I think the reason the book is against Mrs. Bennett rather than for her isn’t that she’s supposed to be stupid; she’s obviously shrewd. The problem is (like most comic villains) she values one good to such a ridiculous extreme that all other goods pale before it. In this case, Jane could have died; in the episode with Mr. Collins, she has zero interest in Elizabeth’s happiness. If she were ineffectual there would be much less of a problem!
Yeah, that's why I could never get into Austen. I was always at odds with her, so to speak. In that society, what mother wouldn't a daughter to marry a decent, rich man?
The religious right is back, and it has spread to the left. I hope this is only an online trend and not a real life one. Kids should be out here having fun and making the occasional mistake.
The USA always hated sex. It's funny for those of us Xennials and older to see the puritans on the *left* this time, but there's no real reason it can't happen.
Totally, and you could say the same about the extreme vaccine skeptics and "natural ingredients" nuts (people who think "chemical" = "anything I can't pronounce". There's no real partisan basis for it, so watching it flip sides in real time is bizarre but not shocking.
I've long hated that meme that goes something like, "Girls don't want boys, girls want [fill in the blank]." Since literal kindergarten, when the teachers referred to my pint-size crush and me as the Romeo and Juliet of our class (ngl, we liked to hold hands and share our Montessori learning stations), I have been falling for and fantasizing about guys. If I'm brutally honest, "fantasizing about guys" is no small part of my writing process and definitely a core reason I ended up becoming a novelist. It's so weird to me that it's considered "feminist" to obscure or deny this!
Same here! The disgust on both sides at heterosexual female sexuality is demented. Men fear we won't find them enough, radfems hallucinate all men are rapists, so we can't really desire them, and then there are the likes of Harrington, who's probably terrified of her own sexuality.
Harrington seems to have a very libertine time of her early 20s (which you can read as hypocrisy, or living out a cautionary tale) - probably true of many who now preach moral truths!
God how madly I lusted for my best friend's older brother, and spent many, many a feverish night while sleeping over at her house fantasizing that it would FINALLY be the night he would acquire the bravery to stride in and ravish me with a kiss in my sleeping bag. Never happened.
Then later on as an adult I found out he DID return my passion, but by then when he finally had the courage to make his move he was a flabby drunk who hit on me while so intoxicated that he tried to light his cigarette backwards. And then after smelling the lit filter, on his next attempt burned half his eyelashes off. Alas, the window had closed and the magic was gone.
"the magic was gone" - you win my "honorary British" award for the perfect understatement there! Yes, why are we now pretending teenage girls don't lust after and fantasise about the boys in their orbit? I didn't know that some Americans were panicking about potential male threats to girls on sleepovers, but my goodness as a Mum I knew full well the lengths my teenage daughter might go to, to throw herself in the path of her friends' older brothers - after all, I had once been a teenage girl. Me and the other Mums were vigilant - but not overly alarmed.
I don't think that the anti-sleepover crowd even has the prospect of little girl crushes in mind--their entire view of sexuality is based on the concept of the predatory adult. Any adult outside the family structure is a potential pedophile.
Though as I understand it this stat then gets recycled into reinforcing the fear - after all, the men in the house are *someone's* male relative and thus in the scary category!
I think she represents the non romcom trope that ambitious mums want a rich hubby daughters want to marry for love (and in the real world too often end up with a poor quality guy sadly). Not saying she's right, just saying that hormones don't care about your long term happiness
Yeah Austen gives this point of view to Charlotte Lucas, though she's still pretty merciless to Mrs Bennett throughout the text. Some of the more recent revisionist takes have been kinder.
It’s insane to me how the vibe shift caused by ubiquitous hardcore internet porno ie psychic terrorism never makes it into the discussion. I know I know - we already talked about it. Ok then.
"...this conversation is so intense — and seems so bizarre to normal people that they look at you like you're crazy if you mention it — because of the specific milieu in which it's taking place, which is to say, in the one environment where people with low trust, high neuroticism, and latent anti-social tendencies tend to cluster and find community and create endless affirmative feedback loops that only further reinforce all the aforementioned things."
I call this (feminine) online social complex 'the Hive.'
Most talk about not having sleepovers is for elementary age kids. It has nothing to do with kids 9-12 grade so the point of this article is moot. I was the kid who was molested by the ppl who I was left with. Thanks for the memories Kat!
One of the greatest ironies of my cinephile life is being a fan of Jack Lowden's (who, ironically enough, will be Darcy), who's married to Saoirse Ronan, an actress I can't stand. Until months ago, I only disliked her on aesthetic terms, but then she went on a BBC show. She, a woman in a heterosexual marriage with a masculine man, screeched that all men are vile. Ronan is popular amongst young women. Those young women listened to that idiot saying all the men these young girls might meet represent a danger...excepting herself, special enough to find a man that isn't a monster. We have these idiots, we have Hanania claiming women don't have a sexuality, we have Harrington claiming masturbation is disgusting, that women should only use sex to get a husband, we have the hysterics that spend hours watching the most extreme porn and then scream porn will eat your brain, etc. What can we do? How can we fight them? I sincerely don't know.
I think the reason the book is against Mrs. Bennett rather than for her isn’t that she’s supposed to be stupid; she’s obviously shrewd. The problem is (like most comic villains) she values one good to such a ridiculous extreme that all other goods pale before it. In this case, Jane could have died; in the episode with Mr. Collins, she has zero interest in Elizabeth’s happiness. If she were ineffectual there would be much less of a problem!
