Such a great read! I’ll pick it up from time to time and just get the best chuckle from her clear Aristotelian disdain. Thanks for spending time with my words and my attempts to build another city of ladies 💜
Thank you! This was a very interesting and informative piece of writing. It triggered a couple of thoughts.
About the male able body being the default assumption:
When my wife was in chemotherapy about 12 years ago (she passed away three years ago; this was early in her cancer treatment) she was seeing a gynecological oncologist (she had ovarian cancer). The Gyn-Onc office had their own chemotherapy suite, with big recliners for patients to sit in while getting their chemo infusions. Every one of the chairs was exactly the right size for me (I'm 6'2") but none of the (100% female OF COURSE) patients could sit comfortably in them. Their feet didn't reach the floor and their heads missed the headrests. We wondered what the hell they were thinking -- but of course if you DON'T think, you just do the default thing and make the default assumption for the default reasons and order the "standard" sized chair.
About Aristotle and philosophy in general:
Another philosophical thread that comes into this is dualism, the idea of the body/mind dichotomy. People seem to have a penchant for mapping dual pairs onto other dual pairs (via shoddy analogies based on dubious dualities). Of course, some of the philosophers mapped body/mind duality onto male/female duality and decided that, in their essential selves, women were their bodies and men were their minds. That idea seems to have hung around for centuries, clouding all other thinking about men and women and fairness and society and ability and rights and so on and so on. I can still sense its lingering influence today in the claims made for male and female attributes, strengths, weaknesses, etc. It is a deeply pernicious idea, but one which is less recognized as such because it seems on its face to be merely bad philosophy. The trouble is, bad philosophy kills, it just does it slowly over historical time instead of all at once like a bullet. And sometimes it even does that.
This are the thoughts as they occurred to me. Very probably, you knew this already, and if so, just consider this to be redundant noise. I just wanted to say it since I was thinking about it.
Thanks again for a wonderful well-researched and well-analyzed article.
Stuart, first — thank you for such a thoughtful response! I’m so grateful for such intentional time spent with my words. Thank you!
That feels all to familiar re: the chair at the gyn-onc office. When I was fighting my own cancerous cells (cervix) I had a male doctor performing one of the surgeries and when he was looking at my cervix, he very (very!) loudly asked “HAVE YOU SEEN THE SIZE OF THIS MASS?” and I looked up and he was looking at me! The doctor was asking me if I’d seen my own cervical mass….what in the anatomy and physiology type of question is that?! I’ve not seen a male doctor since.
Your point re: the philosophers bears resemblance to an argument Christine de Pizan made regarding patriarchal pedagogy and how naturalized these thoughts become when misogynistic texts are used by clerics to learn to read/write/debate/etc. Just parroting one another down the centuries and calling it human condition.
Thank you, again, for spending such thoughtful time with my writing. It is SO appreciated.
Oh my goodness, Hans, I highly suggest bell hooks’ a will to change — in it she breaks open this idea of soul murder on a personal and cultural level. It is one of the most influential reads of my lifetime, to be honest. I remember thinking that when I transcribed her speech, how it could just be placed into today’s world and be just as applicable. It’s heartbreaking how little progress we’ve made. Thank you for always spending time with my words. Taking the time to acknowledge them means a lot to me, thank you 💜
I loved it, and loved the wide-ranging perspective that hooks offered. I really appreciated defining love as spiritual growing personally and with others.
I don’t know if you know this, but I serve a church as a pastor, so I’m pretty steeped in a patriarchal structure that is trying to change. Slowly. I appreciate you and your willingness to share. I have quoted hooks in sermons and bible studies, now that I have started to read the works (which I had never read previously). Anyway, a little tiny background. Thank you.
Yes! I found the chapter on communion really powerful. It’s been some years since I’ve sat with all about love, I may need to return to it!
Thank YOU for your work. I was at a civil rights conference a few years ago and one of the speakers was a pastor and I was not prepared for my visceral reaction to his words — I sobbed. He was the first pastor I’d ever heard confront the realities of patriarchal harm within his sermon. I am not religious personally, I do believe myself spiritual — I see our universe and our mother earth as deities — but it meant so much to know that those within the bounds of patriarchal spheres are recognizing the harm perpetrated and bringing along their community in interrogating that harm. Thank YOU! 💜
I wrote a chapter on Marie de Gournay in my first book and an Oxford bibliography on her as well. The value and importance of her friendship with Michel de Montaigne, the essayist, continues to be dismissed. Montaigne stated plainly that his friendship to Gournay was akin to the one he shared with Etienne la Boétie. Centuries of scholarship have praised Montaigne’s essay on that friendship with La Boétie (“On friendship”). Equally, centuries of scholarship — until this day — have dismissed his friendship with Gournay, or picked it apart, claiming she made it up, or that there was no way it could have come close what he claimed he had felt for La Boétie. Scholars I know who have worked on her have had to respond to questions from other scholars - in the 21st century — about whether she slept with Montaigne. They cannot conceive that an older man would have any respect for the intellect or friendship of a younger woman. Gournay faced so much sexist disparagement in her own lifetime, but she never stopped writing or editing.
