Lo, you may call me Ecclesiastes
What has been will be again, and what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us. (Ecclesiastes, 1:9-10, Authorised/King James Version)
For behold:
Last night, having finished the book I was reading, and not having anything I immediately wanted to get stuck into at that time of night, I pulled Katharine Whitehorn's View from a Column (1981) from the shelves and idly perused.
And therein did I espy an article about the Corrie Abortion Bill of 1979 making points that, alas, are still having to be made.
Furthermore, Ms Whitehorn, on whom be blessings, noted the phenomenon of men giving themselves kudos for not being boring old sexist dinosaurs because they were cool with their wives having careers and bringing in a pay-cheque but registering a total fail on picking up any of the domestic detail whether physical or organisational. While recognising that she was describing a cohort which had not been 'programmed to cope with women who did not regard male welfare as their first concern', she also perceived (o how correctly) that 'It will take more than one generation to change the subconscious instructions the young males are given'.
And there were also her thoughts on Barbara Evans' 1979 book on the menopause, another moment when this phase in a woman's life emerged into public consciousness at least for a while. Whitehorn was actually a bit leery of spreading the info around too generally on the grounds that men were already too prone to dismissing women's concerns as 'that time of the month' or 'having the change'. But did suggest that at least it would help if they got their facts from a well-researched book by a woman doctor. And that anything that counteracting nihilistic attitudes of its being just something to suffer through was a good thing.
She concluded with something that should be on badges and t-shirts: 'it's a stage; a gateway for women to go through and not the end.' Sing it, sister.
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For behold:
Last night, having finished the book I was reading, and not having anything I immediately wanted to get stuck into at that time of night, I pulled Katharine Whitehorn's View from a Column (1981) from the shelves and idly perused.
And therein did I espy an article about the Corrie Abortion Bill of 1979 making points that, alas, are still having to be made.
Furthermore, Ms Whitehorn, on whom be blessings, noted the phenomenon of men giving themselves kudos for not being boring old sexist dinosaurs because they were cool with their wives having careers and bringing in a pay-cheque but registering a total fail on picking up any of the domestic detail whether physical or organisational. While recognising that she was describing a cohort which had not been 'programmed to cope with women who did not regard male welfare as their first concern', she also perceived (o how correctly) that 'It will take more than one generation to change the subconscious instructions the young males are given'.
And there were also her thoughts on Barbara Evans' 1979 book on the menopause, another moment when this phase in a woman's life emerged into public consciousness at least for a while. Whitehorn was actually a bit leery of spreading the info around too generally on the grounds that men were already too prone to dismissing women's concerns as 'that time of the month' or 'having the change'. But did suggest that at least it would help if they got their facts from a well-researched book by a woman doctor. And that anything that counteracting nihilistic attitudes of its being just something to suffer through was a good thing.
She concluded with something that should be on badges and t-shirts: 'it's a stage; a gateway for women to go through and not the end.' Sing it, sister.
This entry was originally posted at https://oursin.dreamwidth.org/3337797.html. Please comment there using OpenID. View
comments.