Mozart (Currently shredding Violin Concerto No. 1 on the guitar, having figured it out within 30 seconds): What other music can be made from harnessed lightning?

Because, yes, listening to a story and reading a story use mostly the same parts of the brain. Yes, listening to the audiobook counts as "having read" a book. Yes, oral storytelling has a long, glorious tradition and many cultures maintained their histories through oral history or oral + art history, having never developed a true written language, and their oral stories and histories are just as valid and rich as written literature.

We still can't call listening in the absence of reading "literacy."

The term literacy needs to stay restricted to the written word, to the ability to access and engage with written texts, because we need to be able to talk about illiteracy. We need to be able to identify when a society is failing to teach children to read, and if we start saying that listening to stories is literacy, we lose the ability to describe those systemic failures.

Blind folks have been knee-deep in this debate for a long time. Schools struggle to provide resources to teach students Braille and enforcing the teaching of Braille to low-vision and blind children is a constant uphill battle. A school tried to argue that one girl didn't need to learn Braille because she could read 96-point font. Go check what that is. The new prevalence of audiobooks and TTS is a huge threat to Braille literacy because it provides institutions with another excuse to not provide Braille education or Braille texts.

That matters. Braille-literate blind and low-vision people have a 90% employment rate. For those who don't know Braille, it's 30%. Braille literacy is linked to higher academic success in all fields.

Moving outside the world of Braille, literacy of any kind matters. Being able to read text has a massive impact on a person's ability to access information, education, and employment. Being able to talk about the inability to read text matters, because that's how we're able to hold systems accountable.

The above is a video shared by smrchildsadness on Twitter, showing a person participating in a pride parade exchanging a pride flag with a person standing on his (am using his pronoun based on the TikToks/Tweets of what happened) doorway who had a Portuguese flag. There are sounds of cheers and crying and the two people hug each other as they exchange the flags. The man at the doorway then waved kisses to the crowd within the pride parade.

The Tweet says: "NO YOU DONT UNDERSTAND HE WAS WAVING THE PORTUGUESE FLAG BECAUSE HE DIDN'T HAVE A PRIDE FLAG AND THEY TRADED FLAGS AND HE'S SO EMOTIONAL TO GET HIS OWN PRIDE FLAG I'M EMOTIONALLY RUINED"

For context, apparently they were worried that maybe he's a nationalist because he was waving the Portuguese flag and some nationalists opposing the pride march were waving that flag. But upon interacting with him, it turns out he didn't have have a pride flag and he wanted to wave *a* flag in support of the pride march. So they had an exchange and now he has his own pride flag 😭🥹.

The image above is a Tweet by kunwara_ladkaa that says "I'm crying so much right now (Image taken by Manuel Fernando Araújo/Lusa)". The image shows the same man from the pride parade crying as he hugs his new pride flag.

The above image is a Tweet by dudz_zZzz that says "ainda não parei de pensar nele," which according to Google translate from Portuguese to English is "I still haven't stopped thinking about him." The image is a drawing of the person from the pride parade, crying as he hugs his new pride flag.

From the ask game here

Ooh, that’s an interesting one because it changes based on what I’m working on the most recently!

and that's the same attitude that underlies all the 'the goal of fanfic is to file of the serial numbers and publish it' or 'fanfic isn't real writing because real writing is novels and fanfic is usually structurally so different from a novel' type of takes come from.

this assumption that the medium is largely coincidental to the story being told

when that's just not true.

the very best adaptations always change things, because mediums are not interchangeable, and they fundamentally shape the stories told in them.

there are things you can do in fanfic that are simply not possible in a traditional novel, because you're starting from that possition of love and knowledge, and because you aren't bound by the need to be canon compliant, so you can ask questions like 'if these characters met in other lives, under different circumstances, what would they be like? how different would they be? how much of what makes them them is tied to the circumstances they found themselves in?' or 'what was it like to not be the heroes, to not be actively involved in the cool exciting bits? what was it like to be a minor character, left behind to deal with the consequences' because your audience is already invested, they'll show up for questions like that in a way a movie or novel or tv audience wouldn't.

