Ruskin

I found myself getting very frustrated while reading Ruskin’s lecture. He would say something that was really great and then finish the sentence something entirely not great. After this happened multiple times I got annoyed and was wondering why we need to compare each other, and put each other into boxes of what we should be. I wanted to do my close reading on a passage that focused on these boxes to fit in.
“We cannot determine what the queenly power of women should be, until we are agreed what their ordinary power should be. We cannot consider how education may fit them for any widely extending duty, until we are agreed what is their true constant duty. And there never was a time when wilder words were spoken, or more vain imagination permitted, respecting this question—quite vital to all social happiness.”
My first question is what is the difference between queenly power and kingly power? I know when I think of it I think of the king then the queen but it if the king dies then the queen is most important. In these situations the king’s power and the queen’s power is the same. But we automatically like of it differently because of the boxes in our minds that we put the king and queen in. In normal situations when there is a king and a queen, it is the queen’s job to tend to the king and help everything run smoothly. Now compare this “queenly power” of helping things run smoothly to ordinary power. In my opinion helping things run smoothly is pretty ordinary. Maybe the queen’s job is on a larger scale having to do with the whole kingdom while ordinary power may be the household but at its roots it’s the same concept. Women’s box is about helping men with their jobs.

To then move onto the next line about women’s education we see a perfect example of an us vs. them mentality. Since you are a woman or a man you must be put into this specific category just because you are a woman or a man. Then this arises the tension between men and women because of the us vs. them mentality. Since they are not in our box they must need and want different things and need to be approached completely differently.

Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 30, 2017 at 9:30 AM

    I totally agree, Ruskin kind of gives half-assed credit towards women. He sounds like he's on women's side, but he never says men and women are equal, and he enforces gender roles like king and queen, so women can be in a position of power, but that power is not equivalent to men

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