This was not to be. By the mid-nineteenth century, Johnson’s character had already been turned into caricature and he was remembered as a man whose fabulous eccentricities seemed to mark him out as a figure of fun, one whose ‘opinions’ were ‘fast becoming obsolete’ (Carlyle 1966 [1841]: 182). It was left to another Scottish writer, […]
День: 04.10.2015
FEMINIST FOCUS ON THE FOUNDING FATHERS
There are three feminist strategies to be explored: how feminist sociologists have revisited and criticised the founding fathers central to the malestream grand narrative; how feminists have searched out alternative founding fathers; and how feminists have used ideas from the founding fathers to build feminist sociology. At one level, the way the history of sociology […]
How conservatives and liberals both reinforce male disposability
Both conservatives and liberals reinforce the protection of women and the disposability of men. Conservatives justify it — they call it sex roles. Liberals call it sexism if it hurts women, but blame men if it hurts men. For example, male-only clubs hurt women and therefore liberals call it sexism; male-only draft registration hurts men […]
I The Burning of Letters Continues Elusive Identities and the Historical Construction of Sexuality
The story behind Miriam Van Waters’s burning of her personal correspondence illustrates the problem of interpreting sexual identities historically. Like the working-class lesbians in prison, the administrators and staff of women’s reformatories were vulnerable to charges of sexual deviance. Long before I became her biographer, I had heard rumors about Van Waters’s personal life, so […]
CONVENTIONAL VERSUS UNCONVENTIONAL WISDOM
If, through modern Western eyes, the Greenbergs of this ad were a normal family, we could imagine them feeling that family life superseded all other aspects of life. That is, according to modern conventional wisdom, a happy family life is an end in ilself. Earning and spending money are the means for achieving this end. […]
CONVENTIONAL VERSUS UNCONVENTIONAL WISDOM
If, through modern Western eyes, the Greenbergs of this ad were a normal family, we could imagine them feeling that family life superseded all other aspects of life. That is, according to modern conventional wisdom, a happy family life is an end in ilself. Earning and spending money are the means for achieving this end. […]
Why don’t men seem to be that concerned about women as prostitutes?
I am often asked why men don’t get as worked up as they might about women — particularly poor women — having to use their bodies as prostitutes. Because most men unconsciously experience themselves as prostitutes every’ day — the miner, the firefighter, the construaion worker, the logger, the soldier, the meatpacker — these men […]
Blame
Early on in the AIDS epidemic, and continuing for some time, scientists, the press, and the public seemed curiously fixated on the origins of the virus associated with AIDS. From the perspective of the black community, interest in HIV’s possible African roots seemed insatiable. Article after article appeared, recirculating identical hypotheses. The discovery of a […]
THE RELUCTANCE TO “OWN” AIDS
Already, a set of stock explanations for the Black community’s reluctance to address the AIDS crises has emerged. We are told that for too long the media have inaccurately portrayed AIDS as a disease that almost exclusively afflicts white gay men,20 that for too long public health officals have failed to use media appropriate to […]
THE IMPACT OF AIDS
Unquestionably, AIDS has hit the black community hard. We are losing our sons and daughters at an alarming rate. Twenty-five percent of all persons with AIDS in the United States are African-American.2 Among the newly diagnosed, the figure exceeds 36 percent.3 In many Eastern cities, blacks and Latinos constitute a majority of the AIDS cases.4 […]