This Week's Homework: Sticking it to the Man
This week's @steemiteducation homework inspired me to go back into my own education archives to revisit a lesson on the great Empress Theodora of the Eastern Roman Empire. I chose her in particular because her life story is proof that not sex, nor gender, nor status, nor culture will ever set you back from being the most powerful person in the world... as long as you make the right acquaintances.
Theodora was born into a family of entertainers. Her father was a bear trainer and her mother was a dancer and an actress. She was believed to be born the year 500 AD in Syria, hundreds of miles away from the then capital of the empire, Constantinople. At the age of four, her father died and her and her sisters were put to work as actresses by her mother, moving to the capital. From then Theodora moved from place to place as an actress, entertainer, and as a sex worker. Through her work and travels she befriended and betrothed to men who had some power within the empire, eventually getting the attention of an informant of her soon to be husband Justinian. By the time she was 25, she had married the most powerful man west of India.
Together, Justinian and Theodora ruled as a team. Justinian was a brilliant man who had a mind for military, practicality, strategy, and law. Theodora was the iron will behind most, if not all of Justinian's direct actions as emperor. During the Nika Riots in 532 Justinian was preparing to give way to the rioter's demands and abandon his position as emperor. As he and his advisers were preparing to leave, Theodora gave the motivational speeches to end all motivational speeches:
My lords, the present occasion is too serious to allow me to follow the convention that a woman should not speak in a man’s council. Those whose interests are threatened by extreme danger should think only of the wisest course of action, not of conventions. In my opinion, flight is not the right course, even if it should bring us to safety. It is impossible for a person, having been born into this world, not to die; but for one who has reigned it is intolerable to be a fugitive. May I never be deprived of this purple robe, and may I never see the day when those who meet me do not call me empress. If you wish to save yourself, my lord, there is no difficulty. We are rich; over there is the sea, and yonder are the ships. Yet reflect for a moment whether, when you have once escaped to a place of security, you would not gladly exchange such safety for death. As for me, I agree with the adage that the royal purple is the noblest shroud.
(William Safire, „Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History“, Rosetta Books)
Justinian pulled up his socks and snuffed out the rebellion, allowing for the two of them to reshape Constantinople and the Eastern Roman Empire into what is now considered as Rome's last hurrah before it faded into Byzantia obscura. This is why I chose Theodora. After the riots, the two rulers went on to reform and condense what had become of Roman law to a few dozen volumes, laying a foundation of what our legal systems are based off of today. Without Theodora, we would still be scaling our witches with ducks and strange women lying in ponds distributing swords would be a basis for a system of government.
In addition to her achievement of making her husband do things, she also fought for things like women's rights, and making it illegal for prostitution to be forced on another, expanded the rights of women as property owners after a divorce or death, made it illegal to kill a wife who had been adulterous, and propositioned for death to be the penalty for rape. She was a ruler that showed she cared for her subjects by protecting those that were most vulnerable.
It should also be noted that after Theodora's death, Justinian never put any more useful laws into effect.
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15 comments later and my post is still at $0.04. Controversy doesn't pay, folks.
...maybe a little
Here, you can have my measly 100% half cent vote.
No, but seriously, this was a great pick. You've got a new follower.
Hey thanks! I'm always happy to have more readers. You seem pretty neat so I followed you back!
Rad! Thanks, new friend.
My students are always super surprised when I allude to the fact that Theodora was a hooker.
Ha! Great post.
Really cool post. I actually use that mosaic when I teach my students about art.
About this:
"This week's homework prompt has me wondering who writes the @steemiteducation posts, and if they understand how telling their use of language is."
I happen to know the woman who writes the post personally. She is a good and open minded person. She or I can help clear up anything you are wondering about.
Also, if something "had you wondering" an easy way to solve the mystery is to just ask in the comments of that post.
Forgive me, but I got worked up by what the language insinuated. I work in a special needs environment and my girlfriend works at an all girls school, and I'm sensitive to how language can be used in an exclusive way. Naming two well known male historical figures and following them with "even Marie Curie" made me wonder how I would react if a teacher used that phrasing in the environment I'm used to, and it would make me do a double take. I will take you up on commenting on the post. I only hesitated because weeks earlier there was a similar pattern to the language (use of male pronouns when non universal pronouns would have worked fine) and somebody commented about it, but nothing had been done. I assumed that since it would've been an easy fix, the author doesn't pay too much attention to the comment section. I thought this would be a better way to engage with the community.
I thought that word "even" was the issue. I actually wrote a much longer response specifically addressing that but deleted it as I wanted to make sure I wasn't jumping to conclusions.
I too happen to teach students with special needs. I am also a very strong advocate of being inclusive. In fact, I think I am overly sensitive when it comes to the issue.
The author of the post included a man, a person with special needs, and a women. She was clearly being inclusive.
Sometimes I need to remind myself to look past a word or two and to make sure I am not dismissing the over all message. For example, in my experience this phrasing, "special needs environment" can be seen as offensive. Most people prefer the "person first" model of writing about people with special needs. However, I don't think you were being disrespectful at all. You clearly care. You clearly value and respect people with special needs regardless of the words used to convey that respect.
If this did happen in the environment you are used to, what would you have done? Would you have walked away and immediately go tell everyone"that person is such a sexist" or would you have asked the person directly, "Did you intend to be sexist?"
