Medieval Women by Eileen Power: The medieval ages weren't a great time to be a woman

 
I've been eyeing the extremely short Medieval Women by Eileen Power for a few years, and lo, it is finally finished. Eileen Power has her own Wikipedia page and was a general badass who went to Cambridge AND the Sorbonne (in like the 1910s, so, damn), then became Professor of Economic History at the London School of Economics and THEN took that same job at Cambridge. Wikipedia has even MORE awesome information about her, but let's talk about Medieval Women, which is a collection of her lectures published after her death (and aw, was edited by her husband).

Medieval Women clocks in at a scant 99 pages, and has a plethora of medieval ladypics, so you can easily read it in an afternoon. It's split into five chapters, which are:

1. Medieval ideas about women
2. The lady
3. The working woman in town and country
4. The education of women
5. Nunneries

WHY should you care about this? Because first, "the position of women is often considered as a test by which the civilisation of a country or age may be judged," and SECOND:

The medieval theory about women, bequeathed as a legacy to future generations and enshrined alike in law and in literature, was destined to have profound social effects for centuries to follow, long after the forces behind it had ceased to be important and when the conditions which had accounted for it no longer existed.

indeed! excellent point, excellent.

What I've decided upon reading this is that if I could be ANYONE in medieval society, I'd either want to be a merchant's wife, or a nun. Everything else sucked. Although apparently nunneries were not that great, and not that plentiful throughout England. I sort of assumed there were a ton, but between 1250 and 1540, there were only between 126 to 136 nunneries in England, and during those years, only four had over 30 nuns.

During this period (c. 1350) there cannot have been more than 3500 nuns altogether in England, and these numbers were steadily decreasing to 1900 in 1534.

 Crazy, right? But you still got to live with other ladies, have a regimented life (which totally appeals to me), get an education probably, although standards declined in that respect over the centuries, and you got to make fun hand gestures at each other during dinner because no one was allowed to talk but you still had to ask people to pass the fish.

If you married a merchant though, you maybe got educated, because reading would be a plus since you were almost definitely going to be helping him in his trade, you had a more equal lifestyle than fancy ladies did with their husbands, if your husband died you could take over his business, and things just seemed pretty swell compared to the other options. I mean, you'd still probably die by 30, but it was the medieval ages, so I don't know what you were expecting.

I will end on a fun anecdote! Which is that in the early 14th c, there was a lady physician practicing in Paris named Jacqueline Felicie de Almania, who was prosecuted by the medical faculty for practicing without a license. For her defense, she brought in patients who had been given up for lost by other doctors, but whom she cured, AND she said that the law existed to stop "ignorant and foolish persons who know not the art of medicine," whereas she clearly did know it. She said they needed women doctors, because some women were ashamed to "show their infirmities" to a man and some died rather than doing so. She was prohibited from practicing and fined, but "as she had already disregarded a previous prohibition and fine, she probably went on as before."

Hurray Jacqueline Felicie de Almania!

Christmas is a time for sitting with your family in a library and not talking

Christmastime is past! The New Year approaches! I got one book on makeup (not a hint, I requested it) and The World of Ice & Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones. So exciting. So much backstory.

My entire family, complete with four kids, two partners and two tiny kids (plus my parents, obvs) stayed in Chicago for three days, and I have just left them, after spending part of the evening alternately yelling at my little brother for making a whizzing sound with his nose all night, and calling his cell phone to wake him up.

As is usually the case when I'm around my family for any period longer than a day, I got a lot of reading done, so I've now finished up some books I was preeeetty close to being done with, but hadn't quite made it. So #3 in The Edge Chronicles! Done! Feast for Crows the fourth in the Game of Thrones series! Done! And then I started like three other books because LOOK WHAT THE PLACE WHERE WE WERE STAYING HAD:

We were at the University Club in Chicago. Their collection goes back to the library's founding in 1897, and did you know sitting in giant soft leather armchairs and browsing old weird books is most probably the best way to spend your time because you will invariably come across sentences involving the word 'ballyhoo' and spend a not inconsiderable length of time reading Books and the Man from 1929, which discusses how Daniel Defoe added the 'de' to his last name to make it fancy, and also how Walt Whitman was possibly terribly gauche for publishing Emerson's complimentary letter to him on Leaves of Grass. 

