Why did Lady Whistledown hide her true identity in Bridgerton season 1? Netflix’s latest period drama, Bridgerton is set during the Regency Era. This was a time when printing had begun to become affordable, and consequently writers began to experiment with creative new ways to make money. All this would ultimately lead to the rise of the so-called “scandal sheet.”

“The idea of gossip and scandal and celebrity culture that we have today was really coming into being in 18th century London,” Sophie Gee, author of The Scandal of the Season, observed in an interview with The New York Times. “It was a moment when a fascination with celebrity coincided with a number of very great writers wanting to write about celebrity.” One of the most fondly-remembered pamphlets of the time was called “Characters of the Present Most Celebrated Courtesans Exposed, With a Variety of Secret Anecdotes Never Before Published,” which titivated readers with news of the scandalous affairs of the upper classes. Bridgerton exploits that idea with a similar pamphlet, written by the pseudonymous Lady Whistledown. But why did the writer choose to conceal her identity like this in Bridgerton, rather than claim credit for her work?

On the surface, Whistledown’s secrecy is simply because of the subject matter Lady Whistledown was choosing to consider. As popular as Lady Whistledown may have been, her interest in scandal naturally meant she would swiftly build up a significant number of powerful enemies. In fact, she seemed to make it her specific goal, even attracting the ire of the Queen herself after reporting on Prince Friedrich’s failure to win Daphne’s hand in marriage. But it isn’t just the manner of what she writes that puts Whistledown in danger, it’s a product of the very system she – somewhat hypocritically – manages to reinforce. And while her final moments in season one are dedicated to claiming she has the power to reveal her identity – bringing into question her motivation in the first place – she will not be able to because of older issues with her social background and her gender. Fundamentally, her conduct would have been considered unbecoming of a lady.

There is, of course, considerable irony in this. All Lady Whistledown is actually doing is exposing the truth of Regency society; her gossip sheet is well-loved precisely because she is known to be accurate and she is a figure of fear because of that. But Whistledown is an issue for the people of the ton – particularly those who profit from the maintenance of the status quo, because she is a woman. At one point, it’s imagined that she could only possibly keep up her facade if she were personally wealthy (and probably a widow), because, fundamentally, society has no place for upwardly mobile female characters. The greatest irony – and tragedy – is that Penelope Featherington (as Whistledown) herself enforces that by upholding the same pressures and patterns of control – damning those like Eloise to a life of suppression (as well as those who seek the sub-cultural delights of the ton). She is both product of and contributor to a great hypocrisy that judges women by a different standard, even powerful women.

Bridgerton is built on a matriarchy, led by Queen Charlotte, upheld by Lady Danbury, and presided over in secret by Lady Whistledown, but it also explores how each of them remains subject to the powers of the patriarchy. The Queen is constantly forced into a sort of performative perfection (embodied by her obsession with being right), because of her husband’s condition; Lady Danbury still has to plead with the Duke of Hastings to see reason; Whistledown has to cower in secrecy. Her revelation of the truth might be a crime to decency, but her true crime is being a woman challenging traditional power structures. And the punishment for her would be vastly more extreme than that doled out to dishonorable men, who are stripped of dignity but not status, while the so-called “fallen” woman are forced to literally commodify their bodies to pay some societal debt. Honor for men is doing the right thing, for women, it is dropping back into a position of acceptable acquiescence beneath a man or facing banishment to poverty.

“Perhaps I will come forward one day,” Lady Whistledown writes in the final scandal sheet of the season. “Though, you must know, dear reader, that decision shall be left entirely up to me. Yours truly, Lady Whistledown.” It is, however, quite difficult to imagine the circumstances where Penelope would be wise to reveal her true identity to the world – especially given she already found herself pursued by the Queen in Bridgerton season 1. She would pay a terrible price for her honesty, one that it is hard to believe she would ever consider worth it.