ADDED: Here's a Gerda Lerner book that I read: "The Creation of Patriarchy."
Using admittedly sparse prehistorical evidence, Lerner offers a plausible multicausal theory to explain the development of the patriarchical system. She seeks to show that the subordination of women is a historical (i.e., changeable) phenomenon, not a natural one. Lerner posits that division of labor by sex occurred early but that the oppression of women began with the emergence of agriculture; the domination of women, she argues, preceded and served as the foundation for the origin of private property and the state and the institutionalization of slavery.
Posts
151 comments:
I'd say it's more like one-fifth doing everything significant.
Well, the truth is that the US academic world is worse for what she did.
'Identity Politics', 'Her-Story' ('history' does NOT derive from 'his story') majors,The 'all sex is rape' crowd (McKinnon(sp) Dworkin, et.al.), La Raza and the 'out of Africa' group-think can all trace their acceptance to what she started, whether she intended it or not.
rh bait ;)
Don't know anything about her work, so I can't comment on that.
But the whole mess of radical leftist politics is there in her bio... Jewish, communist, the linking of it all to blacks.
In other words, she's an enemy of my self-interest, and the self-interest of my family and descendants.
How to relate to that is a curious and confusing issue.
If you start from an incorrect assumption you end up with incorrect conclusions.
That picture changed rapidly, in large part because of her efforts while teaching at Sarah Lawrence College in the early 1970s.
No wonder.
So much of all leftist radical politics is wrapped up in that nexus of the Jewish communist allied with the black nationalists.
My take... those European Jews were (and are) still fighting out a battle in the U.S. that they could not leave behind in Europe. That battle against the Cossacks and Nazis, and all the demons of European anti-semitism, haunted them, even after they immigrated to the U.S.
May Ms. Lerner rest in peace.
Of course. A Jew communist who hates America. Good riddance.
Well behaved women seldom make history.
What a fascinating life she led from her escape from Nazi Austria to her role in Women's Studies at UW.
Of course the right wing would hate her.
Commie dies, Times weeps.
I swear to God that when I read that headline I thought it was talking about a modern University overstating the contributions of women today. I'm sure that in her time it was the reverse, but today most every accomplishment is extra special when the actor is not a white male. "Times they are a changin'"
It takes a lot of skill to specialise in doing nothing.
Probably, a story you don't want to hear... but, here goes...
My girlfriend in college was a very nice and good Jewish women only one generation removed from the Ukraine.
The ghostly memories of the Cossacks invading the ancestral village, killing the men and raping the women, always played out in the background of all her political thinking. For her parents, it was far worse.
I understand all too well how difficult, if not impossible, it is to leave that nightmare behind.
If you notice, Inga, I don't have any reason to hate Ms. Lerner.
Well behaved women seldom make history.
So far as I know Madame Curie was pretty well behaved.
:-D
Yes, I did notice ST after posting my comment.
Once again, I hope that Ms. Lerner has found peace.
Didn't Hillary go to Sarah Lawrence?
I remember Hillary saying she was a Goldwater Girl and then she went away to school... and turned into the monster we know today.
Is it possible Gerda Lerner was Hillary's Bill Ayers?
Actually, women do make 'history' and do significant things. The issue is that the way they do it is different from the way that men make 'history'. Plus there is also the issue that until recently in most institutions of higher learning or fields of science it was unusual for a woman to be in those exact same fields. Since those venues were more valued by society the emphasis would naturally be on those accomplishments.
Nevertheless...women do make history. Just differently. Quietly, without bloodshed and generally without too much notoriety. A woman invented the automobile windshield wiper.
Quiet, well behaved men, also tend to not make 'history' in the same vein as a Napoleonic figure would.
I think that the feminists generalize too much.
"So far as I know Madame Curie was pretty well behaved."
She was a mean drunk. And you can draw a sraight line through herstory from Curie to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
She was a mean drunk
Oh...well...except for THAT little peccadillo. /wink
Perhaps, now that I have the time to do such things, I'll read a short bit by Ms. Lerner.
Best to find out what she has to say from her own writing.
Inga: "Of course the right wing would hate her."
We all know how much the left "respects" Margaret Thatcher....and Condi Rice.....and Kay Bailey Hutchison (Gloria Steinem called her a female impersonator)...etc etc etc.
Are conservative women even allowed on campus anymore?
And if you really want to learn an interesting back story on a woman who has "made a difference", read up on Phyllis Schlafly and how the left "respects" her and her work...
LOL
No, Inga, like the other leftists really doesn't believe in the things she lectures the rest of us about.
The lefties will be along any minute to explain that they really do respect "women who made a difference", just as long as those women are in alignment with what the left has predetermined to be the correct political positions.
