Oh my god - I feel like I'm back in college having to write an English essay! (just kidding - I think). I hope spelling doesn't count! I'm about 3/4 of the way through the book. She definitely has a lot to say about women. They are all strong characters in this story...heroines really. Bernice, one of the first women pilots, Jacqualine the resistance worker and fighter, bomber etc.., Louise the war story writer, Ruthie working in a man's world (the factory) and studying in her spare time, who am I forgetting.? Anyway they are not afraid to go after what they want or to speak their minds or to fly (literally) in the face of convention. Oh I know, even the young Naomi is a strong young person, though she struggles with adolescent sexual issues and her young infatuations get her into some trouble and cause her to be taken advantage of. Some of the male characters are strong too, but seem to have more personal inner conflicts. Of course the men had to go and face the horrors of the war, which she describes pretty graphically.
I think she spoke a lot about men taking sexual advantage of women - or trying to in some cases. But for the most part the women don't comply easily.
The bigotry against the Jews comes through loud and clear. I never realized that the people of France were so eager to dispel the Jews in the beginning of the war. I mean even without much pressure from the ****s they stripped the Jews of their wealth, homes, status so that the French Jews in the resistance
can not fathom even going back to France after the war. I mean I knew the Germans were prejudiced, but I never knew about France.
Not sure about the topic of "fate" yet. Well, just a few rambling thoughts to get us started..
Oh my god - I feel like I'm back in college having to write an English essay! (just kidding - I think). I hope spelling doesn't count! Lyn
Uh-oh - is my profession coming out?
I wonder if I could ask a favor of those still in the discussion? After this question, would you each pose a question we could respond to? I figured that we would save the BIG question for last - What did you like/dislike about the book. I think it's better for us to discuss the book itself first & end up with that question. However, after this one, and before that one, I'm not sure I can come up with any others.
Hi Lynn...glad you enjoyed your trip! I am very definitely still in the discussion. Read your post, in fact, this morning before I left for work and left DH with the assignment of thinking about it because of course we are reading it together again. I have an all-day seminar (quick lunch break) today and tomorrow, and dinner tonight with DD & SIL, GD. Sometime between tonight and tomorrow I'll add my discussion to the thread, and be thinking of further questions as well. Thanks for facilitating this. I'm really enjoying having to think about some of the ramifications of what we're reading. Don't be afraid to let your profession show - just don't send us a tuition bill, kay?
For me, Piercy seems to be saying that although women demonstrate that they are able to function as well as men, it's tough to be a woman during World War II (maybe during any time?).
Louise is a successful writer, but was treated pretty shabbily by Oscar - he ran around on her with other women;
Naomi gets treated badly by Duvey & Leib - both take advantage of her;
Bernice ends up being a successful pilot, but is treated badly by her father (he uses her as his servant) and the Air Force (they use and discard her services);
Ruthie (and the other female factory workers) handle the difficult and dangerous factory work, but know they will be laid off when the war is over;
Jacqueline works alonside men in the French Resistance, but is never quite treated as an equal - and, gets raped and abused when captured.
From my experience, women in the workplace are just as capable as (if not more capable than) their male colleagues, but typically do not hold as many high level positions as do men. In education, most Presidents/Principals/Superintendents/Deans/Full Professors are men.
Women are still being raped - especially in places of war.
While there are some issues that have been resolved - e.g., females in the Armed Services getting pensions - there are other issues that remain problematic - e.g., sexual abuse/rape; differential treatment and expectations.
Lynn
Last edited by ladyinweighting; 03-05-2008 at 07:03 PM.
Just coming by to say that life has gotten in the way (again) and I'm only about 1/2 way through. I'm hoping to make significant inroads this weekend, but I'm enjoying the discussion anyway.
Okay, I’ll give this a shot. Women in society. Well, clearly during WWII, women were even less advantaged than we are today. Of course, the truth of the matter is that we still bump up against the “glass ceiling” in corporate America, and research demonstrates that we don’t earn as much as men even when we’re doing the same job. But in the 40’s, women didn’t have to worry about glass ceilings so much, because they weren’t a part of corporate America except as secretaries and “girl Fridays” anyway. They only did men’s jobs during the war, and even then it wasn’t very well accepted, and as soon as the men came home, the women were expected to get back into their kitchens. Certainly Piercy gets the message across that women, no matter how capable, and no matter what they accomplish, are still subservient to men, both in society and in their personal relationships for the most part. While their men were away, these women (Ruthie, Louise) proved themselves able to support themselves and pursue their own goals, but ultimately, Murray comes home and Ruthie adapts herself - and her life - to his needs, and Louise ends up falling back into her relationship with Oscar. She feels more independent - more her own person - than she was when they were first together, but the fact remains that she still feels the need for him to be her anchor, feels the need to “belong” to a man - especially to Oscar, so she’s not quite the independent woman that she’d like to believe herself to be. Society, I think, is still afraid of what women might do if they were fully empowered. In that respect, there’s a part of me that wants to yell, “Go, Hilary!” But there’s another part of me that doesn’t like the calculation with which she “forgave” Bill his dalliances. I think that was all about her own ambitions, and believing that she could only attain them if she remained married to him. So that leaves Obama, and that raises the issue of bigotry rather nicely, here, doesn’t it? I hear that some Ohio voters were quite candid with reporters about not voting for Obama because he is black. I mean, how sad is that? At any rate, human beings sometimes seem to have some sort of bigotry gene, in my opinion. I was pretty appalled, actually, to learn that when the concentration camps were liberated, WE - the Americans - simply turned them into DP, or “Displaced Persons” camps and in some instances, even left the same people running them. And, I will never, ever understand - not in a million years - how anyone could ever justify genocide. I’ll never understand how non-Jews in Europe could side with the ****s. What an abomination. I can’t imagine sane people doing such things to other human beings, and it frightens me that so many INSANE people could actually get together and create armies and take over whole countries. It frightens me because there are still places in the world today where essentially the same thing is happening. It makes me very discouraged about our progress as a human race.