there are things you can do in a podcast or radio play that are not possible in visual mediums like film or tv, because you're relying on the audiences imagination. there's a reason the best radio comedy tends to be surreal, and the best podcasts tend to be horror, those are both genres that thrive when the audience's imagination is allowed to fill in blanks.

there are things you can do on TV that are not possible in a novel or a movie. the way WandaVision completely changed its visual style with each episode is something that would not work in any other genre, but it's essential to the story. TV usually exists in very defined seasons, but cannot traditionally be consumed all in one go, which is not true of almost any other medium, and that dictates a specific type of pacing. combine that with the fact that it's a visual medium, and you get something like the overarching stories of the 9th Doctor's season of Doctor Who. No other medium could have delivered the resolution to that storyline as effectively.

Video games can force the audience to consider their own part in events. No movie could do what Spec Ops did, when it gives you a button prompt to commit a war crime, and then turns around and asks you why? why did you do that? was it too easy? do you think it felt like this when the US government committed the exact same war crime within living memory? Was it easy then too? A novel or a movie could show you walker doing this terrible thing, but it could never convey the point with the same effective simplicity, and it could never make you the audience feel culpable. only the author is responsible for the actions of the characters in a novel, but in a game, it's the audience who bears that responsibility, and that allows for moral questions other mediums struggle to effectively convey.

Comics can tell stories that take three decades and ten different writers to tell. Movies can use silence more effectively than any other medium because cinemas give you a captive audience and close-ups means you can reliably assume they can see everything that's happening (unlike theatre, which can use silence, but can't assume everyone has a good view). Theatre provides real time audience interactivity and a very special and unique kind of suspension of disbelief. Professional wrestling can tell ongoing stories in real time over years or decades, and walk the line between fiction and reality. Novels can immerse you more fully in one person's view of the world than any other medium (which also allows for information to be hidden from the reader without it feeling cheap the way it can when a movie does the same thing). Live oral storytelling allows the story to be adapted on the fly to fit audience reactions, allows for infinite variations of the same story, because no two tellings will ever be identical.

The pit courtyard or sunken courtyard (地坑院dikengyuan), traditional Chinese courtyard on the Loess Plateau.

Cnetizen showing the interior of a dikengyuan—renovated for nowadays living (cr住在森林深处的小精灵)

1. "Elizabeth Bennet represents romantic* idealism; Charlotte Lucas represents pragmatism"

*Where "romantic" is used in its modern sense roughly meaning "eros." This take also usually has reference to Elizabeth's younger age, as something that is causing or allowing her to be idealistic.

This take I regard as purely nonsense. Elizabeth never says or implies that she will only marry for "love." She says something of this sort in a couple of the adaptations—but it doesn't appear anywhere in the novel.

For another thing: if the point of this character comparison were that Elizabeth demanded erotic, romantic love, while Charlotte was happy merely with a practical arrangement, wouldn't Mr. Collins's characterisation be very different? He would be a reasonable, sensible, respectable man, who was nevertheless very boring. Elizabeth might respect, but not love or feel attraction to him, and would make it clear that she was rejecting him for this reason.

This isn't the case. Elizabeth rejects him because she doesn't respect him, and she sees all of his pompousness, selfishness, and ridiculousness; Charlotte accepts him despite the fact that doesn't respect him, and has pretty much the same opinion that Elizabeth does of his mind. The disagreement between them isn't about whether they need to love their husband to be content, but whether they need to respect him.

2. What does Elizabeth think of Charlotte's engagement?

Elizabeth doesn't merely act like what Charlotte is doing is too self-sacrificing, or unpleasant, or boring, or not what she would do. She acts like it is indelicate, improper, and even immoral. Whether or not you agree with Elizabeth is of course up to you—I just want to try to lay out why, in her historical context, she thinks this way, because I don't think I've ever seen anybody address it.