A far higher percentage of women will be highly invested in their children and households than will men and a far higher percentage of men will be ruthlessly and exclusively invested in climbing a career ladder than will women. The result has been and always will be that it is a man's world. In the macrocosmic sense. But it could just as well be argued that the microcosm belongs to women. That this division makes feminists go all huffy, well, that's their problem.
Here's an interview with Ms. Lerner, in which she says that the only history-making woman her generation had ever heard of was Joan of Arc.
Seriously? No one had mentioned, oh, say, Elizabeth I?
Nobody is curious enough to go read something the woman wrote?
Here's a link to a short piece.
Why does everything has to be massaged into the political fight of the moment?
Her bio made me curious about her life. I don't think I'll agree with her, but that's kind of beside the point.
Inga said...
Well behaved women seldom make history.
This is true inasmuch as women of any temper seldom make history. The same is true of men as well.
There's an asterisk by the names of Jefferson and Madison. They preached equality and owned slaves. I'm sure Ms. Lerner led a worthy life, and there is no reason to hate her. However, the fact remains that she was a Communist and this should be given some consideration in the evaluation of her days and work.
campy's got the right idea, but it's more like 5%.
Inga said...
Well behaved women seldom make history.
She made history?
She twisted it.
What a fascinating life she led from her escape from Nazi Austria to her role in Women's Studies at UW.
From one fascist clique to another.
Of course the right wing would hate her.
Not if she'd stayed and joined the resistance.
Women have the same history as men, they just didn't do much.
Betty Crocker was a more important woman than this lady.
She was 92 and she never heard of Mata Hari?
Florence Nightengale, Betsy Ross, Helen Keller?
What bubble did she live in?
What about Margaret Sanger?
Hey, Inga, how's the stock market doing today? LOLOL
The number of women with graduate degrees in "women's history" could "fit inside of a telephone booth." That's today, not 1972. She has all the credentials. Communist. Women's Studies. Victimology.
Or Sara Lee. Or Aunt Jemina. Or that cutie Little Debbie.
All women who made great contributions to our world.
What about Mama Celeste. Her contribution has been totally overlooked.
I bet she got more kids through college than this woman ever did.
Will Cuppy in The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (a favorite in high school) covers Hatshepsut, Cleopatra, Lady Godiva, Madame du Barry, Catherine the Great, and Elizabeth.
I doubt it was assigned reading.
I wonder how many people know the names of the women who were tortured and died as members of the SOE during WWII ? They were a major part of the resistance to Nazi domination of Europe.
Read Between Silk and Cyanide sometime.
Sorry, Baron Zemo, but I can't agree with you about Sara Lee.
She lost any claim to greatness for me in the 1980s, when she discontinued her orange cake with orange butter-cream frosting.
Why History Matters: Life and Thought, worth reading.
I wonder why a Woman's History department had to be developed -- why not just be part of the regular old History Department? I'm guessing marketability for attracting grad students. Departments exist -- in some fields -- for the sole reason of attracting tuition-paying students. That's true today, I think. Maybe it wasn't so true in the 70s when tuition was so much less expensive.
Edutcher are you truly so ignorant that you would blame her for escaping Austria and not "joining the resistance" as a Jew? Do you have any idea how hateful and stupid that made you sound?
Women's history was a me-too reaction to Black history.
Women were oppressed starting with the invention of mathematics.
As much as I hate to do this, I'm with Inga on this one.
Instead of debating the outcome of 20th century feminism, how about looking at Ms. Lerner from the perspective of where she came from and the times she lived through?
It's the same with Hugh Hefner. Life wasn't the same in 1955 and as it is today. Hefner has to be understood within the context of his times.
Ms. Lerner grew up in the nightmare of European anti-semitism. The Utopian desire evident even in the short essay I just read by her is clearly religious in origin. The revolutionaries want Heaven on Earth. I think this is a mistake, but it isn't the most difficult mistake to understand.
Well, geez, maybe if she wanted to be a commie feminist she might have looked into little things like why, after Alexandra Kollentai, there were exactly ZERO women in the politiburo of the Soviet Union until its demise.
I'm sorry, I don't have much sympathy for a Jew who decides that the answer to the Nazis who want to destroy you as a race is to join up with the folks who want to destroy your faith & culture, which the USSR did very effectively.
ST is right. Many Askhenazi Jews seemed to continue the struggles of the old country in a different form over here. Unfortunately, too many make their bed with the Devil in doing so.
"Well behaved women seldom make history. What a fascinating life she led from her escape from Nazi Austria to her role in Women's Studies at UW. Of course the right wing would hate her."
This is funny. From Nazi Austria - to "women's studies". This is a major let down. Since when "women's studies" is some kind of achievement? I would be more impressed if she was able to escape nazi Austria and getting her own hot dog stand in Portland downtown, that would at least mean some achievement.
