So David Starkey said some stupid thing about how women have feminised history and focussed on wives at the expense of the the GREAT WHITE MEN who shaped EVERYTHING
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i think the problem should not be with the fact that we can't name as many famous and/or important women as men (which, lets be honest, we can't), but with the conclusion that therefore there *actually weren't* as many, which is much more debatable, and the further hideous conclusion that this is because women are not as capable of famous and/or important acts, which is entirely based on/backed up by sexism.
of course it's important to point out all the famous and/or important women, because it upsets the entire foundation of sexism ("women are stupid!" - er, here's a list proving you wrong), but i feel like we should be focusing more on the zillions of women whose potential to be famous and/or important was denied because of their gender. whether that was in forgetting their deeds/lives (which can and was a conscious act) or stopping them from achieving anything (i.e. denying education, etc).
Well sure, there is room for an analysis of historical trends that repress groups but that's not what Starkey is doing. He is trading on an idea of "Great Figures' who've shaped history and claimed that all such figures are men. He's not engaging with history as wide reaching social forces and I was engaging on his level. Plus, looking up loads of interesting women was fun.
oh, i don't mean do that (although anyone who does history just by claiming certain people were extra-speshul deserves to be shot IMO), i just think that the argument that there were anywhere near as many famous and/or important women as men is doomed to failure*, but that that shouldn't undermine a feminist argument...
*obv, there *are* lots and lots of famous and/or important women, it's just that there are lots and lots *more* men. you could name 50,000 men for every 50 women. my point is, that doesn't mean women are crap.
I'm not arguing there were as many important women as there were men, but that there were a lot of them whose names and deeds do survive and that dismissing them and claiming it was all men is extremely stupid. A lot of the women above contributed to the shaping of Europe politically and culturally. That's pretty damn important and mostly I wanted to make the point that actually yes there were many important women as well.
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of course it's important to point out all the famous and/or important women, because it upsets the entire foundation of sexism ("women are stupid!" - er, here's a list proving you wrong), but i feel like we should be focusing more on the zillions of women whose potential to be famous and/or important was denied because of their gender. whether that was in forgetting their deeds/lives (which can and was a conscious act) or stopping them from achieving anything (i.e. denying education, etc).
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*obv, there *are* lots and lots of famous and/or important women, it's just that there are lots and lots *more* men. you could name 50,000 men for every 50 women. my point is, that doesn't mean women are crap.
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