EMANCIPATE<\/h2>\n
She bared her right arm to the shoulder, showing her tremendous muscular
power. ‘I have ploughed, and planted, and gathered into barns, and no
man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat
as much as a man \u2013 when I could get it \u2013 and bear the lash as
well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen chilern, and seen
’em mos’ all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my
mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a
woman?’<\/p>\n
-Sojourner Truth speaking in 1851, as recalled by Matilda Gage in History of
Woman Suffrage<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Well in hand<\/h3>\n
Alas and alack, I have no Latin language linked tea-towel<\/a>
(or indeed any other lexical kitchenware). So I had to do some
trans-linguistic dictionary groping (oh ho) to reveal that the verb
’emancipate’ can be broken down into not one but
three <\/em>etymological building blocks (oh, alright pedant, two words
and one suffix).<\/p>\n
Ahem. These are: ‘e-‘ (out of), ‘manus’
(hand), ‘capere’ (to capture, to seize). So
to emancipate <\/em>is, etymologically speaking, something like
‘to release something captured from your hand’. Its
first meaning in the OED is ‘to release or set free (a child
or a wife) from the
patria potestas<\/em>, the power of the
pater familias<\/em>‘. Most of those Latin words come
back to the same idea: Big Daddy and his eternal potency, and it
is here that, presumably, the ‘Emancipation of
Women’ has its phrasal origins. To
emancipate <\/em>someone is to relinquish the (legal) power
that you hold over them, and it is thus that, in its
association with women’s rights, the word has come to
be\u00a0associated with first wave feminism and its fight for
property rights, women’s suffrage and basic legal
equality. It is presumably for this reason that it is no
longer widely considered technically applicable to gender
issues, as a quick look at Wikipedia will confirm.<\/p>\n
![\"Image:](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.badreputation.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/Picture-1.png?resize=245%2C69\")
<\/a>Clemens in horto laborat<\/strong><\/p>\n
But
emancipate <\/em>also has a definitional cousin in
the word ‘manumit’ (‘to set forth
from one’s hand’), which means ‘to
release from slavery’, and indeed, slavery
– and
emancipate<\/em>‘s second definition
–\u00a0is where we must next turn. Of course
the Romans who bandy these manii
<\/em>around were, if not exactly pioneers, at
least great practitioners of the flesh trade. But,
perhaps unexpectedly, they did have a sort of
‘liberal’ edge to their way of doing
things: slaves could be legally freed, and, as
‘freedmen’, often enjoyed considerable
socio-political power (the Vettii brothers in
Pompeii were famous for having a
rather rockin’ house<\/a>).<\/p>\n
Thus,
emancipate<\/em>‘s\u00a0second meaning,
‘to set free from control; to release
from legal, social or political
restraint’, which, as the dictionary
points\u00a0out, has in modern use acquired a
primary application to slavery, with
‘other uses felt to be transferred from
this’. In ancient Rome, female slaves
(‘libertae’), of course, had less
options, and generally ended up marrying their
former masters (oh, the liberalism),
suggesting that they might need
emancipation<\/em> in the third sense
– ‘to set free from intellectual
or moral restraint’, and in fact
getting into its fourth and final meaning,
‘to enslave’, via the
explanatory quotation, ‘a wiues
emancipating herself to another
husband’. But we are getting ahead of
ourselves.<\/p>\n
America, America<\/h3>\n![\"E](\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.badreputation.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/emancipation1.jpg?resize=330%2C373\")
<\/a>Here you are,
love.<\/p><\/div>\n
In the years following the Emancipation
Proclamation of the early 1860s, which
of course challenged the slavery widely
practised by a more modern empire,
emancipate<\/em> starts to gain
something of its modern sense, as the
dictionary puts it, ‘primarily
suggesting the liberation of
slaves’. Turning briefly to said
Emancipation Proclamation, it was an
ambiguous document, widely criticized
for freeing only those slaves its
authors had no authority over and
shying away from declaring slavery
itself to be illegal. The
more-than-hundred years of struggle
leading up to the Civil Rights Act of
1964 prove the limits of technical
’emancipation’, and the
battle that had to be fought over
every remnant of restraint in American
law, not least the abolition of
slavery as a concept.<\/p>\n
But where does this history take us,
as followers of a gynocentric
lexical trail? Well, one of
emancipate<\/em>‘s most
interesting side-effects as a
word-journey is to take us into
the realms of historical figures
who stood up for freedom in
women’s rights as part of a
wider struggle for racial \u2013
human \u2013<\/em> equality.
