Tea at Trianon: Girls and Femininity

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, February 5, 2010

Girls and Femininity

Have we all become feminists? Share

2 comments:

Enbrethiliel said...: +JMJ+

Thanks for linking to that post, Elena. It is thought provoking. Here is the comment I left for "Papabear":

Women in sport, in politics, in the military, and in other formerly all-male fields may be great role models for feminism, but not for femininity.

I agree that femininity is partly a natural tendency of women and girls, and partly a tradition that is passed on by women to girls. Once the thread is severed, it will be difficult to weave together again. I know I've had to check myself, once or twice, from regurgitating a feminist talking point when confronted with a woman making a choice I was not trained by my default upbringing to understand.; February 5, 2010 at 4:03:00 PM EST
elena maria vidal said...: Shrewd insight, E.!; February 5, 2010 at 4:07:00 PM EST