Talk:Bluestocking

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Nietzsche
this word appears in nietzche's genealogy of morals "one painful night of a single hysterical bluestocking" must be a different definition. anyone?

Euripides reference
There is a reference to blue-stockings in the play Hippolytus by Euripides. Does anyone know the true date of origin for this term, since it must be before the 15th century?
 * The reference to the blue-stocking by Euripides is in the Great Didactic by Comenius. Comenius added in the blue-stocking refernce to suit his needs.  The actual line is "I hate a clever woman."

Actually, the reference to "blue-stocking" comes from M. W. Keatinge's 1907 translation. Comenius, who wrote in Latin, actually says, "Aut illud qvod apud Euripidem Hippolytus loqvitur: Odi eruditam." You can find the original Latin text here: http://www.uni-mannheim.de/mateo/camenaref/comenius.html and Keatinge's translation here: http://archive.org/details/cu31924031053709

The error has been picked up other sites (as one can see by googling "Comenius bluestocking"), so I do hope it gets corrected. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.80.129.167 (talk) 16:25, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

The first edition of Keatinge's translations originates from 1896 (see 1). I inserted a note with the actual citation which also shows Comenius was far from "deploring". --Ublun Ääts (talk) 13:38, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

The first two sentences of the History section say the quote is "citing Bible and Euripides". What does that mean? There no mention of the Bible anywhere else on the page, and if there were, it should at least say "the Bible" to distinguish it as a book instead of a person named "Bible".

I suspect someone ineptly added it to reflect the highly patriarchal views of the Bible (as demonstrated in the King James Version translation). A web search and a bible search at biblestudytools.com did not reveal any use of the word bluestocking in the Bible.


 * A reference to bluestockings has been attributed to John Amos Comenius in his 1638 book, where he mentioned the ancient tradition of women being excluded from higher education, citing Bible and Euripides. That reference, though, comes from Keatinge's 1896 translation and is not present in Comenius's original Latin text.[a] ...

Ken K. Smith (a.k.a. User:Thin Smek) (talk) 18:38, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

History of the name of the Bluestockings
There is more to the story of the bluestockings, in fact a man may well have been pivotal in the naming. His name was Benjamin Stillingfleet. The ladies who originally founded the group we now know as the blue stockings were in the habit of asking esteemed and respected men to come and have petiticoteries or discussions with the group on a regular basis. Samuel Johnson was one and another was Benjamin Stillingfleet. Initially Stillingfleet declined the invitation as he was very poor and did not have black stockings, which were the appropriate and accepted formal dress for men of the time. On hearing why he had declined one of the members told him to come as he was, and he did. Here, the story diverges and there are two popular forms - one is that the husband of one of the members, Admiral Edward Boscawen, was highly derisive of his wife's "literary pretensions" and labelled the group in a derogatory manner "The Blue Stocking Society" in an allusion to Stillingfleets poverty. The other is that the ladies were so impressed by Stillingfleet that they decided to adopt the blue stockings both as a mark of respect for him and a way of flouting society's norms. This not to detract from the club of Venice in the 1400s which was known by the name "Della Calza" or "of the Stockings" and it is entirely probable that the 18th century persons were in fact referring to it by using the term the Blue Stockings. In a nut shell, no-one seems to be exactly sure about where the name came from, but to leave Stillingfleet out ignores part of what made the Blue Stockings successful and that was support from educated men of the time, such as Johnson, Stillingfleet, Bysshe-Shelley, and Lyttleton, to name but a few.

Any chance we could get a source for the above history?

Bluestocking
Here is a bit found in old church papers.

During the seventeenth centaury, when churchmen struggled over where the authority of God rested—with the Pope or with the King, or with the people—the poor but freedom loving Covenanters from Scotland wore unbleached woolen stockings in contrast to the affluent Episcopalians who wore stockings dyed black or bleached white. The bluish tint of the untreated woolen stockings gave the name “Bluestocking” to these Presbyterians. Today, the football teams of Presbyterian College are known as the ‘Bluestockings.

Characterization
The role of educated women in society has indeed expanded remarkably since the 15th and 18th centuries, and this article needs to take an encompassing viewpoint. Members of the BlueStocking Society were very prominent and successful in society; one such member, Elizabeth's cousin Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, has been described as the "most interesting Englishwoman of the century"(1), and may have personally saved millions of lives by introducing inoculation to western society(2). To characterize such women as frumpy, or to embark on a monologue about the role of beauty in society does a huge disservice. In addition there were many prominent men who belonged to the Society, and although they too may have felt pressure to dress fashionably, there is no record of them objecting to the term bluestocking. And in Wikipedia's very extensive review of Margaret Thatcher's unprecedented accomplishments, the word 'pretty' does not appear even once.

Doc.Ian (talk) 20:11, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

(1) "Kings and Desperate Men', Louis Kronenberger, page 75 (2) Isobel Grundy in http://oxforddnb.com/view/article/19029 [requires an account for access]

recent US history and usage
Surely the use of the term in US political discourse over the course of the last century and a half is relevant for both denotation and connotation:


 * The current tempest over pornography mirrors a similar schism in the "first wave" of feminism. The "Redstockings" included such trailblazing pro-sex feminists as Victoria Woodhull, the early Margaret Sanger, and Emma Goldman, who defied, resisted, and on a good day aspired to overthrow the state.  The "Bluestockings," in contrast, variously sought succor from a state they presumed to be beneficent, and in a bolder mood, aspired to become its agents.  Their politics were elitist and centered on the right to vote, for which they often appealed on anti-immigrant grounds.
 * 'The reforms they sought through the existing state predominantly took the form of protective morals legislation. "Bluestockings" campaigned for essentially repressive anti-vice measures regarding prostitution, alcohol, and the like, helping to create a climate of opinion that facilitated passage of the Comstock laws, criminalizing both "obscenity" and the distribution of contraceptives and information about abortion-laws which were then used to haul Redstocking sisters Sanger and Goldman off to jail. (Today the pro-censorship climate MacDworkinism has nurtured has helped to reincarnate the Comstock laws in the Communications Decency Act, criminalizing internet discussions of abortion and other such "indecency.")
 * In the most striking aspect of this historical parallel, the Bluestockings cut their political teeth in the Temperance movement, locating in "demon rum" a male vice they deemed a central factor in women's oppression. Drink was the ruin of the lower classes, the bane of women whose husbands beat them and drank up the family's wages....Just why was it that working class men drank, after twelve-hour days in the mines and factories?  Such questions were too threatening, so instead the elite reformers blamed the oppressed.

[http://www.solidarity-us.org/node/767 Crosson, Cathy. "Pornography and the Sex Censor"] (source cache as of 2010-05-29) drawing from [http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=nadine%20strossen%20defending%20pornography&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=ws Strossen, Nadine. Defending pornography: free speech, sex, and the fight for women's rights.] .

All the best, Michael (talk) 19:56, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

You can forget about Nietzsche and Euripides, as the translator could have committed any type of sin. I once had a tutor who was proud of being a genuine blue stocking, as defined by the fact that she had been head of English at QMC (Queen Mary College, University of London), and she was confident that the term originated there, but I forget the details. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.145.32.79 (talk) 16:04, 31 August 2011 (UTC)