Today's class left me with a sort of emptiness that's hard to explain... We were talking about Virginia Wolf, and how in the 16th century it was highly frowned upon for women to do anything except get married. If you were a female poet in this time period, you were thought to have an unhappy life, using writing to fill a void created by a patriarcal society. To write as a woman was deemed crazy, and if they did, they would hide their writtings and do it in secret. If they hoped to be published they would have to use male pen names or publish anonymously.
They used a Freudian idea to explain how poetry evolved. Essentially the popular poet of the time could be viewed as the "father figure" that all the up and coming poets were jealous of (as Freud said little boys were envious of the father's relationship with the mother). The poets managed the feelings by taking the current writing style and incorporating their own little twist. However, this borrowed theory did not hold for the female poets that existed, few though they were. It was said that those poets had been inspired to write by their mothers, and the examples they set, because they had no female writers to look up to or learn from. It was unsettling to me, because if they were around today, they would have had ample female writers to look up to. They wouldn't have to hide behind a pen name!
As this was being discussed, I found myself pondering who I looked up to , not just as an aspiring journalist/writer, but also as a person with a disability. I thought of people like Terry Fox, Jesse Davidson, Stephen Hawking, and Rick Hansen instantly. Hawking was the only one to fit umder both circumstances. I was shocked when my mind could not come up with any women with disabilities. I was deeply ashamed to think that I would have to Google "inspiring disabled women" to find one from the past, or even presnt...
The history of women has been so poorly documented that it makes me quite litterally sick! The accounts that ARE recorded are tainted by years upon YEARS of patriachy. The history of the disabled women, is tainted with missunderstanding and most likely misdiagnosis... How many women voices went unheard because to write was frowned upon? How many brillant minds were snuffed because disabilities and illnesses weren't understood? Now, it's FACINATING that women are finally filling male occupations, they can finally do equal levels of work! NO! we can't finally do it; we were able to do it all along, but just never given a fair chance... Maybe there has been progression, but to look at MY present and still be able to see clear as day, issues that existed in the 1600s, tells me that there is still much to be done. I'm sure that goes for every woman, disabled or not... but after this class, I know I want to play a role in discovering the unknown. I want to make sure no story goes untold... and it looks like I've got some research to do!`
It's been HIStory for too long... Time to make some HERStoy!
Karli
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