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dwellordream · 3 years ago

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“Because informal camaraderie between the sexes was an unfamiliar phenomenon, figuring out how to relate to each other was a complicated matter for both men and women. As one young man noted in 1924, "Nowadays when a woman goes everywhere and does everything, it is very difficult for a man to figure out how to treat her." "How is a man to know how to treat a woman anymore?" asked another bewildered soul. Obviously, these and other young men were at a loss when it came to relating to women as friends and companions. Did female companionship mean, they wondered, that men had to be courteous and gentlemanly at all times?

Would they have to refine their language and manners in order not to offend female sensibilities? Or should young women simply be treated as men would each other? Most often they found no clear answers to these questions, and they had a hard time imagining new ways of behaving. "No matter what I do," grumbled one young man, "I never seem to do the right [thing]." Young women seemed equally unsure about how to interact with the opposite sex. On the one hand, they longed for frank conversations and easy rapport. On the other, they did not need advice columnists and etiquette experts, or their mothers, to remind them that "nothing is as delicate as a woman's reputation."

As they well knew, simply seeming too anxious for male companionship or too careless in selecting one's company was sufficient to cast doubt on a woman's moral rectitude. Yet, showing too much reserve might mean missing out on having fun. Their concerns were therefore of a different kind than young men's. Was it really true, they wanted to know, that men found women who went out at night by themselves to be "cheap"? Did men approve of women who wore lipstick? And under which circumstances could a woman allow a young man to walk her home? "I don't want to be prudish, but I don't know what is appropriate," one nineteen-year-old woman wrote, summarizing the dilemma she and many other young women faced.

In public discourse, the uncertainty over new codes of behavior came to a head in discussions over the seemingly trivial issue of male chivalry. Throughout the 1920s, young men and women debated this matter with an astonishing passion, and for that reason alone it is worth examining. What were these discussions about? What caused them? What was it about this issue that triggered such intense feelings? And what does this tell us about the difficulties associated with establishing cross-gender camaraderie? On the surface, the lines of conflict were clear enough. Over and over again, young women complained about what they perceived as rudeness among men. "Why are Danish men so ill-mannered?" "Femme" wanted to know in 1923.

"Girlie" was convinced that "chivalry and courtesy disappeared along with the crinoline." Writing from Italy, another woman was sure that Scandinavian men would "die of embarrassment" if they saw the gallantry with which "even lowly dock workers on the Arno River treat a woman." Adding insult to injury, one of the few Langelinie girls to speak out in public claimed that her interest in the visiting sailors stemmed solely from the fact that the foreigners were "considerate," "gentlemanly," and "chivalrous" companions who did not try to take advantage of "a decent and well-behaved young girl" like herself.

"A Copenhagen Girl" agreed. Since "you can use a very strong magnifying glass and still not discover even the tiniest trace of chivalry" among Danish men, she didn't find it surprising that nice girls like herself preferred the company of men like "Pierre and Giovanni, Tom and Jack." In most cases, young men declared themselves guilty as charged, but, they argued, this was only because chivalry was an outdated form of conduct entirely incompatible with the kind of camaraderie women seemed to desire. "What is it that determines that a man must always be chivalrous toward a woman?" a self-described "nonattentive gentleman" thus asked.

Another young man who defiantly labeled himself "nongallant" wanted to know whether "a young woman has any right to be offended because I do not pick her up before a dance but ask her to meet me at a trolley stop?" "Mack and Jack" were equally annoyed by what they saw as unreasonable demands on the part of female companions. "We are two young men," they wrote to an advice columnist in 1923, "who would like to hear your opinion about the behavior of two young ladies. The other night after we had been out dancing together, the young ladies wanted us to escort them home, but we live at the opposite end of town and escorting them home would have taken more than an hour out of our night's sleep, so we refused. Now they don't want to see us again."

