Well since you insisted … just one image from Media She for now. One section of the book (and I suspect it would have been rather shocking at the time) has men posed in adverts used in the same way was women. Hence, this:

A recent post of mine about the weaknesses of men has been picked up by the very reasonable Hugo Schwyzer, who disagreed with my conclusions about the effects of early marriage in infantilising men. Some of his commenters have, however, got rather more hot under the collar.

I was looking around for some material for a post on Seventies feminism (for the upcoming Carnival of Feminists on Sour Duck – check out the call for nominations) when I came across one of my all time second-hand bookstores best-buys, Media She, by Patricia Edgar and Hilary McPhee, published by Heinemann Melbourne in 1974. (It was practically falling apart when I bought it, but for $2 – even then – was a bargain.)

Very much a product of the early Second Wave feminism, it charts the rampant, open misogyny then to be found in the media, advertising, and other public arenas.

I’ll probably be quoting more of this soon, but for an example of how society encouraged men to behave like children, I present this quiz, about “how good a wife are you, and could you manage paid work and a husband?”. You are supposed to answer to each question with one of: never, sometimes, average, often, always.

1. Do you keep his clothes clean and mended?
2. Give him a good breakfast on time – and share it?
3. See he gets plenty of rest and sleep?
4. Relax with friends in the day so you can do things he enjoys together at evenings and weekends.
5. Make him feel you are really interested in his work – not jealous.
6. Co-operate sensibly in handling the pay packet?
7. Praise his accomplishments and keep quiet about failures?
8. Help when he has homework or overtime by avoiding complaints?
9. Finish as many chores as you can so he doesn’t have to do them?
10. Greet him with a smile and a kiss instead of moans about your day?
How to score: Never 0, Sometimes 1, Average 2, Often 3, Always 4. You can hardly give yourself the perfect 40, can you? At best, you will probably score somewhere between 20 and 30. So pick out your low scores and go to work to improve them. And then, maybe, go out to work.

My first thought is “who was your slave last year?” my second “this is a description of a mother (of a small children), not a wife”.

Now of course this is a silly magazine quiz, but it is also a careful reflection of society’s expectations.

If someone continued to do all of these things for you well into adulthood, or you even thought they should, you’d probably find it pretty hard to learn to take responsibility for yourself.

(In case you are wondering, the original source is not given.)

Feminism, Women, Men.

I was sad but hardly surprised to see that Amman has been the latest target for presumed al-Qa’ida bombers.

I have very fond memories of travelling in Jordan – the whole process was delightfully easy, you could trust people – even ticket touts, taxis had meters, and there was almost no hassle travelling as a woman on your own. And in the whole of the Middle and Far East it is the only place I know (well, except Singapore) where drivers don’t perpetually have one hand on their horn. (Althought the traffic is still pretty crazy.)

Most people go for Petra, which is the most astonishing place – no photo can really do it justice, but there’s much more. Jerash is a spectacular Roman site every bit as well preserved as Ephesus – giving that magical feeling that you are not in a ruin, but in a very nearly living city.

And Amman itself, although the modern city is nothing to write home about, has a magnificent archaeological museum (I particularly remember some great late Neolithic statues the like of which I haven’t seen elsewhere), and a nice neat little Roman theatre with a fun folklore museum.

I’m going to see if I can scan a few of the pictures I took and post them, but anyway, I’d recommend that if you were thinking about travelling there, or just looking for somewhere to go, don’t overlook Jordan, even now. As we all know, these things can happen anywhere.

Terrorism, Jordan.

I got rid of my copy of the Da Vinci Code by the simple expedient of leaving it in Australia, with someone else who wanted to read it (so environmentally sound recycling), but London By London has a suggestion for those who haven’t been able to avail themselves of such an opportunity to remove the embarrasssment from their bookshelves.

“LbL is giving you a chance to unburden yourself of your Dan Brown trash-lit guilt by swapping any old dog-eared Dan Brown book for a shiny LbL one [the old edition of their guide, which has been supplemented by a new one]. Free. Gratis. No catches. No questions asked. No judgements made. Just hand over Brown and we’ll give you LbL.”

I thought it was rather clever – unfortunately I haven’t got one to swap, or I would.

Books, Da Vinci Code

My Lady of Quality is today reporting on a woman, one of Lucien Bonaparte’s daughters, Charlotte, who is said to have stood up to Napoleon. Miss Williams Wynn says:

Napoleon sent for one of Lucien’s daughters, offering to marry her to the Prince of Spain (Ferdinand), or to the Prince of Wirtemberg (Paul). … When the poor victim arrived at St. Cloud, where the Emperor was, she was immediately presented to him; and as she knelt to pay her obeisance, he said, ‘ Levez-vi princesse.’ [Arise princess]
She had the courage to reply, ‘Non, sire, je ne suis pas princesse; je ne suis que Charlotte Buonaparte: permittez-moi, sire, de retourner mon pere.” [No, I’m not a princess, I’m Charlotte Bonaparte. Allow me, sire, to go back to my father.]
This permission was granted, and intended Queen of Spain (afterwards Princess Gabriella) was, when this story was related, living with her parents at Ludlow.

Charlotte (1795-1865) went on to have an adventurous life, living for three years in New Jersey. (This link includes one of her quite respectable sketches of there, and there are other works here.)

She later lived, it seems, in Belgium, before marrying an Italian and eventually, as Miss Williams Wynn says, ending up a princess anyway. Her second marriage was also in Italy and she was buried there.

You might have noticed that I’ve adjusted posting of the diary to about three times a week. Trying to do it daily was more than I could keep up with, and anyway I think this gives people more time to find – and hopefully respond to – the posts.)

Books, History

British parliamentary democracy is finally working properly again.

MPs have just rejected the proposal for 90 days’ detention without trial by 322 to 291. (They’re now voting on 28 days, which I still think is too much, but is a considerable improvement.)

The current count suggests 41 Labour MPs voted against the government. Sadly not yet the end of Tony Blair, but hopefully the beginning of the end.

UPDATE: The latest figure suggest there were 49 Labour rebels.

MPs then backed by 323 to 290 votes a Labour backbench MP’s motion to extend the detention time limit to 28 days, from the current 14 days.

That’s not a great result, but far, far better than the original.

Why? Well it is possible to imagine your normal life being suddenly stopped for 28 days, but despite the trauma it would be probably be possible to pick up more or less where you left off after that.

But after 90 days, if you were studying you’d have lost a year, if you had a mortgage you’d probably lose your house; your life would be, if not wrecked, then substantially wrenched off track. The government must not be allowed to do that to innocent people if it can’t even come up with a charge to be placed before a court.

90 days, Politics