A Little Something About Women

Here's an interesting coincidence.


Eighty-five years ago today, the Tennessee state legislature ratified the Nineteenth Amendment, which was thus officially adopted into the United States Constitution. That's the amendment that guarantees women the right to vote. Credit for this achievement goes to a great many people, of course, in particular to the two women at right - Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Unfortunately, they were both long dead by the time women got the vote, but it was they more than anyone else who made it happen. Congratulations, ladies.


Forty-seven years ago today, on the other hand, G.P. Putnam's Sons published Lolita in America. The book scandalized Europe three years earlier, and five years later it still carried a sufficient burden of unease to provoke the tag-line "How did they ever make a film of Lolita?" for Stanley Kubrick's film.

So over the course of some 38 years, the United States moved from a time when the objectification of women provoked outrage and legislation to a time when the objectification of women provoked ridicule and various kinds of art.

You could look at that as a step in the wrong direction, but to me it seems more like progress. As someone once said, if you can't fight the devil, laugh at him; he can't bear scorn.

Benshlomo says, Which is more important, the law or the movies?