Oh, and speaking of hatred - two words, "Sarah Palin". Of course, the left hated her, since she did not end up being a pathetic caricature in "women's studies" - she was a governor of a state and a VP candidate. And let's also not forget Margaret Thatcher - surely not somebody who would be satisfied that the peak of her career would be a nobody in "women's studies".
Inga said...
Edutcher are you truly so ignorant that you would blame her for escaping Austria and not "joining the resistance" as a Jew? Do you have any idea how hateful and stupid that made you sound?
How many of her relatives did she leave to their fate (sounds like Dr Evil)?
As it was, she traded one form of dictatorship for another in Eastern Europe.
And why wouldn't she join the Resistance as a Jew?
Do you know how stupid that makes you sound?
(of course, Oop doesn't think he/she/it is fit to pass judgment on the SS, so...)
"Many Askhenazi Jews seemed to continue the struggles of the old country in a different form over here. "
I am an Askhenazi Jew, and I believe our struggle is against socialism, marxism, and islamism. Many of the immigrants from the USSR are like me.
Lerner was also wrong about "patriarchy" starting with agriculture.
In studies of tribal and nomadic cultures, the highest status goes to the males proficient at the three tasks most valued - hunting, providing protection to the group or tribe by armed force, and as leaders that enforce the rules - also with the ultimate threat of force backing their leadership.
"Female warriors", female hunters and leaders appear to be exceedingly rare in nomadic or stone age cultures......protestations of how movies show 110 lb Keira Knightley playing warrior princess simultaneously kicking the asses of 8 guys built like NFL linebackers nonwithstanding.
Hyphenated American,
Sarah Palin/ Gerda Lerner
No comparison at all, none. That you would think that Sarah Palin's accomplishments are on the same level or even elevated to Lerners, oy vey.
@Hyphenated American,
I am an Askhenazi Jew, and I believe our struggle is against socialism, marxism, and islamism. Many of the immigrants from the USSR are like me.
Hyphenated, if you're a recent Soviet or post Soviet Jewish immigrant, then you know there's a big difference between the politics of your cadre & the previous cadres of Jewish immigrants. This is no secret in the Jewish community.
If what I said was news there wouldn't be a need for books like this.
I disagree, Inga.
Sarah Palin was a legendary high school athlete in Alaska, point guard on a state high school basketball champion.
She was also governor of Alaska and a vice presidential candidate.
A very accomplished woman.
Shouting Thomas,
I read about half that article you linked too. Besides the constant repetition, I see two keep ideas in there.
1) Women are important in history, not just passive victims, while men keep their stories suppressed.
2) Women have been oppressed by men for 2500 years and not allowed to participate in history.
It's ironic that this sort of women's studies is the chief perpetuator of the patriarchy. When the driving goal of your studies is to show the deficiency in opportunity for women when compared to men, all you create is a worldview where the life of women is substandard, weaker, and lower in the hierarchy.
Gerda Lerner was a sublime University of Wisconsin heroine. I want to encourage everyone who feels inclined to exalt her.
Inga, you're confusing the substance of Palin's accomplishments with your disagreement with her political opinions.
Same mistake the other people here are making in relationship to Ms. Lerner.
Lerner was also wrong about "patriarchy" starting with agriculture
Correct. Many if not most matriarchal societies are agrarian or agriculturally based. Just because patrilineage is the norm in Indo-European cultures doesn't make it the norm elsewhere.
As ST said we need to look at her, the topic of the thread, in context of history and society. Unfortunately, SHE seems to have been unable to look at things outside of her narrow context of her own 'personal' experiences.
As stated already, when you start with erroneous assumptions you draw erroneous conclusions.
I take it Althouse you are being ironic about this commie Jew.
I wonder how children of the affluent become Marxist so often.
Women were considered property of their fathers and then when they married, their husbands. They were not allowed the same freedoms as men, why should it be a surprise they didn't contribute to the world, as many great accomplishments as men? Men were not constrained similarily as women. I'm not diminishing the accomplishments of men here.
Why are men still resentful that women want equality? Yes, yes I know men and women are different, we've had that discussion ad nauseum.
Women have equality, put up or shut up.
Yes, women do have equality NOW, but did not until recent history.
Inga, that history may be the history of your family. I don't know what the culture of your home country is like.
It isn't the history of my family.
The history of my family is that everybody, male and female, lived on dirt floors in what might as well have been pig sties in their home country. Nobody owned anything. Everybody was a starving serf.
Have you considered that family history might be... as that goofy liberal industry keeps saying... diverse?
Once again demonstrating that "feminist" and "conservative" are mutually exclusive.
