On Jun 1, 2005, at 21:27, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
[...] nearly every week I read in the
papers of museums that are opening - most of more appeal to men. How
do
"they" raise the money for more museums?
I don't think it's strictly a matter of the Venus/Mars (women vs men)
problem...
From what I've heard about the museum (have never been there myself),
it should appeal to men also; there are plenty of machines there for
them to admire; it is, afterall, a museum devoted, primarily, to the
industrial textile industry... :)
As for the new museums opening/others continuing to operate (and all of
them irrelevant to anyone except the town they're in) in "Middle of
Nowhere, USA"? Pork barrel politics, plain and simple, like in every
other field of our life. Everyone wants to get re-elected, so everyone
trades principles for profit, shamelessly.
Meanwhile, museums of more interest to women tend to be small, local,
and underfunded. Now that women are reaching the career heights and
fairer economic independence they still dreamed of less than 50 years
ago, it is time to put our collective heads together and preserve the
history of the women who came before us.
The museum, in it's present format (9 yrs old), is hardly small, even
if it is "local". Its current funding problem seems to stem, mostly,
from its own misjudgements (possibly, due to having all male directors
over the years <g>). At least 6 out of 10 modern career women are
likely to stay away from any "feminine cause" like it was a plague, and
that's what they're teaching their girl-children to do also; chances of
a woman "making it" as an equal in the brutal corporate world are not
all that much better now than they had been 50 yrs ago. It'll take
another generation - of rebels to parental teaching - to swing the
pendulum again. *If* it's still possible to do so; by then, there may
not be enough of the "pie" to spare for anything but the necessities.
Which do not include such non-essentials as "education" (or health),
according to the current school of thought.
Many of the women who worked in these Lowell mills saved money to put
their brothers through Harvard and other institutions of higher
learning!
They'd have done better to save their money and go to small women's
colleges, leaving the brothers to fend for themselves :) My mother
used to work in a textile factory - back in Poland. She was yanked - by
the dictate of her father - out of school at 14 (at that, 3yrs later
than her 2 older sisters), so that she could start contributing to the
family's upkeep. Since the whole town (Lodz) was about textiles, a
textile factory was where she landed (as did her sisters). On the
floor, the majority (though not overwelming, according to my Mother) of
the drones were female. But, beginning with the section foremen, *all*
upper echelons were male. Did they also save their money to send their
sisters to college?
It's the descendants of those brothers and fathers who should be
repaying the debts now, not women having to pay *again*. Especially not
for something that's had its throat cut by men and now doesn't seem to
have enough power to breathe on its own.
--
Tamara P Duvall http://t-n-lace.net/
Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland)
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