I’ve decided to continue the exploration of the unspoken history of our country as seen through political cartoons and messaging. I’m not doing this as an exercise in hopelessness. It’s easy to fall into that trap when seeing so many of the same themes over and over. But along with the recurring issues, I see the battles that have been won, even when the “war” is ongoing. For me, remembering the past gives me courage to fight for our future. I hope it will do the same for our Village.
This week, I wanted to focus on the misogyny in our history, but the topic was so broad, it became unmanageable. Since I have no desire to do a dissertation, I chose the suffrage movement as the exemplar of the patriarchy in our midst. The images today are mostly postcards from the early 1900s, as well as political cartoons.
A woman who is undesirable is likely to support women’s suffrage. If only she had a man in her life…
A woman is not equipped to make the decisions that could impact the country.
Our founding is immutable and does not allow for rights for women.
An empowered woman disempowers a man.
A woman’s responsibilities to her family will be ignored.
A woman with a cause is a woman not fulfilling her duties.
An ambitious woman is on the path to ruin.
A woman’s place…
And yet, here we are…and we’re not going back.
Good morning, DoReMI, and thank you kindly for this blast from the past! Those cartoons set my teeth on edge.
Patriarchy, your 5,000 years are up! Generation by generation, we’ll erode your hegemony.
Honestly, men! You’ve got to laugh or you’d cry. Ever notice how what women do is invisible? Men only notice housework when it hasn’t been done. (That reminds me to get the laundry finished today, I’ll be on strike tomorrow. And like Denise over in Morning Check-In, I need to search through my stuff to find something red to wear.)
Just saw an item on FB that made my blood boil. It showed how few female protagonists there are in children’s books. The few girls present are all waiting for princes to rescue them. I’m bringing up my little granddaughter to watch stories about fearless girls who aren’t afraid to defy tradition. That’s why we watched “Whale Rider” together the other night.
On the same theme, why isn’t it ever WOMEN who develop killer apps and become billionaires? Just got annoyed by the founder of SnapChat. I thought, why wasn’t it invented by someone female? Or is it that we’re too busy making sandwiches and picking up the dry cleaning for the guys who do develop killer apps?
We saw what happens when the most qualified candidate ever to run for POTUS was defeated by the least qualified.
OK, I’m pissed off for the day. Thanks again, Do, and women, unite!
I don’t know how old your granddaughter is, but The Paper Bag Princess is always a good read and a fun way to break from the usual fairytale stereotypes. I have yet to meet a young girl who doesn’t end up loving it; just like racism, patriarchal norms are learned.
She’s eight, and I will look that up on Amazon! Thanks for the suggestion! :)
She might have outgrown picture books, but it’s still worth reading together.
Another common-sense Obama EO bites the dust: https://twitter.com/SenKamalaHarris/status/838923645812617216
Another reminder of what we lose when we don’t control the executive branch. As much as we all hated losing Congress completely in 2014 (and the resultant blocking of President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee), we always knew that The Government had our backs. Now when I see that the government did something, I feel terrorized! Your Tweet –
I hope not quietly, but with a lot of people watching and determined to take back the Senate in 2018 and the White House in 2020.
It is the lack of awareness about how things work among the young people who stayed home and pouted that was so destructive. People who were in grade school the last time the Republicans damaged our country and our lives with a Unified Republican Government, can be forgiven for not knowing first hand how awful it was but they can’t be forgiven for not educating themselves. Workplace protections, environmental regulations, Climate Change mitigation, NOAA satellites for crying out loud – all of it is subject to the chopping block when you give power to people who hate government and hate people who think the government has a role in our lives.
On Twitter this morning I saw someone complaining about the berners, saying “y’all saw the Titanic hitting the iceberg and bitched that the deck chairs aren’t recycled wood”. Exactly! I am furious whenever I see Sanders tweeting about freaking Wall Street when so many people face an existential crisis – workplace wage protections are really important to real people – in the here and now – and can be done in the executive branch. Now we will have to wait 4 years for that kind of power to make people’s lives suck less. :(
He will become more and more of a joke as things get worse and worse. To be impolite, no one gives a fuck about locking up bankers when their mom is getting deported, they can’t even go to the bathroom and they have HPV because they can’t get the vaccine anymore because PPs have been shut down.
