From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr)
Subject: Re: Plato's Views on Women
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Distribution: inet
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 11:01:38 GMT

In article <ISBELL.92Nov9141459@panther.ai.mit.edu> isbell@ai.mit.edu (Charles L Isbell) writes:
}
}|The thing that strikes me as odd about this is that in order to truly know
}|that half of the human race was shut out of most of history, one would have
}|to know the history of the half that's claimed to be shut out.  This is
}|illogical.  No wonder women's studies is faulted on methodological grounds,
}|if this is the sort of thought it tends towards.
}
}That's not true at all.  One would merely have to know that it was
}done and that it had been the practice to do it.  Similarly, only the

But how can it be known that this was practiced without knowing who it was
that was covered up?  I've heard it claimed, for example, that all the works
of literature that we have that are credited to an anonymous writer were
written by women.  How could we possibly know that all these women were
restrained from public credit for their work unless we know who they were
and who it was that restrained them?

}few could know while the masses were taught differently.  This was/is
}done to the histories of Asia and Africa, for example (at least with
}respect to our version of "World History").  For that matter,
}inventions by slaves were almost always credited (and patented) by
}their masters in America.  We do not have to know many of those
}inventions to know that it was widely practiced and therefore that
}this part of their history was "shut out" and that, indeed, they were
}"shut out of history."

I don't see this at all.  Which inventions?  How do we know how widely it
was practiced?  What fraction of inventions?  Arguing that some knew of
a truth that they covered up is one thing, but to argue that the entire
female of the species has largely been left out of history is a claim that
requires some evidentiary proof, far more that citing several cases of it.

}I suppose one might claim that knowing this practice comprising
}knowing their history, but I tend to think that a pedantic and narrow
}view.

That's not quite what I meant, but close.  Basically, it seems to me that in
order to know that due credit was witheld from most of the women that ever
existed for their achievements, we'd have to know what their achievements
were and how they were witheld.  All I've ever heard about this are apriori
assumptions, and no historical evidence.

}Beyond that, it is clear that the poster was referring to the
}importance of gender.  Whether one thinks that gender *should* be a
}relevant characteristic in history, it remains a somewhat obvious
}truth that it has been (and, for that matter, that it is).  Therefore,
}it is often "of importance" when studying history (or contemporary
}events).

Granted, but the justification proffered was that we have this endemic practice
in Western culture of leaving out the Marie Curies, Cleopatras, Sapphos,
Boadiceas, Eleanor of Acquitaines, Queen Elizabeths, Mary, Queen of Scots,
Lady Macbeths, Joan of Arcs, Indira Ghandis, Margaret Thatchers, etc., which
is far from obvious to me.  Oh, and don't forget Thucydides' noble companion
whose name I can't recall at the moment...


Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! - Think Universally, Act Selfishly
starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu

"True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten
oneself and others." - Voltaire
Newsgroups: soc.women,alt.abortion.inequity,talk.abortion,alt.feminism,soc.men