Oh Joy! Oh Joy! Oh Joy!
I received in this morning's mail a
book that I happened on - I know not where
:P - but when researching for it, I
found it at Amazon for .99 + 3.99 shipping, and how could I pass that
by!!!
It's titled Women of Ideas: & what men have done to them
by Dale Spender, an Australian feminist who has written several books about
women's place in history including Man Made Language and Invisible
Women. When my husband handed me the
package and I felt the bulk of it, I wondered "did I order two
books?" It's 700 pages plus, but looks like a wonderful read of women's
writings over centuries about how it is to live in the "men's world"
and what happened to the women's opinions, publications and thoughts.
I am reading the preface and find it very au courant. She
gives a little philosophical introduction about her thinking that brought her
to compile and write this book. - In reading the feminist literature of the 60s
and 70s about patriarchy and women living in the male world and how that
impacts on us, and discussing it with other women, they began to ask "are
we the first generation of women to have felt this way?" Some of them were
vaguely aware that women did have a past of asking these questions, but it was
shadowy and random.
She lists a whole paragraph of women writers who shared
similar concerns from Abigail Adams to Alice Rossi (1973) and says "With
the advent of these publications the question of whether women had thought and
felt
(isolated, invisible, ignored, demeaned, laughed at, considered to
be 'sick', because they questioned the systems and posed that patriarchy was a
problem)
before, was put to rest - THEY HAD! Another question
arose in its place: why didn't I know, why didn't WE know?........Why were
women of the present cut off from women of the past and how was this achieved?
" She comments that if we don’t find out, it can happen again……….ala ”war
on women.” [Pg3]
I felt it was a currently apropos question because as she
continued to talk about what it is to be an "x" in an "o"
world and how the people in charge of society can force those without control
to abide by their rules or be ostracized, I began to think about what is
happening about women's/ racial issues today, about how any "x" gets treated
similarly in other "o" worlds. Just exchange the words "male
control" with the words "white privilege."
We have seen very clearly the attacks on Pres Obama as he
dared to become the president of the U.S. Just imagine what it will be like if
Hillary becomes president - at least Obama is a male, thereby having some
regard by some of that half of the population - or how bad it will get for her
in the election period. A huge part of her unfavorable numbers, I am sure, is that
she is a woman challenging the male powerhouse. She must be untrustworthy,
because she has the audacity to want to have the greatest power/control on
earth! There must be some witchcraft in her somewhere! How could a mere woman
have the intelligence, experience, competence to know she shouldn't share
classified information???? etc. etc. It's going to be very ugly!
Remember how Hillary's poll numbers improved in the 2007
campaign when she got emotional in NH ? ...... She became "a woman
exhibiting proper behavior" for many. What a shame.
I am going to enjoy this book and will probably share more
of it with you as I go along. It's going to take a while - 756 pages! I really wish I
had the women's group that I was a part of in the early 70s where we discussed
so many of the feminist writings, to talk with about this book. What fun that
would be!
In sisterhood, Jean
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