Women and such
Feb. 9th, 2010 06:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xenithThis was going to be a post about how female characters are presented in SF/F, expanding on an idea I had while reading a comment in ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cassiphone 's journal. But I thought about it some more and what I wanted to then write was based on assumption about people's assumptions based on comments I've seen in other places. Which might be a good enough basis for my argument or it might not.
Then I thought about asking readers of this post what their assumptions are, but those who are most likely to comment are not the target of the question. And anyway, I couldn't think of a way to put it that was elicit useful responses.
The sort of thing I'm thinking of... I've mentioned before but no doubt to a different audience of how, when I was younger and used to read family history magazines, there was invariably an article or letter from someone about an female ancestor who had done this and this while raising a dozen kids and was obviously strong willed, independent and superior to her peers. Given that everyone seems to have at least one such ancestor, I did wonder who their peers were :) I think the assumption behind these "discoveries" is that women who are "just" housekeepers and "just" mothers are inferior to women who go out and work. If you extend that to a era when most women stayed at home and raised kids*, then it become easy to assume that modern women are inherently superior to women of the past. I would like to think I'm wrong, but the more I read and take part in discussions, the more common this attitude seems.
There's another common attitude that comes into play of course: our current society is the best that has ever been, and society is improving all the time. Therefore we are inherently superior to anyone who's been before? If you do believe that, how many people do you know that work more than a 40 hour week? And that's a step forward? Obviously there are things about our society that are better or are perceived by us to be better than (pick some time past). Medicine for starters :) But if you take the attitude that our "modern views" are superior and all enlightened people in the past and the future will share them, well, you might be able to guess what my original post was going to be about (or maybe not, because my thought was about the why, not the what).
But that's not supposed to be content of this post. I am interested in how we do view women's roles historically. I don't suppose any one wants to contribute their opinion?
*We'll overlook for a moment that many of those women were working on the farm, helping run the family business or bringing outside work home to supplement the income.
cassiphone 's journal. But I thought about it some more and what I wanted to then write was based on assumption about people's assumptions based on comments I've seen in other places. Which might be a good enough basis for my argument or it might not.Then I thought about asking readers of this post what their assumptions are, but those who are most likely to comment are not the target of the question. And anyway, I couldn't think of a way to put it that was elicit useful responses.
The sort of thing I'm thinking of... I've mentioned before but no doubt to a different audience of how, when I was younger and used to read family history magazines, there was invariably an article or letter from someone about an female ancestor who had done this and this while raising a dozen kids and was obviously strong willed, independent and superior to her peers. Given that everyone seems to have at least one such ancestor, I did wonder who their peers were :) I think the assumption behind these "discoveries" is that women who are "just" housekeepers and "just" mothers are inferior to women who go out and work. If you extend that to a era when most women stayed at home and raised kids*, then it become easy to assume that modern women are inherently superior to women of the past. I would like to think I'm wrong, but the more I read and take part in discussions, the more common this attitude seems.
There's another common attitude that comes into play of course: our current society is the best that has ever been, and society is improving all the time. Therefore we are inherently superior to anyone who's been before? If you do believe that, how many people do you know that work more than a 40 hour week? And that's a step forward? Obviously there are things about our society that are better or are perceived by us to be better than (pick some time past). Medicine for starters :) But if you take the attitude that our "modern views" are superior and all enlightened people in the past and the future will share them, well, you might be able to guess what my original post was going to be about (or maybe not, because my thought was about the why, not the what).
But that's not supposed to be content of this post. I am interested in how we do view women's roles historically. I don't suppose any one wants to contribute their opinion?
*We'll overlook for a moment that many of those women were working on the farm, helping run the family business or bringing outside work home to supplement the income.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-09 09:15 am (UTC)It seems less acceptable to discuss feminism now even among very educated people, because of the assumption that we should have the whole equality thing sorted by now and therefore not have to talk about it because, you know, there was so much talking about it 30 years ago.
I think you're absolutely right that there have been strong women right there through history, getting things done. Women's history is constantly being erased, and their work being dismissed as irrelevant. It isn't quite as bad as it used to be, but it's still happening. One thing the internet has done is brought out so many female voices, shouting, talking, DOCUMENTING their lives and their work.
Having studied Roman history, and coming up against academics who still think studying women is unimportant because they didn't have anything to do with war and politics (which are important because men did them)... yeah. There are a lot of assumptions out there.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-09 09:45 pm (UTC)HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Oh, sorry. I was just having a flashback to Augustus' wife, Livia. And Nero's mother. And . . .
no subject
Date: 2010-02-09 10:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-10 08:26 am (UTC)I've been lucky in studying and haven't come across much of that of thing. The opposite usually (topics that deal particularly with "women's issues"). Of course there's the problem that women aren't as visible in historical records, even in more recent times. History is about rich, white men! That's part of the appeal of family & local history, the non-rich, non-white, non-men members of society start appearing.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-10 08:52 am (UTC)The important thing to know (and it goes against the layman's view of history) is that nothing in history happens in a perfect linear fashion. often, with women in particular, it's one step forward and two steps back.
Just look at the WWII history of women entering the workforce, earning their own money and freedoms, developing valuable skills, and the immense social and political pressure brought against them at the end of the war, to get them back in the damn kitchen.