Teaching
Latin with a Feminist Consciousness
These questions are of two kinds,
both of which are important. We might be tempted, with our tendency
to organize all our endeavors in Classics around certain canonical
literary texts written by men, to focus on ideas about women
and ignore questions about real women. I feel that we need to
focus on both kinds of questions, and that looking both at ideas
about and lives of women will lead to richer and deeper understanding
of the texts we read and the period we study.
Also, we need to continue to
look at the texts we study and consider bringing new ones into
prominence. We have all seen refreshing additions to the high
school Latin curriculum that used to be limited to a sequence
of grammar, Caesar, Cicero, and Vergil. Especially exciting have been the
changes in the AP Curriculum which allow for a wider variety
of authors. And Judith Hallett's essay in the book Feminist
Theory and the Classics makes a persuasive case for reading
more Propertius and more texts from the post-Augustan period.
I would go further and suggest that we take a careful look at
women writers in Latin, not only the few poems of Sulpicia that
we possess, but also the seldom read works of abbesses and elite
women of the Middle Ages especially in the ninth and tenth centuries
of the Common Era, when spaces were provided and some women were
encouraged to pursue intellectual work.
We must be careful to remember
that the addition of simply mythological and legendary women
into the curriculum will not provide the necessary gender balance.
Classical mythology and legends reveal some interesting ideas
about women, both positive and negative. They do not reveal real
women.
Now that I have discussed some
of the feminist work that is currently being done in Classics
and will continue to need to be done, I would like to turn to
beginner's Latin textbooks, keeping in mind the need to move
women alongside men to the center of our thought.
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