(Just like "African-American"and "conservative")
Will Cuppy in The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (a favorite in high school) covers Hatshepsut, Cleopatra, Lady Godiva, Madame du Barry, Catherine the Great, and Elizabeth.
You left out Lucrezia Borgia. ("But just try to convince any acquaintance chosen at random that Lucrezia was all right. He'll only inquire, 'Then what about all those funerals?' There must be an answer to that if one could think of it.")
You're right Inga, Mrs. Lerner just became successful in the last five years, WTF! She was successful her whole life, except for six weeks in jail. She was born in 1920.
Lerner joined an underground resistance to Nazi occupation and escaped their persecution, only to find the persecution of McCarthyism in America.
Hard right wingers really didn't care for this woman.
So did your sublime heroine ever renounce communism, Althouse?
The "persecution of McCarthyism," garage, is another one of those great leftist martyrdom myths that is mostly bullshit.
Inga said...
Well behaved women seldom make history.
What a fascinating life she led from her escape from Nazi Austria to her role in Women's Studies at UW.
Of course the right wing would hate her
Unlikely and while possible it won't be for the reasons you think.
What you know about conservatives would fit in a thimble with room left over for condo, a yacht, a big screen tv,...
Inga said...
Yes, women do have equality NOW, but did not until recent history.
Equality?
Surely, you jest.
Women are all Julia now.
I.e., garage, the commies really were trying to start a revolution and subvert the government of the U.S.
The U.S. government was remarkably constrained in its response.
You blew it completely when you tried to create an analogy to the Nazis. The Nazis took their opponents out in the courtyard and executed them on the spot.
@Garage,
...only to find the persecution of McCarthyism in America.
Hard right wingers really didn't care for this woman.
Because, what right thinking people could possible get bent out of shape about the commies in their midst who supported regimes which murdered tens of millions of their own citizens. Right?
Admit it, garage. You really don't believe in your head or your heart that the USSR or Mao's China was every bit as evil as was Hitler's Germany, do you?
Oh, well, time to abandon this post.
Who knows whether Ms. Lerner did more good than bad in her life? That balance can only be judged by God.
Maybe she was a great wife, mother and friend. Impossible for anybody to know except for her intimates.
May she rest in peace.
Inga said...
Hyphenated American,
Sarah Palin/ Gerda Lerner
No comparison at all, none. That you would think that Sarah Palin's accomplishments are on the same level or even elevated to Lerners, oy vey.
Remind me again: which state Ms. Lerner was the governor of?
And what party did she represent in national elections?
Take your time, I can wait.
Inga said...
Women were considered property of their fathers and then when they married, their husbands. They were not allowed the same freedoms as men, why should it be a surprise they didn't contribute to the world, as many great accomplishments as men? Men were not constrained similarily as women. I'm not diminishing the accomplishments of men here.
Why are men still resentful that women want equality? Yes, yes I know men and women are different, we've had that discussion ad nauseum.
It's not women 'wanting equality' that grates on people, men *and* women, it's women like you that want women to be superior.
YoungHegelian: the Nazis were inefficient killers in comparison to the Soviets and the Chinese. Public schools do not do much in the way of examining that inconvenient fact and the students of those schools are apt to forgive the Soviets and Chinese for their good intentions.
Women were considered property of their fathers and then when they married, their husbands. They were not allowed the same freedoms as men, why should it be a surprise they didn't contribute to the world, as many great accomplishments as men?
That's womankind's own fault for not fighting back and demanding better back in the day. ; )
@inga,
There is the history of women in X (e.g. women in Periclean Athens), but there is no feminist history.
There is no evidence that there ever was a feminine consciousness, that women ever saw the world differently than men of their class, ethnicity, or race.
The history of feminist consciousness basically begins with Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Woman.
It was for such heresies as these that Elizabeth Fox Genovese was hounded by her feminist academic cohorts. Unlike this woman, she (and her husband, Eugene) were real historians who followed the facts where they led, and became changed people because of it.
"Lerner joined an underground resistance to Nazi occupation and escaped their persecution, only to find the persecution of McCarthyism in America. Of course the right wing would hate her"
Garage, tread very carefully now... This woman was a communist. She was "persecuted" (i.e. not everyone dropped on the knees when they saw her) back in the 40-50ies. That was around the time when my grandmother was finishing her 10 year term in Stalin's forced labor camp, while my grandfather his 11 year term. And this was close to the time when my second grandfather was sent to a forced labor camp (around 1953).
This was also the time when communists were killing millions of people in Asia.
So really, why should I feel any sympathy for this nazi-commie scum? Give me one good reason.
Not even 1/5.
Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as "bad luck."
Robert A. Heinlein
.e., garage, the commies really were trying to start a revolution and subvert the government of the U.S
Lerner's radical commie past included trying to unionize the film industry, organizing grassroots groups in the civil rights movement, and resisting the blacklisting from hard right McCarthyites. To Lerner, Communists were "anti-fascists". Of course what would she know about that, right?
