Class Notes, Part 2

Missed class on Monday because apparently I have yet to master the advanced technology of the alarm clock. Apparently we're talking about the 18^th century now. I always get confused with the use of centuries instead of just saying what year it was...the 18^th century is the 1700's, just fucking say “the 1700's” why do we need to make shit more complicated?

So the Daughters of Liberty and Daughters of Britain. Professor was talking about how women weren't involved in politics, and if you asked a woman back in the day what she thought about politics apparently she'd say, “But what have I to do with politics?” which just goes to show that women back in the day really were uneducated, who starts a sentence with a conjunction?

Britain was considered to be a big girly country, clingy and whiny while big bad America was all manly, ripping up the New World and urinating all over to claim its dominance. Some writers begin to see the principles of liberty as feminine, however: a hardworking housewife dedicated to simple pleasures like spinning wheels instead of tea tables (though let's be honest, a tea table has a lot more uses than a spinning wheel, and it was the spinning wheel that got Sleeping Beauty in trouble).

Now there's a political cartoon from the 1700's where Britain calls America a rebellious slut. I had no idea that the word “slut” was around in the 1700's. This class is teaching me all kinds of stuff. Also apparently the mushroom in the picture is important. (It's not just a mushroom, ladies, it's a Liberty Cap.) Yeah there are no men in this class except for one of our TA's, who apparently was Lamar Alexander's web guru in Tennessee...which is odd. The one man in the room being a die-hard Republican makes about as much sense as my professor's current shirt. It's all shiny and color-changing. Is it blue? Indigo? Radioactive?

Taxes start pissing people off, and women start taking advantage of the fact that everyone is foaming at the mouth to surreptitiously begin writing political shit. Sneaky little bitches. I like it. Boycotting and petition signing started to become a woman's thing as well. For those women who felt uncomfortable picketing, there was Protesting: The Poetry Edition, where women would write passive aggressive poetry about how no one could strap them down and force tea between their lips (I'm so glad my professor caught the sexual undertones to this). Apparently the Governor of New Jersey invited a bunch of people over for a tea party, and there was a nine year old girl there. She was offered a cup of tea, which she took. Then she curtsied and threw the tea out the window. And that, ladies and gents, is how Snooki's great-great-great grandmother made her mark in the world.

We now see a propaganda poster depicting these activist women. Shit is going down in this poster, y'all. There's a lesbian, a drunk woman passing out, a...wait for it...black woman being treated as an equal, a dog pissing on a baby, and a brawl going on behind the meeting. Also I'm pretty sure you can see one woman's ankle. Clearly these women are OUT OF CONTROL. Quick, somebody get a scold's bridle. Or a shotgun. (As I type this, I start to wonder if there are any of the mythical Yale lesbians in my class. I've always heard about them, but the only girls I've seen making out at Yale have been my friends, so I'm skeptical. I'mma be keeping my eyes open now.)

Tar and feathering IS NOT A JOKE, OKAY? It sounds funny, but it's not. Okay?

A woman has a baby and wants to name it after a British guy. Angry women invade her house and want to tar and feather this woman AND HER BABY. They're not exactly keeping it classy, are they? Apparently some people agree that these women are a bit terrifying so they legally shun her, leading poor Hester Prynne to live out her days alone with her daughter. No, wait. That's something else.

Grace Galloway had a husband named Joseph. He abandoned her and took their daughter. Then he was declared a traitor and the government seized his property. What a douche. His now homeless wife wanted nothing but make sure her daughter was safe and happy so she took all the money she had and sent it to keep her daughter safe. Then she fell in love with an ex-con named Jean Valjean, who was imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread. There is some singing, she tells us about how she dreamed a dream, then dies.

Wait.

That might be Les Miserables.

Oh, hey, there's a war for Independence! If you've seen The Patriot, you don't really need to pay attention in class here, right? Women have to go all Rosie the Riveter and keep baby America from sleeping on her stomach and suffocating to death. Inflation starts happening but soldiers were paid absolute shit so these women were poor as hell. Women are freaking out and starving and stuff (whine, whine, whine), writing their husbands and asking them to quit fucking around and playing with swords and guns, and come home and take care of their damn families. Jesus. As time wore on, women started to get uppity notions that the farms and households they were now running partially belonged to them. What would Glenn Beck have to say about this? Armies were pillaging and stealing food, setting shit on fire, and just generally doing things that if there weren't a war on, people would assume that they were thug-ass miscreants. Even though they really were, you know, thug-ass miscreants. But we remember them as heroes, isn't that how it works?

Soldiers would come in and stay in your house and give you smallpox. And then they'd never call you.

Right after I made that joke my professor started talking about mass rapes and how commanders didn't stop them. So now I feel bad.

Also, stray cannonballs would probably kill you.

Some women had the option of being camp followers, which are basically like army groupies. Apparently there were 20,000 army groupies in the Revolutionary War. Oh, oh I know this one! This is where the term “hooker” comes from, I think. 'Cause there was a guy named hooker and he had some groupies and they called them Hooker's Girls, then eventually just hookers. (Just asked, it was the Civil War. And my professor just admitted that a lot of the army groupies were sex workers. Way to leave out the fun stuff, Professor Tannenbaum.)

Molly Pitcher became a symbol of females in combat. Women would bring water onto the battlefield to cool off the cannonballs (there's a joke here, I just can't quite find it). They were likely to get shot. BUT they did get military pensions after the war by Washington, which just backs up the vast evidence that Washington was a fucking boss.

Female servants would eavesdrop on British men and write all their conversations down, then smuggle them to Washington in the linings of their petticoats. It is said that Washington would then tear open the petticoats with his teeth and swallow them, learning the secrets by an osmosis of awesome.

Black people can die for Britain too! Not for America, though. And apparently a lot of British officers went back on their word and didn't free slave soldiers, they just resold them. This might be the douchiest thing of all time. And a lot of the ones who did get freed went to Sierra Leone, and we all know how things are over there, so basically this was just a shitty option. “You can fight and maybe die here! And when you're done, you can go to Africa and all your descendants can fight and die over shiny rocks! Beats working in the fields, right?”

Basically the moral of this story is that men are violent assholes.