What does Elizabeth think about this engagement (and remember, in her defence, that she never actually says any of this to Charlotte 😅)? She implies that accepting Mr. Collins means that Charlotte is lacking in "merit" or "sense." Jane advises her to "be ready to believe, for every body’s sake, that she may feel something like regard and esteem for our cousin”—but Elizabeth rejects this idea, as she believes that Charlotte's "understanding" precludes her from feeling "regard" for Mr. Collins. She tells Jane:

"Mr. Collins is a conceited, pompous, narrow-minded, silly man: you know he is, as well as I do; and you must feel, as well as I do, that the woman who marries him cannot have a proper way of thinking. You shall not defend her, though it is Charlotte Lucas. You shall not, for the sake of one individual, change the meaning of principle and integrity, nor endeavour to persuade yourself or me, that selfishness is prudence, and insensibility of danger security for happiness."

So Elizabeth thinks Charlotte accepting Mr. Collins is a decision that shows a want of "merit," "principle," and "integrity"; she rejects the idea that accepting Mr. Collins is a prudent choice (i.e. she does not believe the take that Charlotte has made a pragmatic decision); she thinks it is an improper, a selfish, and a dangerous choice.

3. What is the danger in marrying a man you don't respect?

"Dangerous" in what respect? Charlotte is in "danger" of what, exactly?

Elizabeth is speaking guardedly, but a clue to what she means can be found in Mr. Bennet's wariness about Elizabeth marrying Mr. Darcy, when he believes she doesn't respect him:

"I know your disposition, Lizzy. I know that you could be neither happy nor respectable, unless you truly esteemed your husband, unless you looked up to him as a superior. Your lively talents would place you in the greatest danger in an unequal marriage. You could scarcely escape discredit and misery. My child, let me not have the grief of seeing you unable to respect your partner in life. You know not what you are about.”

So we see a theme of suitable versus unsuitable marriages in Pride and Prejudice. In the repetition of the word "esteem," a comparison is perhaps being drawn between Charlotte's engagement to Mr. Collins, and Elizabeth's engagement to Mr. Darcy; in Mr. Bennet's emphasis on the word "you," a comparison is certainly being drawn between his engagement to Miss Gardiner and Elizabeth's engagement to Mr. Darcy.

But I digress. The "danger" for a woman in a marriage that is unequal as to sense and understanding, wherein she does not respect or esteem her husband, is that she will face a temptation to lose her "credit" (basically, her reputation) and enter into a state of "misery," by engaging in an adulterous affair. (Here we might consider Maria and Mr. Rushworth.) A woman's affections, her mind, her ambitions and energies, her sexual pleasure and activity, are (by this way of thinking) only to be routed through the conduit of her home life in a heterosexual, reproductive marriage. Any other state of affairs (no pun intended) is an assault against religion, morality, and the very fabric of society.

As a piece of nonfictional context here, The Lady's Miscellany for February, 1812 includes an article "Upon Female* Infidelity, and the Corruption of the Present Age," which, like P&P seems to, attributes the cause of female infidelity to an injudiciousness in choosing a husband to begin with. It should also give you a sense of what at least one contemporary thinker belives the stakes of adultery to be:

Marriage seems [by the ladies of the present times] to be sought for to be despised, and the conjugal oath is taken to be violated. Yet it is acknowledged on every hand, that adultery is an heinous crime, and that nothing tends in so great a degree to disfigure society. [...] Adultery is not only allowed to be a crime by all polished nations, but it has been classed as the next in atrocily to homicide. It is a theft, of all others, the most cruel. It is an outrage that may lead to assassination and murder. Nor indeed is there any excess so deplorable, to which it may not give rise. [...] The husband, when he is informed of the infidelities of his wife, loses all affection for her; a whicnd she has already renounced all love to him. For her children she entertains no maternal tenderness; and her husband disdains an issue that is spurious. The children [...] grow up without education, and without manners; and when of age they are thrown upon the world to dirturb their fellow creatures, and to add to human calamity and wretchedness. The pleasures which the Almighty has annexed to the marriage-bed, are the means of multiplying the human species; and this effect is the certain consequence of marriage when regulated by virtue. On the contrary, irregular loves and disorderly embraces are pernicious to population. They preduce barrenness; and while they lead to remorse and shame, they diminish the numbers of mankind.