These include Lucretia
Mott<\/a> and Elizabeth
C. Stanton<\/a>, alongside Sojourner
Truth<\/a>, ex-slave,
abolitionist and women’s
rights activist (reported to
have an ‘Amazonian’
form, for those following the
progress of this series
intently).<\/p>\n
Whilst technically
’emancipated’
herself (although in practice
anything but, forced due to a
contextually ironic hand
injury to continue working for
her master after New York had
finished emancipating slaves
in 1827), Truth set about
challenging the sexism and
misogyny rife in white society
alongside the need to abolish
slavery. She highlighted in
her most famous speech, ‘Ain’t
I A Woman?’<\/a> (1851)
how plantation owners would
savagely beat their female
slaves while simultaneously
offering white women a hand
into their carriages and over
ditches. Ideally positioned to
turn upon both injustices,
Truth herself expressed the
frying pan-fire of
emancipate<\/em>‘s
fourth meaning when she said
that “Man is\u00a0in a
tight place, the poor slave
is on him, woman is coming
on him, he is surely between
a hawk and a
buzzard.”<\/p>\n
It is one of the recurring
criticisms of modern
feminism that it leaves
groups behind.
Emancipate <\/em>is a
word fraught with
definitional hooks and
barbs that the escapee
can catch on –
from legal to moral and
social restraint, to,
finally, re-enslaving. I
chose the verbal sense
for a reason.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
She bared her right arm to the shoulder, showing her tremendous muscular power. ‘I have ploughed, and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man \u2013 when I could get it \u2013 and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen chilern, and seen ’em mos’ all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?’<\/p>\n
-Sojourner Truth speaking in 1851, as recalled by Matilda Gage in History of Woman Suffrage<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Well in hand<\/h3>\n
Alas and alack, I have no Latin language linked tea-towel<\/a>
(or indeed any other lexical kitchenware). So I had to do some
trans-linguistic dictionary groping (oh ho) to reveal that the verb
’emancipate’ can be broken down into not one but
three <\/em>etymological building blocks (oh, alright pedant, two words
and one suffix).<\/p>\n
Ahem. These are: ‘e-‘ (out of), ‘manus’
(hand), ‘capere’ (to capture, to seize). So
to emancipate <\/em>is, etymologically speaking, something like
‘to release something captured from your hand’. Its
first meaning in the OED is ‘to release or set free (a child
or a wife) from the
patria potestas<\/em>, the power of the
pater familias<\/em>‘. Most of those Latin words come
back to the same idea: Big Daddy and his eternal potency, and it
is here that, presumably, the ‘Emancipation of
Women’ has its phrasal origins. To
emancipate <\/em>someone is to relinquish the (legal) power
that you hold over them, and it is thus that, in its
association with women’s rights, the word has come to
be\u00a0associated with first wave feminism and its fight for
property rights, women’s suffrage and basic legal
equality. It is presumably for this reason that it is no
longer widely considered technically applicable to gender
issues, as a quick look at Wikipedia will confirm.<\/p>\n
But
emancipate <\/em>also has a definitional cousin in
the word ‘manumit’ (‘to set forth
from one’s hand’), which means ‘to
release from slavery’, and indeed, slavery
– and
emancipate<\/em>‘s second definition
–\u00a0is where we must next turn. Of course
the Romans who bandy these manii
<\/em>around were, if not exactly pioneers, at
least great practitioners of the flesh trade. But,
perhaps unexpectedly, they did have a sort of
‘liberal’ edge to their way of doing