Inga: "Why are men still resentful that women want equality? Yes, yes I know men and women are different, we've had that discussion ad nauseum."
What do you mean by equality, dear? Can you formulate this demand more coherently?
Inga:
"Sarah Palin/ Gerda Lerner
No comparison at all, none. That you would think that Sarah Palin's accomplishments are on the same level or even elevated to Lerners, oy vey. "
oy vey - this pretty much summarizes your argument. Some would say this is "woman's logic", but I believe it's more of an issue with your left-wing worldview, which limits your reasoning ability.
Michael:
I've wanted for a long time for someone--other than a Communist--to explain why being a Nazi (or a sympathizer) is utterly beyond the pale, but being a Communist is not.
Liberals always change the subject or get indignant, or both.
Garage: "To Lerner, Communists were "anti-fascists". Of course what would she know about that, right?"
Correct, she knew little to nothing about communism. Now, if she had lived in the USSR for some extended period time, including a short 10 year stint in a Stalin's forced labor camp, she would have known a bit more about communism. But alas, her political education was rather scatchy, she probably new as much about communism as she knew about quantum mechanics.
Hyphenated American, stop the attempts to diminish, by calling me "dear". Of course I've been called far worse here.
garage, I don't really want to continue this debate.
But, as you know, I live in Woodstock, the birthplace of the Communist Party in the U.S.
I've heard your rationalizations before. They're absolute bullshit. I know the commies now. They're still traitors, determined to bring down the U.S. They were no different in the 40s, 50s or 60s.
I haven't dealt with this shit on a theoretical, long distance basis. I know and knew the principals. Peddle your bullshit to some fool.
"I've wanted for a long time for someone--other than a Communist--to explain why being a Nazi (or a sympathizer) is utterly beyond the pale, but being a Communist is not."
There is plenty of work in the former USSR how these two things are practically indistinguishable. Luckily, this was also known to some folks in the West, like Hayek.
Inga: "Hyphenated American, stop the attempts to diminish, by calling me "dear". Of course I've been called far worse here."
I did not mean too, darling, to diminish you. It's just a matter of speech.
But more to the point - what do you mean when you say that want women and men to be equal in US? Can you elaborate?
Nope, there is no possibility of any discussion with you, Hyphenated. I can see you are already worked up and getting belligerent, not worth the aggravation.
"Hyphenated, if you're a recent Soviet or post Soviet Jewish immigrant, then you know there's a big difference between the politics of your cadre & the previous cadres of Jewish immigrants. This is no secret in the Jewish community."
Clearly, I am much more familiar with Soviet Jews (more accurately, anti-Soviet Jews). Back in Russia, the Jews turned against the communism regime easily in the 1930ies, which is 80 years ago. The pre-revolution Jews had a good number of pro-communist guys, which includes European and American Jews.
The only explanation on the high propensity of American Jews to be left-wing I give is this - the average intelligence of different ethnic groups is pretty much the same. Jews have an abnormal number of geniues - so it makes sense that to compensate for this abnormality, the Jews will have a lot of liberals.
Inga wrote:
Well behaved (sic)
women seldom make history.
Some history-making wimin:
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
(Could go on and on, but the point's made.)
It seems that Inga is finally right for once in her ridiculous career. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut from time to time.
To Lerner, Communists were "anti-fascists". Of course what would she know about that, right?
Perhaps she should have hung around Europe and educated Molotov and Ribbentrop on the subject.
@Michael/Fr. Fox,
The issue of the depth of the evil of the Communist regimes is a major divide between the American right & left.
I really think that the Left thinks that the ~100 million dead is a bullshit figure made up by Rush Limbaugh, and not basically as decent of an approximation (e.g, like 11 million dead in the Nazi death camps) as responsible historians can come up given the evidence.
Notice that garage never answered my question about the Nazi/Communist regimes.
Inga: :Nope, there is no possibility of any discussion with you, Hyphenated. I can see you are already worked up and getting belligerent, not worth the aggravation.:
I deeply and profusely apologize if you feel insulted by me. I was not belligerent - I was merely sarcastic. I did not mean to hurt you. I realize that as a woman, you are more sensitive to the tone in the conversation, and I am mostly used to debating men online. I will try to fine tune my style for your sensitivity. Again, sorry for my sarcasm, I did not mean to hurt you.
I'm still trying to figure out just what Nazi resistance she participated in, other than political. She and her mother were put in jail for trying to leave the country in 1938 the same year as the "occupation" began. As so as her father got rid the family of Austrian property they were allowed the leave. Gee, the state screwed an affluent family, Nazi Austria was ahead of their time.