But then, like everything else, these morons were told that electing Trump wouldn’t bring the revolution they wanted because people will be fighting for survival, not conducting revolution for the ridiculous berner anti-capitalist utopia.
Here’s more on the 49-48 vote that we lost, from Charlie Pierce:
Thanks for the thought-provoking and sobering cartoons, DoReMI. Not much to add, as I’m about to go to bed, but hope that the wedding you went to last weekend went well and that you and your family (and all other Meeses) are doing well.
Hi, basket.
Thanks, basket! It wasn’t a wedding this weekend, just more wedding planning with my daughter. I should put planning in quotation marks, because my daughter and her fiance are so hyper-organized, that there’s really little to do. I was taking down vintage aluminum lazy susans, trays, and cake stands for their “wedding cake” table…instead of cake, they’re having donuts with one over-sized donut for them to cut. They’re both stage managers by avocation, so I shouldn’t be surprised that so many of the i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed already (the wedding is in October), but it does leave me scrounging for ways to be helpful/useful. My daughter keeps telling me to just relax and enjoy my lack of responsibilities, but between the fact that she’s an only child and that I don’t do relax and enjoy all that well, it’s a constant battle to avoid making her crazy. I actually started a secret Pinterest page for my alternate-universe wedding ideas, so I can have the fun of looking for cool ideas without being THAT mom.
Ah, gotcha. It is hard to relax and let someone else do the work but I will definitely keep you in mind in case I’m looking for a wedding planner :)
thanks DoReMi for the double duty today, it’s much more comfortable commenting here. I was reared around dedicated patriarchs not all of whom were male, it made me cynical at a very young age. I’m always surprised that people don’t seem to want to investigate what the women who support that nonsense get out of it. Sort of like trying to figure out why the women in polygamous groups support that, what is their pay-off?
If you figure it out, let us all know! My father was far ahead of his time in his views on and actions toward women. My parents were married in 1949, and although my mom was the more “traditional” of the two, she worked outside of the home all of her life. My dad didn’t cook or iron, but beyond that, he shared in all of the household chores with us. When my sister or I complained about having to wash the dishes every night, my dad became a male Fury and reminded us that our reasonably comfortable lifestyle was due to my mom’s paycheck…so our expected contribution was to make her life easier. He didn’t put Mom on a pedestal, but he acknowledged and appreciated her contributions without feeling the least bit threatened.
My sister apparently learned from this the exact opposite lesson that I did. While I learned to be an unapologetically strong woman, my sister learned to be a dependent woman. She’s actually as strong as I am, but she subsumes that and always has. Every single one of her boyfriends and both her first and second, current husband were/are control freaks who believe the model of womanhood is barefoot and pregnant. (My sister had seven kids as a result; five of them were born after she had her tubes UNtied at the demand of her second husband.) She’s worked two jobs as long as I can remember, but was still expected to have dinner on the table precisely at 6. Her weekends were spent cleaning the house and doing laundry (her husband would go bass fishing in the bass boat he bought with the small inheritance my sister received after our dad died). I don’t think she’s happy, but I do think the emotional abuse has Stockholmed her into acquiescence and blind obedience. She was an uncritical Trump voter and isn’t speaking to me anymore because I challenged her on her vote. It continues to stun me, because I know how we were raised…and Trump does not represent any of the values that we were taught.
Thanks, DoReMI!
We have to keep at it.
Brings to mind my favorite wimmins’ music song, by Meg Christian.
https://youtu.be/XUzukX2dWhg
Can we be like drops of water falling on the stone
Splashing, breaking dispersing in air
Weaker than the stone by far but be aware
That as time goes by the stone will wear away
Good morning and thanks DoReMi.
It would be nice if W would come out and tell the idiot that he’s the one who released the prisoners from Gitmo, not Obama. The idiot knows that, but anything to bash Obama.
