I am, therefore, all the more impressed that an academic at Cambridge, with graduate degrees from Oxford, sometimes presents self in the nude in order to convey the point. In the nude in the public. Or, in the nude in videos that the entire world can watch whenever. And, oh, this a female academic.
I won't embed any unclothed image of Victoria Bateman's in this blog, even though it is not at all difficult to track them down. Bateman herself provides plenty even at her Twitter stream.
Why the public nudity sometimes? For one, she is pissed off that women are "invisible" to economists and economic historians. And, she is one hell of a strong feminist.
I think “my body, my choice” should be at the heart of feminism. It shouldn’t just apply to birth-control rights.
Bateman's forceful and well thought out arguments remind me of Camille Paglia. But, I don't want to digress.
Bateman has come out with her latest book, which is about how women made the West rich.
The Industrial Revolution was a new technological wave. Women were crucial for sowing the seeds of that wave. They created the incentives for technological change, the savings, the skills base, and the entrepreneurship. But when that feeds through to the economy, women don’t get paid back in return.
And so we see quite a sizable decline in women’s participation in the labor force throughout the Industrial Revolution. By the late 19th century, we have the roots of the idea of the male breadwinner model. That then becomes the middle-class ideal, and we then get the cult of domesticity.
Which leads us situations like this today:
There was an International Labour Organization (ILO) report out last year that showed that globally 75% of unpaid care is provided by women. They estimated it’s the equivalent of 2 billion women working full time, for nothing. The ILO says the way in which unpaid care is seen as women’s responsibility is one of the big impediments to women entering the workplace and being able to achieve equality within the workplace.
Now, don't for a second be tempted into thinking that Bateman comes from a privileged background and, hence, the OxBridge and feminism and nudity and all that. Nope. Bateman's parents didn't complete high school.
[Her dad,] inspired by Thatcherite entrepreneurialism, went into business for himself, again in ductwork, and her mom helped out with the administrative side while working other odd jobs and raising Bateman and her two younger sisters. Customers often couldn’t pay Bateman’s father, and the business soon went under. When Bateman was 11 and home sick, she’d go with her mom to clients’ homes begging for them to pay what they owed, sometimes blocking their driveways to help persuade them. At home, however, the family was on the flip side of that ugly equation, several men armed with bats demanding that her parents pay what they owed.
When Bateman was 14, her parents split, and her mom raised the girls as a single mother.
A tough life. A blue-collar background just like Paglia's.
A woman who has accomplished a lot. "Bateman is embraced and appreciated by colleagues and students alike for
her approachability, her down-to-earth sensibility, and her sense of
humor."
Her dad, now in his 70s, still works in duct fitting, traveling about in his van. Her mom was in a bad car accident 10 years ago and is on disability. One of her sisters went to night school and has pulled together a career for herself, but the other still struggles mightily.
But, even this uber-confident feminist academic sometimes feels the bad moments ... what does she do? "I play the Ella Fitzgerald song “They all laughed.”
Whether we are clothed or in the nude, men or women, academics or duct workers, we all find comfort in Ella Fitzgerald ... and Louis Armstrong.