"Gerda Lerner not only escaped Nazi Austria, she worked in the underground prior to her arrest and escape. "
This just confirms that Nazis were pikers compared to communists. Here is a Jewish girl, active in the communist group - and she is freed from a nazi jail after 6 weeks and immigrates to the US? Damn. She should have tried to pull it off in the USSR. ;)
My grandma's uncle (from Poland) barely survived Buchenwald, so I have no illusions about the nazis. All in all, Lerner's story just does not ring true to me. The nazis were not that easy.
On this evening's Jeopardy, there were two obviously intelligent and American-educated young women, both apparently European descent, and one young man, presumably of Indian descent, I don't know where he was educated. The final question asked which Amendment had the word "sex" in it.
Only one of them had the correct answer.
Guess which one.
My questions are not just "how", but "WHY".
The obvious sexism that is still very pervasive in this modern culture is simply emotional reaction to anything that is related to human rights of females, equal rights and treatment of women, and anyone who wants to actually write or talk about it, regardless of the color of the animal they keep in the barn.
Yes! Yes! I admit it! It's all true! We of the patriarchy are deliberately breeding women to be short, slight, and with small cranial capacity.
McTriumph - your version makes more sense. If she were arrested for being a communist, and a Jew, there was no way she could escaped after mere 6 weeks. No way, no how.
"The obvious sexism that is still very pervasive in this modern culture is simply emotional reaction to anything that is related to human rights of females, equal rights and treatment of women, and anyone who wants to actually write or talk about it, regardless of the color of the animal they keep in the barn. "
Women have equal rights in US. Actually, I take it back, men are legally discriminated in favor of women in US.
@Hyphenated,
One of the stranger aspects of the Holocaust was that the Jewish/National group that had one of the highest rates of survival were German Jews.
That's because (1) the regime wanted their property on the cheap and forced them to use it as a ransom ticket (2) one of Himmler's underlings said to Himmler early in the regime's history BEFORE a campaign of extermination had been agreed upon "Well, we want them to leave, and they want to leave. Why not let them leave?"
I know two Polish Jewish Holocaust survivors, man & wife. The wife got in trouble at the Holocaust Museum for telling a German Holocaust survivor to her face "You had it easy. You were German".
Here is a Jewish girl, active in the communist group - and she is freed from a nazi jail after 6 weeks and immigrates to the US? Damn. She should have tried to pull it off in the USSR. ;)
So Lerner was jailed by the Nazis for being a member of a communist group? Is that anything wrong for being jailed for being a member of a communist group?
But you have your history wrong. She didn't join any communist group until later.
The German Jews had more time to escape - they knew who the Nazis were. And I assume they also in average had more money. Even the ones that got into Buhenwald (a camp in Germany) had more chances to survive, because it was not an extermination camp (unlike those in Poland).
And a little know fact, Buhenwald was run by German communists, who were also prisoners. The SS there was too lazy, and did not want to mire in the day-to-day issues.
Garage: "But you have your history wrong. She didn't join any communist group until later."
So, who were the leaders of the anti-nazi group that she joined in Austria? What were their political views?
She was arrested as a hostage to force her father to come back to Austria and settle with the state. The family didn't "escape", the Nazis just wanted to shake them down before they left the country. The state was more interested in the wealth leaving the country and an affluent Jewish family maintaining property in Austria. As so as the father dumped the holdings they were allowed to leave.
War on women? No.
Garage: "So Lerner was jailed by the Nazis for being a member of a communist group? Is that anything wrong for being jailed for being a member of a communist group?"
Is it wrong for being jailed for being a nazi, an Aryan Nation, a anti-moslem who makes movies against Islam? Makes me think about Randy Weaver. He seems to suffer much more than any of the supposed victims of McCartysm.
No exaltation of dead Reds.
McTriumph, it still makes little sense. Why force him to "settle with the state"? Take it all, and send the daughter to the camp. That's the communist solution. I simply cannot understand why they needed him to come back - the property was there, just go and take it.
Hmmm, Catharine MacKinnon said something very different from Prof. Lerner, i.e., that women's subordination has always existed. In general, Prof. MacKinnon (who used to be my idol) was very hostile to imagined utopias, prehistoric or otherwise.
I never read anything by Prof. Lerner.
@Hyphenated,
I simply cannot understand why they needed him to come back - the property was there, just go and take it.
I don't like to be put in the situation of actually defending the Nazis, but they actually were rather sheepish about murdering their own, including German or Austrian Jews. Many of these Jews had served in WWI or the State with distinction, and to murder them in the open would have upset the populace, who really thought that they should be sent to a Jewish Heimat some where.
Remember, the Nazis backed down when the german Catholic Church exposed their euthanasia programs against the mentally-feeble, and when the Nazis tried to remove crosses & crucifixes from public buildings.
