Difference between revisions of "328 2010--Week 4 Questions/Comments"
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I found the most intriguing part, and yet a short piece, of Linda Gordon’s article to be on the Lesbianism and homosexual escapades. Different from black women’s dependence on their community and occasionally their husbands, white women greatly relied on one-another rather than their husbands or families. “The great majority of white women were single-34 percent had ever been married, and only 18 percent remained married during their peak political activity,” (pg. 229). To this effect women Gordon gives the fact that “28 percent were in relationships with other women…called Boston marriages,” (pg. 229). I think that we as a generation think that Lesbianism is a new trend/ideal, and yet these women were practicing it in the 18th-19th century. This was probably not seen as a controversial idea to these women, so why is it such a big issue today when is a part of history? ---Morgan M. | I found the most intriguing part, and yet a short piece, of Linda Gordon’s article to be on the Lesbianism and homosexual escapades. Different from black women’s dependence on their community and occasionally their husbands, white women greatly relied on one-another rather than their husbands or families. “The great majority of white women were single-34 percent had ever been married, and only 18 percent remained married during their peak political activity,” (pg. 229). To this effect women Gordon gives the fact that “28 percent were in relationships with other women…called Boston marriages,” (pg. 229). I think that we as a generation think that Lesbianism is a new trend/ideal, and yet these women were practicing it in the 18th-19th century. This was probably not seen as a controversial idea to these women, so why is it such a big issue today when is a part of history? ---Morgan M. | ||
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| + | I don't believe that rape was ever "justified" by anyone, and it has always been seen as a barbarism, even when it was performed ritualistically by warring states. Just because a society's dialogue doesn't include rape doesn't mean that it was accepted, by any means. Also, to encapsulate human nature as such is not a dismissal, as is evident even in our so-enlightened society when we "dismiss" the actions of men that is at times chauvinistic or derogatory as "boys will be boys"--does that mean that such behavior, speaking in broad terms, justified? I would think no. Also, while it seems as though black women did not have the kind of access to politicized power as white women did, Gordon points out, perhaps in contradiction to some of her conclusions, that half of the African American women who were married (85%) had influential husbands. I don't really see much difference between what the African American women did in comparison to WASP women, despite Gordon's attempts to highlight them. To me, it seems as though the only thing that really differed, notwithstanding the race issue (which I'm not dismissing), was the time that had elapsed between emancipation and what was then contemporary times. Like WASP women's groups, black women's societies were exclusionary, and it seems that if a few more generations had elapsed then the black women would be just as focused on maintaining social hierarchies as white women were. Perhaps they're concentration in the rural South maintained this as immigrants seldom ventured South and therefore black women would not have a class of "others" to perform activism on. But then again the entire African American community was persecuted against so I'm sure it's not as simplistic as that. I found the "white view" as a class issue, which I agree with and that the WASP women who were single and had a great deal of autonomy assumed that this was a class privilege and something that would not be desirable for poorer women. -schang | ||
== Judy Yung, "The Social Awakening of Chinese American Women as Reported in ''Chung Sai Yat Po'', 1900-1911" == | == Judy Yung, "The Social Awakening of Chinese American Women as Reported in ''Chung Sai Yat Po'', 1900-1911" == | ||
