless woman throughout. The only way she could enjoy any ‘pitiful little bit of’ power was to capitalise on that part granted to her by a man with the price for this scintillla of freedom being the deft ability to simply look the other way. A matriarch like Sybil would understand the dire consequences of fighting the Patriarchy for any young woman, which is why she begs her daughter to behave like a good girl and has little sympathy for the more worldly Eva Smith - who really should have known better. Sybil is therefore a deceptively shrewd character - although it may not have suited Priestley's purposes to portray her as such, preferring not to 'muddle' the Socialist agenda by attempting to pursue more than one line of enquiry at a time.
Instead, Priestley deliberately gives a high born woman the accusatory line that links all of the blame of the family’s sordid disgrace back to Arthur on purpose. This demonstrates how the irresponsible actions of rich, greedy men had a detrimental impact on all women, regardless of class. Sybil, who has seen her whole world implode in the space of a few hours, is quick to point out that ‘we (the women) were asked (by men) to look carefully into the claims made upon us...I consider I did my duty.” By duty, she is rightly pointing out that it was her patriarchal duty to do what she was told- which she did, awarding the aid to ‘deserving cases’ the narrow and rigid criteria of which would doubtless be dictated by a designated male overseer. Sybil claims she ‘considered’ her position - a word with connotations of careful reflection and completely at odds with the Inspector’s suggestion that she acted hastily with petulant spite. In all likelihood, her ‘consideration’ would have encompassed the consequences for herself as well as Eva if she were perceived to be attempting too much independence since this was simply not tolerated of any female who didn't want to draw attention to herself for the wrong reasons.
In An Inspector Calls, Priestley is careful not to overtly offend his trade-class, upper and landed gentry audience with accusations that they should shoulder individual responsibility for the growing socio-political unrest amongst the lower classes. Instead, by creating a chain of events, he employs chaos theory, spreading the burden of blame across each member of the family cumulatively, thereby magnifying the importance of understanding that it is not possible to predict all of the consequences of one’s actions - which makes the need for caution when making choices imperative. This is illustrated where Sheila muses that she 'didn't think much of' Eva's sacking at the time which, combined with the assertion that she was 'very pretty' and 'looked like she could take care of herself' is another example that shows the audience how sheltered and ignorant young society daughter's were. This admission is doubly shaming for Sheila who not only failed to realise the consequences of her conduct but fatuously reasons that the very issue she had with Eva - being jealous of her beauty - would be her salvation when patently it was actually a glaring impairment. But Priestley was careful not to label Sheila (and all of her ilk) as totally witless.
All of the Birlings’ actions, combined with Gerald’s, create a chain of causation that destroys the life of Eva Smith - regardless of the motivation for thier actions towards her. The consequences of Sybil’s actions however, could arguably never be construed as her responsibility, because she wasn’t free to make her own choices in the first place. The fact that she judged Eva morally calling her a girl 'of that class...’ and making assumptions was Priestley’s design for the audience to demonstrate that equanimity born of equality when bringing aid to Britain’s needy would remove the danger of creating further disadvantage for people reluctant to reveal full details of their circumstances for fear of disapprobation. Eva didn't lie to extort money but to preserve her dignity and to avoid self-incrimination in a crime she was unwittingly accomplice to, for an employer who had already marked her card. Ultimately, she needed support for her circumstances as a vulnerable person and the rest was irrelevant and should have remained so.
Priestley affirmed that the Welfare State would provide everyone, regardless of situation, with the right to assistance without fear of judgement or abuse because it would simply be a basic right and entitlement. He paints Sybil as ignorant because of her restrictive social conditioning and condemns a system that allowed rich people to sit in judgement over the disadvantaged as if they were in any way qualified to make an informed decision about anything. This was Priestley's purpose when he had Sybil refer to the activities of men as their ‘business’. It is a term that is as broad as it is nebulous and perfectly connotes her moral benightedness. She hasn’t got a clue what happens in the real world and doesn’t care to. It is ‘disgusting’ to her because an enlightened and curious rich woman was as morally impaired in society as a poor and ruined one. ‘Business’ could refer to literally anything a man chose to do from choice of occupation, marriage and the spawning of heirs to travelling, shooting, drinking, whoring or taking a mistress. The culture of toxic masculinity that was normalised in late Victorian society was kept as a safe distance from society women, who were kept oblivious to the existence of Palace Bars and sent into other rooms when the conversation became too visceral. In other words, it was none of their ‘business’. Undesirable male behaviour was condoned by a conspiracy of silence that went as high up as the Royal Family (King Edward VII’s suite at Le Chabanais brothel in Paris was an open secret for years). Sybil understood that to be safe was to be wilfully ignorant, something Priestley wanted the audiences to have a certain sympathy for because, when society normalised and enabled immoral behaviour, the consequences for poor women - who were anything but safe - were of the utmost severity and something he considered monstrously unfair.