While the Nazis could murder their "racial inferiors" with abandon, they were much more indulgent of their own than the Bolsheviks ever were.
"Gilda Lerner" returned 20 hits on https://cumulus.hillsdale.edu/Buckley/.
That ain't bad.
I have no idea when Mrs. Lerner became a communist, her parents weren't, they were successful capitalist. My guess is that her second husband turned her in America.
All these accounts of her herstory are written by her, she was originally a writer. Think John Kerry's exploits or Hillary Clinton dodging bullets or Bill growing up poor or wondering if JFK would have been court marshaled if his father had been a mill worker.
YoungHegelian: This is true. Nazis were relatively soft with Germans (and French and Norwegians), while they were rough on East Europeans. The commies were rough with everyone.
Yes! Yes! I admit it! It's all true! We of the patriarchy are deliberately breeding women to be short, slight, and with small cranial capacity.
Well, if the shrew fits....
Seems that search engine was just returning hits for "Max Lerner" and not "Gilda Lerner" even though that's what I typed.
I misled you all.
Even the lefties; maybe you most of all. I hope you accept my apologies and can someone spell hari karreiy for me?
Thanks in advance.
garage mahal wrote:
So Lerner was jailed by the Nazis for being a member of a communist group? Is that anything wrong for being jailed for being a member of a communist group?
Putting aside the atrocious grammar, garage still seems unable to grasp the idea that to people who think objectively there's nothing to choose between communists and fascists.
The Nazis murdered and enslaved people because of their ethnic identity. The communists murdered and enslaved "class enemies" (i.e. anybody who opposed them, or owned something they coveted, or was somehow inconvenient). They also killed millions through sheer boneheadness (e.g. 40 million Chinese dead as a result of Mao's "Great Leap Forward").
The Nazi murdered outright or worked to death 6 million Jews, about 3 million non-Jewish Poles, about a million Gypsies, and about a million gays and German communists. They also killed 17 million Russians, mostly civilians. Hitler's grand total is just shy of 30 million, leaving aside GIs and Tommies killed on the battlefields of Europe and Africa.
Between October 1917 and Lenin's death in 1924 about there were about 15 million excess deaths in the Soviet empire. Stalin killed about 20 million Russians over his 29 years of absolute rule. Thousand more were shot during the remaining decades of the USSR. In China Mao's tally is still unknown but may exceed 50 million. Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge murdered 3 million Cambodians out of a total population of less than 8 million. I'll give garage a break and not include the unknown but likely vast death toll in North Korea under the Kims, mainly because the dying there seems to be the result of an ideology that pays only lip service to Marx.
They only objective difference I can see between National Socialism and the other kind is the superior efficiency of the Nazi murder machine, which may be just be a perverted example German industriousness at work.
In short it takes a truly broken moral compass to condemn the Nazis and excuse the communists. Gerda Lerner was an active communist in her youth and sympathizer all her remaining days. I await a reason why she should not be considered a piece of shit.
That sounds like a Chip really interesting is book lying she wrote about again how patriarchy started.
She was definitely a Jew communist piece of shit.
Even the lefties; maybe you most of all. I hope you accept my apologies and can someone spell hari karreiy for me?
This one? Or this one?
"Women's history was a me-too reaction to Black history."
lol.
lol. Men do verything significant. Women enjoy the fruits and complain about it not being perfect.
Honestly, this is why Muslims beat their wives and refuse to have their children educated Because it leads to ungrateful, blame-whitey, blame-men b.s. like this.
This woman deserves to be gang raped by a pack of Obama "youths."
Oh yuck, whoreoftheI!
You sure you don't want to reconsider and delete that last comment?
That's vile even by your standards.
Lol whoresoftheinternet! Maybe she is being anal raped right now!
I await a reason why she should not be considered a piece of shit.
I don't believe you mean that. I doubt you have the same contempt against neocons like Irving Kristol for being Trotskyites in their formidable years. They were a big part of the Reagan Revolution. Neocons today aren't really the Tea Party fire-breathers on domestic spending.
Just because someone strayed off the plantation a tiny bit shouldn't mean they deserve such scorn. For example: I don't think Bill Kristol is a piece of shit.
Wow, what a heartfelt tribute to Lerner by some sublime Althouse righties. Keep up the good work, you shine so brightly!
@ YoungHegelian
You shouldn't have to apologize for the two demon trolls.
And to the question you asked earlier: you're comparing Gerda Lerner to Mao. That doesn't really compute to any serious observer of her life I don't think.
Sometimes it's hard to hold your head up when you look at the righties around you.
If whores is a typical righty I'm out.
@garage,
Ni, I wasn't comparing her to Mao at all. Where did you get that from?