The unmistakable tone of anger, resentment, and indignation that runs through this discourse suggests that more than etiquette was at stake in the controversies over chivalry. When young people debated whether men ought to open doors, assist with overcoats, carry packages, offer cigarette lighters, give up their seats in trolley cars, and walk companions home, they were, of course, trying to determine what constituted proper behavior in an era when gender norms were being redefined. That in itself was fraught with difficulty, and the confusion they expressed was genuine.

But because both men and women perceived chivalry as a source of power and control, their "conversations" are therefore best understood as part of a much larger struggle over the relative status of men and women in a changing cultural context. For that reason it became such an intensely contested issue. Certainly, women's insistence on male chivalry was not merely motivated by a desire to indulge in the pleasures that spring from a companion's service and attentiveness. In their eyes, chivalrous behavior indicated, among other things, a certain level of male regard. After all, it had in the past only been disreputable women who could not legitimately demand such treatment.

Insufficient male chivalry was therefore seen, even among many self-proclaimed "modern" young women, as an insulting sign of disrespect. More importantly, young women also perceived chivalry as a sort of sexual safety mechanism. At the heart of the ideology of chivalry lay the notion that men were responsible for serving and protecting women. Therefore, as long as women could hold men to a code of behavior that emphasized courtesy and (sexual) self-control, their ability to protect themselves from physical and moral danger seemed all the greater. And if this potentially greater degree of safety came at the expense of what seemed more egalitarian companionship, that was a price worth paying for most women.

Besides, despite their modernity, young women were not out to eradicate gender-differentiated forms of behavior. While they were eager to assert their independence from older patterns of social interaction and to develop new forms of camaraderie with men, they still insisted on their femininity and on having that femininity acknowledged by male companions. "It might well be," one women poignantly argued, "that women in this country have reached their goal in terms of equality with men, but that does not mean that they have stopped being women."

That sexual equality and continued male chivalry were demands not incongruous with each other was a claim many men found hard to accept. "We don't understand how young girls can demand to be equals and at the same time demand to be treated as ladies," two male friends explained. "Women have by now for many years sought equality with men," another man elaborated, "and it is therefore my infallible [sicl] opinion that the ladies must either be entirely independent in all matters and renounce gentlemanly gallantry, or they must relinquish their equality with men." With such comments, young men laid bare what was for them at the heart of this matter.

Clearly, they expected women to reciprocate for the favors and attentions they received with a certain degree of modesty and deference. As Karen Dubinsky has pointed out, the flip side of chivalry and protection is power and control. When men no longer felt they had power and control over women, they were, as they repeatedly stressed, no longer willing to respect a code of conduct that endowed them with a specific set of duties and responsibilities. Underlying the controversies over the issue of chivalry were therefore much more profound conflicts, most of which derived from young men's resentment over losing a set of gendered privileges and an authority over women that older generations of men had been able to claim.

Even though many young men were attracted, at least in principle, to the idea of having fun and enjoying themselves in the company of female peers, they were also deeply ambivalent about young women's entry into what had previously been male territory and their encroachment on what had traditionally been male prerogatives. As one newspaper columnist complained in 1921, "Women have forced their way through every door—into the labor market, into politics, and into entertainment. They are getting more and more rights—rights to this and rights to that—but what about us men? We don't seem to be getting any more rights."

Many young men also took offense at women's relative independence in public arenas. As long as young women had money of their own, they did not have to depend on male companions in order to partake in public entertainment. Although most men had greater earnings and more spending money than their female peers, even those women with the most limited funds were usually able to afford a movie ticket, the admission to an amusement park, or a cup of coffee in a restaurant, and unlike in the United States, for example, young Danish women typically paid their own way when they went out with male companions, at least as long as they were not engaged or going steady.

"Of course, we paid for ourselves when we went out," insisted Stine Petersen. "Yes, naturally! Naturally, we paid for ourselves," exclaimed Netta Nielsen, seemingly surprised at the suggestion that men might pay for female companions. While hard on their pocket books, such financial self-reliance had several advantages for young women. First, it allowed them, as Michael Curtin has pointed out, to signal that "the relation between themselves and [male companions] were of a public and egalitarian nature, not romantic as between lovers." Perhaps more importantly, it released them from any obligation to male peers and from the moral suspicion that surrounded any woman who accepted gifts and treats from men who were relative strangers.

