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roenxi a day ago

My point is the article claimed it would show evidence of something when in fact it did not. It should either not have bothered to include evidence or found better evidence

scott_w a day ago | parent | next [-]

Er… no it didn’t? It just said the criticism being based on her womanhood was evident because of <reason>, it never promised to prove it, it was just a rhetorical device and they expect the reader to know the information already.

If you want to learn more about early medieval attitudes to women and power in England, it’s on you to learn, not on the article to triple its length to prove every minor claim.

roenxi a day ago | parent [-]

> not on the article to triple its length to prove every minor claim.

Yes but that is my point. They're making the article longer by including evidence that undermines its claims. They should have either made the claim and let it stand without evidence, or they should have aligned what they said to the evidence they felt was worth including.

If they're going to claim gendered criticism then hold up generic criticism as the best example of criticism it confuses the picture. Assuming that there was gendered criticism happening somewhere off to the side out of sight, was that the decisive criticism? Or was it the criticisms that the article writer felt were important enough to include in the article?

Because the impression the article is giving is that people weren't complaining about her gender, but the fact she was behaving arbitrarily and arrogantly. That is good reason not to put a man in charge too - if you see a man acting arbitrarily and arrogantly it is also a mistake to put him in charge of anything and he would be criticised for it. I do that all the time, there are a lot of unprincipled men in politics who should be called out for their hubris. And they are.

Now it may be that what she was doing wouldn't be considered arrogance and hubris in a man (we don't know exactly because the article is short) but "double standards" and "sound ludicrous if aimed at a man" are simply not true. We hold men to the same standard and make the same criticisms of them.

scott_w a day ago | parent [-]

The substance of your objection is “these criticisms are regularly levelled at men today,” and you skip the part that 900 years have passed since they were levelled at Matilda. You then demand the article provide evidence to overcome this comparison you have been 12th century norms and 21st century norms? Really?

Let me repeat: this is not intended as a thesis. It’s a small historical tale to explain the background of a period of time in early mediaeval England. It assumes you know how women were viewed during that time period and the example provides flavour. If you want to contradict its claims, just post the articles that shows differently.

gilleain a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Evidence such as this quote?

> an extremely arrogant demeanour instead of the modest gait and bearing proper to the gentle sex

That is, the 'Gesta Stephani' is claiming that she should not be arrogant because it is not proper, because she is a woman.

That evidence?

roenxi 21 hours ago | parent [-]

That's not sexist though, it is just equivalent to noting she's a woman (like calling her "her" and "she") because we can reasonably offer the same criticism about a man. A man can have an extremely arrogant demeanour instead of the controlled gait and bearing proper to the stronger sex. And adjusting for language drift people do make that sort of complaint of men, I remember one criticism of Biden being that he walked in a frail way and fell over a lot - literally complaints about his gait and bearing giving a bad impression. Not a very strong criticism but he was male and it was made.

We might reasonably infer that she got called arrogant for doing something that wouldn't be considered arrogance in a man, the article has unhelpfully elided that detail (maybe the original author did as well). But we've also got to admit she might have actually been unusually arrogant, that does happen from time to time. If I were in charge of a military I'd be standing around even more arrogant than I already am.

pjc50 offered a good example of something that was actually gendered - women not being able to own property in their own right for whatever unfair reason. The quote isn't that sort of out-and-obvious sexism. Said quote could almost be modern political whinging.

PS I'll add in an acknowledgement that words did mean different things back then so possibly at the time the only reasonable reading was with an "[as with all women]" on the end, but the fact is that as written this quote is making specific accusations of arrogance and arbitraryness that are not contained to either gender and are bad in all leaders, female or otherwise. He didn't write "women are all arrogant" or "women are all arbitrary". If anything the thrust of the quote is most women weren't either of those things. It doesn't support the idea of double standards or ludicrous criticism that would never be made of a man.

gilleain 20 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Ok, I suppose I understand but I really do not agree. Modern criticism of the US president is so far removed from medieval criticism of a female monarch as to be nearly irrelevant.

To address your question, though, yes I absolutely read "proper to the gentler sex" to be a statement about how Queen Mathilda _ought_ to have behaved. Also I have strong doubts that men (especially male rulers) at the time would have had the same standard set for arrogance. Of course a King could be in fact arrogant and then critics might point that out, but I do not see why they would bring his sex into it.

One thing we might agree on is that all political criticism can be false, and whether or not she was _actually_ arrogant is difficult to say. In the context of a bitter civil war, any record of events will have the strong bias of the author. The modern world did not invent fake news.

notahacker 19 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Arguing that a criticism focusing on her behaviour allegedly not being "proper to her sex" isn't gendered whilst handwaving away all the well established historical context about how women were treated to invent new context where she deserved everything she got is bold, I'll give you that...