I spent most of the weekend focusing on Image of America, by R.L. Bruckberger, written in 1959 and translated from French. He's a Dominican priest writing about America and our history and trying to explain America to those overseas, but I am basically in love with this book AND with Father Bruckberger. I don't want to, y'know, RUIN the book, but he calls Hitler an assiduous dunce. He also says:

We are continually told that vice corrupts society, and this is true. But fanatic love of virtue has done more to damage men and destroy societies than all the vices put together.

I mean. I have a bunch of quotes. Because I love this book. 

Finishing Feast for Crows means I have ONE MORE until I have to wait with everyone else for GRRM to think about publishing the penultimate (one hopes) part to his series. So I'm gonna hold off on A Dance With Dragons for a bit. Mayyybe until he has a definite publication date for the sixth. Because in the back of Feast for Crows he's like "I will DEF have the fifth one out next year. So. 2005. Yeah, for sure." And then it was not published until 2011.

2015 reading goals? Oh, I don't know. I'm like halfway through the Old Testament, so I guess...finish the Old Testament. Chronicles is a damn bear to get through, although I did just read "So Hanun seized David's envoys, shaved them, cut off their garments at the buttocks, and sent them away." So that was fun. Every year I say I'm gonna read more books on my shelves and it never happens, so I'm not gonna say it again. Maybe it'll be some weird reverse things where maybe I DO then. We'll see.

Bad Feminist: I Feel Like I Should Like This More Than I Do

 

I'm unclear about how to feel about Bad Feminist. "How to" here meaning I don't know which angle I'm supposed to take when talking about it. As a book, did it impress me? Not really. Am I comparing it with some of the only other feminist literature I've read, namely bell hooks and is that unfair to Roxane Gay? Probably.

I went into Bad Feminist feeling like I should read it. I pretty reluctantly put it on my to-read list, so my opinion should be taken with, at the very least, that particular grain of salt. Throughout it I rarely liked Roxane Gay as the person she presents herself as in her writings, but I don't know if that even matters. She has written a collection of essays that mostly deal with pervasive social justice issues in our culture, and overall I'm glad I read it.

Honestly, I think other people would have done it better, but she covers many possible faults of the book in the introduction where she labels herself the titular "bad feminist." "Bad feminist" here meaning no one should be held up as the gold standard of feminism. They'll eventually fail in some way, because we're human. That failure, or just being a "bad" feminist, does not negate feminism's ideals.

I found myself irritated with some of the essays because of the same reaction many people have to just the word feminism — it felt like things were being taken too seriously; they she wasn't letting some things just be enjoyed, but instead had to see problems with the fact that everything cannot be everything to everyone. She mentions this latter issue in the book, so she's aware of it, and I'm not saying my irritated reaction was correct.

Just as it's the reaction some people have because of their warped view of feminism, it's also the reaction people had for years about discussions of gay rights. It's still encountered when I complain about a complete lack of LGBT representation on the terrible ABC show Once Upon a Time. "Why can't our fairy tales just be straight? That's how they were written," is the boiled-down response to these complaints, because people don't want to start thinking about having to revise something they've always had and derived comfort from. They see that sort of revision as a set of politically correct changes — an inorganic shift to the thing they love that will feel clunky and placating, rather than them simply allowing the possibility that gay people have always existed, and it's possible for them to exist in fairy tales too.

Because of this parallel, I'm uncomfortable with my instinctively annoyed (but conditioned, not natural) reaction to complaints about a lack of representation from other minorities. I might be annoyed, and unable to prevent myself from disliking it, but I can recognize that my reaction is bullshit, and sometimes people need to keep complaining until other people accept there's a problem.

