Lady Lydia on "Dignity"

[cate]

This isn't her most recent post, so sorry if this has been discussed (I missed some good stuff while I was on vacation a couple of weeks ago!).

homeliving.blogspot.com/2011/06/strength-and-dignity.html

Here's my favorite bit from Lady Lydia's post on "Dignity:"

Reduce Communication.

Constant communication is not good for women. (As some men would say, "They need to be making sandwiches" instead. ) Too much chatter, whether online or verbal, can reduce your alertness to your family and sap your strength.

It's especially great given how tl;dr the post is. Also, verbal just means words, so doesn't online communication count as verbal, even if it's not oral?

[debrand]

Whats in parenthesis caused me a mental WTF? Some men would say, "They need to be making sandwiches" and some men are jerks.

[InkyGirl]

Omg, she rambles on for pages and pages to basically tell women to shut up and stay in the kitchen. Are women allowed to talk about anything other than flowers and the color pink?

[cate]

Maybe she should take the advice of "some men" and gtfo and get back in the kitchen. But then who would tell me how to make dresses out of ugly rose prints?!

[contrary]

yes, it does seem rather ironic that she is going on about reducing online communication.

[forever ago]

Omg, she rambles on for pages and pages to basically tell women to shut up and stay in the kitchen. Are women allowed to talk about anything other than flowers and the color pink?

Yes, they're allowed to talk about their children.

[fundiefan]

Lydia Sherman: living, breathing, walking (and yes, talking) contradiction. Wonder how often her husband has to tell her to shut up and make him a sandwich?

[Burris]

She always has had a warped view of dignity. For example, she thought it was perfectly dignified to turn out an anti-"troll" screen while guest-posting on another woman's blog, even despite the fact she out-and-out said she would never inflict that kind of 'undignified' whining on her own regular readers back at Home Living Helper.

[clarinetpower]

I was just googling her name and this was the first hit:

Lydia Sherman

Born in Burlington in 1824, Lydia Sherman (her final married name) was orphaned at the age of nine and raised by an uncle. She left town in 1840, and moved to New Brunswick, New Jersey, where she met her first husband, Edward Struck, a widower with six children. They moved to Manhattan, where Struck joined the police force, and had seven more children together. After eighteen years of marriage, Struck was discharged and became depressed. Lydia poisoned him with arsenic "to put him out of the way."

Finding herself unable to single-handedly support at least a half-dozen young children, she poisoned baby William, four-year-old Edward and six-year-old Martha Ann, in a single day. When fourteen-year-old George became chronically ill, she laced his tea with arsenic, and when twelve-year-old Ann Eliza had recurrent chills and fevers one winter, Lydia poisoned her as well. Lydia's oldest daughter, eighteen-year-old Lydia, died of natural causes two months after the last of her siblings was poisoned.

Hired by a storekeeper to care for his invalid mother in Stratford, Connecticut, Lydia was recommended as a housekeeper to a wealthy farmer, Dennis Hurlburt. He hired her, married her within days, and was dead of poisoning within months, leaving her with $10,000.

Finally, widower Horatio Sherman came calling, wanting to hire Lydia as a housekeeper and nurse for his baby. When he upped the ante to marriage, she accepted, but after they were married, Horatio drank heavily, abused her and wasted her ill-found inheritance. In an effort to gain his attention and affection, Lydia poisoned baby Frankie, then sixteen-year-old Ada. When Horatio remained unchanged, she put arsenic in his brandy bottle.

Having poisoned three husbands and seven children, Lydia Sherman went on trial in 1872 and was convicted of second-degree murder. Dubbed the "Modern Lucretia Borgia," "Poison Fiend," "Borgia of Connecticut" and the "Queen Poisoner," She spent the rest of her life in prison, and though her remarrying habits were later surpassed by Marguerite Burton, no Burlingtonian since has equaled her body count.

Uff da.

That's a tough name to be saddled with.

[lovefromgirl]

I am not taking advice on dignity from a woman who runs around dressed like Hyacinth Bucket.

[oscar]

I am not taking advice on dignity from a woman who runs around dressed like Hyacinth Bucket.

lovefromgirl, that is spot-on! Lady Lydia really is like a nasty, mean-spirited version of Hyacinth Bucket!

[ppmath]

I am not taking advice on dignity from a woman who runs around dressed like Hyacinth Bucket.