Oh my goodness, I am so glad you left this Note. While I was researching her I ran into some of this patriarchal bias (never disclosed, of course) and I stepped right back out of the research and kept it surface level. It felt too much to unpack in this piece, but I need not -- you have started this! I would love to read that and will absolutely be googling that book. This bias is such an imposition, and has tarnished so much of our history. I hate that we sit so many hundreds of years apart from her, yet we still can't tell her we've moved beyond such disparagement.
Into Print: The Production of Female Authorship in Early Modern France (2009), back when I was a very young academic. Chapter 5. Not really to be purchased (ever) by an individual because it is way too expensive as most academic books are. And why is that? Another form of gatekeeping. But that’s a different topic of conversation. What is clear to me is that feminist scholars have been saying these things, about these historical figures, for decades. Now it is entering a broader conversation, thanks in part to newsletters like yours.
Oh goodness, the scholarly gatekeeping and monopolization is just too much to add here, yes. I was just thinking about this very topic this weekend after yet another frustrating research experience.
I appreciate you saying so--and I hope you know your words do such too! ❤️
Kate thank you for mentioning me in this firebrand of an essay. This masterpiece demands time to be read with attention and care. I am sure to back here with thoughts as I do. Your brilliance and perseverance to write such extensive pieces astounds me and inspires me deeply. Just stopping here to tell you this 💜
I couldn't go to the Capitol Crawl, but I did donate to a local woman who could -- who I knew from a mailing list so that she could afford it. Was so excited to see pictures of her there.
What a survey of she-roes! It could be a banner for the ages! Thank you for shining light on on the great undercurrent of wisdom figures who carry truth each step of the way! Thank you.
draws for future society building, but if they are just a patriarchal version of those things, then all of this oppression will still occur, just through different manifestations.
I was a little nervous to publish this one, thank you for spending your time with and thank you so very much for the kind words. Means a lot, especially when nerves enter the headspace! 💜💜
Have you read the graphic novel The Legend of Auntie Po? It’s Paul Bunyan reimagined as a Chinese woman in California.
Love this. I read City of Ladies years ago--I think I need to read it again!
Such a great read! I’ll pick it up from time to time and just get the best chuckle from her clear Aristotelian disdain. Thanks for spending time with my words and my attempts to build another city of ladies 💜
I love this idea. Now I want to make a book of comics about female folk heroes!!!!
Oh my gosh I love THAT idea!!! Thank you for spending time in my version of a city of ladies! I’m so grateful!
Thank you! This was a very interesting and informative piece of writing. It triggered a couple of thoughts.
About the male able body being the default assumption:
When my wife was in chemotherapy about 12 years ago (she passed away three years ago; this was early in her cancer treatment) she was seeing a gynecological oncologist (she had ovarian cancer). The Gyn-Onc office had their own chemotherapy suite, with big recliners for patients to sit in while getting their chemo infusions. Every one of the chairs was exactly the right size for me (I'm 6'2") but none of the (100% female OF COURSE) patients could sit comfortably in them. Their feet didn't reach the floor and their heads missed the headrests. We wondered what the hell they were thinking -- but of course if you DON'T think, you just do the default thing and make the default assumption for the default reasons and order the "standard" sized chair.
About Aristotle and philosophy in general:
Another philosophical thread that comes into this is dualism, the idea of the body/mind dichotomy. People seem to have a penchant for mapping dual pairs onto other dual pairs (via shoddy analogies based on dubious dualities). Of course, some of the philosophers mapped body/mind duality onto male/female duality and decided that, in their essential selves, women were their bodies and men were their minds. That idea seems to have hung around for centuries, clouding all other thinking about men and women and fairness and society and ability and rights and so on and so on. I can still sense its lingering influence today in the claims made for male and female attributes, strengths, weaknesses, etc. It is a deeply pernicious idea, but one which is less recognized as such because it seems on its face to be merely bad philosophy. The trouble is, bad philosophy kills, it just does it slowly over historical time instead of all at once like a bullet. And sometimes it even does that.
This are the thoughts as they occurred to me. Very probably, you knew this already, and if so, just consider this to be redundant noise. I just wanted to say it since I was thinking about it.
Thanks again for a wonderful well-researched and well-analyzed article.
Stuart, first — thank you for such a thoughtful response! I’m so grateful for such intentional time spent with my words. Thank you!
That feels all to familiar re: the chair at the gyn-onc office. When I was fighting my own cancerous cells (cervix) I had a male doctor performing one of the surgeries and when he was looking at my cervix, he very (very!) loudly asked “HAVE YOU SEEN THE SIZE OF THIS MASS?” and I looked up and he was looking at me! The doctor was asking me if I’d seen my own cervical mass….what in the anatomy and physiology type of question is that?! I’ve not seen a male doctor since.
Your point re: the philosophers bears resemblance to an argument Christine de Pizan made regarding patriarchal pedagogy and how naturalized these thoughts become when misogynistic texts are used by clerics to learn to read/write/debate/etc. Just parroting one another down the centuries and calling it human condition.
Thank you, again, for spending such thoughtful time with my writing. It is SO appreciated.
We deserve to dream beyond patriarchy.