The things I wrote down from Bad Feminism weren't from her Trayvon Martin essay, or her Chris Brown essay, but instead things I realized we had in common. Things like "I don't remember much about grade school, but I remember the first and last names of the popular kids," which made me instantly picture three girls who were 70% of the reason I missed 40+ days of school in 7th grade after begging my mom to let me stay home because I didn't want them to be mean to me. There is also "Inside books I could get away from the impossible things I had to deal with. When I read I was never lonely or tormented or scared."

That not only was identifiable, but it was a thing I had never articulated before. There are all sorts of clichés of books as a refuge, but I had not encountered those particular words being associated with them before.

Overall, the collection felt pretty piecemeal, but the further in I got, the more unified it seemed. Maybe it was just the early essays that seemed randomly picked from her portfolio, and then as it got to the halfway point, it seemed more driving towards an overall theme. I would recommend it if you don't want to look hard for feminist essays. It's easily digestible. There are pieces on The Hunger Games and Orange Is the New Black (the latter of which I STRONGLY disagree with, but that is fine), and it feels remarkably Now, which is good since it was published this year.

Stuff You Missed in History Class Should Not Be Missed. Or Something Like That.

I've been caroling pretty much nonstop, as is the usual case with my Decembers, and listening to a LOT of episodes of Stuff You Missed in History Class, which is a podcast recommended by my excellent friend Kathleen. It is the bee's knees. I started as far back as my phone would let me, which is 2012, and I think we should all harass Deblina Chakraborty and Sarah Dowdey into hanging out with us. They are super-nerds and I don't want to leave 2012 because I want them to host the show forever.

The main website for the show lets you go back to the beginning when it was stupid and had episodes like "How the Berlin Wall Worked" and one of the hosts says the only news resource she reads is "the Times of New York."

Unlike now, when they do episodes about Queen Nzinga and Beryl Markham and George Arents. All fascinating people! None of whom I knew about! I have some basic details on Belle Starr now and Bessie Coleman and Evliya Çelebi and damnit, I am not ready to let Deblina and Sarah go. They are the best.

But I haven't really been reading, which might be slightly integral to a book blog. But whatever, I've written about Reign on here (which CONTINUES to be fantastic, btdubs). Mmm. Reign. 

Anyway, December seems to make me not want to read, which is probably because of frantic running about looking for presents/trying to find wrapping paper at Target to cover said presents, but then Target basically has NO wrapping paper and what! Why! Is it in some secret section? Wouldn't you have tons and tons of wrapping paper if your main purpose was to sell things people can wrap? I'm not saying that places like Pottery Barn should have wrapping paper, but Target? Yes. Although I am not averse to the idea that the entire downtown Chicago population bought the wrapping paper before I got there. There are a lot of us. And Christmas is eight days away.

I've had to sing the 12 Days of Christmas multiple times in the past few days

I'm hoping to finish Feast for Crows before the new year, along with Gilead, Queen Lucia, and Bad Feminist. I have Things to Say about Bad Feminist, but I'm not even halfway through and it was due at the library on Monday, so I am currently illegally hoarding it to the tune of TWENTY CENTS A DAY. There is an actual price to my laziness. And it is shockingly cheap.

Barbara Stanwyck, i.e. Old Hollywood Had Actresses Besides Katharine Hepburn and Ingrid Bergman

I'm in one of those moods lately where I'm falling in love with EVERYTHING, including things I used to be in love with. So maybe this is some weird subconscious wriggling in of the Christmas spirit. Maybe? Or maybe I don't know how Christmas works.

I mostly want to watch a bunch of Barbara Stanwyck movies.

LET ME TELL YOU A TALE. When I was 17, it was Easter morning. I did not want to go to church (I actually rarely go that day, despite being totes into God and stuff; it is a blatantly hipster move of that being the day EVERYBODY goes). I climbed into my parents' bed while they got ready and put on Turner Classic Movies, where The Strange Love of Martha Ivers was playing.

