Baldo by Hector D. Cantú and Carlos Castellanos for June 23, 2011
June 22, 2011
June 24, 2011
Transcript:
Gracie: Well this is disappointing. Tia Carmen: What's that? Gracie: Most of the great men in history have been men.
runar, I stand by my original analysis. I see no “boys yucky” here, neither on Gracie’s part nor on the cartoonists’. Does Gracie indicate that the women in the book should outnumber the men, or even that it be 50/50? Reading misandry into this strip suggests, to me, at least a hint of misogyny.
Gracie has high ambitions. She want to achieve much, and she probably WILL achieve much (OK, I know she’ll never actually grow out of childhood), but she also wants role models. Most history books are mighty scanty on those.
Many women who HAVE been of historical significance have been overlooked, undervalued, and even villified by historians through the ages. Joan of Arc was “a witch.” Katherine the Great was an “insatiable slut”. Cleopatra was “Antony’s whore.” There have been attempts to to counteract this, and as others have suggested Gracie WOULD be better served by looking outside the mainstream history books. But it’s true, “Well-behaved women seldom make history.” – Laurel Thatcher Ulrich