So women who "seek for" marriage without having the appropriate reverence either for their husbands or for the institution, are in danger of violating the conjugal oath, which is immoral, and leads to the degeneration of all society (maybe it sounds silly to put it like that—but even the modern attitude towards "cheaters" and "home-wreckers" is not precisely positive...). And Charlotte does, indeed, meet the description of a woman who wishes to be married despite not having a high opinion of her husband, or the institution of matrimony:

Charlotte herself was tolerably composed. She had gained her point, and had time to consider of it. Her reflections were in general satisfactory. Mr. Collins, to be sure, was neither sensible nor agreeable: his society was irksome, and his attachment to her must be imaginary. But still he would be her husband. Without thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her object: it was the only honourable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and, however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want.

*The title addresses female infidelity in particular because it is printed in a magazine intended to be read by young ladies; but the text of the article does lambast the immorality of "men of fashion," and call for "both sexes" to preserve their "virtue."

4. But why esteem your husband "as a superior"?

cw: misogyny, domestic violence, implication of marital SA

Wives must obey their husbands in every respect, unless their husband orders them to do something which goes against a higher law—namely, that of God. It is ordained by religion ("your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you"), and by morality, and by nature, and whatever, that wives are naturally, rightly, justly, and properly in a state of religious, moral, and legal subjection to their husbands. When Eve sinned by attempting to gain preeminence over Adam, this subjection was the punishment. A husband ought to avoid giving orders his wife finds insupportable, if he can; he may choose to yield in trifles for the sake of domestic peace, or because he's a real nice guy, or because he's improperly weak (depending on the opinion of the writer in question)—but the final decision always rests with him, as a matter of the law.

Henry Venn, in The complete duty of man or, A system of doctrinal & practical Christianity (1811), writes:

If it be urged, that the wife has frequently more understanding and ability to govern than the husband, and on this account ought to be excused from living in subjection, the answer is obvious: she hath liberty to use her superior wisdom in giving counsel. But if her advice is not accepted, subjection is her duty. Suppose a servant, as is often the fact, endued with more capacity than his master, would it not be insufferable insolence, should he urge this as a reason for refusing to be any longer under control, which, on another account, was indisputably his duty, viz. from his station in life? An attempt, therefore, to gain the ascendency is an attempt to subvert the order which the sovereign Giver of all wisdom has appointed. Base return for his bounty! The Christian rule is positive against such an usurping spirit: the command is, "Let the wife see that she reverence her husband." In opposition to natural pride, let her carefully check the first desire to have her own will, and see she be not wanting in submission; for this behaviour is most becoming a woman professing godliness. Let her remember that God, the author of the marriage state, has appointed this subordination.

You owe your husband your obedience, and have pledged it to him before man and God. Your only choice is the choice of husband in the first place—your only power is the power of veto. If you did not feel that your husband merited your obedience, and was suited to be to you what Christ is to the Church ("For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church")—the intermediary between yourself and God, the person who is charged with ensuring your understanding of and compliance with the precepts of religion, your Saviour—then your chance of not electing him to that position was before you married.

You cannot file for divorce unless you can prove desertion or cruelty (and the bar here is high—your husband is allowed to inflict "corporal chastisement" for your own good if you are disobedient). Even then, you cannot remarry—once you have gotten married, you have chosen your one and only sexual partner for life, unless he dies. You owe him your body, you need a very exceptionally good reason to deny him that right, and you cannot re-transfer that right to anybody else while he lives.

This is why young ladies are advised so particularly to mind that any man they accept be virtuous, industrious, sober, & without a colourful past.

