Comments on: On this day in women’s history… http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2004/03/31/on-this-day-in-womens-history/ Feminist, anti-racist, pro-fat, plus whatever else we feel like talking about. Fri, 16 May 2008 14:49:55 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.1 By: Morphienne http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2004/03/31/on-this-day-in-womens-history/#comment-10080 Morphienne Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2004/03/31/on-this-day-in-womens-history/#comment-10080 John Adams responded to Abigail Adams in a letter, saying that as to her suggestions about women, he "[could] not but laugh," and that women, if they were given rights to defy their husbands, would create a "despotism of the petticoat" greater than the one that already existed: in short, that women might not have legal rights, but they ruled anyway because of the influence their ability to make the home life of their husbands pleasant or unpleasant had on their husbands' decisions. See, because the legal right to beat your spouse is nothing compared the awesome power witholding sex or serving a cold dinner imbues you with. That rebellion never quite got out of the fomenting stage, obviously. Simon de Beauvior mentioned something about a possible cause for this phenomenon in her introduction to *The Second Sex:* she said that feminism, as a movement, didn't get anywhere like race issues had the ability to in part because the feminists (or women) were split off from other feminists (other women) and kept safely under the legal and social thumb of their husbands, to whom feminism was not a great priority, to say the least. With unpopular races, the members of which are often pushed into political, social, and geographical proximity because no one else wants to be associated with them, solidarity is easier to come by. Guess love stinks sometimes. It's a difficult question, though, isn't it? If you love someone, someone who is in many other ways a good person actively working for good causes, even devoting his (we'll go with the male pronoun because John Adams was male) life to those causes, and they have such a dreadful blind spot: what do you do? What wins? Do you stand up for what you know to be right, and refuse to live with your beloved until he removes his head from his ass, and consequently destroy the relationship and live without someone you would have been pretty much perfect with? (John and Abigail were, by all accounts, an extremely affectionate and devoted couple.) Or do you go for love, remain devoted, and hope that some day he might change his mind, but be ready to accept it if he doesn't? Tough call. In Abigail Adams' case, she also had to worry about the fact that, without John, she would have no money and no way of making a living, and that's in the extremely unlikely event that she could ever obtain a divorce from him. I don't think her answer to his contemptuous reply is extant, so no one really knows what she said to him after that. (Catch me if I'm wrong.) It is known that they remained lovebirds for life, though, so whatever came of it, Abigail Adams was either accepting of her husband's deficits or extremely talented at hiding her resentment. John Adams responded to Abigail Adams in a letter, saying that as to her suggestions about women, he “[could] not but laugh,” and that women, if they were given rights to defy their husbands, would create a “despotism of the petticoat” greater than the one that already existed: in short, that women might not have legal rights, but they ruled anyway because of the influence their ability to make the home life of their husbands pleasant or unpleasant had on their husbands’ decisions.

See, because the legal right to beat your spouse is nothing compared the awesome power witholding sex or serving a cold dinner imbues you with.

That rebellion never quite got out of the fomenting stage, obviously. Simon de Beauvior mentioned something about a possible cause for this phenomenon in her introduction to *The Second Sex:* she said that feminism, as a movement, didn’t get anywhere like race issues had the ability to in part because the feminists (or women) were split off from other feminists (other women) and kept safely under the legal and social thumb of their husbands, to whom feminism was not a great priority, to say the least. With unpopular races, the members of which are often pushed into political, social, and geographical proximity because no one else wants to be associated with them, solidarity is easier to come by.

Guess love stinks sometimes.

It’s a difficult question, though, isn’t it? If you love someone, someone who is in many other ways a good person actively working for good causes, even devoting his (we’ll go with the male pronoun because John Adams was male) life to those causes, and they have such a dreadful blind spot: what do you do? What wins?

Do you stand up for what you know to be right, and refuse to live with your beloved until he removes his head from his ass, and consequently destroy the relationship and live without someone you would have been pretty much perfect with? (John and Abigail were, by all accounts, an extremely affectionate and devoted couple.)

Or do you go for love, remain devoted, and hope that some day he might change his mind, but be ready to accept it if he doesn’t?

Tough call. In Abigail Adams’ case, she also had to worry about the fact that, without John, she would have no money and no way of making a living, and that’s in the extremely unlikely event that she could ever obtain a divorce from him.

I don’t think her answer to his contemptuous reply is extant, so no one really knows what she said to him after that. (Catch me if I’m wrong.) It is known that they remained lovebirds for life, though, so whatever came of it, Abigail Adams was either accepting of her husband’s deficits or extremely talented at hiding her resentment.

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