Gender Roles in Henry Fielding's Tom Jones

What distinguishes the ways in which Fielding describes women and the ways he describes men?

In a society stressing male dominance, it is surprising to find an author (male, no less) who writes his female characters as more intelligent than and even superior to his male characters. Henry Fielding demonstrates this respect for his female characters in his 18th century classic, Tom Jones, as well as in other works, like his novel, Amelia. To support this claim further, it is best to look at and compare heroines Sophia and Amelia as well as some of the most important male and female characters in Tom Jones: Squire Allworthy, Jenny Jones, Master Blifil and Bridget (Allworthy) Blifil, Squire Western, Mrs. Western, and finally Tom Jones himself. While the men in the novel are seen as the most knowledgeable, and therefore the ultimate authority of 18th century British society, it is really the female characters that are the wiser. Like in the case of Squire Western and Mrs. Western, on Sophia's marriage dilemma when Sq. Western decides for his daughter without argument about whom she should marry, while Mrs. Western advises her niece to be patient with her father and continue to see Tom. Or when Squire Allworthy and Jenny Jones are discussing Tom's parents at the beginning of the novel and Allworthy takes it upon himself to turn his assumptions into fact, while Jenny knows the real truth. Fielding allows his male characters to get carried away with themselves, believing that they truly know what's best for those around them, while secretly showing the reader that his female characters are sometimes the key to resolving the conflicts that the men would simply continue to fuel if the women were not their to provide a pair of on looking eyes.