HI, ladies!!
It is Thursday, October 9, 2008, today.
Cosmos, your spoken English version was so wonderful that I could get the outline of your writing easier than mine! In fact, it took much time for me to write this kind of writing properly, and I’d like to write and speak in English smoothly like you.
Rose, you had a fantastic experience with Japanese kyogen. Do you like it? Since I have never got a chance of watching kyogen, I envy you.
These days I’m getting used to reading a long English sentence thanks to many Victorian materials. Before finishing them, I felt nervous while reading in English. It was a big fear that I had to read to the end of the thick copies…Now I can feel there is almost nothing to fear in reading, because I have only to go forward along with English. It’s fantastic development for me. Thank you.
So, see you tomorrow. Good bye!!
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Dear Cherry and friends,
Hello. How are you?
Yesterday, I got a message through a mailing-list which informs us of symposiums and lectures. According to this, a woman is going to give presentation about her doctoral thesis on Saturday. Recently she got the degree. I once listened to her research presentation about Madam Tussaud’s Museum in London and Hihokan in Japan. However, the topic of her doctoral thesis is a completely different one, which means she was dealing with 2 research topics at the same time. By hearsay, I learned that studying these museums was a form of relaxation for her. I was amazed.
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Chapter 5
Student life
• “Penetration” and “acceptance”: thinking about change
Although some historians divide the period between 1880 and 1939, Dyhouse disagrees with this approach for three reasons. First, this period does not show steady progress. Secondly, “patterns of accommodation and institutional developments” expand through the whole period. (p.190) Thirdly, integration women students achieved was not straightforward but “much more complicated”. (p. 190)
This chapter observes the relationship between male students and female students. Did they become co-operative or hostile to each other?
• Segregation versus assimilation: interpreting the evidence
Separation was considered reasonable, but segregation was often political. Women-only societies were not always feminist conscious. According to Mabel Tylecote who wrote about women university students at Manchester, they “were excluded from membership of the men’s union” in 1899. (p.191) “Mutual antagonism” had been continuously observed between two parties before 1918. (p.191)
Dyhouse looks back history of higher education for women chronologically.
How were women accepted by university communities before 1914?
In the 1880s, there were physiological debates. Some argued higher education was harmful to women’s health. In 1888 and 1890, two feminist scholars rebuffed them.
• Protecting women from men, or men from women?
Women students had to obey numerous and old-fashioned regulations set by their college. One example was the requirement of chaperonage. In Manchester, “men students were not to meet women students by appointment” (p. 195). Strict punishments awaited those who disobeyed rules. There were schools’ reactions “to the admission of women before 1914” (p. 197).
Male students also discussed higher education for women. Student magazines “tended to be characterized by a tone of satire or nervous ridicule” (p. 197).
Some brave women students tried to respond aggressively to such hostile reactions.
• Masculinity redefined: male ideals of fellowship and performance
This section illustrates some examples of “heightening of self-conscious masculinity” or boundaries to exclude women from university communities (p. 200). Student unions and sports events are raised as cases.
• Boat-racing, women and sport
Restrictions on women’s participation in sports are found in records even after 1914.
• Speaking out: women’s debating societies
Women’s debating societies founded by women university students were the cradle of women political activists. They discussed a broad range of topics. A Ladies’ Debating Society in Edinburgh founded in 1865 debated “social, political, feminist and literary subjects” (p. 209). The students of King’s College Ladies’ Department established a literary and debating society and as members they made progress “in the art of public speaking” (p.210).
• Gender and misrule: women and the college “rag”
Annual “rag weeks” established for the purpose of fundraising at most universities was actually a carnival for students. The effects of women’s participation were discussed here. Men students’ wild behavior was expected to be reduced by feminine refinement. However, it was not so effective.
• Conviviality or misogyny?
This small section deals with what we call now sexual harassment.
• Women’s suffrage
Misogynists attacked suffragist activities.
Some women students were “involved in militant and disruptive activities” (p. 217).
However, when Mrs Pankhurst was invited to speak about “Votes for Women” in Nottingham, the college Council indignantly protested. In Bristol, a university pavilion was destroyed in a fire and the incident was attributed to suffragettes. Next day, male students completely wrecked the Suffragette Offices in Queen’s Road.
