Monday, February 27, 2006

Scholarly Environments Are Not The Dominion Of White Males

This also is tied to the old acclaimed 1800s universities.

I read somewhere on the internet that a woman was so mad.  She felt intimidated by the old university atmosphere because she thought it was somehow too "masculine" for her.  And of course she then garbled on about how this was insulting to her as a strong capable woman in charge of her own life.  She apparently thinks higher education is the bastion of men.

Ah, excuse me?  Guffaw-laugh.  Are you serious?  How in the world is intellectualism "masculine" in any way, shape, or form?

Really?  Books, microscopes, shelves and shelves of tomes.  Delicate little movements of operating a digital balance scale, measuring out micrograms of dry reagents or microliters of liquid chemicals, setting up an organic chemistry extraction apparatus and connecting rubber tubing to a sink.

Guffaw.  How in the world does any of that possibly convey an atmosphere of being remotely manly?  The pursuit of post-secondary education is not masculine, not by a long shot.  Men hardly claim any sort of dominion over formal higher education.

As a matter of fact, intelligence and higher education has a distinct public image of being nerdy and geeky.  If anything, it is effete and delicate, and quite distinctively asexual.  It transcends all that "battle of the sexes" crap.

I grew up in New England as a child, amongst the international graduate students as well as professors, with whom my parents were very close friends.  There were roughly equal numbers of men and women.  Old, acclaimed universities were my playground.  My parents, as they were graduate students themselves, were involved in all sorts of campus cultural events and programs.  I never once got the impression that this world was reserved solely for men.  I never felt unwelcome.  None of the other women appeared to feel the least bit unwelcome, that they did not belong here, etc.

More recently when I was a college student myself, I never felt that this was not my place.  This was home.  In the chemistry lab, surrounded by funny little glass flasks, ring stands, Bunsen burners, watch glasses, I felt at peace.  I never felt out of place.

No, you know what is overly masculine?  Violence.  Beating people up, cage fighting.  Come on, do I really need to talk down to you by way of explaining?  We all know the stereotype of the dumb football player jock.  The meathead weightlifter at the gym.  To be sure, higher education is not really feminine, either.  No lipstick, heels, short skirts, none of that crap.

Sunday, February 19, 2006

They Were Wrong About The 1800s

The general media have been feeding us the wrong public image of the 1800s for a while now.

Women were not oppressed nearly as bad as people have led us to believe.  All those liberals tried to tell us that women were not allowed to work, were not allowed basic human rights and/or social rights.

But this is not entirely true.  They were nurses, teachers, school marms, governesses, then later switchboard operators.  They founded colleges, for goodness' sake.  Women founded colleges by women and for women.

Also, African-Americans founded historically black colleges for African-Americans.  I know this was a horrible time for black people.  But because of this struggle and strife, black people had to fight to be heard.

Their true eloquence and heart began to shine.  The inhumane, unthinkable conditions that whites forced black people to endure, had the astonishing outcome of allowing brilliant leaders, intellectuals, and nurturers to emerge.

The harsh, grueling abuse vortexed and had to bring out the best in black people, because otherwise blacks would not have been able to survive.  Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth.  Phillis Wheatley-- actually, she lived during the 1700s.  Close enough.

For goodness' sake, you're still going to try to tell me that the 1800s were terrible??

This is the time in which blacks became pioneers, iinnovation [[[geniuses]]  They had the concept of thinking unconventionally long before Microsoft and Apple did.

I knew it!  I knew the 1800s could not have been that bad.  I have never believed that the 1800s could have been the prison of oppression that the liberal media has made out.

They had Abraham Lincoln, they abolished slavery, they had lots of great academia already in existence back in the 1800s.  A lot of colleges and universities sprung up in the States during that time.  The liberal intelligentsia still try to hammer it into people's heads that the 1800s were hell on earth for women.  I felt very, very mildly vague guilt whenever I professed to love the Industrial Age.  But not enough to fend myself away from the gorgeous décor and nostalgic books.

This quote will sound a bit weird, but it fits perfectly here:  Ariel from Disney's The Little Mermaid said, "I don't see how a world that makes such wonderful things, could be bad."  It turns out the appeal was not just aesthetic.

I was happily amazed to learn that women were in fact the first medical doctors in the United States.  I was blown away upon learning of this fact.

And actually it makes sense.  They were already midwives; they were already nurses.  Women always were charged with healing the sick; they distilled herbal remedies at home.  They were already familiar with the apothecary.  Legal Medical licenses first began to be issued in 1863.  Women probably figured, oh well, if it takes that paperwork to continue to legally be allowed to practice medicine, then we shall go ahead and get that taken care of.  After all, they were already doing most of the work of doctors.  Why not get the official recognition for it?

But then the menfolk for some reason decided that the pursuit of medicine offended women's delicate feminine sensibilities.  What??!  Imagine, the insensible malarkey!  A prestigious, respectable, educated career is somehow unsuitable for women?  That is utter rubbish.  If they have the mental acumen to handle the science and the strength of mind to handle the rigorous responsibility, then it is suitable for women.

I was just as much infuriated when I learned this as to the degree that I was elated to discover that women were the first doctors of medicine.

Women also did plenty of disgusting, grueling work-- maids, cleaning people's toilets, laundry.  Remember this was the 1800s; they did not have washer and dryer machines back then.  I was livid at the disclosure that men were obviously okay with women doing manual labor, but claimed that women were too good to be doctors.  Riiiiggght.  Well, I guess the liberals were correct about one thing.
--
I read somewhere abtt femisn___

At least they acknowledged that there was a marked difference between economic classes__-

But they are majorly incorrect on this issue.
Women who were born into upper classes, most specifically the elite rich, had enormous freedom.

One point that liberal feminists try to cite as evidence of the 1800s being oppressive is that women could not get written works published as easily as men could.

Oh, give me a break.  Why?  Because they could not get a writing job, this is somehow proof positive that people back then were cruel, abusive towards women?

Yes, I am aware that the Bronte sisters had no choice but to assume male nom de plumes to be able to get their works published.  But let us ponder this a bit more closely for a moment.  Witness how good Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre" was.  It was intellectual, it was insightful and introspective.  It was not some romance novel or pulp fiction drivel.  It offered so many universal truths about the human experience, which are still very relevant to this day.  Her grasp of human psychology and how this colors people's future behavior -- this has stood the test of time.  All she had to do was change her name to a man's name, and that publishing company sent it to the printing presses.

So basically all that a liberal is saying is that crappy writers could not get a job.  Erm, don't know if you realize it or not, but that is a good thing.

I knew this girl in high school that had this insufferable notion that the absolute privileged luxury details of life (icing on the cake) are somehow emblems of feminism, that is, hallmarks of human rights.  There was an essay about, like, "what if Shakespeare had a sister?"  At least that girl was staunchly anti-vegetarian.