These little things that ladies do
We all know the framing: Women's work is tedious and unexciting. Women's work is of minimal value compared to men's. It's trivial. It's insubstantial. Women's recreations are even worse.
Once upon a time, many years ago, when the K was getting used to just having Canada in its North American empire, a man named John Graves Simcoe went to Upper Canada (now Ontario) as lieutenant-governor. Being a domestic sort of soul and expecting that this would be a rather long gig, be brought his wife Elizabeth and their two youngest children.
Wile they were in Canada, John Graves Simcoe founded Toronto, established courts, abolished slavery in Upper Canada, dealt with problems with the United States, the effects of the Northwest Indian Wars, trade and First Nations issues and all the other sorts of things a dedicated and conscientious imperialist runs into. Elizabeth kept house, had at least one more child, maintained an active social life, wrote lots of letters home, updated her journal regularly, and painted a whole lot of watercolors of the Toronto area. Because watercolors are the sort of elegant, generally useless past-time ladies might have engaged in without fracturing their gentility.
And now Elizabeth Simcoe's water colors are an important source for what Toronto looked like before Yonge Street got all built up, and her journals and letters are an important source for the non-political aspects of colonial life in Upper Canada.
But women's work and women's recreations are trivial and insubstantial.
Once upon a time, many years ago, when the K was getting used to just having Canada in its North American empire, a man named John Graves Simcoe went to Upper Canada (now Ontario) as lieutenant-governor. Being a domestic sort of soul and expecting that this would be a rather long gig, be brought his wife Elizabeth and their two youngest children.
Wile they were in Canada, John Graves Simcoe founded Toronto, established courts, abolished slavery in Upper Canada, dealt with problems with the United States, the effects of the Northwest Indian Wars, trade and First Nations issues and all the other sorts of things a dedicated and conscientious imperialist runs into. Elizabeth kept house, had at least one more child, maintained an active social life, wrote lots of letters home, updated her journal regularly, and painted a whole lot of watercolors of the Toronto area. Because watercolors are the sort of elegant, generally useless past-time ladies might have engaged in without fracturing their gentility.
And now Elizabeth Simcoe's water colors are an important source for what Toronto looked like before Yonge Street got all built up, and her journals and letters are an important source for the non-political aspects of colonial life in Upper Canada.
But women's work and women's recreations are trivial and insubstantial.