Engraving via NYTimes: R. Anderson (More & daughter Meg)Thomas More, a Man for all Seasons, is a rather well known and brilliant play (review, 1961) and later a movie. I recall seeing the play at the ANTA Theatre on West 52nd Street, although my memory of it is coloured by my years of More neglect.
What strikes me about this book, and even the review, is the emphasis on More and not his daughter. It is also clear that regardless of how well a woman was raised, and educated, whether it was 12th century Heloise (of Abelard and Heloise fame) or any Meg, daughter(s) of Thomas More, women were left to languish in their domesticity or sent to the priory.
What shameful wastes these dismissals were, and what losses we endure on how little survives about women's roles beyond their objectification.
In art, science, education the female role still languishes, buried in mystery or often reviled in Lilith themes and myths, or relegated to virgin virtue among the Greeks & Romans, from Athena to Artemis and Hestia, and beyond.
If only more books like Leonard Shlain's, The Alphabet vs the Goddess, would bring the Earth Mother into the light, we might re-experience equality.
What strikes me about this book, and even the review, is the emphasis on More and not his daughter. It is also clear that regardless of how well a woman was raised, and educated, whether it was 12th century Heloise (of Abelard and Heloise fame) or any Meg, daughter(s) of Thomas More, women were left to languish in their domesticity or sent to the priory.
What shameful wastes these dismissals were, and what losses we endure on how little survives about women's roles beyond their objectification.
In art, science, education the female role still languishes, buried in mystery or often reviled in Lilith themes and myths, or relegated to virgin virtue among the Greeks & Romans, from Athena to Artemis and Hestia, and beyond.
If only more books like Leonard Shlain's, The Alphabet vs the Goddess, would bring the Earth Mother into the light, we might re-experience equality.
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