Friday, November 5, 2010

The nest returns

One [school of thought] sees it [the women's movement] at an end, feels that its object was attained when women won their share of democracy, and that nothing now remains for them but to use their opportunities as men do, to further whatever aims they as individuals may happen to have at heart. This school says: "Women are as various as men; they are now free to express, to compete, as men do.[...]"

     --Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale, What's Wrong with Our Girls? The Environment, Training and Future of American Girls, 1923 (ix-x).
Two observations.

1. People were floating this "feminism is over!" stuff as early as 1923. Wow.

2. Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale wrote a novel, and it's called -- wait for it -- The Nest-Builder (1916). Suddenly my Berssenbrugge essay is indissolubly tied to my Marianne Moore research.

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