Another fundie falls for Jane Austen - Anna T

[YPestis]

Anna T had another post today. Most of her recent ones revolved around her home life lately (thankfully), but this caught me today:

There is something so very charming in reading about ladies and gentlemen living in a pre-industrialized world; about their country walks and dinner parties, about horse-riding and needlework.

....

Miss Austen didn’t live a very long life, but it seems to me that she had lived happily and quietly, surrounded by family and with ample time to work on her novels. She probably had more peace, quiet and freedom for contemplation in her life than most people in the modern age will ever experience even if they live twice as long as she had.

Her blog: http://ccostello.blogspotdotcom/

You know, Anna T appeared to be a educated gal, and fairly intelligent....why do fundies like her fantasize about living at a time when 1 in 10 women die in childbirth, 1/3 child dies before their 5th birthday and most people were starving and living in complete squalor?!

What's ironic is that most of these fundies would most likely have been starving peasants toiling FOR Miss Austen's characters. That's the reason why the landed gentry had time to do "country walks and dinner parties, about horse-riding and needlework.". And oh yeah, Miss Austen probably had more time to contemplate her life because she had a bit of money so she wasn't forced to work in a poorhouse. You think a widowed mother had time to admire her needlework and think about her quiet life?

What Anna T, and probably the people at Ladies Against Feminism fail to realize is that it took the fulltime labor of poor and working class women to allow upper class ladies the LUXURY of having balls and delicate dinner parties.

Anna T, based on her admission of the family's economic circumstances, would be toiling away 16 hr days washing laundry by hand, tilling the land, making/mending clothes, making her own soap, and probably running trying to run a side business to make ends meet. If Anna T was lucky, SHE'D be the one cooking and cleaning for the mistress of a large country house, working long hour days so that the lady of the house can have time for tea time and gentlemen callers.

How come no fundie ever acknowledge that? How come they never think about how difficult---and common---it was for widowed women to survive? Or how hard life was for the myriad of orphans that existed at a time when dysentery epidemics were still common?

They only pick and choose the good things from 19th century: the rich elite that subsists in a fantasy world as written in books. The fundies don't even acknowledge the numerous affairs that men of a certain class engage in, which the women are powerless to affect, and forced to ignore.

They never acknowledge the fact that women are made vulnerable by their lack of status in society, their inability to own property, to inherit, to get an education or acquire a job (although poor men also had difficulties with those).

Anyways, reading her post kind of set me off. We would laugh if people 200 years from now saw Anglina Jolie's kids and thought that's how people in 2011 live: multiple mansions, servants/nannies, travel the world in first class. I bed if Jane Austen was alive and saw what the world became, she'd laugh at Anna T's presumption.

[InkyGirl]

Which one is Anna T? There are so many Annas!!

[anniebgood]

Anna T and Lady Lydia need to get together for a tea party.

LL today says we shouldn't encourage young girls to be nannies, raise your own kids dammit! Girls should get married! I'm tempted to tell her I think I'd hire a manny because they wouldn't incur back injuries picking up kids.

[YPestis]

Anna T is fundie Jew that talks like a fundie Christian. She's unique in that she is *very* pro homeschooling in a society that is very community oriented towards children's education. And she's very antiwork for women even though even conservative Jewish women work.....

[Cassandra]

Not to mention that most of Austen's female characters were pretty headstrong.

I really think they don't actually read the books.

[Joykins]

So do any of them read Dickens?

[InkyGirl]

Oh, Domestic Felicity Anna! Ok, got it.

[fundiefan]

Anna T had another post today. Most of her recent ones revolved around her home life lately (thankfully), but this caught me today:

There is something so very charming in reading about ladies and gentlemen living in a pre-industrialized world; about their country walks and dinner parties, about horse-riding and needlework.

....

Miss Austen didn’t live a very long life, but it seems to me that she had lived happily and quietly, surrounded by family and with ample time to work on her novels. She probably had more peace, quiet and freedom for contemplation in her life than most people in the modern age will ever experience even if they live twice as long as she had.

Her blog: http://ccostello.blogspotdotcom/

You know, Anna T appeared to be a educated gal, and fairly intelligent....why do fundies like her fantasize about living at a time when 1 in 10 women die in childbirth, 1/3 child dies before their 5th birthday and most people were starving and living in complete squalor?!

What's ironic is that most of these fundies would most likely have been starving peasants toiling FOR Miss Austen's characters. That's the reason why the landed gentry had time to do "country walks and dinner parties, about horse-riding and needlework.". And oh yeah, Miss Austen probably had more time to contemplate her life because she had a bit of money so she wasn't forced to work in a poorhouse. You think a widowed mother had time to admire her needlework and think about her quiet life?

What Anna T, and probably the people at Ladies Against Feminism fail to realize is that it took the fulltime labor of poor and working class women to allow upper class ladies the LUXURY of having balls and delicate dinner parties.

Anna T, based on her admission of the family's economic circumstances, would be toiling away 16 hr days washing laundry by hand, tilling the land, making/mending clothes, making her own soap, and probably running trying to run a side business to make ends meet. If Anna T was lucky, SHE'D be the one cooking and cleaning for the mistress of a large country house, working long hour days so that the lady of the house can have time for tea time and gentlemen callers.

How come no fundie ever acknowledge that? How come they never think about how difficult---and common---it was for widowed women to survive? Or how hard life was for the myriad of orphans that existed at a time when dysentery epidemics were still common?