Besides, paying one's own way also protected young women from ending up, as Nikoline Sorensen phrased it, in an "awkward position" where men "might expect things" in return for their generosity. But rather than appreciating the potential for egalitarian friendships that such practices produced, most young men resented the self-reliance of their female peers, perceiving it as a challenge to male initiative and a lessening of their power. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, much of young men's resentment grew from their sense that women were in fact not only becoming less dependent, but were also acquiring a whole new kind of power over men.

"What are men to do? How can they protect themselves against these attractive, scantily dressed young girls? We are under their spell," a twenty-two-year old man complained in a statement that interwove two of the most common strands in male discourse on postwar gender relations. First, men of all classes and ages spoke of young women as increasingly bewitching and seductive. Whether it was their short skirts, deep necklines, freer body language, or seeming flirtatiousness that led men to this conclusion, they generally agreed that the new generation of women possessed an unprecedented degree of sexual allure.

Second, they constantly complained that women were using their wiles, their charms and their bodies as unfair means to gain control over men, who were ill-equipped to withstand such an onslaught. "This is the last and final battle in the war between the sexes," one observer declared in 1924. "After suffrage and all the other rights women have obtained, they are now plotting their final assault. With their physical allure, they are striving to master men who are, after all, only men." In this light, young men's unwillingness to behave chivalrously begins to take on its deeper meaning. In a situation in which many young men believed that women were gaining the upper hand, they were less than eager to engage in behavior that smacked of servitude to women.

In earlier generations, a man who fetched a woman's coat or carried her packages had discreetly underlined his own masculinity through a show of physical ability. By the 1920s, the very same gestures seemed to many young men simply to demonstrate service and subordination to a new generation of women who already possessed too much power over them. Quite understandably, they therefore resisted any involvement in such behavior. Although the debates over chivalry are revealing of the underlying conflicts that seriously circumscribed any effort to create more frank and egalitarian relationships between young men and young women, they may ultimately be read as fairly innocuous.

After all, having to fetch one's own coat is at most an inconvenience, and while ungentlemanly behavior might offend a woman's sensibilities it hardly impairs her autonomy or her freedom of movement. But because (sexual) self-control was a central component of the ideology of chivalry, young men's increasing unwillingness to adhere to this long-standing code of conduct had more serious consequences. Predictably, although unfortunately, it led to an unprecedented level of physical and sexual danger for all women who ventured into public arena.”

- Birgitte Soland, “Beauties and Boyfriends, Bitches and Brutes.” in Becoming Modern: Young Women and the Reconstruction of Womanhood in the 1920s

#becoming modern #birgitte soland #history #1920s #gender

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inappropriatefangirlneeds · 7 years ago

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Gotham s4ep20 “That Old Corpse” Personal Review

For Jim Gordon the law is not a steel boned corset but more of a fragile lingerie corsage..

Warning spoilers below

“I would sooner debate you all on TELEOLOGY versus DEONTOLOGY than leave her with that overgrown Boy Scout.” * Oh eff you EDWARD NYGMA and people like you, those two concepts aren´t that hard to grasp if you explain the terms, don´t feel more intelligent cause you got in touch with terminology other people didn´t, they have no use for those words but they sure do understand what they are about you might get a compelling discussion, you know when you are faced with the necessity to break rules and law to make a living instead of doing it just to flaunt your ego, might be an interesting perspective Ed, consider this (Overgrown boy scout though :D) This really is one of the episodes themes though. With Jim Gordon we´ve already walked all kinds of paths of the question of the lawful vs. the right thing but now we got some more steps here.

