I honestly always find the term ‘spinster’ as referring to an elderly, never-married woman as funny because you know what?
Wool was a huge industry in Europe in the middle ages. It was hugely in demand, particularly broadcloth, and was a valuable trade good. A great deal of wool was owned by monasteries and landed gentry who owned the land.
And, well, the only way to spin wool into yarn to make broadcloth was by hand.
This was viewed as a feminine occupation, and below the dignity of the monks and male gentry that largely ran the trade.
So what did they do?
They hired women to spin it. And, turns out, this was a stable job that paid very well. Well enough that it was one of the few viable economic options considered ‘respectable’ outside of marriage for a woman. A spinster could earn quite a tidy salary for her art, and maintain full control over her own money, no husband required.
So, naturally, women who had little interest in marriage or men? Grabbed this opportunity with both hands and ran with it. Of course, most people didn’t get this, because All Women Want Is Husbands, Right?
So when people say ‘spinster’ as in ‘spinster aunt’, they are TRYING to conjure up an image of a little old lady who is lonely and bitter.
But what I HEAR are the smiles and laughter of a million women as they earned their own money in their own homes and controlled their own fortunes and lived life on their own terms, and damn what society expected of them.
Here’s my empowering warrior armor for Magic Meat March! Got it done just in time! I made the whole get-up out of leather, save for the shoes and the prop dagger. I just went to town this week with the strap cutter and the rivets.
It’s got a jointed spaulder for the shoulder, held in place by an asymmetric harness, zig-zagging down to a supple pouch to hold the necessaries comfortably in place. Onto this attaches a cuisse to guard the thigh.
Then there’s some accessory pieces: A thigh piece made of three panels laced together; an arm band with shearling trim for warmth; and a corset-like bracer to protect the wrist and forearm. Oh, and there’s that mass of straps for the left arm. I’m not even sure what that’s supposed to be for.
If I’d had a bit more time I was planning on adding more fur trim to the other pieces, but since it’s spring time now I don’t think that’s necessary. Wouldn’t want to overheat, after all. That extra padding would just get in the way during a battle anyway.
Now that is some fine craftsmanship and pure real-life male empowerment!
Not only that, the design is so on-point! Love how the straps zig-zag across the model’s torso, with pauldron and codpiece/thong as the pivotal leverage points.
Thank you, @armoreddragon, for joining the ranks of confident men ready to show us what real armor equality looks like!
Women have more power and agency in Shakespeare’s comedies than in his tragedies, and usually there are more of them with more speaking time, so I’m pretty sure what Shakespeare’s saying is “men ruin everything” because everyone fucking dies when men are in charge but when women are in charge you get married and live happily ever after
I think you’re reading too far into things, kiddo. Take a break from your women’s studies major and get some fresh air.
Right. Well, I’m a historian, so allow me to elaborate.
One of the most important aspects of the Puritan/Protestant revolution (in the 1590’s in particular) was the foregrounding of marriage as the most appropriate way of life. It often comes as a surprise when people learn this, but Puritans took an absolutely positive view of sexuality within the context of marriage. Clergy were encouraged to lead by example and marry and have children, as opposed to Catholic clergy who prized virginity above all else.Through his comedies, Shakespeare was promoting this new way of life which had never been promoted before. The dogma, thanks to the church, had always been “durr hburr women are evil sex is bad celibacy is your ticket to salvation.” All that changed in Shakespeare’s time, and thanks to him we get a view of the world where marriage, women, and sexuality are in fact the key to salvation.
The difference between the structure of a comedy and a tragedy is that the former is cyclical, and the latter a downward curve. Comedies weren’t stupid fun about the lighter side of life. The definition of a comedy was not a funny play. They were plays that began in turmoil and ended in reconciliation and renewal. They showed the audience the path to salvation, with the comic ending of a happy marriage leaving the promise of societal regeneration intact. Meanwhile, in the tragedies, there is no such promise of regeneration or salvation. The characters destroy themselves. The world in which they live is not sustainable. It leads to a dead end, with no promise of new life.
And so, in comedies, the women are the movers and shakers. They get things done. They move the machinery of the plot along. In tragedies, though women have an important part to play, they are often morally bankrupt as compared to the women of comedies, or if they are morally sound, they are disenfranchised and ignored, and refused the chance to contribute to the society in which they live. Let’s look at some examples.
In Romeo and Juliet, the play ends in tragedy because no-one listens to Juliet. Her father and Paris both insist they know what’s right for her, and they refuse to listen to her pleas for clemency. Juliet begs them – screams, cries, manipulates, tells them outright I cannot marry, just wait a week before you make me marry Paris, just a week, please and they ignore her, and force her into increasingly desperate straits, until at last the two young lovers kill themselves. The message? This violent, hate-filled patriarchal world is unsustainable. The promise of regeneration is cut down with the deaths of these children. Compare to Othello. This is the most horrifying and intimate tragedy of all, with the climax taking place in a bedroom as a husband smothers his young wife. The tragedy here could easily have been averted if Othello had listened to Desdemona and Emilia instead of Iago. The message? This society, built on racism and misogyny and martial, masculine honour, is unsustainable, and cannot regenerate itself. The very horror of it lies in the murder of two wives.
