Why we need to give up reading F. Scott Fitzgerald and start learning women's history.

From MS Magazine blog, see whole blog at:

 http://msmagazine.com/blog/2013/05/06/gatsby-gets-flappers-wrong/

 "Indeed, Zelda, who was ultimately diagnosed with schizophrenia and died at an insane asylum, spent most of her marriage struggling to define herself as an artist and her own person. Her husband copied liberally from her journals and letters for his novels. When she finally wrote an autobiographical novel of her marriage in 1932, Save Me the Waltz, he edited out several of the stories that he intended to use for his own, 1934’s Tender Is the Night. But Zelda, as fearless and trail-blazing as she was, can’t even embody the flapper movement fully. For one, it was not all white women, as NYU’s Modern America reports: “For the time being, the bob and the entire Flapper wardrobe, united blacks and whites under a common hip-culture.” Secondly, the flapper’s rebellion against Victorian sexual mores didn’t start among the high-society debutantes but in “working-class neighborhoods and radical circles in the early 1900s before it spread to middle-class youth and college campuses.” The flapper movement wasn’t simply a fashion trend, as Emily Spivack at Smithsonian.com’s Threaded blog explains; it was a full-blown, grassroots feminist revolution. After an 80-year campaign by suffragists, women were finally granted the right to vote in the United States in 1920, when the 19th Amendment was passed. When the U.S. entered World War I in April 1917, many women entered the workforce, and when the soldiers returned in November 1918, their female counterparts were reluctant to give up their jobs. As a result, young, unmarried women experienced far greater financial independence than they’d ever had before. Bicycles, and then cars, allowed them to get around town without a male escort. The spread of electric lighting allowed nightclubs to flourish, just as the Prohibition Amendment of 1919 forced them to go underground. Drinking at illegal “speakeasies” became a thrilling part of flapper culture. Inspired by Cubist art and Art Nouveau haute couture, flappers rejected the dramatic, hyper-feminine S-shaped Edwardian silhouette created by tight, time-consuming corsets for sheath dresses that gave them boxy boyish shapes. This straight up-and-down figure was so extreme that curvier women went out of their way to squeeze into girdles and bandage their breasts flat. These radical women pushed the boundaries of androgyny even further by chopping off their long Edwardian locks for bobbed hairstyles. At the same time, flappers revealed a shocking amount of skin. The older generation was absolutely outraged by the site of bare knees and arms, which flappers would highlight with loads of bangles. They were also appalled by the red lips, rouged cheeks and kohl-lined eyes of flappers, as previously only prostitutes had worn makeup. So flappers were derided for being both too masculine and too titillating." Why do we keep reading male writers who have their own agendas, especially in their descriptions of women and women's behaviors? Not only was FSF misleading in his description of the flapper, but he stole Zelda's journals and included the info in his books as his own! And we call HIM the great American novelist!?! Are literature teachers still teaching FSF? Are they reading real history and discussing the misinformation in their classes? I must admit that i see alot of FSF's vacuous flappers in today's young women's dress. The lack of common sense in wearing SIX inch heels, spandex dresses that they can't sit in, mini skirts in which they are obviously incomfortable!?! WTH? They think they are sexy? Well, i've got news for them, if you have to shuffle and not stride across a room, it ain't sexy! What happens to smart women's minds when the fashion gurus,or the Kardashian sisters, dress women, or themselves, in obviously uncomfortable clothing? Being uncomfortable denies sexy, except maybe to 15 yr old boys who get excited at any hint of flesh above the knee.

Book - The American Heiress

I'm reading an interesting, light book, An American Heiress by Dorothy Eden. The  illegitimate dgt of a wealthy New Yorker is left with his widow by the house servant  mother. The child grew up to become the maid of the legtimate dgt, but also  educated with her. As adults the legtimate dgt is engaged to an English lord who  needs her money to keep his estate operating. She and her step-sister and mother  sail on the Luisitania to the wedding in England!!! Yes! Hettie,  the "maid", survives, the mother and fiancee die. The mother in an  attempt to save her jewelry had made Hettie wear some of it when they were  forced to abandon ship. When Hettie was found alive she was mistaken for the  bride-to-be. She follows thru and marries the lord, who had only met the  bride-to-be one brief time. It sounds like a stupid scenario, but Eden makes it seem  plausible. The lord marries and hurries off to the trenches in WWI, Hettie takes  control of her "inheritance", which you could say she rightly deserves being the  other spawn of the father, and efficently and soundly uses it to fix up the estate.  There is a woman who anticipated being the wife of the lord but had no money who  is obviously going to be a problem. Also sounds silly, but i'm enjoying it. I know that somewhere down the years she's going to get "caught." that's the  suspense.  Why do we love these upper/lower class relationship stories? Upstairs/Downstairs,  Downton Abbey. Is it just English stories we like. Is there a lower class in The Great  Gatsby? I've forgotten. I'll be curious to see other reviews of this book to see how They respond to Hettie's deception.

