This is what happens when you get women in politics

[BasilRathbone]

OK that's a flippant thread title. But I was thinking as I watched this, how fucking irritated I always am, by the wanky male notion, that emotion has no place in debate.

Firstly, dudes who tell you that your view is invalid because you are "emotional" about it, invariably ignore their own emotion about the subject, because they think they own reason and their lofty dismissal of women's arguments as "emotional" is actually just plain sexism - quite often, you see the argument which women are putting forward calmly, coherently, assertively and realise that emotional" is just a silencing technique.

Second, being emotional is part of being human and as long as it doesn't interfere with critical thinking, it's perfectly valid as part of a debate.

But really I just wanted to share this video because it's so rare to see a right wing person in politics speaking so movingly about anything.

I too am irritated by the notion that emotion is misplaced in debate, business and anywhere in fact where men preside. I'm not saying we all sit around weeping at our desks in the workplace, but anger and upset are valid emotions in certain situations. Just because the patriarchy consider them invalid when women show these emotions does not make it so.

Good video btw. She makes some great points.

Yes they're only invalid when women express them aren't they?

"Righteous anger" is perfectly OK when men express it.

Ah, but when men express emotion it's because they really feel it deep in their hearts. Women OTOH can turn it on like a tap.

I think that's the implication, anyway. Another version of the 'women are all natural liars' theory.

Yes, the idea that we're shallow and changeable and inconstant.

I went to see Cosi Fan Tutti last night. Blimey Mozart was having a misogynist moment when he wrote that...

I've never seen it or anything else by him - is he generally quite enlightened in his attitudes then? Or was this par for the course?

Well, he was about as enlightened as any other man of his age (or of today's age, ie not very much). His portrayal of women in the other operas in the series, Don Giovanni and Marriage of Figaro, is much more positive, but The Magic Flute has also been criticised for misogyny (and racism). Not sure about the other stuff as I don't know them at all.

Book here

That's why I find the current uncritical sycophancy towards Dickens a bit boaky.

Oh god yes Dickens' women are all awful aren't they?

I can't remember one I believed could actually ever exist.

But he was horrible to his wife so what d'you expect.

Pah.

I know hardly any Italian, but I think there's a significant error there. Cosi Fan Tutti uses the masculine plural, and might mean "That's what everyone does". But it's actually Cosi Fan Tutte which is the feminine form, so it says "That's what all women do". Or was this show done with a slightly changed title, for this era?

Anyway, Lorenzo Da Ponte wrote the words, so perhaps Mozart shouldn't get all the blame. Da Ponte was quite a boon to the female gender:

He studied to be a teacher and was ordained a Catholic priest. While priest of the church of San Luca in Venice, he took a mistress, Anzoletta Bellaudi, who was married. Da Ponte delivered their first child, an event which he commented was "the kind of incident that happens every day." Reprimanded by the vicar-general, Da Ponte and Anzoletta opened a brothel. Charged with "public concubinage and rapito di donna onesta" (abduction of a respectable woman), Da Ponte was banished from Venice for fifteen years.

Dickens did manage to put some very likeable women in David Copperfield--Aunt Betsey and Peggotty, and David's second wife Agnes isn't too much of an angel-in-the-house. But then his first wife Dora...

Yes that English title is completely wrong isn't it?

Too long ago since I read it.

The only one I remember, is Our Mutual Friend. All the rest of them kind of blend into a general Dickensthing for me.

A bit like Thomas Hardy. They're a jumble of characters and I never remember which books they're in. Except Jude.

Oh don't get me started on Dickens. Great Expectations is the biggest load of misogynistic twaddle. Miss Haversham and Estelle are epitomes of the stereotypical "bitter and twisted" man haters. Why we had to learn it for O-Level at a girl's only school god only knows. Would love to have done it from a feminist perspective. Hated it!

Glad it's not just me. Conan Doyle -also currently being feted -wasn't too great at writing the ladies, either.

I can't stand Dickens. He just leaves me cold. He did however inspire one of my teachers into a fantastic rant about how only a man could think that being presented with a turkey and all the trimmings, on Christmas morning, when you're cooking on a coal fire stove, was a good thing!

We were 11 doing A Christmas Carol.

I think the idea you have to separate emotion from rational thought is a really stupid 'development'. Really good politicians would use their emotions to arrive at and test their reasons for doing something.