Posted by Alan Hakim on May 18, 1999 at 19:06:14 from sungold1.nl.ibm.com:
In Reply to: Re: Arthur Ransome: Feminism is extraordinary posted by Peter Hyland on May 18, 1999 at 10:09:07:
I sent a personal reply to Anne offline, but I will repeat one thing I said to her.
"Feminism" was a dormant concept in AR's time, up till the 1960s. The ideas that Anne describes so positively were well known at the time, even if comparatively uncommon, but we called them "Equality".
To which I might add -
Ideas change with time, but it is arrogant (and sloppy, Beck!) for a later age to expect an earlier one to conform to its new standards. Holding an opinion about an earlier age is perfectly valid; forcing it into a modern straitjacket is not.