Chapter 1 con'd

There is one more love of mine that i will probably be talking about -MUSIC. Music soothes me, makes me laugh, makes me dance, energizes me, sometimes makes me cry, reminds me of events past, reminds me of people in my past, connects me with younger members of my family, makes me want to sing, creates entertainment for me, my family and my friends. Good gracious! Is there anyting else in your life that can do all that for you? And most of the time, it's for free! Can't beat that bargain.

Let me return to the issue of woman. Most of us had women teachers all thorough elementary school.  I did. There was one male sixth grade teacher in our elementary school. For most of us our Mothers and the female members of our families were the most important peoplein our lives until we were into our teens. For me women Sunday School teachers and librarians were also important. From the time i was 8 or 9 i could walk the six long blocks in my small town to the library. It was housed in one of those quaint, small, red brick buildings that had started life as a railroad station. There is at least one in almost every small town on the east coast. By the time i was 10 or 12 i was shelving books and checking out books for patrons. From that age on there has always been a library in my life. 

My question is, since we all had that foundation of women being the authority, the decision-maker, the comforter, the doctor, the manager of the household, how did we then get brain-washed by society to believe men were better at those tasks than women!?! For most of us by mid-teens had "learned" that lesson, and many still live with that idea today. 

Chapter 1 - What WOMAN STORY is All About

WOMAN STORY

Chapter 1 - What WOMAN STORY is All About

WOMAN STORY

Chapter 1 - What Is WOMAN STORY All About?

This blog will be primarily about my four avocations: women, learning, books  and  yarn crafts. That sounds really boring, doesn't it? NOT SO! Stick around for a couple "stories" and see.

My #1 avocation has been women:  studying about women, listening to women, reading about women and their history, teaching others about women and women's history,  preserving women's history,  helping women in the workplace, helping men in the workplace understand women in the workplace,  and working and lunching and chatting with women. Most of this blog will be about those things.

My #2 avocation  has been learning/teaching. Many times I am the one who is learning and many times I am the one doing the teaching.  I love doing either one of those. Sometimes my actual title has been "Teacher/professor/trainer." But even when it wasn't, I always got in a little teaching,  whatever my actual occupation was. A lot of this blog will be leading you to books,websites, magazine /newspaper articles where you may learn something new. I am thinking I should include "research" as another avocation. I LOVE doing that almost as much as I love learning ( OH, you're thinking  "aren't they the same thing?" I'm not sure.  Tell me what you think about that) and  as much as I love teaching/training.  More about all of this  later.

My #3 avocation is books. As long as I can remember - granted that time shortens the older I get :) - I have been read to, or have been reading, and always loving it. Much more about that later.

My #4 avocation has been knitting and crocheting, altho in the last year it has been occupying a lot more of my time and has been competing with #'s 1,2, and 3. There will be less about that avocation then the first three.

Are you wondering about the blog title? WOMAN STORY,  not Women's Story or A Woman's Story? I thought that might catch you eye. …………. I choose that word title because it is not going to be A woman's story, I'm going to talk about a lot of different women, but generally one at a time. It is not MY story, altho some of it will be personal. There is also some philosophical use of the word WOMAN that came about in the first feminist/suffrage movement in the 19th century, or maybe even before that,  of which  I have forgotten the details, (it's that memory thing again. HEY, my computer/brain is full, it takes a little time to retrieve info) but I WILL CHECK THAT OUT and get back to you on it.  Remember, I mentioned that I LOVE doing research? I know just who I need to call to chat with about that "woman" thing.  The folks at the other end of the line  will be women, of course!

The STORY in WOMAN STORY is my belief that every one's life is just a whole series of stories and everyone has a story to tell. When I taught history I told my students how ironic it is to me that studying  history is just a whole series of stories about people and events. I also find it ironic that it is His-story, because that is what it was entirely until the latter part of the 20th century and then THE WOMEN ROSE and said we need some HER-STORY as well. And oh boy! It's all over the place! So if you didn't have any women in your American History textbooks and classrooms, come on around! I'm going to tell you about some very interesting ones.

Always in my teaching or discussions I like feedback, comments, musings, questions. Please fill free to participate.