How about Hamlet? Ophelia is a disempowered character, but if Hamlet had listened to her, and not mistreated her, and if her father hadn’t controlled every aspect of her life, then perhaps she wouldn’t have committed suicide. The final scene of carnage is prompted by Laertes and Hamlet furiously grappling over her corpse. When Ophelia dies, any chance of reconciliation dies with her. The world collapses in on itself. This society is unsustainable. King Lear – we all know that this is prompted by Cordelia’s silence, her unwillingness to bend the knee and flatter in the face of tyranny. It is Lear’s disproportionate response to this that sets off the tragedy, and we get a play that is about entropy, aging and the destruction of the social order.
There are exceptions to the rule. I’m sure a lot of you are crying out “but Lady Macbeth!” and it’s a good point. However, in terms of raw power, neither Lady Macbeth nor the witches are as powerful as they appear. The only power they possess is the ability to influence Macbeth; but ultimately it is Macbeth’s own ambition that prompts him to murder Duncan, and it is he who escalates the situation while Lady Macbeth suffers a breakdown. In this case you have women who are allowed to influence the play, but do so for the worse; they fail to be the good moral compasses needed. Goneril, Regan and Gertrude are similarly comparable; they possess a measure of power, but do not use it for good, and again society cannot renew itself.
Now we come to the comedies, where women do have the most control over the plot. The most powerful example is Rosalind in As You Like It. She pulls the strings in every avenue of the plot, and it is thanks to her control that reconciliation is achieved at the end, and all end up happily married. Much Ado About Nothing pivots around a woman’s anger over the abuse of her innocent cousin. If the men were left in charge in this play, no-one would be married at the end, and it would certainly end in tragedy. But Beatrice stands up and rails against men for their cruel conduct towards women and says that famous, spine-tingling line – oh God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the marketplace. And Benedick, her suitor, listens to her. He realises that his misogynistic view of the world is wrong and he takes steps to change it. He challenges his male friends for their conduct, parts company with the prince, and by doing this he wins his lady’s hand. The entire happy ending is dependent on the men realising that they must trust, love and respect women. Now it is a society that is worthy of being perpetuated. Regeneration and salvation lies in equality between the sexes and the love husbands and wives cherish for each other. The Merry Wives of Windsor – here we have men learning to trust and respect their wives, Flastaff learning his lesson for trying to seduce married women, and a daughter tricking everyone so she can marry the man she truly loves. A Midsummer Night’s Dream? The turmoil begins because three men are trying to force Hermia to marry someone she does not love, and Helena has been cruelly mistreated. At the end, happiness and harmony comes when the women are allowed to marry the men of their choosing, and it is these marriages that are blessed by the fairies.
What of the romances? In The Tempest, Prospero holds the power, but it is Miranda who is the key to salvation and a happy ending. Without his daughter, it is likely Prospero would have turned into a murderous revenger. The Winter’s Tale sees Leontes destroy himself through his own jealousy. The king becomes a vicious tyrant because he is cruel to his own wife and children, and this breach of faith in suspecting his wife of adultery almost brings ruin to his entire kingdom. Only by obeying the sensible Emilia does Leontes have a chance of achieving redemption, and the pure trust and love that exists between Perdita and Florizel redeems the mistakes of the old generation and leads to a happy ending. Cymbeline? Imogen is wronged, and it is through her love and forgiveness that redemption is achieved at the end. In all of these plays, without the influence of the women there is no happy ending.
The message is clear. Without a woman’s consent and co-operation in living together and bringing up a family, there is turmoil. Equality between the sexes and trust between husbands and wives alone will bring happiness and harmony, not only to the family unit, but to society as a whole. The Taming of the Shrew rears its ugly head as a counter-example, for here a happy ending is dependent on a woman’s absolute subservience and obedience even in the face of abuse. But this is one of Shakespeare’s early plays (and a rip-off of an older comedy called The Taming of a Shrew) and it is interesting to look at how the reception of this play changed as values evolved in this society.
As early as 1611 The Shrew was adapted by the writer John Fletcher in a play called The Woman’s Prize, or The Tamer Tamed. It is both a sequel and an imitation, and it chronicles Petruchio’s search for a second wife after his disastrous marriage with Katherine (whose taming had been temporary) ended with her death. In Fletcher’s version, the men are outfoxed by the women and Petruchio is ‘tamed’ by his new wife. It ends with a rather uplifting epilogue that claims the play aimed:
To teach both sexes due equality
And as they stand bound, to love mutually.
The Taming of the Shrew and The Tamer Tamed were staged back to back in 1633, and it was recorded that although Shakespeare’s Shrew was “liked”, Fletcher’s Tamer Tamed was “very well liked.” You heard it here folks; as early as 1633 audiences found Shakespeare’s message of total female submission uncomfortable, and they preferred John Fletcher’s interpretation and his message of equality between the sexes.
