A man who quite liked women

It is noticeable that the kind of young woman that a clever public man most likes talking to is intelligent but totally unchallenging. This is pleasant for both. She gets to pick up useful knowledge, while he can hold forth, happy that she doesn’t have the inclination or firepower to disagree, argue or interrupt.   

Dr Johnson was a bit like that. He wanted women to be equal ‘but not too equal’.  Hannah More, a successful playwright young enough to be his daughter, had too much natural self-belief for him, and he did not admire her dress sense. He was wary and in awe of the confident poet Elizabeth Carter, who knew more Latin and Greek than he did. But he really did enjoy the company of women, and understood their difficulties whether married or single, in either case exposed to the ‘conspiracy’ of the world against them, and to ‘sickness, misery and death’.