One might say she is “silly” rather than stupid
She was sensible. I could never understand how she was so maligned.
To be fair, if we take the author at her word: "she was a woman of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper".
Yeah, that's why I could never get into Austen. I was always at odds with her, so to speak. In that society, what mother wouldn't a daughter to marry a decent, rich man?
The religious right is back, and it has spread to the left. I hope this is only an online trend and not a real life one. Kids should be out here having fun and making the occasional mistake.
The USA always hated sex. It's funny for those of us Xennials and older to see the puritans on the *left* this time, but there's no real reason it can't happen.
Totally, and you could say the same about the extreme vaccine skeptics and "natural ingredients" nuts (people who think "chemical" = "anything I can't pronounce". There's no real partisan basis for it, so watching it flip sides in real time is bizarre but not shocking.
I've long hated that meme that goes something like, "Girls don't want boys, girls want [fill in the blank]." Since literal kindergarten, when the teachers referred to my pint-size crush and me as the Romeo and Juliet of our class (ngl, we liked to hold hands and share our Montessori learning stations), I have been falling for and fantasizing about guys. If I'm brutally honest, "fantasizing about guys" is no small part of my writing process and definitely a core reason I ended up becoming a novelist. It's so weird to me that it's considered "feminist" to obscure or deny this!
Same here! The disgust on both sides at heterosexual female sexuality is demented. Men fear we won't find them enough, radfems hallucinate all men are rapists, so we can't really desire them, and then there are the likes of Harrington, who's probably terrified of her own sexuality.
Harrington seems to have a very libertine time of her early 20s (which you can read as hypocrisy, or living out a cautionary tale) - probably true of many who now preach moral truths!
God how madly I lusted for my best friend's older brother, and spent many, many a feverish night while sleeping over at her house fantasizing that it would FINALLY be the night he would acquire the bravery to stride in and ravish me with a kiss in my sleeping bag. Never happened.
Then later on as an adult I found out he DID return my passion, but by then when he finally had the courage to make his move he was a flabby drunk who hit on me while so intoxicated that he tried to light his cigarette backwards. And then after smelling the lit filter, on his next attempt burned half his eyelashes off. Alas, the window had closed and the magic was gone.
Loved the piece.
Sliding doors moment.
"the magic was gone" - you win my "honorary British" award for the perfect understatement there! Yes, why are we now pretending teenage girls don't lust after and fantasise about the boys in their orbit? I didn't know that some Americans were panicking about potential male threats to girls on sleepovers, but my goodness as a Mum I knew full well the lengths my teenage daughter might go to, to throw herself in the path of her friends' older brothers - after all, I had once been a teenage girl. Me and the other Mums were vigilant - but not overly alarmed.
I don't think that the anti-sleepover crowd even has the prospect of little girl crushes in mind--their entire view of sexuality is based on the concept of the predatory adult. Any adult outside the family structure is a potential pedophile.
Ironic, given that the highest paedophile risk, statistically, is a male relative, not a stranger.
Though as I understand it this stat then gets recycled into reinforcing the fear - after all, the men in the house are *someone's* male relative and thus in the scary category!
I think she represents the non romcom trope that ambitious mums want a rich hubby daughters want to marry for love (and in the real world too often end up with a poor quality guy sadly). Not saying she's right, just saying that hormones don't care about your long term happiness
Yeah Austen gives this point of view to Charlotte Lucas, though she's still pretty merciless to Mrs Bennett throughout the text. Some of the more recent revisionist takes have been kinder.
Fun post!
It’s insane to me how the vibe shift caused by ubiquitous hardcore internet porno ie psychic terrorism never makes it into the discussion. I know I know - we already talked about it. Ok then.
Well it is no accident that this is happening, heterosexual male desire has been all but pathologized over the past 10 years or so.
Wait… no, I stand corrected. It is a pathology.
Love the connection with Mrs. Bennett!
This one went by way too fast
"...this conversation is so intense — and seems so bizarre to normal people that they look at you like you're crazy if you mention it — because of the specific milieu in which it's taking place, which is to say, in the one environment where people with low trust, high neuroticism, and latent anti-social tendencies tend to cluster and find community and create endless affirmative feedback loops that only further reinforce all the aforementioned things."
I call this (feminine) online social complex 'the Hive.'
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/the-hive
Most talk about not having sleepovers is for elementary age kids. It has nothing to do with kids 9-12 grade so the point of this article is moot. I was the kid who was molested by the ppl who I was left with. Thanks for the memories Kat!
The cause of all this is the bog standard misandry that's become background noise in most cultures.
One of the greatest ironies of my cinephile life is being a fan of Jack Lowden's (who, ironically enough, will be Darcy), who's married to Saoirse Ronan, an actress I can't stand. Until months ago, I only disliked her on aesthetic terms, but then she went on a BBC show. She, a woman in a heterosexual marriage with a masculine man, screeched that all men are vile. Ronan is popular amongst young women. Those young women listened to that idiot saying all the men these young girls might meet represent a danger...excepting herself, special enough to find a man that isn't a monster. We have these idiots, we have Hanania claiming women don't have a sexuality, we have Harrington claiming masturbation is disgusting, that women should only use sex to get a husband, we have the hysterics that spend hours watching the most extreme porn and then scream porn will eat your brain, etc. What can we do? How can we fight them? I sincerely don't know.
The only issue I noticed was that she wasn't concerned enough about the encroaching zombie scourge. 🤔😉🙃