Getting One's Isms Mixed Up

Just now I am reading Philippa Gregory's The Wise Woman. Once it hit me it is a horror novel, I started cutting it a little more slack for its plot's unremitting unpleasantness.

Clearly this story is one of many dozens about how men had all the power and women had to use uniquely devious or extraordinary female power just to survive. The protagonist comes right out and thinks this and acts, in her case, by using a combination of the Top Two.. sex and witchcraft.

Whenever this theme comes up I sigh. The characters themselves, though immersed in the truith of the matter, seem to miss one important point. For them, as for just about every woman in history, there is an ism that trumps sexism, and that is classism. One line of thought by Alice, the sixteen year old "heroine" is that men always win and always get their way, including the two queens Henry VIII has disposed of so far. Lady Katherine is about to go the way of Queen Katherine of Aragon, and Alice smugly nods to herself a sort of "there they go again!" Sisterhood is powerful, and all those other lovely early 1970s slogans.

But, but, but... I say.. the only person in this spectrum who is over all women, and I mean that authority-wise though I am sure he tried his darnedest in other ways too, is Henry. Even pitiful Lady Katherine has it all over the peasants in her world, and not just the females. The slogan should be more like "Down with Imperialism" rather than the one about Sisterhood.

Why do women persist in overlooking the all-pervading and entirely trumping aspect of classism? Is that we want the privileges and therefore ignore the issues more germane to everyday life? Are we afraid if we focus too much on classism our available men will be crude swearing men with lentils in their beards and the smell of cabbage about them rather than lovely pretty sweet smelling guys like, urk, Lord Hugo? My guess is that it's the first option.. we want sexual equality, but stay away from our social distinctions.

And another thing.. the next person who questions how my erotic heroine Juliana knew so much about sex at twenty-something needs to take a look at this book.. boy howdy! Alice seems to know a great deal for a teenager who has spent a life of isolation with an old woman in the woods and then in a convent. You go, Juliana!