Padlocking the lovely unsullied mind

[oursin]

Further to my snark yesterday I have realised that the article in question manifests a phenomenon (or two related phenomena) which were in play in a couple of my other posts towards the end of last week.

One is the designation of a group which will be the manifestation of certain qualities that we, the privileged and the ones with cultural power,

Comments

[oursin]

When I went to see the Bluestockings exhibition at the NPG, there was a small exhibit in another gallery on Victorian women historians, who were srs bznz - e.g. the Stricklands badgering to be let look at original State Papers for their work on the queens of England.

And on women writing about war, have these people not heard of Testament of Youth?

Oh yes, and on Mamma Mia, which does indeed sound fun (a senior male academic of my acquaintance loved the stage show to pieces) - for men, maybe a movie can't be acceptable fun without violence, blood, and stuff being blown up. Or possibly classic physical comedy routines.

[nineveh_uk]

rather than just, for instance, watching Daniel Craig kill someone with his bare hands
Actually, I think it was about watching Daniel Craig tied naked to a chair, but tastes differ ;-)

[sollersuk]

Unfortunately it's also possible to get the emphasis wrong in the other direction. History as taught in English schools seems (when it's not about WWII) completely to do with lifestyles without any attempt to put them in context; if, for example, you're studying villagers in the 12th century, it's worth mentioning the likelihood of armed men coming through raping and pillaging at certain times, and just possibly giving some idea of why.

[oursin]

Plus extra props for their amazing SKILLZ in writing female POV, sigh.

[legionseagle]

Oh, urg, yes. Ditto Anna Karenina.

[legionseagle]

I could not believe that Hewlett could come out with the tripe in that interview (to be fair, I'm not quite sure Kermode could, either; there was a sense that the interviewer might have been milking it for comedy gold).

Actually, a number of people I know were at the premier at the Manchester International Festival, and far from being riveted by the cross-cultural, truly sensitive exploration of Eastern values in a multi-media, multi-layered environment the most interesting thing they found to say about Monkey: Journey to the West was that Jude Law was in the audience.

[tree_and_leaf]

Though when a man (HAI! M Flaubert) writes a woman-centred novel focussing on female experience, it is Searing Indictment of Society: when women do this it is (but of course) Mills&Boon/chick-lit/Aga-saga.

A very effective way of, if not silencing, then trivialising, women writers. They get you coming and going.