Class Notes, Part 4
Today's class is given by one of our TA's-not the male one unfortunately because that would be entertaining. Things are laid out in bullet points on the slides (no pictures WTF?) and she's taking like giant pauses between phrases. It feels like a high school presentation by that one girl who everyone ignores but she daydreams about this presentation and the whole class' sudden realization that she's a genius. The high school soccer captain (WAY better than the football team let's be honest) asks her out after class, she gets voted prom queen, after graduation she crowd surfs offstage...but actually people are just bored. It's the sort of dream that I might have had except I was pretty aware of the fact that being smart wasn't going to get me anywhere within those four walls so I made up for it by being funny and trying to keep my head down when anyone mentioned Battlestar Galactica (mmm Lee Adama).
Immigrants are coming over. The TA tactfully says “not everyone was pleased with these new immigrants.” Well yeah. Is anyone really pleased with new immigrants? Really. Even if you don't look that different, if you're an immigrant you're going to get shafted. Italians. The Irish. Chinese people (Why isn't it just Irishians and Chineseians? Why do you get two words? You think you're better than everyone else, don't you? Fucking immigrants.) And now...Mexicans and Russian/Ukrainian immigrants. So apparently prostitution was a problem-there were laws checking into female immigrants' prostitution-ness. They also didn't want anyone coming over who would take up resources without giving anything back (namely women and video game addicts). Our TA asserts that this was unfair. Honestly I get it, it's not that women are useless, they just weren't allowed to hold down a whole lot of jobs in the late 19th century. Give them some damn work and they'll give back. Jesus.
New York's Lower East Side was Immigrant Central. She shows us a picture of lots of people in a street. I'm pretty sure something was actually going on because people are hanging out of windows and shit, don't use this to illustrate how many people were flocking to the Lower East Side, this is clearly not a typical day. Oh hey a typewriter! And a weird ethereal looking picture of a line of fairies getting ready to talk to a skinny Santa at a little table with a typewriter. Go figure. Oh okay this Santa guy is Charles Latham Sholes, and these women are lining up to thank him for creating the typewriter so they could spend their days fetching coffee and writing shit for men while trying to keep their asses from being constantly grabbed by John in accounting. Thanks a lot Charles, you dick. You could have made the typewriter more male friendly, like every time you push that bar back across it shoots out a beer. Women would have been CEO's in no time.
Women also worked in garment factories. It sucked. This girl is trying so hard to sound like a professor but it just isn't working. She's just reading from her script but she keeps trailing off and looking down, then getting a second wind and starting back up, then trailing off again with those long damn pauses. It's okay you don't have to be a professor! You're not a traitor to your feminist ideals! Own a cigar shop and no one will ever question you again, I promise.
I'd like to digress for a moment. What the fuck is up with guys who don't pay on the first couple of dates? I have now had several experiences with guys up here (not even Northern guys, one was from Texas, another from Chicago) who look super shocked when the check comes and I reach for the bill to be polite, they allow me to take it, then I punch them repeatedly in the face. Really guys? I talked to a friend from DC who explained that you don't want to invest in someone until after you've been dating awhile so you split the bill until things get serious. This is bullshit. At least if he takes you out, sleep with you, then dumps you there were a free couple of meals in the deal. This way he doesn't invest a damn thing. I feel like it's even more motivation for him to stay with you if he's paid for some shit. “Hey man, you should quit seeing that chick she's crazy.” “Yeah but I put in a good few hundred bucks by now, I'm invested.” No but seriously. Guys, pay for your date. Jesus. You can bet she's judging your cheap ass and the chances for a second date are probably going to decrease. You asked her out, you pay. The end.
So there were the Knights of Labor. I think they're like the Knights of the Round Table or the Knights of “Ni” except they gave birth or something I wasn't paying attention I was too busy ranting about cheap ass men.
Boardinghouses for female laborers. Must have been a man's wet dream, a bunch of young women living together, probably having pillow fights in their scandalous head-to-toe underthings. They were called “women adrift.” Who the fuck called them that? No really I've never heard of that, it sounds stupid. When are you even going to use this term? “Hey there's a woman I might talk to.” “Nah man she's one of those women adrift, she might be a pain in the ass.” “You are a pretentious douche.”
Young men and women mixed freely at places like roller rinks WITHOUT PARENTAL SUPERVISION. Oh you done fucked up now, parents. There might be hand holding and other inappropriate stuff going on at these roller rinks of debauchery and you know what that means-if he falls down, she's going down with him. It's just not smart and it could lead to bruising. Jesus, parents, use your heads.
Woah she's now talking about how women couldn't always afford these rinks so if they saved up and went they demanded some sexy time in return and this was rebellious. Go women! It's about damn time after all that bullshit in Revolutionary America about how women hated sex so it should be a short and boring as possible-of course she hates it now, you lazy asshole. So now you had women putting on their roller skates and going on the prowl. Well, as much of a prowl as one can really accomplish with ankle length dresses and big silly hats.
This TA keeps referencing readings we have due for this week and it's obnoxious. You're a grad student, you procrastinate just like we do. That reading will get done right before section and not a moment earlier. You're just turning us against you, I'd advise against it.
Boarding homes offered by middle class reformers offered places to stay where a matron would make sure that NO ONE GOT LAID EVER. Doesn't that sound great? And we're even going to start a working girl's club! We can all get together and do the things we have to do at work like sew and write, but this time it'll be for fun! And we'll teach you how to live your life too by giving you tips! But you can't gossip, flirt with men, chew gum, or read romance novels. No, really those were the rules. Sign me the fuck up! I want to be an ignorant loser old maid with bad breath and not even erotic literature to offer me “comfort” so that when I sucker a poor guy into marrying me at age 40 I really don't know what I'm doing and I run screaming from the sight of his penis because I don't know what it is and it looks scary and I move in with the boardinghouse matron forever and ever!
Well apparently everybody else felt the same way so these clubs and boardinghouses failed except for with women who were born in North Dakota.
Hull House was a famous house founded by Jane Addams. She never got married and never had kids because she was educated so no one wanted her. 19th century men were douchebags. See you next week!
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