[Vwoolf] "the 'ignorance' of privilege"

Sun Apr 17 17:15:31 EDT 2022

This thread reminds me of a conversation I had yesterday with a prominent
doctor at a local hospital.

She caught COVID some time ago and has still not completely recovered.  She
was on oxygen for two months because she felt as if she were suffocating.
 (She said she would have probably died if she'd contracted COVID earlier
because she would have been put on a ventilator, which turned out to
increase mortality for still undetermined reasons.)

This reminds me of *a different kind of ignorance of privilege: that of
those whose health has been good*.  My doctor friend told me how
eye-opening it was for her to be in the hospital as a critically ill
patient.

- ge, chapel hill, nc

On Sun, Apr 17, 2022 at 4:45 PM DIANA SWANSON via Vwoolf <
vwoolf at lists.osu.edu> wrote:

> I'd like to get back to Stuart's original point (at least as I saw it):
> the privilege of not knowing--not needing to know, not being forced to
> know, and getting away without knowing--about oppression and privilege. To
> quote the beginning of ZjQcmQRYFpfptBannerStart
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> I'd like to get back to Stuart's original point (at least as I saw it):
> the privilege of not knowing--not needing to know, not being forced to
> know, and getting away without knowing--about oppression and privilege. To
> quote the beginning of the article that Stuart linked, "Sienna Miller says
> her new Netflix drama highlights the 'ignorance' of people who don't
> realise they have a head start in life and 'don't think' about the
> struggles of those without the same privileges." This kind of privileged
> ignorance is often about class or race or sex/gender or various
> permutations/combinations thereof. Isn't that in part what *Three Guineas*
> is about?
>
> Diana
>
> On 04/17/2022 3:27 PM Mark Scott via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu> wrote:
>
>
> I took a typing class in high school. I think it was an elective course.
> There were a few of those in my high school back in the early 1970s. As it
> turns out, it proved to be the most valuable, or at least, practical skill
> I learned during ZjQcmQRYFpfptBannerStart
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> I took a typing class in high school.  I think it was an elective course.
> There were a few of those in my high school back in the early 1970s.  As it
> turns out, it proved to be the most valuable, or at least, practical skill
> I learned during my young life in terms of making a living.
>
> Mark Scott
> Common Reader
>
> *From:* Jeremy Hawthorn via Vwoolf
> *Sent:* Sunday, April 17, 2022 1:12 AM
> *To:* vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
> *Subject:* Re: [Vwoolf] "the 'ignorance' of privilege"
>
> The supreme irony in all this is that we would all have benefitted from a
> basic course in typing at school. With work on PCs well-nigh universal, the
> skill of typing is accordingly almost universally useful. As a boy in
> England I was forced ZjQcmQRYFpfptBannerStart
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>
> The supreme irony in all this is that we would *all* have benefitted from
> a basic course in typing at school. With work on PCs well-nigh universal,
> the skill of typing is accordingly almost universally useful. As a boy in
> England I was forced to study woodwork and metalwork, at both of which I
> was so incompetent that one teacher hit me hard across the head with a
> length of wood. Ah, the good old days. Had I learned to type properly, I
> might this very moment be using more that two fingers to type. Mind you,
> that is double the number used by an old friend who worked as a lawyer all
> his life. So women in the professions who were forced to take courses in
> typing have the last laugh on us men here I think
>
>
> Jeremy H
>
>
> *Fra:* Vwoolf <vwoolf-bounces at lists.osu.edu> *På vegne av *Danell Jones
> via Vwoolf
> *Sendt:* lørdag 16. april 2022 22:32
> *Til:* Mary Ellen Foley <mefoleyuk at gmail.com>; Stuart N. Clarke <
> stuart.n.clarke at btinternet.com>
> *Kopi:* vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
> *Emne:* Re: [Vwoolf] "the 'ignorance' of privilege"
>
>
> My mother also told me that I had to take a typing class in high school
> because then I would always have something to “fall back on.” As I remember
> it, secretarial work was considered not just safe but respectable and even
> a little upwardly ZjQcmQRYFpfptBannerStart
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>
> My mother also told me that I had to take a typing class in high school