The conduct of the Birling men and Gerald is revealed to be thoroughly scurrilous as the play develops. All the ‘pink lit’ nicety of the opening scenes is stripped under the harsh spotlight the Inspector (Priestley’s mouthpiece) shines on them one by one. Because of their actions Eva is a ‘pretty’ corpse, Sybil’s world lies in tatters, Sheila will likely die an unmarried bluestocking and Edna will lose her home and security. And yet the highest damnation for wrongdoing is the family’s response to Eric’s theft of £50 (around £7000 in today’s money). This amply illustrates Priestley’s disgust for the Capitalist tendency to prioritise profit over people. Arthur says 'If you don't come down sharply on some of these people, they'd soon be asking for the earth' to which the Inspector retorts 'it's better to ask for the earth than to take it!' Here it is clear that he is demonstrating the unfair state of inequality posed by the rich on the working classes and particularly women. ‘Some’ of these people might have considered a salary raise for certain people but probably not a woman because they were not entitled to ‘ask’ for anything at all.
The inspector points out that ‘asking’ for something can be met with a refusal whereas, something that is taken leaves the giver no choice suggesting that a Socialist approach where people were entitled to ask to have their needs met was better than living in a Capitalist state where helping yourself to whatever you needed was de rigueur so long as it was not taken from the pocket books of the wealthy. Eric is demonised for his theft and deception from Birling and Co. Almost nobody bats an eyelid at what could be construed - at the very least - as sexual assault. The value of human life meant nothing to rich Capitalists. It was just another resource to mine for profit and Priestley suggests that this is as horribly short-sighted as it is immoral. The ‘fire and blood and anguish’ that Capitalists will suffer for their greed will be ruin, borne directly of their failure to nurture and provide for the silent majority who made all their profiteering possible.
To make matters worse, they were gaily going about ruining themselves morally too, which he sought to remind his audience would echo for them in an eternity of damnation which is certainly alluded to in his deliberate use of nouns that populate the semantic field of hell. Priestley chose a female victim for his main character because women could be readily exploited both morally and financially due to their poor social standing. Eva begins as a ‘lively, good looking girl’ and a ‘hard worker too’ according to Mr Birling affirming that he had absolutely no cause to fire her other than affront to his male pride. Gerald saw a plaything who was ‘young and fresh and charming and altogether out of place down there’ - ‘a good sport’ to be toyed with and a welcome relief from all the ‘hard eyed, dough-faced’ women and ‘fat old tarts’ that he and Eric BOTH claim to ‘hate’. This word reveals the strong misogynistic streak in Edwardian society that lead men to treat the pursuit of sexual gratification outside of wedlock as a hedonistic and brutal game. It connotes disdain and contempt without mercy for some of the most vulnerable souls in the social hierarchy who had no choice but to 'go on the streets'.
While it is easy to condemn prostitution, it is ironic that its enduring nature can be attributed to the all too Capitalistic principle of supply and demand. Since it is fair to surmise that very few poor women would actually choose to rent their bodies given a viable and more dignified alternative, it is symbolic of the moral decline of society’s standards that both Gerald and Eric express their repulsion for a lifestyle both regularly access for recreational purposes, thereby perpetuating its popularity. In other words, if they had the true moral courage of their convictions, there would be no call for prostitution at all. Both men were therefore raised in a way that made them unable to appreciate the direct link between physical dysmorphia and the decline in moral standards for women when deprived of options in a society where many men barely considered them human. The disdain for the downtrodden was endemic and as ingrained as the wilful ignorance that allowed it to persist.
In showing their callous lack of concern for Eva’s wellbeing until it was too late, Priestley again illustrates his theory that a socialist society would procure a better society for all. For men like Eric, who would not seek guidance ‘because you're not the kind of father a chap could go to when he's in trouble’, it would mean an end to the normalisation of exploitation and intoxication that was undermining the morality of the upper classes. While Priestley may not have being going so far as to suggest we should feel overwhelmingly sorry for Eric, the Inspector’s avuncular sympathy for him when he is distraught at Eva’s death reflects his Socialist view that no human who errs because of their life choices should be denied basic comfort and support - and that this thinking should be applied universally. Priestley had a vision for a fairer, more forgiving community that supported itself as ‘one body’. For Eric, this would mean being raised to embrace his true role as provider and protector. For Sybil and Sheila, it would mean that they would not have to ‘get used to’ being subjugated as broodmares and for Eva and Edna, not being ‘installed’ like appliances and used for service. All would have the right to live in safety with with dignity and the full security of a Welfare State designed without prejudice to benefit all regardless of circumstance, class or gender.