Monday, May 8, 2017

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We saw a documentary film about Jane Jacobs yesterday:  "Citizen Jane:  Battle for the Cities".  I had loved her book "Death and Life in Great American Cities" when I read it years ago, and in the last couple of months I read a biography of her that was fascinating.  I really enjoyed the film, but my husband, who knew nothing about her, didn't like it as much.  He pointed out something I'd completely missed:  there is almost more film time on Robert Moses, her nemesis, than on her.  Maybe I'm used to women's stories being hijacked by men.  But when he pointed it out, I had to agree.  It seemed wrong that Moses should get as much time as he did, especially when it seemed that for people not familiar with Jacobs, like my husband, there was not enough background on her.  There were talking heads who praised and described her, but those as well were male except for a couple.  Moses swallowed up her time in the movie.  Is it just me, or are we all so comfortable with the mansplaining and domination of men in cultural areas that we fail to notice when an imbalance occurs? 

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