The Sewing Society Condemnation

The Sewing Society Condemnation

In all my admiration for women, all my respect, and all my gratitude, I apologize in advance for this post. It is nothing personal, but it is something that needs to be done. With that disclaimer, the three pieces we read for women’s day in English 404 class today brought crickets into the classroom. The first was “The Journal of Kemble Knight,” a boring piece about a female New Englander’s voyage from Boston to New Haven. I realize the piece is not entirely meant to provoke laughter from a college student in the 21^st century, but her attacks on the Puritan religion and certain social cliques were just dull. She pounced on the views of women at the time being instructed to be polite. Her character is rude and distasteful. The gloomy tone brought me, along with the rest of the class, to sleep. The second female article took on a male persona by a female author. I thought this one might have a chance, but in the end, Ann Stephen’s “Jonathon Slick,” crashed and burned in the cutthroat comedy scene of our 404 English class. I have little to nothing to say about this writing except that Stephens makes a poke at men when she says they do not understand what a corset is. Once again, this piece was not totally intended to make its readers laugh, and in the time it was written, it would have been suicide for women to do so. This brings me to the last text, Frances Whitcher’s selections. Her first piece, “Hezekiah Bedott”, adopts the gender role reversal along with Stephens. Her latter and better piece was, “Aunt Maguire Continues Her Account of the Sewing Society.” Her remarks actually brought a smile to my face. It was not because she tried to attack views or stereotypes of men, but she made me laugh at her perception of women in the 1700’s.

In “Aunt Maguire Continues Her Account of the Sewing Society,” I find myself confused as to who is attacking who? The attitude of the piece is quite peaceful and gracious. But this nineteenth century reflection on women’s pastimes makes me wonder why they had any free time at all. They spend their “sewing time” chatting and gossiping like today’s high school girls, “Ther tongues went a good deal faster ‘n ther fingers did, and the worst on ‘t was, they was all a runnin’ at once”(72). Whitcher then proceeds into their choice for a president. This whole passage is quite amusing to me. Their sewing is useless, the work sucks, they accomplish nothing, yet they have a president? Miss Gibson tends to talk down about her work, after she put so much time and effort in just so it can get ruined. In the end, they have to take apart all the hard work they have done, “All the work’in which they accomplish must be disguarded.” This part theme applies to women today. Unlike men, women are often more modest in their conquests. As Greg mentioned in class, if a wife and mother slaves all day getting her house ready for company, she will be the first to tell her company that the house never looks as it does. On the contrary, men who build their own cars, for example, need to flaunt their hardware to all the world. In conclusion, this text appeals to men because it pokes fun at women. These themes among women are generally different today. Most of the time women can make decisions in groups and they don’t do sewing circles either, which is good for them.