H.W. - 2 Quotes from readings and responses 09/17
Chadwick (class text)
The confusion of sovereignty with personal property (the fief) contributed to the emergence of a number of powerful upper-class women at a time when most other women were restricted to the home and economically dependent on fathers, husbands, brothers, or sovereigns.
Its interesting how on a technicality, some women of upper class were able to gain a bit more rights and property. Their experience is not similar to that of other lower class woman, and so they had more in common with men by comparison. I don't think I ever considered that, but it makes sense.
I would assume this creates a divide between women, as upper class women wouldn't understand (from experience) the struggles women in the majority (lower class) went through. I can imagine they thought it wasn't too bad or that the struggles of women "beneath them" weren't their concern.
The division of labor according to sex is a modern invention, often manifested in attempts to identify female sexuality with activities like needlework.
This one surprised me. I think I always believed that woman and men were always segregated and that women were expected to stay in their homes birthing, taking care of children, or doing domestic labor, while men were outside in the field, running businesses, and whatnot. I didn't know that division of labor is more of a modern idea and invention.
You'd think that as time moves forward, and we become more educated, that these ideas wouldn't have power over us, but unfortunately from what's going on in politics in the year 2025-26, it's not always like that. Sometimes we take 5 steps forward, and 10 steps back, but sometimes those 10 steps back is what it takes to remind people why history and education matters.
Why it matters that we can point out what racism, fascism, misogyny looks like. Why it matters who is in charge and who holds the microphone. When people start to think it doesn't matter, and when people forget how to spot it in the wild, we end up repeating the same mistakes from our past over and over again.
Guerrilla Girls
But homosexuality between women, if one of them was married, was considered adultery, a punishable crime. Somehow, the Greek poet Sappho, a priestess living on her own island, escaped this censure and wrote eloquently of her love for other women.
I always thought that back then homosexuality and queerness were more normalized and not moralized, but I guess back then if you were a sapphic woman, your love and attraction towards women were seen as criminal. I do remember hearing about how sexuality back then was more about what you did and not necessarily who you were. It was purely an action and not an identity or culture people could relate to. I can see both the pros and cons to both ways of thinking.
How hypocritical that older men having relationships with young boys was considered normal and even "loving", especially when those young boys were likely minors being preyed upon by older men. Today, I believe we'd call this pedophilia, sexual abuse, and statutory rape. We're more aware of the dangers and harm of exposing people at such a young age to sex and sexual situations.
I THOUGHT THAT [HER] ACHIEVEMENTs WERF WORTHY OF SOME PRAISE, FOR ART IS VERY MUCH ALIEN TO THE MIND OF WOMEN, AND THESE THINGS CANNOT BE ACCOMPLISHED WITHOUT A GREAT DEAL OF TALENT, WHICH IN WOMEN IS USU- ALLY VERY SCARCE.
I wanted to add this because it's just too ridiculous for someone to ever think that intelligence and talent is natural only to men and not women. That a woman to be educated, and having the ability to express her talent and ambitions is something to be in awe of because it's "scarce". When the only reason it seems that way is because we were taught to never show it and some unfortunately weren't taught at all. It's an unfair comparison.
It makes me think of a quote from Albert Einstein: "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."
Instead of women naturally not being more intelligent or talented as men, they simply weren't allowed to, and were instead taught to be silent, passive, submissive, and unextrodinary because they were taught they're only use was to get married, give birth, care for her children, and obey her husband.
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