And hello to you too.

'That woman looks like Celeste Holm, I'll bet it is totally Celeste Holm,' I said, full of HUBRIS about my classic movie knowledge. But upon pressing the info button I learned no! It was not Celeste Holm at all! It was someone named Barbara Stanwyck, and she was playing a total nutbar in this movie.

Albeit a nutbar with some good lines. Lizabeth Scott, you are a poor man's Lauren Bacall and Martha and I do not like you.

My senior year of high school was composed of two things: Frasier & Lilith on Cheers, and Barbara Stanwyck. I wrote Frasier/Lilith fanfiction in Physics and spent a lot of time thinking about how to make my waist as tiny as Barbara Stanwyck's in all my other classes (note: you cannot. it's impossible). I wrote one of my college essays about how Double Indemnity, her classic film noir with the guy from My Three Sons, was my favorite movie, which was a blatant LIE because the only reason I like that movie is that she's super-hot in it. In a bad-blonde-wig kind of way. But my brain wasn't self-aware enough to acknowledge that, and colleges didn't want to hear it (or maybe they did, pervs).

Phyllis, you think you are good at incognito,
but you are not. This is a grocery store.

Barbara Stanwyck was super-tough, super-pretty, and was willing to take roles other actresses were scared of. She was hilarious and terrifying and awesome. The Lady Eve, where she plays a con artist who falls in love with a wealthy but constantly befuddled snake expert? Fantastic. Ball of Fire, where she's a nightclub performer who has to hide out in a house full of professors who are writing an encyclopedia? Good lord. Does she teach them the rumba? Yes, she does. IS one of the professors the voice of the Caterpillar in Disney's Alice in Wonderland? ALSO YES.

Ball of Fire. So good.

There's also Clash by Night and Christmas in Connecticut and the aforementioned Strange Love of Martha Ivers and Double Indemnity and SO MANY OTHERS. Like The Bitter Tea of General Yen, which you only watch if you're 17 and trying to get through her whole filmography and ahahaha it is not good.

Nope.

If you're gonna go one level deeper into classic films, you need to know Barbara Stanwyck. You get zero points for people like Katharine Hepburn, Lauren Bacall, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. But people like Stanwyck, Irene Dunne, Ann Sheridan, Norma Shearer, and Myrna Loy? Now you sound like you haven't just been looking at the covers of Barnes & Noble's Portraits of Classic Hollywood coffee table books.

How Am I Supposed to Read With All These Episodes of Modern Family to Watch? (and also there's Christmas)

The end of December approaches and I've got to get serious about books I want to finish this year. Feast for Crows? In the bag. And since I was warned I might not like it, I had low low expectations, and I DO like it. Not as much as the others, but you can't have slashy slashy conquery things happening 24/7. What you CAN do though is talk about crows all the time. LIKE IN THE TITLE. Crows eat dead things. Did you know? George R.R. Martin certainly does.

SO MANY CROWS, GEORGE

True to recent years, it doesn't feel like Christmas AT ALL yet, even though it's only 17 days away. Maybe because I'm 29 and Christmas has gone from me making paper chains that count down the days until my brothers and I wake up at 4 AM and shake my parents to me feverishly shopping online to make sure I get something for people on my list that they MAYBE won't hate but ahhhh who knows. 

So why not add this reading stress on top of that? I'm not even reading anything Christmasy. Game of Thrones has ZERO AMOUNTS OF CHRISTMAS. A lot of people are getting hanged and eaten by crows. Again, like in the title. Also did you know that people are like crows? The book says so. Also like in the title. Also Cersei needs to get hers. She needs to get hers soon.

YOU HAVE HAD ENOUGH, CERSEI

Ugh Cersei sucks. But anyway, I've passed my reading goal for this year, which I never officially wrote down on Goodreads because it would stress me the hell out to complete it, but my goal is always basically to read more than the previous year, which thanks to four Game of Thrones books, has been achieved via number of books AND page numbers. Also the Bleak House readalong was this year, can you believe it? What a longass book THAT is.