I think it's also why Jane urges Elizabeth to "Consider Mr. Collins’s respectability, and Charlotte’s prudent, steady character." Mr. Collins is at least not likely to physically harm his wife, or drink to excess, or gamble away household funds; and Charlotte is too "steady" to be likely to engage in an adulterous affair. She's telling Elizabeth that at least the most dramatically bad effects of an unequal (in terms of sense and understanding) marriage are unlikely to apply here.

The point remains, though, that Charlotte does not believe Mr. Collins to be capable of guiding her, or even collaborating with her, in her religion, her housekeeping, childrearing, or any other aspect of life. She knows him to be her inferior in understanding, and yet is electing him to be her superior according to the law and the Church.

For Henry Venn, when husbands are not obliged to rule over their wives with "benign influence," but find their wives sensible enough that they may collaborate in religion, then

Their spiritual good will be a chief and mutual concern. They will be tender-hearted inspectors of each other's conduct, meekly correcting errors, which unnoticed would have struck root, or pointing out faults before they are confirmed into habits. [...] As the nuptial union gives the parties much influence to be either greatly serviceable or hurtful to each other's eternal interests, they must look upon themselves as bound in conscience to use all their weight against the corruptions of the heart, against pride, unbelief, and wordly lusts, through which their salvation is most endangered.

But Mr. Collins is too prideful to accord with these precepts, and too foolish to be corrected in this way. When Charlotte is able to influence his behaviour, it is through more underhanded means, and is usually in an effort to avoid his company (encouraging him to be out in his garden; choosing for her sitting-room a room which he does not value).

This is the kind of context we have to keep in mind when evaluating Elizabeth's statement that "the woman who marries [Mr. Collins] cannot have a proper way of thinking." Mr. Collins is not competent to the role of spiritual guide: the woman who marries him either believes that he is so competent, and is thus lacking in "understanding"; or she marries him even though she knows that he is not so competent, and is thus lacking in "integrity" (because she swears her obedience despite knowing she may be unable to keep the oath).

My argument isn't so much that Elizabeth necessarily believes women's subjugation to be natural and right—rather that, since the reality is that you are legally obligated to obey this man (and to have sex with him), it is more sensible, more moral, and more practical and prudent (!!!) to select a man you have a reasonable chance of being able to abide doing those things with. It saves you the trouble, and the dishonesty, involved in trying to finagle your way around a husband you don't respect.

5. Does P&P agree with Elizabeth?

Hopefully you can see that "the implied author's perspective," "Elizabeth's perspective," and "the reader's perspective" are all different things. In this post I have tried to explain (as I see it) what Elizabeth's position is and why: this is distinct from arguing that P&P argues that Elizabeth is right, which is distinct again from saying that I think Elizabeth is right.

What do we know about P&P's perspective on Charlotte's marriage? We have the above-quoted Mr. Bennet conversation. We have a pattern of equal marriages contracted through mutual respect and esteem, in which each partner may influence the other for the better (the Gardiners, the Bingleys, the Darcys); and unequal marriages, contracted for reasons of lust, pride, security, acquisitiveness, or social climbing (the Bennets, the Wickhams, the Hursts, the Collinses).

Regarding Wickham's courtship of Mary King, it is said that:

The sudden acquisition of ten thousand pounds was the most remarkable charm of the young lady to whom he was now rendering himself agreeable; but Elizabeth, less clear-sighted perhaps in this case than in Charlotte’s, did not quarrel with him for his wish of independence. Nothing, on the contrary, could be more natural; and, while able to suppose that it cost him a few struggles to relinquish her, she was ready to allow it a wise and desirable measure for both, and could very sincerely wish him happy. (emphasis mine)

This might support the case that the implied author feels Elizabeth to be seeing clearly when it comes to Charlotte—then again, it may mostly emphasise her lack of clear-sightedness when it comes to Wickham. But either way, the implication seems to be that this sort of "prudence" without affection is not wise or desirable, and Elizabeth is not seeing clearly when she thinks it is. In Wickham's case, but not in Charlotte's, Elizabeth is fooled into thinking that "selfishness is prudence."