Soul murder is new to me, and I see it
Coretta Scott King's speech from 1968 sounds very 2025 appropriate.
I did not know about the women from 1322.
Thank you.
Oh my goodness, Hans, I highly suggest bell hooks’ a will to change — in it she breaks open this idea of soul murder on a personal and cultural level. It is one of the most influential reads of my lifetime, to be honest. I remember thinking that when I transcribed her speech, how it could just be placed into today’s world and be just as applicable. It’s heartbreaking how little progress we’ve made. Thank you for always spending time with my words. Taking the time to acknowledge them means a lot to me, thank you 💜
I just read All About Love. I'll look for a will to change. Thanks for the recommendation :)
All About Love was so good! What did you think?
I loved it, and loved the wide-ranging perspective that hooks offered. I really appreciated defining love as spiritual growing personally and with others.
I don’t know if you know this, but I serve a church as a pastor, so I’m pretty steeped in a patriarchal structure that is trying to change. Slowly. I appreciate you and your willingness to share. I have quoted hooks in sermons and bible studies, now that I have started to read the works (which I had never read previously). Anyway, a little tiny background. Thank you.
Yes! I found the chapter on communion really powerful. It’s been some years since I’ve sat with all about love, I may need to return to it!
Thank YOU for your work. I was at a civil rights conference a few years ago and one of the speakers was a pastor and I was not prepared for my visceral reaction to his words — I sobbed. He was the first pastor I’d ever heard confront the realities of patriarchal harm within his sermon. I am not religious personally, I do believe myself spiritual — I see our universe and our mother earth as deities — but it meant so much to know that those within the bounds of patriarchal spheres are recognizing the harm perpetrated and bringing along their community in interrogating that harm. Thank YOU! 💜
Thank you for your generous spirit and equally generous response here!
I wrote a chapter on Marie de Gournay in my first book and an Oxford bibliography on her as well. The value and importance of her friendship with Michel de Montaigne, the essayist, continues to be dismissed. Montaigne stated plainly that his friendship to Gournay was akin to the one he shared with Etienne la Boétie. Centuries of scholarship have praised Montaigne’s essay on that friendship with La Boétie (“On friendship”). Equally, centuries of scholarship — until this day — have dismissed his friendship with Gournay, or picked it apart, claiming she made it up, or that there was no way it could have come close what he claimed he had felt for La Boétie. Scholars I know who have worked on her have had to respond to questions from other scholars - in the 21st century — about whether she slept with Montaigne. They cannot conceive that an older man would have any respect for the intellect or friendship of a younger woman. Gournay faced so much sexist disparagement in her own lifetime, but she never stopped writing or editing.
P.S. You clearly have me thinking of Gournay again! Thank you for this 😊
Please know if you ever share some of those thoughts here, I will vivaciously consume that gift of knowledge!!
Oh my goodness, I am so glad you left this Note. While I was researching her I ran into some of this patriarchal bias (never disclosed, of course) and I stepped right back out of the research and kept it surface level. It felt too much to unpack in this piece, but I need not -- you have started this! I would love to read that and will absolutely be googling that book. This bias is such an imposition, and has tarnished so much of our history. I hate that we sit so many hundreds of years apart from her, yet we still can't tell her we've moved beyond such disparagement.
Into Print: The Production of Female Authorship in Early Modern France (2009), back when I was a very young academic. Chapter 5. Not really to be purchased (ever) by an individual because it is way too expensive as most academic books are. And why is that? Another form of gatekeeping. But that’s a different topic of conversation. What is clear to me is that feminist scholars have been saying these things, about these historical figures, for decades. Now it is entering a broader conversation, thanks in part to newsletters like yours.
Oh goodness, the scholarly gatekeeping and monopolization is just too much to add here, yes. I was just thinking about this very topic this weekend after yet another frustrating research experience.
I appreciate you saying so--and I hope you know your words do such too! ❤️
Kate thank you for mentioning me in this firebrand of an essay. This masterpiece demands time to be read with attention and care. I am sure to back here with thoughts as I do. Your brilliance and perseverance to write such extensive pieces astounds me and inspires me deeply. Just stopping here to tell you this 💜
I am equally in awe of you, my friend! ❤️
I couldn't go to the Capitol Crawl, but I did donate to a local woman who could -- who I knew from a mailing list so that she could afford it. Was so excited to see pictures of her there.
What an event, my goodness! Going through the photos and witnessing the activists—such power! Thank you for spending your time with my words 💜
What a survey of she-roes! It could be a banner for the ages! Thank you for shining light on on the great undercurrent of wisdom figures who carry truth each step of the way! Thank you.
Thank you for spending your time with my words and this mini city of ladies!!! There has been such power before us, we deserve to know of it. 💜
yes!
💜💜💜 Thank you for spending time with my words!
Only a female. Only a non-patriarch. Other than that, I got nada.
I think both communist and socialist ideals have
draws for future society building, but if they are just a patriarchal version of those things, then all of this oppression will still occur, just through different manifestations.
I was a little nervous to publish this one, thank you for spending your time with and thank you so very much for the kind words. Means a lot, especially when nerves enter the headspace! 💜💜