Thanks DoReMI for the post…interesting images…all that thought is still very much around today…especially the if you are a feminist then you must hate men…I see this last election as an rejection of the left’s attempt to “feminize our men” as one relative told me…the more women who came forward to accuse trump of assault the more women like her believed it was an attempt to bring him down…to ruin his life like those nasty young women who lead young men on and then accuse them of rape…
If I’d had more time, I would have done double images: “here’s the historical image” next to ” and here’s what happened to Hillary during the campaign season (and her entire adult life actually)”. If I ever decide I want to go out of DK in a fireball like Reese [intentionally] did, I may yet do it. Of the many things Hillary did for me during the campaign, it was her reawakening of my long-dormant feminism that I’m most grateful for.
{{{DoReMI}}} – if you decide to do that, warn us first so we can all be there to rec’ the heck out of before they ban you. :)
Yep!!
If I decide to do it (which is unlikely at this point), I’ll be doing it precisely to get banned!
In the meantime, I’m hoping to find out more about some of the behind-the-scenes maneuverings at DK. I have a friend who works there, and I finally told this person about some of my bitterness about the Village and the shenanigans that went on. We’re going to talk about it together at a later date (we were texting very, very late last night and neither of us could stay awake any longer). I don’t know how much actual scoop I’ll get, but at the very least, I may gain some insight into the management perspective…beyond the passive-aggressive message that Jab shared.
Be interesting to know – the berners’re still lurking in the Village diaries. Had one pop in yesterday in response to a comment I made about having hoped their $27 community would be successful and we could work together on our common issues. Same ol’ bs about us hating and attacking BS as to why it didn’t work. Projection is their religion I guess. Even if it were true, that shouldn’t have stopped them from building a successful community. heaven knows we did with constant attacks on Hillary and us. sigh. (now, i gotta admit Michael seems to like to feed the trolls – but he only feeds them if they show up and start yapping. he doesn’t go out looking for them.) Hope you don’t get the same ‘divisive’ crud from your friend.
It’s fairly obvious bias, except for the fact that the Village diaries are published in the open they’re still participating in their 27 Dollars communities, so aside from using Admin to shut the Village down in order to have more control over the DK narrative, the only other explanation is simply irrational hatred…which, let’s be honest, is believable and was observable throughout the Primary so…..meh.
If you find out, please let us know.
There are persons on dk that I will never read or rec again. I’m glad to see that some of them have either left or are keeping a very low profile.
Yes you got it…
{{{DoReMi}}} – bless you for doing double duty.
The paradox of white male dominance – they know they can’t compete and win so they use violence to take over management, then make it illegal for anyone to compete with them. They know they are abusive, so they resist by law and social training any loosening of the bonds for fear of reprisal. Basically they are so small of soul and spirit that they assume women and people of color will do unto them as they have done unto others – and are so terrified of being treated the way they treat others that “equality” is a threat, a death sentence even – and they are like cornered, rabid rats over it.
And still we have Resisted, Persisted, and made Progress. {{{Village Peeps}}}
FYI – for folks who’ve been helping with the fundraisers for Aji and Wings – we’ve got a new diary and a $1,000 match going. While there will have to be another one – sigh – due to the expensive electrical cock-up and Cree dying, meeting this match will wrap up this one. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/03/07/1640819/-A-House-of-Healing is the new diary. If you can get in and rec, I’d appreciate it. Thanks, bf
I haven’t been keeping up. What happened with the electrical? And was Cree their builder?
Cree was a horse they’d rescued 15 years ago – the fact that Cree lived to be 20 was purely due to their loving care of her. But home vet visits the last few days and burying a horse (which required hiring a backhoe) is very expensive.
Aji doesn’t like to talk about it because it pretty much amounts to a betrayal, but one of the builders – who was wonderful as far as the early stages of building were concerned especially the adobe part – didn’t know wiring from a hole in the ground, wouldn’t admit it, and did the wiring anyway. They discovered how dangerously wrong the wiring was when the plumbers came in. The plumbers basically said it was a tossup between an electric fire or being electrocuted in the shower but one or the other was going to happen soon after the power was turned on if they didn’t get it fixed. So they had to pull out the sheet rock, redo the wiring (which with adobe means cutting new channels in the brick), then replace the sheet rock. So lots of materials replaced and lots of work hours redone. It’s not finished yet because they haven’t found a licensed electrician to check it out first. (No building code on the reservation so no inspectors to catch things like this. There’s a reason for those “invasive” regulations the Rs complain about.) Aside from the about $10K in increased costs, there’s a betrayal of trust here that really hurts.