We know Mrs. Gardiner to be a sensible woman, to whom Elizabeth and Jane owe much of their own good conduct. Mrs. Gardiner does not seem to approve of Wickham's engagement:

“But, my dear Elizabeth,” she added, “what sort of girl is Miss King? I should be sorry to think our friend mercenary.” “Pray, my dear aunt, what is the difference in matrimonial affairs, between the mercenary and the prudent motive? Where does discretion end, and avarice begin? Last Christmas you were afraid of his marrying me, because it would be imprudent; and now, because he is trying to get a girl with only ten thousand pounds, you want to find out that he is mercenary.” “If you will only tell me what sort of girl Miss King is, I shall know what to think.” “She is a very good kind of girl, I believe. I know no harm of her.” “But he paid her not the smallest attention till her grandfather’s death made her mistress of this fortune?” “No—why should he? If it were not allowable for him to gain my affections, because I had no money, what occasion could there be for making love to a girl whom he did not care about, and who was equally poor?” “But there seems indelicacy in directing his attentions towards her so soon after this event.” “A man in distressed circumstances has not time for all those elegant decorums which other people may observe. If she does not object to it, why should we?” “Her not objecting does not justify him. It only shows her being deficient in something herself—sense or feeling.”

Everyone, including Elizabeth, admits that Wickham does not care about Mary King. His match with her is not, to Mrs. Gardiner, better than his match with Elizabeth would have been. For Miss King to accept him even with the evidence before her that he does not care for her (i.e., he switched from Elizabeth to Marry after she gained a fortune) means that she is not thinking or behaving rightly. This is pretty much what Elizabeth thought of Charlotte for accepting Mr. Collins—who also switched his affections, in a short period of time, from Elizabeth to her (& recall that Charlotte feels Mr. Collins does not really care for her). It seems like, for Mrs. Gardiner to approve of a marriage, we need both: the partners need to respect or care for each other (Mrs. G does not say which); and the couple need something to live on. All of the "good" marriages in P&P meet these requirements.

We do not, however, see Charlotte Collins sinking into distress and misery. P&P is a novel uninterested in real, lasting calamity (even Lydia manages to cling onto respectability). When Elizabeth sees Charlotte in Kent, we read that:

[The Parsonage] was rather small, but well built and convenient; and everything was fitted up and arranged with a neatness and consistency, of which Elizabeth gave Charlotte all the credit. When Mr. Collins could be forgotten, there was really a great air of comfort throughout, and by Charlotte’s evident enjoyment of it, Elizabeth supposed he must be often forgotten. [...] Elizabeth, in the solitude of her chamber, had to meditate upon Charlotte’s degree of contentment, to understand her address in guiding, and composure in bearing with, her husband, and to acknowledge that it was all done very well.

In the end, Charlotte is making the best of a bad situation. When she reflects that marriage "was the only honourable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and, however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want," it is an acknowledgement that, however desirable it may be for women who don't have a high opinion of men or matrimony to get married, it isn't always practicable, because a genteel woman making any other provision for herself (e.g., by going into service, or doing sex work) is varying degrees of un-respectable or dishonourable.

6. In Summation

Elizabeth does not see the decision of accepting Mr. Collins as a decision between romance and practicality. Romance doesn't enter into her thoughts here, and she does not think that accepting Mr. Collins would be a practical thing to do.

The ideological / historical context of Elizabeth's world helps to explain why she thinks this. Other characters seem to agree with Elizabeth (Mr. Bennet; Mrs. Gardiner; even Jane, when trying to make the best of the situation, does so by arguing "that [Charlotte] may feel something like regard and esteem for our cousin," not that it doesn't matter whether she does).

“That’s funny” said the child “because 2+4=6 and two pounds and four pounds is six pounds. It’s like the same as math!”

“What happens if you add 6+1?”

“SEVEN”

“What if we put one pound of mangos on the scale?” <mangos added>

“IT’S THE SAME!!”

“OK, what’s 7-4?”