Okay. I can’t get to the rest right now, but I will. You know I always have plenty to say.
Zoe wrote, "And, I will never, ever understand - not in a million years - how anyone could ever justify genocide. I’ll never understand how non-Jews in Europe could side with the ****s. What an abomination. I can’t imagine sane people doing such things to other human beings, and it frightens me that so many INSANE people could actually get together and create armies and take over whole countries. It frightens me because there are still places in the world today where essentially the same thing is happening. It makes me very discouraged about our progress as a human race."
I thought that Piercy was trying to demonstrate how "bigotry/racism" was rooted in the same type of prejudice in Detroit with Blacks and in Germany with Jews. The lynching of Blacks and the murder of Gays in this country seem to me to be a form of genocide - is everyone who kills bc of race/religion insane? The absolute hatred toward Mexicans who are in this country illegally seems non-rational to me. I know I've raised this before but WHY are people racist? In my philosophy course, the professor who is also a therapist, claims that hatred of groups of people is actually self-hatred turned outward. Could it be that? Might there actually be some kind of animal survival instinct (we are, of course, animals) that causes us to hate those who are different from us? Or, is it simply "learned behavior?"
Well - we said we wouldn't pick controversial issues - I think we've broken our rule. Or, is a lack of racism non-controversial around here?
Lyn wrote, "I never realized that the people of France were so eager to dispel the Jews in the beginning of the war. I mean even without much pressure from the ****s they stripped the Jews of their wealth, homes, status so that the French Jews in the resistance can not fathom even going back to France after the war. I mean I knew the Germans were prejudiced, but I never knew about France."
I knew that the European countries and the US were NOT supportive of the Jews. I also knew that the US did NOT want the Jews to immigrate into the US after the war. What about England? Anyone know about their attitude toward the Jews?
I asked my hairdresser - from Russia - what she knew about how the Russians felt about protecting the Jews - she laughed. Said the only reason Russia got into the war was bc Hitler was invading Russia & killing the Russians. They would NOT have fought to protect Jews. She said that there was still a lot of anti-semitism in Russia when she was growing up.
I've lived in the northeast all of my life - mostly in NJ - and I really didn't realize the extent of anti-semitism that existed (exists?). However, as I've said before, my ancestors (including my mother & aunt) never told us that they were Jewish - they changed their last name from Blei to Blair around 1900 - my grandfather claimed his parents were from "Scotland" on the 1920 census - they were both from Germany (Prussia).
I have to confess - I skipped over the horrible parts about the war & the concentration camps.
One of my favorite writers - Steven King - has a common theme in many of his books - the Horror of real life is worse than the Horror anyone can make up.
I can read horror books/watch horror movies about fictional monsters, but I don't subject myself to horror about real life - I also don't do books/movies about abuse of women or children.
Well - we said we wouldn't pick controversial issues - I think we've broken our rule. Or, is a lack of racism non-controversial around here? Lynn
Hmmmm. Well, I think bigotry and racism are pretty closely related? So, I'm not exactly sure about your question above, Lynn. I guess my political observations might be considered controversial since I have expressed a personal preference, but I'm still not understanding the question. I suppose racism IS controversial insofar as there are racists who, under the constitution, have every right to practice racism - although public displays of it are sanctioned in modern society. So, therefore, maybe the answer to the question you pose is yes, a lack of racism is non-controversial because we operate on the assumption that nobody here is a racist?
I'm still not real clear on the question to be honest with you.
I liked some of Stephen King's earlier books, but have found some of his later ones a little too "formula" - written too much according to what worked last time and a little short on new ideas and material. Easy, of course, for me to critique, having never published a book myself. And, I suppose to be quite truthful, I am constantly discouraged by the horrors of real life - don't want to read about fabricated ones, or see movies about them, despite their possibly cathartic value from a psychological point of view.
An email came around last week about Ike and his demand that the camps be photographed fully that he felt in generations to come there would be a total denial of the Holocaust. That is probably the reason why this book rang such a bell for me. Everything that happens to her women in the book happens even now 70 years later. The superficial changes, but basic nature of mankind stays the same.
What I remember about the Brits were they were gungho to set up the country of Isreal to take care of the DP problem and then set up all kinds of barriers to prevent people and supplies from reaching Isreal.
Guess history is just a review of what is about to happen...again and again. Genocide is still happening, prejudice is still rampant, And good people still try to make things better. karen3
Okay, yeah. Now IT scared the bejesus out of me! Very well written, and thought-provoking which is what King does in his best works.Didn't they do a TV miniseries of IT? Seems to me I either saw it or saw parts of it?
Oh, and my Dad surely did like Ike - I didn't know that about him wanting pictures taken because it would eventually be denied, though. The man was a bit of a prophet, eh?
"Gone to Soldiers" - DQ #4
And, I suppose to be quite truthful, I am constantly discouraged by the horrors of real life - don't want to read about fabricated ones, or see movies about them, despite their possibly cathartic value from a psychological point of view.