I was watching video essays yesterday, on someone who considers himself a very intelligent and intellectual individual….who stated with no hint of irony or self-awareness that he believed in 1st wave feminism, some 2nd wave but thought 3rd wave was brainwashing….and as I sat there stupefied I couldn’t help but wonder…how? How is it possible such an idiot who considers himself so smart hasn’t taken a minute to see that his arguments to dismiss recent feminist are the exact same arguments that ‘not sexist’ men used against 1st wave feminists, and the same used against 2nd wave as well. And maybe, just maybe, he agrees with the things that have been normative now for a century, but….maybe, just maybe, like the men who were around and pushed back against women’s voting rights, you are sexist and the reason you don’t support and agree with current feminist issues is because you’re sexist? Maybe?
The more feminism threatens patriarchy, the harder it is for male allies to embrace it. A lot of first wave feminism was about addressing specific, unfair policies. Fair vs unfair is an easier position to embrace than that which threatens the foundations of patriarchy. When feminists are accused of feminizing our culture, and that is viewed as a negative, it’s because the assumed norm is patriarchal. It’s privilege which needs acknowledgement and examination just as much as white privilege, but for some reason, white men in particular seem to have a harder time doing just that.
I am convinced that the real issue is that for the first time in human history women have the ability to actually control reproduction and that threat to male supremacy has not been fully addressed. It is behind the war on birth control which has always been the target. Abortion was a smokescreen because it was thought that no one would think it a good thing or even worth defending. This past election has let us know just how far we have to go.
Astute analysis.
thank you. People thought I was crazy 25 years ago when I warned them that the forces against abortion would go after birth control next. They denied it, pointed out that such a stance was counter-intuitive and blah blah blah. So here we are where women of means think are able to control their reproduction. That is until they come smack up against the cold hard truth that no rights for poor women actually means no rights for rich ones either. Not when it’s a matter of law. The woman in Ireland who died because the Catholics would not allow her to have an abortion to save her life was an educated professional.
Also, this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-mike-pence-emails_us_58bde0cce4b033be1467d150?ir=UK+Politics
Hallo Meeses! DoReMI thank you for this look at the misogyny deployed against suffragettes in cartoon format.
HAHAHA!
SCIENCE!!!! ;)
FYI – elenacarlena just posted a Breaking Pawlitics – apparently we have until midnight to comment on the proposed changes to the ACA – it took me 2 tries to get through but it’s pretty simple once you get there.
Take Action: MAKE PUBLIC COMMENTS: Obamacare Rules: Regulations.gov: Your Comments: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Market Stabilization
Here’s the link to her diary if the link to the gummint site didn’t carry over
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/3/7/1641025/-Breaking-Pawlitics-Midweek-Special-Comment-NOW-on-Obamacare-Rules-Changes
Thanks bfitz, I have made my comment. I had to wait a while for the browser to complete the page but I left it alone and it finally came up. I appreciate the enabling!
{{{MomentaryGrace}}} – glad you could get through. Apparently they only gave us 24 hours for comments – just like they are trying to schedule a vote before the Budge Office finishes rating it. And somebody pointed out that even if the Rs manage to pull this off, the comments stay in the record and can be used in a Court challenge later on if necessary. Persist – Resist – Persist some more.
Love the Graphics DoReMI, great post.
I just had a thought…50 years from now will there be comment threads like this with images of 2016 Primary ads along the same lines, only these ones will insinuate that women are the sole caretaker of the economy and if I woman has the audacity to campaign on something aside from strict economic equality she’s not doing her duty to protect the economy? Kinda like the old ones took women to task for having the audacity to do something aside from childcare and homemaking?
{{{CBD}}} – I doubt it. They’re still – usually covertly rather than overtly these days – taking us to task for not obeying the “biological imperative” to be baby ovens and scullery maids. Half the Hillary Hate has her refusal to only stay home and bake cookies at its core. That’s a sizable chunk of sexism – stay where I tell you, serve me the way I want to be served, and don’t you dare to compete with me in my world (and if you beat me, I’ll kill you).
Love the article DoReMI.
48, crazy windy in chicago metro! Outstanding round up!