Are you all ready for Christmas/whatever you do at the end of the year? Do you decorate? (we don't, but I wouldn't say no to some white lights in the living room, roomie) Is your shopping done, because mine basically is and I super-want to brag about it. Unless you're one of those people who was done a month ago, in which case I don't want to talk to you, thank you very much.

CHRISTMAS.

Remember this.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?: I am now emotionally attached to Mindy Kaling's book for now and evermore

Thanksgiving is over, where my cousins and I categorically aged ourselves by having an earnest discussion about how superior Clueless is to Mean Girls, and scorning the youth of today and their choices.

 

I spent my time before sleep on Thanksgiving Day curled up in my married cousin's former room, reading Mindy Kaling's Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?. I ended up reading past 1 AM, always thinking 'one more chapter,' and finally identifying that I was having such a great time with the book because it felt like I was chatting with a friend. I UNDERSTAND that that is the worst and immensely cliché, so it should mean more that I felt compelled to say it anyway. I love this book.

As a huge fan of the comic essay collection (that genre! so hot right now! lucky us), I've read...a lot of them. I wasn't that into Bossypants. I preferred Samantha Bee's I Know I Am, But What Are You and Sara Benincasa's Agorafabulous. It's hard when relating tales from your life to keep them from just darting all over the place and end up seeming like an incohesive mess. Or at least it seems that way since so many essay collections end up being exactly that.

I pre-ordered Mindy Kaling's book when it was announced (in 2011) and it has literally been sitting at the foot of my bed ever since. With a signed bookplate for us go-getters who were going to read it right away! Since, post-reading this, she and I are clearly now best friends, I apologize most deeply for letting it languish for so long next to the hoodie I don't want to pick up and that stuffed bear I don't have fond feelings for. It deserved better than that.

Well, I apologize again

Regarding the actual book, it wisely follows a fairly chronological path through her life, the details of which I knew nothing going in. I didn't even know she and her friend were responsible for the two-person show Matt & Ben (about Matt Damon and Ben Affleck). What's especially wonderful is you're reading about and being entertained by her life, and then suddenly, hey, a chapter about The Office! I forgot that's why I originally wanted to read this! It's like when you're really enjoying all the trailers before a movie and then the actual movie starts and you go Oh yeah, I forgot I came here to see this. Now I'm psyched again!

Mindy is probably one of the most relatable comic essayists I've read, an obvious example of why being her imagined version of how she and Kristen Wiig would become friends while they shared an office at SNL for two weeks and listened to Joni Mitchell's Blue:

KRISTEN: God, I love this album.

ME: Me too. Doesn't it make you wish we'd been alive during Woodstock?

KRISTEN: Yes! I always think that when I listen to this!

ME: That's hilarious. Hey, do you want to go get some lunch and then hit Crabtree & Evelyn?

KRISTEN (as though I'm an idiot): Uhhh yeah. I mean if we can even fit out the door of this tiny office.

ME: You're so bad.

(We laugh and laugh)

KRISTEN: Seriously, I wish we could've gone to Woodstock together.

 She takes the reader through her nerdy grade school years, what it's like when you're in a girl clique, what proper karaoke etiquette is, how much she loves Irish exits at parties, and which photos on her BlackBerry are the most narcissistic. Among other things. This is why you feel like you're chatting with a friend the whole time. It's refreshingly casual without feeling purposely so, and it also manages to be well-structured. 

One of my favorite things about it is it doesn't fall into the faux-cutesy trap of writing about all the things the author did to put off writing the following chapter. EVERYONE DOES THIS NOW AND I HATE IT. But Mindy Kaling is a professional damn writer and she doesn't need to pull that shit. Read her adorable book. And maybe watch The Mindy Project; I marathoned a season a couple of months ago and do not regret it.