“There were suffrage societies in most universities in the period of 1906 to 1913” (p. 219). Not many participated in the societies. “The vast majority were preoccupied with the daily realities of studying and survival” (p. 220).
• Women students and the community: settlements and social work
Another area of women student activity was “that of community and social work” (p. 221). Some devoted to charitable and philanthropic activity.
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Let me stop here today.
Good night.
Dear Cherry and friends,
Below may be my monologue.
The tutorial on October fifth startled me out of my quiet recuperate life. I suddenly realized the seriousness of the situation; only less than two months left to write a draft for 2008 Essay. Iﾕm afraid that what I probably can manage to do will be writing a research note at the best instead of an essay. Last night, I found some previous research on Josephine Butler to read. Finally I could stand at the starting point of research, I thought.
A rubbish day it was today; rain, headache, and no schedule completed. The worse, I felt a slight pain in the hip joints while receiving grocery delivered by co-op stuff. Hopefully, tomorrow is another day. (10.7)
Farewell season of age (?): an old friend of mine decided to live in Boston for the rest of his life with his daughterﾕs family and leave Okazaki this fall. Another is to move to Okayama Prefecture with her retired husband and her dog next summer. Maybe I can visit them at their new house someday, though, the sense of being left behind brings me a feeling of desolation for the time being. (10.8)
Clear autumn sunshine and the scent of fragrant olive trees cheered me to going out. I had my hair cut today that I could not do on Tuesday. I wish I could visit the exhibition of Noriko Tamura, a mural painter, being held at Takashimaya. I wonder if I could get to the venue by train.
I honestly glad to hear that another Japanese scientist, Osamu Shimomura won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. It is amazing that he also got the doctorﾕs degree at Nagoya Univ. On Tuesday, Prof. Maskawa and Prof. Kobayashi who graduated from Nagoya Univ. were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics together with Prof. Nambu. Their spectacular achievement will certainly encourage students and researcher of Nagoya Univ. Hurrah, Nagoya! (10.9)
Dear Cherry and friends,
Hello. How are you?
I uploaded files sent from Plum today. Unfortunately, the service often becomes unavailable. I don't know why it happens. I'll look for another service provider to store the files. I'll try a Japanese vendor probably.
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Chapter 5
Student life (cont'd)
• Feminine subcultures and feminism
Women university students created their own culture and traditions. In the 1920s, women pioneer students and the foundation of the women's halls and hostels were commemorated by contemporary women students in most universities.
While arguing that feminine subcultures were often filled with feminism, Dyhouse wonders whether we can interpret "a clear consciousness of women's comparative subordination in university life" and efforts "to lessen this" as feminism (p. 224).
According to Sheila Hamilton, the second and third generation women graduates took their accesses to university education for grated (p. 225). Moreover, they hardly heard the word "feminism".
Nevertheless, Dyhouse continues, "fairly clear patterns of the sexual division" and sexual segregation was also taken for granted. "Women often set up their own societies in the 1890s" because "a sense of isolation could be strong among them"(p. 226). The activities of the societies were modest compared to those of feminist. Such societies held meetings to make themselves feel at home. Sometimes it provided women with "experience of public speaking, committee work and administration" (p. 228).
Conclusion
The final chapter is not merely the summary of the book.
Dyhouse argues that it is impossible to find "consensus among those who have attempted to measure the progress women had made in establishing their position in British university life by 1939" (p. 238).
Not only among researchers but also within a single volume, one can find "discordant and contradictory messages" (p. 238).
The separate provision made for women students had been overlooked.
In the early 1920s, both Oxford and Cambridge limited the proportion of women students. In other universities, women faced backlash especially after the war. The reactions to misogynistic attacks on women teachers and students were ambivalent. When Phoebe Sheavyn suggested investigating the health of women students in co-educational institutions, Dr Frances Melville showed reluctance telling such an enquiry would confirm "the view of conservatives that the strain of university work would certainly prove too much for women" (p. 242). Such a debate was viewed as risky.
