As persuasively and sensitively as Tolstoy renders Levin and Kitty’s relationship, it is nonetheless a very particular type of marriage, one between a thinking man who sought not an intellectual partner but a complement, a yin to his yang—a lovely young wife, a “good” woman—only to find that coexistent with such goodness are desires of her own. Tolstoy treats this kind of complementary marriage as a given: what a sensitive but also sensible man like Levin would naturally seek.
This seems like a rather bleak perspective on marriage, but it should be read as a bleak view of a specific kind of marriage, and a critique of Lydgate’s romantic thinking. Where Tolstoy is sympathetic to Levin’s vision of love, Eliot is critical of Lydgate’s ideas.
.. Intelligence matters to these heroines because they crave, above almost everything else, conversation, the kind that requires mutual understanding.
.. the good marriages, that we see in their work may not represent, as we are often quick to think, a romantic sensibility or a form of sentimentality so much as an attempt to demonstrate the strength and desirability of equal marriages.
.. Herzog is a world-renowned scholar with a seemingly endless list of wealthy and successful friends; he has ample opportunity to express himself in writing, and to engage with peers. (Whether Ramona is an idiot or a savant, he won’t want for intellectual companionship.) Jane, on the other hand, is a lowly and lonely governess without any claims to status in the eyes of the world; her wit and originality of mind are entirely unrecognized until Rochester comes along and offers her the outlet she has long yearned for. For centuries, men have had far more opportunities to find intellectual outlets outside the romantic sphere—they’ve been able to travel more, to meet a broader range of people, to have professions, to win the respect of peers. Women, on the other hand, were forced to lean more heavily on love and marriage, for intellectual recognition and companionship as for everything else.
How do you raise an intelligent and happy daughter in a sexist world?
1) “no TV ever, no movies, no pop music, no magazines”
Does this also mean no friends? Because if she has friends she will be exposed to those and other influences. She will feel excluded from society if she is forbidden to see any of it, and she will eventually hate you for it.
The most rebellious people I know (who often ended up rebelling too hard), are those who had parents doing exactly what you describe to them – and to a far lesser degree.
This will backfire, and it will end up hurting both of you in the process.
.. Additionally, I would ask you to consider how you can teach someone critical thinking without exposing them to anything to be critical about (those supposedly bad influences). You don’t educate a person by not exposing them to bad things. You educate them by showing them the bad things and commenting together on why they are bad (in addition, this should be done more by asking questions and letting the person reach their own connclusions, instead of providing answers in a dogmatic way).
Alice Paul: Feminist, Suffragist, and Political Strategist
Unfortunately, Tacie Parry had to drop out in 1881, one year short of graduation, when she married William Paul (married women were not allowed to attend school.
.. Cunningham, was noted on campus for her admonition, “Use thy gumption”.
.. The Pankhurst women (mother and two daughters) were leaders of a militant faction of suffragettes whose motto was “Deeds not words.” Believing that prayer, petitions, and patience was not enough to successfully enfranchise women, the Pankhursts engaged in direct and visible measures, such as heckling, window smashing, and rock throwing, to raise public aware about the suffrage issue. Their notoriety gained them front-page coverage on many London newspapers, where they were seen being carried away in handcuffs by the police.
.. Paul joined their movement, personally breaking more than forty-eight windows (according to one interview) and was arrested and imprisoned on several occasions.
.. Paul took strength from a quotation she often saw etched into the prison walls by her compatriots: “Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.” This sentiment, first expressed by Thomas Jefferson, and later adopted by Susan B. Anthony, now inspired a new generation of revolutionaries in their quest for liberty.
.. The scene turned ugly, however, when scores of male onlookers attacked the suffragists, first with insults and obscenities, and then with physical violence, while the police stood by and watched.
.. The NWP organized “Silent Sentinels” to stand outside the White House holding banners inscribed with incendiary phrases directed toward President Wilson. The president initially treated the picketers with bemused condescension, tipping his hat to them as he passed by; however, his attitude changed when the United States entered World War I in 1917. Few believed that suffragists would dare picket a wartime president, let alone use the war in their written censures, calling him “Kaiser Wilson.” Many saw the suffragists’ wartime protests as unpatriotic, and the sentinels, including Alice Paul, were attacked by angry mobs. The picketers began to be arrested on the trumped up charge of “obstructing traffic,” and were jailed when they refused to pay the imposed fine. Despite the danger of bodily harm and imprisonment, the suffragists continued their demonstrations for freedom unabated.
.. Prison officials removed Paul to a sanitarium in hopes of getting her declared insane.
.. resident Wilson reversed his position and announced his support for a suffrage amendment, calling it a “war measure.”
.. The deciding vote was cast twenty-four year-old Harry Burn, the youngest member of the Tennessee assembly. Originally intending to vote “no,” Burn changed his vote after receiving a telegram from his mother asking him to support women’s suffrage.
.. “I never doubted that equal rights was the right direction. Most reforms, most problems are complicated. But to me there is nothing complicated about ordinary equality.”
Alice Paul- Interview, 1972
Samantha Bee Prepares to Break Up Late-Night TV’s Boys Club
Lizz Winstead, who created “The Daily Show” with Madeleine Smithberg, said that despite the success of shows like “Broad City” and “Inside Amy Schumer,” “there’s still an undercurrent, at networks and studios, that anything that comes from a lens of quote-unquote other will not be accepted by white male viewers.”
Ms. Winstead, who is a founder of the comedic activism site Lady Parts Justice, said that people in decision-making roles still needed to go through “a full cycle in their careers” of working with people of differing backgrounds.
.. The “Full Frontal” producers used a blind submissions process to hire new writers, meaning that they did not know the names or backgrounds of the people whose material they were reading.
.. Speaking from her corner office, she said: “Maybe I should be more panicky about it, but I actually feel pretty mellow. I’m really confident.”
Then again, she added, “If you look down this row of offices, there is a bottle of alcohol in every single desk.”