So yes. The message we can take away from Shakespeare is that a world in which women are powerless and cannot or do not contribute positively to society and family is unsustainable. Men, given the power and left to their own devices, will destroy themselves. But if men and women can work together and live in harmony, then the whole community has a chance at salvation, renewal and happiness.
In the immortal words of the bard himself: fucking annihilated.
instead of reporting the murder, i would like to help you bury thE BODY CAUSE DAAMN
“The officer who fired the fatal shots at the 16-year-old, however, was cleared of all charges by a grand jury.”
W T F
There is absolutely no justice in this. First of all why is he being tried as an adult?
basically the reasoning behind this bs is that he was an accessory to murder because he was involved in the robbery, which “caused” the officer to have to fire his gun. laiketh was offered 25 years if he plead guilty, 65 if he took it to trial. (long sentences like this are basically used to scare people into pleading guilty.) he decided to fight (because, you know, he didn’t actually shoot anyone) but he lost. it’s so sad and stupid.
“I don’t think Mr. Smith will be smiling long when he gets to prison,” District Attorney C.J. Robinson said. “We are very pleased with this sentence. Because the sentences are consecutive, it will be a long time before he comes up for even the possibility for parole, at least 20 to 25 years.”
This adult is speaking with joy about sentencing a 15-year old kid to prison for the rest of his life, knowing full well the kid isn’t guilty for the crime he’s being punished for, because it was proven to be the police who murdered his friend.
there is no grain in this that isn’t the most absolute form of evil , and C.J Robinson deserves to die
HOW DO YOU SENTENCE SOMEONE FOR ACCESSORY TO MURDER AND THEN LET THE (FOLLOWING THE CHAIN OF LOGIC) MURDERER GO FREE????? WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS THIS FUCKED UP LEGAL SYSTEM OVER THERE IN THE USA??
Fifteen. He is fifteen.
We live in a horrific dystopia and I hope someone gets this kid the fuck out of prison. Somehow. I will even accept “through a hole in the prison wall and successful, permanent escape to a country that doesn’t have extradition treaties.”
if you’re white. being,,,not straight ,,does not give you a “poc card”. i think a lot of you think it does. like being ,,not straight,,does not mean you can seperate yourself from other white people.
It’s the 25th, and that means something. It’s a day for remembering, in that weird way where everyone who read about an event and was touched by it feels like they were there. And, one can argue, we were. We stood by Sam Vimes, we saw the the dead and the wounded, we lost hope and we found it again. Just like, in a similar manner, we were all with Sir Pratchett when me left us, and we stood by his grave from a distance, and we waved to Death.
Fiction can be meaningful. Fiction writers have the power to be, with that, the most meaningful people out there. They create stories that change our lives, or at least help us define them. They explain what was hard to understand otherwise. They help us cope. They are friends, and family, and always there, with their words. They are not always nice, or kind, because nice and kind don’t mean good or important, necessarily. They do the work that’s in front of them, and create the world that needs creating.
I haven’t read all the Discworld books. Some of them are being kept in a precious place, to visit when everything seems lost and hopeless, and when life outside books is not completely bearable. But the Watch books are, somehow, the ones I’m constantly returning to, reading all of them again and again, like old friends. And Night Watch has a special place, a particular meaning to me. It’s my favourite, yes, but that’s nothing but a definition, and this novel is much more.
I tried student politics once, quite a few years ago. I was at a University, and that’s the kind of thing people do there. It’s a long and frustrating story, but it made me very jaded when it comes to people selling revolutions. I like change. I love change. Life without a healthy dose of chaos is not worth living. But I’m a historian, and if there’s something we learn, is that change rarely comes from big, official and organized revolutions. It comes from people moving things around, changing little details, making their lives better.
And that’s Sam Vimes’ approach. He doesn’t waist lives, but he changes everything around him. He makes a difference.
Night Watch is a sad book. It makes you remember that human beings can be the most foul creatures on the planet. It makes you cry, and want to punch something, and feel bad about existing. It is also beautiful, and hopeful, and proof that we can be much more. It is one person changing the world not by being rich, or powerful, or well connected, but by thinking, and caring about the people around him, by trying to keep his street safe. It is proof that no gesture is too small, for good or bad, and that we have no clue how they will affect those around us. It tells us to keep trying to do the best we can, and not to find excuses.
Remembering the Glorious 25th is important because we all need it. It has a piece of us in it, and it holds part of what made us. It is truth, justice, freedom, reasonably priced love, and a hard boiled egg. It is the lilac in bloom, and Little Sam’s birthday. It is when we held the line, and weeped.
john mulaney talking about how much he loves his wife and roasting other male comedians that just talk shit on their wives is why The Gays like him so much because he’s what Straight Culture should be
he literally called her a bitch so let’s raise the standards ladies and gentlemen
the bar is at the earth’s core
literally fuck you to hell tumblr
This is the first I heard of this guy and I think this is the most dramatically I’ve seen anyone’s words taken out of context in quite a while
Steel Phoenix Studios 