Dyhouse finally makes us look at the questions that was asked in 1940 and that can be asked today. "Could universities be said to provide the best education for citizenship?" Have students been able to learn "to work towards a more generous vision of social justice" at universities? (p.246)
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Have a happy long weekend!
Dear Cherry and ladies,
Do you enjoy holidays?
I visited the exhibition of Noriko Tamura today (Oct. 13) and enjoyed finding (so I thought) ﾔa storyﾕ, or an assertion, in her work.
The main feature of the exhibition is paintings painted on fusuma, sliding doors, of a zen-temple (Hogen-in) in Kyoto. I got the idea that Tamura's fusuma-e seemed to reify feminism or feminism seemed to have been depicted by the structures and womenﾕs expressions of the fusuma-e when I looked at the work. There are women wearing white robes and being laid out in various figures against red desert-like landscapes. The red color used in the first room picture as a background is brilliant vermilion that symbolizes morning light. In the second room, vivid crimson is used to symbolize daytime. The third, it is darkish vermilion in contrast to a dark blue evening sky with a silver colored crescent moon. All pictures are covered by massive amount of red colors.
I would like to imply what I thought by posing my questions on her work. Please imagine answers of mine or find your own.
Q1: Why does Tamura fill backgrounds with such energetic red colors?
Q2: Why is two-third of them female? (Thirty-three persons are painted in the fusuma-e.)
Q3: Why do most of women look upward and look thoughtful, while most of men not: some looking downward, some closing eyes, some showing their backs, and some smiling?
Q4: Why are women young and men old?
Q5: Why do women have thoughtful or inquiring eyes while men have blunt/satisfied eyes?
Q6: Why did/could the painter detail the characteristics of each woman better than that of man? Men show a streotyped countenance.
Q7: Why in the picture does Tamura paint elderly men who are apparently in the higher status than the women?
Q8: One woman is facing a man with an inquiring expression in the right scene. On the other hand, another woman turns her back to a man in the left scene, meditating by herself. Does she stop asking?
Q9: Are women followers to elderly men (monk/priest)?
Q10: Why is the white color of womenﾕs robe put on thicker than that of menﾕs?
Men's are vague.
Q11: Why do women seem to talk each other while men do not?
Q12: As a whole, why are men laid out farther than women in the composition?
More questions I had, though, these will be enough to offer by now.
Bon Courage!
Dear Cherry and friends,
Good evening.
How did you spend this long weekend?
Gloriosa, you sound relaxed in the museum musing on art and feminism.
Feminism for me is more therapeutic than art these days.
Writing English also makes us relaxed, doesn’t it?
From Saturday to Sunday was a local festival. My household is the head of neighborhood group. So my mother had to attend the festival. Yesterday, she cooked Udon noodles all day with neighbors in the park behind the shrine. I didn’t go out except the TOEIC class and the library. I don’t attend the festival for many years. It’s for kids. I went to the library to get some books.
On Saturday, I met another TOEIC teacher whose class is intermediate level. Greeting him, I found he was polite and kind. Perhaps, he came from England. He said that I can ask him when I have questions about English. I’ll bombard him questions next time.
While I was studying the textbook which I use for the TOEIC class, a trivial fact caught my interest. It was about multiplication. Yes, it’s math. I was checking the word, “time”. If we count the total number of legs of 10 elephants, Japanese arithmetic teachers should teach it should be formulated as 4x10. It means “Multiply 4 by 10”. The formula means 10 sets of four legs. However, in English, it has to be set as 10 times 4, that is, 10x4. On contrary to Japanese way of formulation, it means “we count 4 legs 10 times”.
Ok, what have I read this weekend? Not much. I had to write a report for Tomorrow’s seminar.
I started to read the book, Pioneer Women In Victoria’s Reign written by Edwin Pratt. The book was first published in 1897 but I got a reprinted edition. Amazon tells it was sold in 2004.
So far, I read about Miss Jessie Boucherett and Miss Maria Susan Rye.
Encouraged by an article written by Harriet Martineau, Miss Boucherett worked for the “Society for Promoting the Employment of Women”.
Miss Rye sent thousands of young women to Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.
Not only middle-class women but also poor women emigrated through her society.
Talk to you tomorrow.
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