From: Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Mon Aug 05 2002 - 08:35:46 MDT
At 09:59 AM 8/5/02 +0100, Charlie Stross wrote:
>Roughly 50% of the population are female. Back in 1850 there was
>no equal rights amendment, no quotas, sod-all law concerning employment
>of women, far less regulation ... and women were second-class citizens.
>Women were not admitted to institutes of higher education or granted
>degrees because they were patently incapable of such feats of intellect
>and women who wanted to study were weird and unnatural beasts.
>this was the state of HALF
>THE GODDAMN POPULATION!!!
The shouting is entirely justified. I was numbed to read today that
Cambridge University's Girton and Newnham colleges for women, established
by reformers in the 19th century, were not permitted to award their women
graduates even titular degrees until 1921, and women were admitted to full
membership of this premium center of learning in the Western world IN
NINETEEN GODDAMN FORTY-EIGHT! Less significant, of course, than chattel
slavery, but how incredible... and how little we appreciate, I suspect, the
magnitude of the evil suppression in our own nations just half a century ago.
Damien Broderick
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