LESLIE THOMPKINS & JIM GORDON get a whole straight forward conversation about the whole issue: “Who doesn't want to be Robin Hood? But you're still breaking the law.” “Jim, you wish you could do what I'm doing. Helping people without the straitjacket of the law as if the law means anything in Gotham.” “If the law has lost its meaning, it's because people like you are turning your back on it.” “I am fighting back. I don't deny anything I've done. You want to send me to Blackgate? Go ahead.” “I don't want to send you to Blackgate! That's the last thing I want to do. Don't you know I wish I could let you walk out that door, turn my head?” “What's holding you back? Maybe if you let me go, you'd let yourself go, too.” Oddly Leslie seems to have forgotten that Jim Gordon does bend the law for the right cause.Why though he was present during the Galavan thing. Jim is not exactly completely restricted by it. “Come to the Narrows.” “What?” “Where you can make a real difference in this city. You can make up your own rules about how to do it.” For Jim Gordon the law is not a corset with steel bones but more a fragile lingerie corsage. It´s nice to look at and you can flaunt your body in it if you please but it´s not restricting you. He is already quite on board with the whole doing bad / criminal thing for the sake of the good cause. Jim already made up his own rules. Just look at him torturing suspects in this episode. It´s not like he hasn´t already “let himself go”. The only real thing that´s holing him back is appearance. He wasn´t happy about Oswald´s public licence system he wanted the old more concealed mafia cooperation back. Only HARVEY BULLOCK voices the issue. They have long crossed that line. “People get away with a lot worse in Gotham every day.” “Doesn't make it right.” “We got away with worse. Both of us.” > Oddly recently we have had Harvey Bullock be on the “hold up the rules” train, he arrested Oswald although he helped them, he called Jim out on falling for Lee´s “she is doing good” argument. This time they have switched platforms. This time it´s Harvey being ready to let Leslie get away with her crime because of her motivations and because there is worse people. Jim instead is the one to insist that not only the “good intention” matter. Less oddly this is the kind of philosophy Jim usually shows with other people. We get more and more expressions of doubt about himself but he still goes on with acting based on the other kind, the one that supports him bending rules and law. Which certainly must be less easy to suppress now that Bullock is directly addressing this. (I´m on the other hand suspecting that with Bullock that is less a matter of philosophy than one of personal feelings. He never liked Oswald, not even before he killed Fish Mooney. I´m pretty sure this animosity was even more leading him to arrest Oswald than it was his righteousness.)

Then there is the matter of PERSPECTIVE. All the question of doing a good thing or causing a good thing doesn’t matter much if there´s different points of views on what´s “good”. When Harvey Bullock and JIM GORDON torture the guy in the trunk of their car Jim reminds Harvey of their audience. “Harvey, Harvey. Reporters, buddy.” The good cause of foiling crime outweighs the unethical deed of torture for the both of them but that´s only their judgement the reporters might see that differently. Likewise BRUCE WAYNE´s intentions of bringing JEREMIAH to Jerome´s grave were good but the outcome was detrimental to Jeremiahs situation. “I thought it would help. I was wrong, but we need to leave.” JEREMIAH VALESKA and BRUCE WAYNE is the other pair where this question is discussed most directly: “Jerome wanted to slather you in honey and have you eaten alive by corpse beetles. Now, that's mad. Me, if I want to kill you, I'll just do it. I'll shoot you in the head. Simply and sanely. See, I don't want to kill you, because I want to show you how much I've changed things. How much we've changed things. 'Cause I could not have done any of this without your help.” Just like with leading Jeremiah to the dug up Jerome Bruce´s intentions with the project that turned out to be bombs instead of cheap environmentally friendly energy were good. However this doesn´t matter when the outcome is death and destruction. Or does it? He´s contributed to it! He has made it possible. What weighs more heavily the thing you wanted to do or the thing you did? It´s also tied straight back to him feeling responsible for what Jerome did after he let him live! And on the other side it connects the whole issue back to JIM GORDON. He doesn´t let Jerome live. He shoots him to stop him from pressing destruction buttons. He´s trying to safe his live as well when he is about to fall from the roof but with shooting him he already risked his death. Apart form this quite obvious bomb point I do think that there´s something to be said about JEROME & JEREMIAH here as well. Jeremiah says he would just kill Bruce without further ado, claiming he is all about the outcome, while Jerome would have delved in the deed itself. With Jerome there is much more focus on his intentions and motivation. On the other hand you could also read this as the both of them being on the same page. In pointing this out Jeremiah also flaunts his own intention, which is differentiating himself from his brother. It´s not about killing it´s also about making a point that he kills differently than Jerome? LESLIE THOMPKINS & EDWARD NYGMA “Were you awake the whole time?” “Maybe.” “Smartest man in Gotham, huh?” “Don't just wrap me around your finger, Lee.” “Come on. Let's run.” I´m still kind of expecting that they turn on each other, Leslie inviting Jim to the Narrows is potentially as suspicious as Edwards “not gonna happen” line last week (about the both of them joining and loving Lee), maybe I´m paranoid but I don´t like their relationship very much plot wise but they are still super cute together, how can they even have that much chemistry? How?! However both seem to have a common ground in “darkness”. Leslie accepts hers for the sake of the good cause. Her crimes are motivated by the outcome, one that´s helping others. She doesn´t see herself as a bad person for doing crime because the cause justifies them. On the other hand Edward doesn´t care about this, he would rob a bank or kidnap nuns as long as he can make a name of himself and flaunt his ego. He delves into this darkness instead of focusing on what it can be harnessed for. He recognizes the darkness in Lee but also sees that she isn´t in the same place as he is but he seems to think she will get there, while Leslie sees his as well and his ability and thinks she can influence him to get on her path .. Edit: more