I would hope it is the latter and the speaker would have had the opportunity to clarify.
Please keep in mind that the woman who wrote the post has been here for over a year working extremely hard to help teachers and students of all genders, religions, nationalities, races, economic backgrounds, sexual orientation, and areas of special needs. If I missed any group I apologize because I assure you she supports them as well.
I feel as though I've dug myself a gigantic hole here. Your colleague is lucky to have as dedicated an advocate as yourself, and you care about her and the platform you've created. I'm finding this really entertaining now because we're both inclusion oriented and we're still a bit away from seeing eye to eye. I just wanted to bring attention to my reaction to the post's syntax, and I think I've done that now. I definitely could have done it a little more tactfully and I apologize for stepping on anybody's toes. You guys do an awesome job at fostering the community, and I hope to contribute to it more, though I think I might've marred my name a bit by digging this hole. I'm going to edit my post in the hopes that the author of Steemit education just tried... a teensey bit harder at questioning the meaning behind her own use of language.
This may be a little bit my fault. I was pretty taken aback by the use of "his" rather than their or his/her in the prompt "Often in schools we see that students are capable of so much more. How do you motivate a child to reach his full potential?" and I did comment on the post and didn't receive any reply. It wasn't that I assumed sexism, it was that I didn't appreciate the gender specific language. When I commented I figured someone would reply, but nobody did. I've been hyper aware of the wording of every post since then. Christopher was just braver than I was to speak up.
I do think that we would all benefit from getting to know the people that run the steemiteducation posts a little better. In a platform where sometimes the people who have been here the longest have the most power, I think it would be good to see the qualifications the people behind these large promotional accounts have. It's not that I don't believe they have the qualifications or that they support the community in any way they can, it's that I don't know them. I'm new to the community and just trying to figure everything out.
I do understand that sometimes people use him or his in a universal way, but that still isn't something I'm particularly fond of. If Canada can change it's national anthem to "in all of our command" instead of "in all our son's command", we can use their instead of his.
Funny how I'm nervous to even say that because I'm afraid that my opinion is going to be made to seem irrational. It was my reaction to the post, and to be honest I was surprised when I read that it was written by a woman. I guess what I'm asking, and what Christopher is asking, is that we are recognized for our reactions, despite how far they were away from the intention of the author.
Thanks!
Sorry I wrote my reply before I saw this comment.
No need to apologize. I understand your point. Sadly, in the English language there is not an accepted solution just yet. I have always learned that "their" or "they" should only be used as a plural pronoun. I would never turn in a paper to a college professor using "their" instead of "his" (although I use it quite often on here specifically for the reason you state).
But that is my preference. I choose to go against the rules of formal writing. That does not mean others have to.
"His/her" or "her/his" has become acceptable but it can be "clunky" stylistically. Personally I prefer to handle the problem by using "his" and "her" interchangeably. I try to mix it up through a long piece of writing as much as I can.
But again, to each her own.
But the fact is, that in English writing and speaking, masculine pronouns are commonly understood to be universal. This does put a burden on the reader to gauge by context if a piece is sexist or not. Hopefully it is easy to see from the context of hundreds of posts that this particular author is not sexist.
I think this might be a case where you are missing the forest through the trees.
Like I said, I didn't assume the author was sexist, just didn't appreciate the language being masculine.
You saying "forest through the trees" is exactly the kind of negating comment I was talking about when I said I was fearful I would be made to seem irrational. To be fair, I spoke to many of my colleagues and they felt that the language was inappropriate as well.
I have a lot of respect for what you do and how you've advocated for your colleague, but I'm feeling a bit like no matter what I say I'm in the wrong here.
I think it's time for Ol' Kim to take a break.
You spoke to many colleagues about a post encouraging people to
"Write an article about a very important historical person who influenced our world with their research or invention."
and determined the language was "inappropriate" because it included the word "even" following that very clearly gender neutral introduction?
Oh and about the qualifications.
I will tell you right now, I have none.
I am just a high school teacher of students with special needs who looked around the platform and saw no one was doing anything to try and promote education and learning on the site.
So I decided to do something about it.
I found some others who valued education as well.
We put in a tremendous amount of time and effort to build the educational community from nothing. At first we used nothing but our own voting power to try and encourage teachers and students. Then I rented some voting power using my own money. I then searched for other votes to help support the teachers and students who were posting. Then I lobbied to be included as a Cuire supported community.
In short, @steemiteducation are just regular people who think education is important and are willing to sacrifice time, money, energy and sleep in order to build an educational community here.
I think all of those things qualify you, and the others involved. I just didn't know any of that, or any of the names of the people who are involved with steemiteducation other than you. I just wanted to know a little bit more about the people behind everything, and the beginnings of the account, because I feel like the personal connections are important.
Thanks!
LOL. No hole here man. I think this is just a result of the limitation of communicating via written comments. I bet if we were face to face, we would have hashed this out in 30 seconds, got on the same page and would have moved on to joking about each other's screen names.
You haven't marred your name. You are a strong advocate for respect and inclusion. If you see something that isn't right, you should absolutely say something. I am just a strong proponent of communicating directly with the person first. With the written word, it is so easy to misunderstand someone's true intention. I think so much drama on this platform could be avoided by conversations like the one you and I are having. We started far apart and took the time to communicate directly with each other. Poof! No drama.