Quote:
Originally Posted by issybird
I think Orczy herself hadn't quite made up her mind about Marguerite; I did get tired of variations of the word "child" to describe Marguerite.
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It did add to the chocolate-box sickliness for me: "sweet childlike smile", "childish curiosity" and so on, and on, and on.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stuartjmz
The first time it came up on this re-read, I was thinking ill of her husband. Then I saw "24 years old" and thought of Orczy, "you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means"  |
Unfortunately it was used very commonly, certainly when I was a young woman, as part of the way in which women were continuing to be infantilised. All part of the big strong man approach of "Don't bother your pretty little head about it" whether "it" was politics, something that needed fixing in the home, or whatever.
Earlier this year, the Club read a book called
The Radium Girls, written recently but called that because that's how the women were referred to by the newspapers. It made me grit my teeth.