Tag: gender

Two Interesting Cases of Female Cross-Dressing in History

gordsellar5 Comments

Most of the time, one hears about male cross-dressers; one runs across female cross-dressers primarily in Shakespeare plays. But lately, I’ve run across two interesting cases of women dressing up as men, that seem worth sharing: First is Mary Hamilton, who was the subject of a pamphlet by Henry Fielding titled The Female Husband in 1746. (Okay, it was really titled The Surprising Adventures of a FEMALE HUSBAND containing the whimsical Amours, curious Incidents, and Diabolical Tricks. Okay, actually, it was… well, the “title” wasn’t really a title but an attention-grabbing page of text, so it seems to vary depending …

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On Rich Young People Today…

gordsellar7 Comments

…for a value of today dating back to Mary Wollstonecraft’s tenure as a governess, and courtesy of Ruth Brandon’s book Governess: The Lives and Times of the Real Jane Eyres: Mary found them quite uncultivated, with no topics of conversation other than dress, dogs and marriage. To which Mrs. Jiwaku immediately exclaimed: “It’s Korea!” Meaning South Korea, today. Except that in contemporary South Korea, it’s not just rich young people… not everyone is like this, but the middle class, and even the aspirational types in the lower class, are mostly precisely this way. Well, okay, dress, dogs, Kpop, and marriage. Which reminds …

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Links of Interest

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I’m about to go judge a public speaking contest, but I wanted to note these links: World War II London Blitz Diary 1939-1945: someone is posting Great-Grandmother Ruby Thompson’s diary from during the Blitz in London. Very cool reading, interesting and, you know, detailed in ways that are worthy of note to people researching the time. (I found the link helping a student find resources for WWII London life, for a story she’s writing.) This post on the Women’s History Network Blog has a neat discussion of “Career Novels in the 1950s” — a kind of juvenile-oriented novel for girls …

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Meme: women in SF

gordsellar4 Comments

The Rules of the Game (as teefed from Aliette de Bodard’s blog) Are: Bold the women by whom you own books Italicize those by whom you’ve read something of (short stories count). *Star those you don’t recognize Unmarked are those whose work you have not read (And I’ve got some comments on the original list at the end, which may be of more interest than the list itself…)

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