“Three?”

“What if we take the four pound watermelon off the scale?” <watermelon removed>

They were us.

Like literally genetically they were US, just like. A while ago.

Like

Would you trust a TV caveman with a baby? Probably not

As long as homo sapiens have existed, we have had the same emotional and mental capacity as you and I do today. You nailed it. They were US. Even Neaderthals existed alongside and had offspring with Homo Sapiens for many thousands of years.

There's much evidence that cavemen would have had complex spoken language, culture (learned information passed down), symbolic interpretation, and I think they most certainly would have been able to handle holding a baby. In fact I have my suspicisions that an ancient homo sapiens mother may be a more present, attentive, and knowledgable mom than I could be today.

Do not let media trick you into believing we are the pinnacle of humanity. Unilinial evolution theory (google it quick I beg) is BUNK, GARBAGE, and the root of so much evil.

At the beginning of the next class, my teacher showed us a cave painting of a horse. And then he showed all of our horses, which he had scanned and put into the presentation.

He then pointed out all the ways that our horses looked similar to the prehistoric horse. Same features, drawn from the same angle, etc.

And then he asked us, "Isn't it cool that you draw horses the same way as someone who lived 20,000 years ago?"

Yeah. That stuck with me for a while.

Scientists are now pretty sure the scribbles were made by kids ages 3-6, more or less on their own. The adult cave artists were probably doing what any modern parent might do when they want to keep small children out of their hair for awhile: they gave the kids some drawing tools of their own and a small section of wall to work on, out of the way but still close enough to keep an eye on them, and let them have at it.

The team compared the ancient art with the developmental stages exhibited by modern children: the furiously scribbled circles and push-pull lines typical of 3-year-olds just learning to control their bodies, for example, or the wobbly, right-angled figures of slightly older kids beginning to master fine motor skills.

Both are apparent in the cave, superimposed on each other as though two or more kids were drawing at once. That’s a clue the Las Monedas marks were likely made by “siblings or a mixed-age play group within the sphere of safety around adults, but also within their own space,” says co-author Felix Riede, an Aarhus archaeologist.

...

“They’re experimenting to get to know materials that are important in their world. They’re not trying to draw animals, they’re just trying to break the charcoal.” [...]

all RIGHT:

Why You're Writing Medieval (and Medieval-Coded) Women Wrong: A RANT

(Or, For the Love of God, People, Stop Pretending Victorian Style Gender Roles Applied to All of History)

This is a problem I see alllll over the place - I'll be reading a medieval-coded book and the women will be told they aren't allowed to fight or learn or work, that they are only supposed to get married, keep house and have babies, &c &c.

If I point this out ppl will be like "yes but there was misogyny back then! women were treated terribly!" and OK. Stop right there.

By & large, what we as a culture think of as misogyny & patriarchy is the expression prevalent in Victorian times - not medieval. (And NO, this is not me blaming Victorians for their theme park version of "medieval history". This is me blaming 21st century people for being ignorant & refusing to do their homework).

Yes, there was misogyny in medieval times, but 1) in many ways it was actually markedly less severe than Victorian misogyny, tyvm - and 2) it was of a quite different type. (Disclaimer: I am speaking specifically of Frankish, Western European medieval women rather than those in other parts of the world. This applies to a lesser extent in Byzantium and I am still learning about women in the medieval Islamic world.)

So, here are the 2 vital things to remember about women when writing medieval or medieval-coded societies

FIRST. Where in Victorian times the primary axes of prejudice were gender and race - so that a male labourer had more rights than a female of the higher classes, and a middle class white man would be treated with more respect than an African or Indian dignitary - In medieval times, the primary axis of prejudice was, overwhelmingly, class. Thus, Frankish crusader knights arguably felt more solidarity with their Muslim opponents of knightly status, than they did their own peasants. Faith and age were also medieval axes of prejudice - children and young people were exploited ruthlessly, sent into war or marriage at 15 (boys) or 12 (girls). Gender was less important.

