girls just wanna have fun? // hannah schofield

howdy, fellas,

Let's discuss The Abbot and the Learned Lady, shall we?

So, right off the bat, I immediately thought, "Man, Antronius would definitely bop to Cyndi Lauper's 'Girls Just Want To Have Fun'..."

In all honesty, if this storyline was modernized, Antronius would saunter up to Magdalia with his large Beat headphones set in place. Cyndi would be just getting to the lines about some boy taking a beautiful girl and hiding her away from the rest of the world. Then Antronius would pause his obnoxiously loud music and immediately start insisting that women being educated individuals is not socially acceptable. 

Ah, the joys of sexism. 

Don't get me wrong, I understand that this scenario was common and women were unbelievably stereotyped during this period of time, but it still makes me cringe astonishingly hard. 

In the real version (not my modernized nonsense), he continuously repeats himself by insisting young women and all women alike should spend their lives in leisure (drinking, partying, sleeping, spending money, etc..) and certainly not worry about wisdom and knowledge. 

And, I can't stress this enough, this woman was brilliant. Intimidated by men? No. Intimidated by learning entire new languages? No. Worried about defining societal standards? Nah, much too easy. Thrown off by Antronius's complete ignorance? Not. At. All. Magdalia made him contradict himself on many separate occasions and, ultimately, just made him feel uneducated. She proved a strong, intelligent woman by not backing down and remaining calm while he flustered himself.

This was a great read, without a doubt.

Commented on: Sydney's and Gray's