They only pick and choose the good things from 19th century: the rich elite that subsists in a fantasy world as written in books. The fundies don't even acknowledge the numerous affairs that men of a certain class engage in, which the women are powerless to affect, and forced to ignore.

They never acknowledge the fact that women are made vulnerable by their lack of status in society, their inability to own property, to inherit, to get an education or acquire a job (although poor men also had difficulties with those).

Anyways, reading her post kind of set me off. We would laugh if people 200 years from now saw Anglina Jolie's kids and thought that's how people in 2011 live: multiple mansions, servants/nannies, travel the world in first class. I bed if Jane Austen was alive and saw what the world became, she'd laugh at Anna T's presumption.

I think the reasons they don't acknowledge facts is pretty obvious. It would burst their bubbles and ruin their deslusions regarding what life is supposed to be like.

It's also kind of funny that they idolize Austen because many of her writings were commentary on the society in which she lived. The women being dependent upon making 'good marriages' was not written as something to aspire to, it was to bring attention to the limited choices in the lives of upper class women of her time. Some go so far as to call it satire.

I love Austen's books. They are some of the best I've enjoyed. But, they are not 'how to' guides. They are not something to aspire to. They were not meant to be so when they were written, when they were published, or any time since.

[sacrilicious]

They should take a look at this movie: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/missaustenregrets/index.html

[Quiverless]

Not to mention that Miss Austen bucked the conventions of the time! Her books were not originally published under her own name, but rather were credited to "A Lady", because a female novelist was something quite unsettling! Respectable women did not allow their names to appear in print, except in certain rare circumstances, and women were not expected to earn their own money. Her acquaintances were meant to simply accept that, somehow, she had enough money to live on, although as time went on, people did figure out who had written those books. She was a rebel for her time and place! A... dare I say it?.... a FEMINIST!

[sugaree]

And I'm sure she's been rolling in her grave for the past decade or so. God only knows what she thinks of this particular subset of Austen fans..

[Dinorah]

I've never understood the fundies's enamourment with Austen considering that:

- parental figures, and especially fathers, are often an object of derision (eg Mr and Mrs Bennet in P&P or Mr Woodhouse in Emma).

- girls, not their fathers pick their husbands.

- girls "give away pieces of their hearts" to men they don't marry, and that's ok (eg Marianne and Willhouby in S&S or Elizabeth's infatuation with Wickham in P&P)

- excessive parental/familial interference in a courtship is seen negatively (Persuasion).

- the charatcers are nominally Christian and go to church, but aren't truly that religious.

- elegant early 1800th gowns were rather immodest, sometimes would be now considered indecent.

By the way, are the fundies ok with the idea of being kicked out of your house when your father dies, if you have no brothers?

[Not That Kind of Dr]

Destroying the ridiculous, good-old-days fantasies of people like Anna T. is one reason I enjoy being a history professor, and since I've somehow gotten roped into teaching a course on modern Britain in the fall, I'll get to bleat on about the human cost of the early Industrial Revolution to my heart's delight. In any case, how can Anna T. overlook that Sense and Sensibility is all about the trial of trying to maintain the facade of genteel life with no money and almost no socially acceptable way to make it?

[atheistjd]

I agree with all of the above... It is simply delusional to imagine that life was actually like the lives described for the majority of people, or to think that you would be one of the few if living in that time period. The Angelina Jolie comparison was right on point. That's not to say there are not enviable things about the lifestyle described, but to overlook the negatives even for the wealthy and the hardships of almost everyone not as fortunate is just dense...

But more than that, if only she really believed what she says, I would like her so much better - "I understand that not all can appreciate a quiet life as I do – a quiet, simple, unhurried, and in many ways, even retired life."

No, you do not. If you really appreciated that others do NOT wish to have that kind of life, you would not have such a self-righteous, know-it-all tone and preach about your values as if everyone must share them or be damned. Ugh!

[Hane]

Re Austen's worldview: Our favorite fundies wouldn't recognize satire if it hit them in the head like a bludgeon.

[Terrie]

Ah, Jane Austen. Who was incredibly cynical of the lot of women in her era, since she herself never got married and was all too aware of being a burden on her family. Personally, I would never want to live in that era, especially as a female. No indoor plumbing, nothing but fireplaces for heat, no decent medicine (they still used BLOOD LETTING!). Why does that appeal to people?

[dawn]

Try searching for "Regency House Party" on youtube, it's an English historically correct reality show where ten people live like the regency upper class for 2 months. Very disillusioning & a little disturbing too. Wait till you get to the part where the women get their periods.

[Joykins]

I'd just like to invite these people to masquerade night at a Romance or Science Fiction convention.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Regen ... ention.jpg

[Aurora]

Destroying the ridiculous, good-old-days fantasies of people like Anna T. is one reason I enjoy being a history professor, and since I've somehow gotten roped into teaching a course on modern Britain in the fall, I'll get to bleat on about the human cost of the early Industrial Revolution to my heart's delight. In any case, how can Anna T. overlook that Sense and Sensibility is all about the trial of trying to maintain the facade of genteel life with no money and almost no socially acceptable way to make it?

Yes, did they not read even the first chapter, where the family are getting kicked out of their house because of their brother/uncle's lack of generosity?

Fundies need proper teachers/professors like yourself to show them the deeper interpretations of the Austen books (feminism, satire, sarcasm, irony, social commentary) which otherwise seem to go far over their heads.