A thread about annyoing re-writings of history

But then it doesn't surprise me, having done English at an Oxbridge college where "Women writers" were a topic in themselves, fit only for comparing to other women writers apparently. Rather than, say, by genre.

This is never talked about is it LRD? I had no idea even about Christine herself until last year, (then I bought her book and got a few comments on my holiday reading matter :o)

Kate - I mean that must be one of the most common medieval names for women. "Rate"? Not so much

It's like any possible excuse to credit something to a man will be taken. And if there's no excuse, well they'll just say "well it must be a man because no women could read".

Chaucer fgs was writing books for women to read, and writes about women reading and writing. So does Boccaccio IIRC. Didn't women do most of the household accounts etc, which requires literacy and numeracy? Many women were running their own businesses.

What more proof do people need? There's a real lala not listening mentality.

Elephants - I've actually only read the Forestwife ones, the three 'Whibty' ones, and the Rope Carrier. I need to Amazon the others!

Not much more to tell about Kate. It just annoys me that someone signs their name 'Kate' and scholars still say, 'hmm, must be a man. I'm sure it really says 'Rate', that makes so much more sense!'.

But we do know that women worked as scribes and in all sorts of ways in the book trade, from fairly early on. Certainly nuns seem to have copied some of their own books, and early book-making firms were very much family businesses, with everyone pitching in.

Christine de Pizan wanted her books to be done by a particular (female) illuminator she knew, since she considered this woman to be the most skillful working artist.

Fucking hell. Sorry, but that is awful Stewie, why on earth have these people not been recognised? Actually got tears in my eyes at the thought of those women.

This is why I wear a white poppy for remembrance day.

LRD - tell me more about Kate. (What other TTs have you read?)

Wow. I didn't know that, SGM.

Are you another medievalist Stewie?

But yes: it's so annoying! At the moment I'm working on a scribe who signs him/herself 'Kate'. Because of the script, it could be the name is 'Rate' (which isn't a real name!).

Guess what gender all the scholars choose to refer to the scribe as?

Elephants, I love Theresa Tomlinson! She is a wonderful writer - especially the Flither Pickers.

I was reading recently about the first female university students, in the late 19th and 20th centuries. Apparently, medics genuinely said and believe that women were not strong enough to be both mentally and physically active: if they went to university and 'taxed their minds', they would stop menstruating and their breastmilk would become too thin to nourish babies! It's amazing, isn't it?

I had thought the argument was simply that women weren't as bright as men (which is bad enough), but this argument is so much worse: even if a woman showed she was brighter than all the men, she'd still be considered selfish for deliberately making herself infertile!

Speaking of, there's a great Punch cartoon of a woman getting onto a train, with the caption, 'First class: For Ladies only'. It was the year that in all the Oxford (Cambridge?) classics students, the only person to get a first was a woman!

SGM - that was my favourite as a kid/teenager (along with Ballet Shoes and The Forestwife, to cover all bases).

Everyone should buy it for their DDs right now!

Ooh, good thread!

Something that annoyed me recently was this:

I am learning how to teach university students, at a good, bright university. The course I sat in on was on women's writing (and women in literature) in the Renaissance and Early Modern period. The teacher was a specialist in women's writing.

Yet still, the course assumed that, before 1500, women could not read and write. This assumption was continually brought up. It's actually rubbish: in virtually all societies where some literacy is present, some women have been able to read.

It may seem like a small point, but I think it is important. These women were likely to be the most privileged (queens and aristocratic ladies), or the most autonomous (nuns, priestesses, etc.). But they could read. It is a mistake to think that women, until very recently, were cut off from education. It is, I think, a lazy excuse people make for not studying women's writing and not paying attention to women's views. People will say, 'no, there are no women writers on this course ... because women could not write'. And this is, almost always (as far as I have seen), untrue.

I would love to hear of a society in which only men could read, write, and make literate comments. I am not sure it ever existed, so why pretend it did?!

Whyyy?

I love Theresa Tomlinson's books, which are aimed at teenage girls really but feature women working in the north of England. The Rope Carrier, The Flither Pickers etc, all about the lives of normal women and really engaging/ well written. (She also wrote The Forestwife which is one of my all time favourites, and Wolf Girl about a girl learning to be a scribe at Whitby Abbey, and The Moon Riders about fighting women in Troy)

the novelist Philippa Gregory is really good at imagining the reality of women's lives, but then she spoiled it in The White Queen by making Elizabeth Woodville an actual witch

Mm, Hilary Mantel seems to be giving her some nice attention in Wolf Hall and the sequel. I thought she was just some wan lady who died in childbirth.

God, so many great women died in childbirth. It is heartbreaking to think of it. And yet somehow when this gets into the history books it makes them seem somehow weak or passive (or is that just my fucked-up perspective?) rather than just bloody unlucky.

yes, they are especially heavy when they become toddlers and small children.

Also babies are actually quite heavy aren't they.

This reminded me of the story of Women Chainmaker's in the Blackcountry. I read about it as a teenager, reading an obscure library book about the history of women & work, and it had a huge influence on me.

I just googled it and found there's a commemoration in a couple of weeks time:Cradley Women Chainmakers' Festival

Warms the cockles of my heart that does.

I might go.

yes but she was royal innit. Although she had more than her fair share of shit to cope with on the feminist front. Maybe she'd have quite liked to get married to someone without giving up her job? Or to have led troops into battle (a far sight better than her wanker of a father)?

I was reading just recently about the medical advice to women going to college in the early twentieth century - did you know blood going to the brain directs it away from your lady parts and makes your uterus wither?

I never understood that bit in P&P where Mr Collins likes to read aloud from Fordyce's sermons, then I actually had to read some of them. Oh My God. It's "women, don't bother about religious thinking too much, keep yourself pretty and please your husband and Jesus will be overjoyed" basically. From a vicar.

Slightly different angle - but where did the whole idea of women being unsuited for serious thought,and thus at risk of brain fever and a mass of other awful fates come from?
Because there are quite a lot of well known,well educated,obviously intelligent women in history,aren't there? (Elizabeth 1st for starters)