JEREMIAH and JEROME VALESKA and THEIR PAST MAYBE? * Who are those Jerome followers? I mean I would say either you are the kind of person that likes some chaos and to trash a place while partying or you are the kind of person that can partake in an event that takes quite a level of organization but then again young people organize illegal parties and whole festivals in the woods maybe that´s not so out of the ordinary, maybe you can get a whole mix but oh well, in general I wonder about all those mobs and groups that show up, where are they when they disband? Do they wear sweatpants if they aren´t out to make trouble? *“And trust me, you're gonna want to pay attention so the TWIST makes sense at the end.” I was getting really excited when the Jerome video popped up and Jim was mid fight with Ecco, like oh what are they gonna do with this plot? Have I judged too early? But then it was Jeremiah who orchestrated the whole thing. He was not unaffected by the gas. Him telling Bruce that he sees Jerome everywhere was probably a lie, or not, who knows? Maybe seeing him everywhere sparked his change and his obsession to outdo him? But anyway That is not a twist, I guess you could claim the twist is there not being a twist which in some way is a twist but with the absent of an actual twist this doesn’t really count as a twist it´s just a suggestion of something that isn’t there that´s not the actual thing. In other words I´m disappointed. * And it does not change anything about the fact that having someone in that prominent role that dedicated his life to something else before and who just took this path because of some gas is cheap. And I still don´t like that notion that, (assuming Jerome was right about Jeremiah) the choices a person makes don´t matter. * But I´m gonna try to find something interesting in this. > I´m wondering if we are meant to believe that Jeremiah already started working on that energy system having in mind that this could be used as a bomb? Even before the whole Jerome thing went down? Were it his natural impulses or his subconscious that made him gravitate towards such an ambivalent project? I´d rather believe not, I want to believe his intentions were the same as the intentions of Bruce, but then again this could feed some characterization > “Like everything Jerome set his mind to, his insanity gas failed. Other than some mild cosmetic effects, he might as well have sprayed me with water. You all need to see Jerome for the utter dud that he was, so I donned the mask of madness to show you how feeble that is compared to actual greatness. Behold, the face of true sanity.” So given his words we could read this as sibling rivalry, Jeremiah wants to come out of this on top. He´s better than his brother. He´s not only better he´s also different. Where does his all come from? Is he really seeing Jerome everywhere and wanting to spite him? He took some time learning about Jerome´s “obsessions and goals” and came to the conclusion that: “I will outdo every one of them”. I don´t think that mixes well with Jerome and his talk about legacy, also I´d like to have some more background where this could be base on.. > Another thing is this repeated “Progress requires sacrifice” notion that Jeremiah shows, he also says “To truly build something, you must tear down what’s already there.” I haven´t had the impression that this is a philosophy he would support? He was more about protection and building in a constructive way, granted this was self protection but still. He expected Jerome to confront him, he feared for his life and he hid and built a defensive structure instead of going out of his way to find Jerome first and get rid of him. Which he should have done if he believes in the notion that for him/something to flourish obstacles need to be eradicated. On the other hand it was implied that Jeremiah planned to maybe