It was a simple and direct question to you: were the Soviet Union & Mao's China as evil of regimes as was Nazi Germany?
You answer can be as simple as a yes or no. Or, you can explain your answer with as much detail as you'd like.
My answer: yes, they were. I only vacillate in thinking that Mao's China may have even been more evil than Nazi Germany.
As for the trolls, I only post so that lurkers may know that many of us on the right know that there's no shortage of vileness on our own side at times.
I only post so that lurkers may know that many of us on the right know that there's no shortage of vileness on our own side at times.
whores is a far far right uninvited troll that every righty can't stand showing up.
Right is right! is a free lance black pirate lefty troll under one of many pseudonyms. With no known motive.
Just because someone strayed off the plantation a tiny bit shouldn't mean they deserve such scorn. For example: I don't think Bill Kristol is a piece of shit.
Kristol and the others are called neo-cons (a tern coined as a pejorative by the New Left as means of punishing defectors) because they stopped being left-wing ideologues and became patriots. Gerda Lerner wasn't among them.
I absolutely believe in the power of redemption. The even worst of us can turn their lives around. But it requires an act of contrition. To the end Lerner was a self-righteous leftist with little good to say or write about the American republic, nor did she have much if anything bad to say about Marx and his apostles, and she never repudiated her past beliefs (if they ever were in the past) and associations. I may be mistaken, but I will have to be shown my error.
Inga wrote:
Wow, what a heartfelt tribute to Lerner by some sublime Althouse righties. Keep up the good work, you shine so brightly
Yes, I do. False modesty is after all merely false. You, however are quite dim indeed. Even your insults are puerile nonsense.
Garage:
"I doubt you have the same contempt against neocons like Irving Kristol for being Trotskyites in their formidable years. They were a big part of the Reagan Revolution. Neocons today aren't really the Tea Party fire-breathers on domestic spending.
Just because someone strayed off the plantation a tiny bit shouldn't mean they deserve such scorn."
Surely some people may "stray from the plantation" and join the Nazi party, become a communist or believe that blacks are animals. But the question is - do people realize that they were wrong and concede that? Kristol and Horowitz realized that communism was evil and they were wrong. Interestingly enough Kristol was anti-stalinist from the very beginning, he rejected the Soviet Union.
Did Lerner concede that her flirtation with a hateful ideology was wrong? I can see that at tended age of 35 she was still a committed communist. Kristol not only dropped his communist views, he actually moved to the polar opposite of communism (and nazism) and supported free market economy and small limited government. For all we know, Lerner was a socialist until the end of her life, never atoning for the sin of supporting Stalinist regime of genocide mass slavery and murder. So, what on what basis can Lerner can get an indulgence? In what way has she tried to atone for her errors?
Inga, with all due respect - can you clarify what you meant when you asked for equality with men? Note that I did not call you "dear" or any other term you found so demeaning. I am seriously interested to know your opinion.
Surely some people may "stray from the plantation" and join the Nazi party, become a communist or believe that blacks are animals.
Surely some. Having nothing to do with Gerda Lerner I'm not sure what your point is.
Step one in gaining full equality with men is to stop getting the vapors.
Kentucky Liz, are you mistaking refusing to engage as "vapors"? Sometimes it's not worth the effort.
"Surely some. Having nothing to do with Gerda Lerner I'm not sure what your point is."
Gerda Lerner was a communist, wasn't she? I think you are losing your concentration.
Having a hard time believing any competent professor ever taught Ms. Lerner that men do everything and women effectively don't exist.
Having a hard time giving two shits about a historian who makes stuff up.
Funny nobody talks about Golda Meir.
The notion that private property was "developed" is dumb.
Animals and pre-verbal children have a firm grasp of the concept of "that belongs to ME, not YOU".
Having a hard time believing any competent professor ever taught Ms. Lerner that men do everything and women effectively don't exist.
I understand. You don't read history books.
In which thread Garage Mahal refuses to utter an unkind word against communism. Stunning.
In which thread Garage Mahal refuses to utter an unkind word against communism. Stunning.
To Lerner, Communists were "anti-fascists".
to those of us who are neither, they look as different as Sunni and Shiite.
From the essay linked above: "Men's version of history, legitimized as the 'universal truth,' has presented women as marginal to civilization and as the victim of historical process."
The rest of the essay sets about to prove that women have been marginalized and are the victims of historical process.
Another commenter already noted the irony that feminism needs patriarchy and therefore will play it up as important, or construct it even where none exists. Historians all the time point out where certain areas have not been researched, certain sources neglected or misappropriated. This is important work for the field and for all of us. It doesn't need to be couched in revolutionary political language, which furthermore insults women by imagining we have some hive mind and collective interest that's separate from, even opposed to, a common humanity.
Post a Comment