Hart is a freelance writer and published author. In the following essay, she examines the play's definitions of what makes a girl tough and how Mae West does or does not fulfill those descriptions and how the characters Jo and Charlie try to emulate that toughness.

In Claudia Shear's Dirty Blonde, the characters Jo and Charlie open the play with statements of what they believe makes a girl tough. A tough girl is someone who does not care what other people think about what she does, how she talks, where she goes, they say. She does what she wants to do. She “doesn't sit like a lady or laugh like a little girl,” Charlie says. Rather, she wants to “dress up” and “go out.” And when she goes out, she wants to dance, but not just stepping to the music, she wants to dance “close and tight...