kill Jerome. Which would make the defensive structure more of a trap in order to destroy him. Maybe it was both and this is meant to show Jeremiah´s struggle/split between the tendencies Jerome sees in him and the choice Jeremiah made to not act upon them?! Just this still feels a bit out of nowhere, I´d really like to have had some hints, maybe connected to his architectural work that this is a philosophy he cherishes.. > Then again maybe I´m asking for something that was in fact there. Maybe him throwing young Jerome under the wheels was his version of “progress requires sacrifice”. By making his family believe he was in danger he could leave them, which opened up opportunities far from circus life for him, he could go to school and have success .. * I loved all the details they had this week: >The mazes on Jermiah´s walls > Jerome´s diary outside and inside > The diy flyer that called the crowd to Jerome´s grave > That one umbrella (see below) one of the Jerome followers had * JEREMIAH´s hiding spot among the dead. This was such a good choice because you can´t escape how much it resembles his home underground, how in turn his safety maze is resembling a grave, he´s hiding dead to the world, and now Jerome obviously got into it through the gas * The shot with Alfred going through the door and the fight scene we only get a glimpse at * I loved how Jim Gordon was a proper detective again for a moment, the tactical retreat to trap Jerome´s followers was a nice moment, as well as him basing this strategy on Jerome´s tactics of distractions .. well he couldn´t know that this was all on Jeremiah.. only Oswald figured that out! (“I don't expect you to betray the memory of that old corpse. I want you to betray whomever it is you are currently following.”) * I loved that there was a lot of openness and communication (even if sometimes not sincerely) Jim is quick to tell Alfred about the problem, JEREMIAH talks about the gas, he directly calls out BRUCE on the lie and he promptly apologizes and changes his strategy * Likewise although less kind the interactions between BUTCH GLIZEAN and OSWALD COBBLEPOT were rather open. “There's nothing petty about my aggression.” “So, am I to starve until I guess the source of your resentment?” “You said, if I joined you …… “ // “Shh! Did you just shush me?” Just like Jeremiah Oswald addressed a problem inbetween them directly and the openly talked about it. * “What I want to know with a minimum of fuss,” Oh Oswald, I feel you, everything is exhausting * It´s a shame that we don´t know more about ECCO. With a show that´s supposedly about Gotham before Batman and the villains he hunts they are way too quick to push characters into those roles. I want to see them being someone different and then slowly change and develop but there are like Oh by the way here have Harley doing Harley things (assuming Ecco is meant to be her) Edit: more * “Confusion is always an opportunity for the clear headed.” * “You, go where Jim Gordon goes. He comes under some harm, assist him. I do not need Lee blaming me if he's killed under friendly fire while I go about my business.” * “And even though I know it's not real, it feels real.” * “Dead when he came in. More dead when he was eviscerated and his brain was sliced up.” Oh Lucius * “Which is exactly why I will not have you bumbling into the GCPD en masse.” Bumbling! * That poor „We’re saved!” guy was funny .. * Harvey running that guys head into the metal bar was mean but takin more beer out of the coffin a funny moment again, also Harper!! * „Yes, that's right. Now you can tell me why you sound so concerned.” I don´t even know why but his tone in this makes me ship Jim and ALFRED even more.

#gotham #gotham meta #jeremiah valeska #gotham s4ep20 That Old Corpse #mine Gotham full episode reviews #umbrella

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