I have a problem with prejudice and discrimination. My problem is that I don’t understand it. When I meet someone I don’t think of them as a member of any particular group. I see that as a unique individual rather than an example of a ‘race’, colour, gender or sexual orientation. Knowing that you’ll have a clearer understanding why some of the attitudes in this book perplexed me.
It would seem that there has always been opposition, until very recently, to the idea of educating women – at all. Not only where they considered to be basically unable to reason in the same way men did but that too much thinking could make women sterile – or worse, independently minded. The early resistance to the very idea of teaching women anything other than how to run an effective household was staggering which made the pioneers of women’s education all the more heroic. These often forgotten women (and a few men) fought against prejudice and ignorance to found the first schools, colleges and later universities where women could learn the same subjects as men and pass the same exams. The time and effort it took is staggering to behold. I never realised that, what many take for granted today – that women are the equal of men in all things – was a truly alien concept until very recently (actually within living memory in some cases). Of course education of women inevitably led to demands for greater job opportunities and even the vote – which some early critics pointed out would bring down western civilisation (represented at that time by the British Empire). In some ways they were of course right. The west has changed out of all recognition in the 200 years or so between the first fumbling steps to educational equality for women and the opportunities that both genders have today.
Drawing on personal memories of the early pioneers still living and the diaries of those now dead, the author weaves a fascinating tale of hard battles won and lost in the drive for equality between the sexes. Sometimes deeply personal, this book often surprised me with the deeply irrational barriers put in the way of women who wanted nothing more to learn, think and be heard. It astounded me that otherwise well respected men (and even more surprisingly women) dismissed the possibility of an educated woman as if such an idea was absurd at best. The vitriol directed at these women and their supporters staggers belief. The threat felt by those who represented the ‘Establishment’ must have been heart felt indeed. Luckily more sensible, reasonable and forward looking heads prevailed and slowly women took up the challenge they had so long fought for – an education as good as any man. I take my hat off to those pioneers who fought so long and so hard for an apparently simple thing – equality of opportunity. I am impressed both with them and this book that brought them to my attention. Heartily recommended for anyone interested in modern (mainly English) social history.
6 comments:
I'm reading about lady suffragettes in Britain at the moment, and they were a LIVELY crew.
I understand your inability to understand this kind of discrimination. I grew up in a post-sixties world, and my older relatives' lingering racism bewilders me, same as their rather parochial attitudes toward "appropriate gender roles".
That kind of ignorance has to be taught, I think, installed in the crib, because there's no sensible way of becoming that kind of prejudiced.
sc said: I'm reading about lady suffragettes in Britain at the moment, and they were a LIVELY crew.
Most definitely!
sc said: I grew up in a post-sixties world, and my older relatives' lingering racism bewilders me, same as their rather parochial attitudes toward "appropriate gender roles".
Indeed. I grew up in the 60's and probably absorbed my lack of prejudice from the air around me. My Mother is rather homophobic which generates some interesting arguments in her house! She's completely irrational about it.
sc said: That kind of ignorance has to be taught, I think, installed in the crib, because there's no sensible way of becoming that kind of prejudiced.
Totally agree.
Sounds like a good book.
Prejudice and racism are shortcuts to thinking. If you just pigeonhole people because of their supposed "group", then you don't have to take the time to actually know them and understand them. And if you don't take the time there, you probably don't the time in other areas of your life. Prejudiced people are straight-up ignorant ... there's no pretty way of saying it.
dbackdad said: Sounds like a good book.
It was. It was an impulse buy that I really enjoyed.
dbackdad said: Prejudiced people are straight-up ignorant ... there's no pretty way of saying it.
Often wilfully ignorant. Though I think quite a bit of prejudice is about power - or the feeling of the lack of it.
But the book is much more about overcoming prejudice and changing long held cultural attitudes than anything else. The (largely) women who struggled for centuries to make this happen should be applauded.
One of your lively suffragettes ran in front of a horse at the race and killed herself, didn't she? I seem to recall something about that. As for discrimination against women, I understand that as a species, we evolve to survive. Holding back half the population does not encourage survival. That said, with all the good that comes of educating girls, making them into future productive, tax paying citizens, I don't understand the countries today that don't educate their women and then wonder why they are 3rd world nations. If you want to be successful, everyone needs to pull their weight.
v v said: One of your lively suffragettes ran in front of a horse at the race and killed herself, didn't she? I seem to recall something about that.
One did indeed during the June 1913Derby. Emily Wilding Davison threw herself under the King's horse. The act was highly controversial on both sides of the debate.
v v said: As for discrimination against women, I understand that as a species, we evolve to survive. Holding back half the population does not encourage survival.
Definitely. Why waste half of your populations potential. It make no sense - unless you belive that they have no potential.....
v v said: If you want to be successful, everyone needs to pull their weight.
I guess other things than success are more important to some cultures - like preserving the gender power divide.... strange as it may seem.
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