medieval gender – Going Medieval

On heteropessimism and maternal expectations

I was at my local pub on Saturday just trying to have a nice time after a bad week. Trying to be hopeful and enjoy my new George Michael homage t-shirt. Things of that nature. While at said local, I got talking to someone else who claimed to also be a regular (lol, FALSE) and we had a nice time discussing NWA and Tupac. But then he started to ask me if I had kids. I said no, and then for half an hour he proceeded to tell me why I should have them, as I repeatedly stated that I have absolutely no interest at all whatsoever in being a parent. Ever. Anyway, I am sensitive to how cultural hegemony works and why people say these types of things, but that guy was on my mind when I made the mistake of logging on and saw two things making the rounds.

On damsels and influencers

So, the other day I was over on my extremely good Patreon that you would like if you joined, having a chat in a video about my research methodologies and some books I have used lately. I gushed about one book in particular, Kim M. Phillips’s Medieval Maidens: young women and gender in England, 1270-1540, which absolutely rules. The book focuses on the idea of “maidenhood”, which especially for the aristocratic, was a phase of life was strongly correlated with the conception of a nebulous “youth” similar our own teenage.