What this meant was that a medieval woman could expect - indeed demand - to be treated more or less the same way the men of her class were. Where no ancient legal obstacle existed, such as Salic law, a king's daughter could and did expect to rule, even after marriage.

Women of the knightly class could & did arm & fight - something that required a MASSIVE outlay of money, which was obviously at their discretion & disposal. See: Sichelgaita, Isabel de Conches, the unnamed women fighting in armour as knights during the Third Crusade, as recorded by Muslim chroniclers.

Tolkien's Eowyn is a great example of this medieval attitude to class trumping race: complaining that she's being told not to fight, she stresses her class: "I am of the house of Eorl & not a serving woman". She claims her rights, not as a woman, but as a member of the warrior class and the ruling family. Similarly in Renaissance Venice a doge protested the practice which saw 80% of noble women locked into convents for life: if these had been men they would have been "born to command & govern the world". Their class ought to have exempted them from discrimination on the basis of sex.

So, tip #1 for writing medieval women: remember that their class always outweighed their gender. They might be subordinate to the men within their own class, but not to those below.

SECOND. Whereas Victorians saw women's highest calling as marriage & children - the "angel in the house" ennobling & improving their men on a spiritual but rarely practical level - Medievals by contrast prized virginity/celibacy above marriage, seeing it as a way for women to transcend their sex. Often as nuns, saints, mystics; sometimes as warriors, queens, & ladies; always as businesswomen & merchants, women could & did forge their own paths in life

When Elizabeth I claimed to have "the heart & stomach of a king" & adopted the persona of the virgin queen, this was the norm she appealed to. Women could do things; they just had to prove they were Not Like Other Girls. By Elizabeth's time things were already changing: it was the Reformation that switched the ideal to marriage, & the Enlightenment that divorced femininity from reason, aggression & public life.

For more on this topic, read Katherine Hager's article "Endowed With Manly Courage: Medieval Perceptions of Women in Combat" on women who transcended gender to occupy a liminal space as warrior/virgin/saint.

So, tip #2: remember that for medieval women, wife and mother wasn't the ideal, virgin saint was the ideal. By proving yourself "not like other girls" you could gain significant autonomy & freedom.

Finally a bonus tip: if writing about medieval women, be sure to read writing on women's issues from the time so as to understand the terms in which these women spoke about & defended their ambitions. Start with Christine de Pisan.

-Byzantium was a civilization that spanned a millenia and a huge geographical area. The treatment and experience of women was not constant at all times in all places.

-Women had different levels of autonomy at different periods of their lives. Many women gained great autonomy after their husband's death (and he usually died much before her), and could be registered as the head of household.

-There are basically two career options for Byzantine women: wife/mother or nun. Sometimes both, but never at the same time.

-Just as in the Latin West, class mattered a lot, and basically determined a person's entire life. Peasant women worked in agriculture and trades, while noble women had a much softer life.

-the idea that noble women were confined to the house is likely an exaggeration. (A byproduct of Byzantium's "distorting mirror") Furthermore, the women's quarters were nowhere near as closed off and restricted as the later Ottoman harems. In many places, women could move freely between their own quarters and the rest of the house. However, if a non-related male was visiting it was customary that the women would not be seen. This seems to be a mainly noble/middle class practice, and not an elite or peasant practice.

-Women played important ceremonial functions at the royal court. The Augusta (one of three titles for an empress) received the wives of visiting nobles, and was so important that, even if the emperor was unmarried, he might crown his daughter for the role. (See Leo the Wise) Additionally, there was an office reserved just for a woman, she was called "the lady with the sash" and she was placed very close to the emperor, and thus highly influential.

-Imperial women were highly influential, and could be incredibly masterful politicians.

-Women weren't forced to have endless babies until they died in childbirth. Byzantine women had access to both contraception and abortion, and there was some amount of recognition of a woman's right to choose. Furthermore, if a woman already had kids, but decided she didn't want to be a mom anymore, joining a convent was always an option. (For wealthy women)