> because then I would always have something to “fall back on.”
>
>
> As I remember  it, secretarial work was considered not just safe but
> respectable and even a little upwardly mobile. (Neither of my grandmothers
> could type.) There was a sense that being a secretary in an office was a
> safe, professional job that meant you didn’t have to do manual labor.
>
>
> I don’t know if this is an American thing, but even though I had a typical
> middle-class upbringing, a fear of losing everything was threaded through
> it. Poverty and failure lurked in the shadows. My dad was an Okie, so that
> probably explains a lot.
>
>
> Danell
>
>
> Sent from Mail
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> for Windows
>
>
> *From: *Mary Ellen Foley via Vwoolf
> *Sent: *Saturday, April 16, 2022 12:41 PM
> *To: *Stuart N. Clarke
> *Cc: *vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
> *Subject: *Re: [Vwoolf] "the 'ignorance' of privilege"
>
>
> Ah, yes. Something to fall back on. I was majoring in chemistry, with a
> place at Stanford for graduate school, and my mother, who was paying for
> books and living expenses (tuition was via scholarship), insisted that I
> take some classes in the ZjQcmQRYFpfptBannerStart
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> Ah, yes.  Something to fall back on.  I was majoring in chemistry, with a
> place at Stanford for graduate school, and my mother, who was paying for
> books and living expenses (tuition was via scholarship), insisted that I
> take some classes in the education department because, and I do quote
> exactly here, "If a woman can't do anything else, she can always teach or
> be a secretary."
>
> Bless her heart.  What a lovely vote of confidence!  At least that's how I
> took it at the time, though she might have meant "If a woman isn't
> permitted to do anything else..."  And the education classes were utter
> DRECK -- I despair for Kentucky schools, I really do --
>
> Then again, she might have had a point.  I have an unfashionable regional
> accent, and a friend of mine who also moved to the Bay Area ended up
> working on a loading dock, because companies wouldn't hire her as a
> front-desk receptionist because of her accent.  I am sure that, when I did
> go to get a job, I probably had a harder time of it than those who sounded
> like the announcers on TV.
>
>
> That was -*cough*- decades ago.  I do hope things have changed...
>
>
> Mary Ellen
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 16, 2022 at 11:04 AM Stuart N. Clarke via Vwoolf <
> vwoolf at lists.osu.edu> wrote:
>
> I know this isn’t really relevant to the listserv, but it will resonate
> with those of you who (like me) come from working-class backgrounds:
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-61107909__;!!KGKeukY!nFal9DRbOCfRkUJdMCtxuqWWndEXEnXZIDHGOiwSY_xPsWrCj0H7DitH9BXyThYUeww$ 
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-61107909__;!!KGKeukY!gH-UkaXScOEYmSgt3p90A7JoQTQcJ4dN6O9jRlCDe2ycgM-BLLdgP2srmOn2E73fqRA$>
> I saw a black woman on the TV the other day, ZjQcmQRYFpfptBannerStart
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>
>
>
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> I know this isn’t really relevant to the listserv, but it will resonate
> with those of you who (like me) come from working-class backgrounds:
>
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-61107909__;!!KGKeukY!nFal9DRbOCfRkUJdMCtxuqWWndEXEnXZIDHGOiwSY_xPsWrCj0H7DitH9BXyThYUeww$ 
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-61107909__;!!KGKeukY!jqPe0meTvr01hNVZznnvkz6Z06TNnQ2kd0H0ZG40o5HZ1vHKY6J7qH1mDiJtWqW9MV4$>
>
>
>
> I saw a black woman on the TV the other day, who went to the careers’
> advisor at school and said she wanted to go to university.  “What about
> secretarial college?”
>
>
>
> Which reminds me of Sylvia Plath and her mother: go to secretarial college
> and you’ll have something to fall back on.  From memory, in “The Bell Jar”
> she didn’t want to type interesting letters for some man, but write
> interesting letters herself.
>
>
>
> I remember telling a Woolfian acquaintance that I had never wanted to
> work, never had any idea of what to do.  She was surprised/shocked: “What
> about publishing?”
>
>
>
> I then fantasised about going back in time and telling my parents that I
> wanted to go into publishing, and their subsequent conversation in their
> bedroom:
>
>
>
> “Where’s Lord Muck got *this* idea from?”
>
>
>
> “Well, he hasnae got it from me.”
>
>
>
> Stuart
>
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