That gave me a good laugh! :lol: She's the fundy Hyacinth! I bet she even has candlelight suppers.

[browngrl]

Omg, she rambles on for pages and pages to basically tell women to shut up and stay in the kitchen. Are women allowed to talk about anything other than flowers and the color pink?

they can also talk about sandwiches

[Guest Anonymous]

I am not taking advice on dignity from a woman who runs around dressed like Hyacinth Bucket.

I wonder what pseudo-French intonation she gives her last name.

[GenerationCedarchip]

lovefromgirl, that is spot-on! Lady Lydia really is like a nasty, mean-spirited version of Hyacinth Bucket!

So true!

Also, there seems to be a whole group of women online talking about how proper fundie women shouldn't spend lots of time being friends with other women because it will turn them into bad Christians. That just seems weird to me. I love my husband dearly, but if he was my only social outlet, we'd both go insane. :?

[emmiedahl]

dig·ni·ty noun /ˈdignitē/ 

dignities, plural

1.The state or quality of being worthy of honor or respect

2.A composed or serious manner or style

3.A sense of pride in oneself; self-respect

4.A high or honorable rank or position

Lydia should stop focusing on #2 and get a little 1, 3, and 4.

[SinInTheCamp]

She's just like boatloads of other fundie women and that hateful Phyllis Schafly. They make their fame and fortune by doing the exact opposite of what they preach as the proper role of women. It's more of the standard hypocrisy that is to be expected of their kind.

[thoughtful]

I wonder what pseudo-French intonation she gives her last name.

Great minds -- that was my first thought, as well.

Lydia "Charmaine," perhaps? :D

[urban explorer]

I could not read all of it, WOW that was draining, she just kept repeating herself.

[Witsec6]

So true!

Also, there seems to be a whole group of women online talking about how proper fundie women shouldn't spend lots of time being friends with other women because it will turn them into bad Christians. That just seems weird to me. I love my husband dearly, but if he was my only social outlet, we'd both go insane. :?

I think this is just a cover for the fact that they're such ugly people nobody will be friends with them.

And by ugly, I don't mean physically, I mean psychically.

[clarinetpower]

The French would call her "cher MAHN". You know, "Share Mon". :banana-dreads:

/stupid digression

[Guest Anonymous]

So true!

Also, there seems to be a whole group of women online talking about how proper fundie women shouldn't spend lots of time being friends with other women because it will turn them into bad Christians. That just seems weird to me. I love my husband dearly, but if he was my only social outlet, we'd both go insane. :?

They're probably sock-puppets for the patriarchy. They don't want women to socialize, even on the internet, because friendship=solidarity.

[dormouse]

Reminds me of when my MIL told me that women were not supposed to talk about politics or religion. My jaw dropped. And as a matter of fact, when I visit them, she and SIL only talk about child rearing, cooking, re-designing kitchens, and who's on So You Think You Can Dance. When I try to deviate the conversation on social matter (something as simple as mentioning that there are starving children in Africa), it's: "oh, what a nice garden table, where did you buy it?". That's why I often sit with the men, their conversations aren't much about social matters either, but at least they talk about finance, which I'm interested in.

[YPestis]

My SO would oft times repeat the joke, "Go make me a samwhich!" whenever he feels like he lost an argument. We'd burst out into giggles about the ridiculousness of the situation (he's the cook in the household, I hate cooking!). I can't believe there are literate women born in this day and age who still, literally, believe that. It always galls me that there are women who enjoys being treated like this. Is this the like some sort of mass Stockholm syndrome? Or are these women like the domestic violence victims who think they deserve the abuse? Geesh, how any self respecting, intelligent women would willingly subjucate themselves like this is appalling. Even Steve Maxwells talks about listening to your wives advice.....

[Maggie Mae]

Reminds me of when my MIL told me that women were not supposed to talk about politics or religion. My jaw dropped. And as a matter of fact, when I visit them, she and SIL only talk about child rearing, cooking, re-designing kitchens, and who's on So You Think You Can Dance. When I try to deviate the conversation on social matter (something as simple as mentioning that there are starving children in Africa), it's: "oh, what a nice garden table, where did you buy it?". That's why I often sit with the men, their conversations aren't much about social matters either, but at least they talk about finance, which I'm interested in.

I would be dying of boredom. Or I would be unwelcome, as I would tell everyone exactly what I think about THAT.