things: slaves could be legally freed, and, as
‘freedmen’, often enjoyed considerable
socio-political power (the Vettii brothers in
Pompeii were famous for having a
rather rockin’ house<\/a>).<\/p>\n
Thus,
emancipate<\/em>‘s\u00a0second meaning,
‘to set free from control; to release
from legal, social or political
restraint’, which, as the dictionary
points\u00a0out, has in modern use acquired a
primary application to slavery, with
‘other uses felt to be transferred from
this’. In ancient Rome, female slaves
(‘libertae’), of course, had less
options, and generally ended up marrying their
former masters (oh, the liberalism),
suggesting that they might need
emancipation<\/em> in the third sense
– ‘to set free from intellectual
or moral restraint’, and in fact
getting into its fourth and final meaning,
‘to enslave’, via the
explanatory quotation, ‘a wiues
emancipating herself to another
husband’. But we are getting ahead of
ourselves.<\/p>\n
Here you are,
love.<\/p><\/div>\n
In the years following the Emancipation
Proclamation of the early 1860s, which
of course challenged the slavery widely
practised by a more modern empire,
emancipate<\/em> starts to gain
something of its modern sense, as the
dictionary puts it, ‘primarily
suggesting the liberation of
slaves’. Turning briefly to said
Emancipation Proclamation, it was an
ambiguous document, widely criticized
for freeing only those slaves its
authors had no authority over and
shying away from declaring slavery
itself to be illegal. The
more-than-hundred years of struggle
leading up to the Civil Rights Act of
1964 prove the limits of technical
’emancipation’, and the
battle that had to be fought over
every remnant of restraint in American
law, not least the abolition of
slavery as a concept.<\/p>\n
But where does this history take us,
as followers of a gynocentric
lexical trail? Well, one of
emancipate<\/em>‘s most
interesting side-effects as a
word-journey is to take us into
the realms of historical figures
who stood up for freedom in
women’s rights as part of a
wider struggle for racial \u2013
human \u2013<\/em> equality.
These include Lucretia
Mott<\/a> and Elizabeth
C. Stanton<\/a>, alongside Sojourner
Truth<\/a>, ex-slave,
abolitionist and women’s
rights activist (reported to
have an ‘Amazonian’
form, for those following the
progress of this series
intently).<\/p>\n
Whilst technically
’emancipated’
herself (although in practice
anything but, forced due to a
contextually ironic hand
injury to continue working for
her master after New York had
finished emancipating slaves
in 1827), Truth set about
challenging the sexism and
misogyny rife in white society
alongside the need to abolish
slavery. She highlighted in
her most famous speech, ‘Ain’t
I A Woman?’<\/a> (1851)
how plantation owners would
savagely beat their female
slaves while simultaneously
offering white women a hand
into their carriages and over
ditches. Ideally positioned to
turn upon both injustices,
Truth herself expressed the
frying pan-fire of
emancipate<\/em>‘s
fourth meaning when she said
that “Man is\u00a0in a
tight place, the poor slave
is on him, woman is coming
on him, he is surely between
a hawk and a
buzzard.”<\/p>\n
It is one of the recurring
criticisms of modern
feminism that it leaves
groups behind.
Emancipate <\/em>is a
word fraught with
definitional hooks and
barbs that the escapee
can catch on –
from legal to moral and
social restraint, to,
finally, re-enslaving. I
chose the verbal sense
for a reason.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n![\"Image:](\"http:\/\/www.badreputation.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/Photo-9.jpg\")
<\/a>Clemens in horto laborat<\/strong><\/p>\n
America, America<\/h3>\n
<\/a>