Female education then and now

It is a first for me to link to a clip.  I found this one,  from the 1948 movie "Apartment for Peggy," very striking.  the young women who come to a lecture on philosphy seek to engage their own understanding and experience.  Note that they are all supposed to be married to students at the universities, and some already have had babies. There was  a time when women expressed a thirst for education, knowledge, and thinking. If you've read Carry Me in Your Heart, the biography of Sarah Schnerier by Pear Benisch, you would see that such was also the case for the Jewish girls in early Europe of the early 20th Century.

 Today, a lot of what is passed off as education is just rote learning.  Girls are not encouraged to think and reason for themselves but simply to parrot what they are taught, if you can call it teaching. I find that the young women of today apply their knowledge to trivialities and fill their time in the pursuit of inconsequential things.  Even young women who should have had real potential seem to devolve into the popular form of airhead.   Had they been encouraged to actually use their brain power for more than a thorough knowledge of popular culture, fashion, and beauty treatments, what would happen?  Far better to have them conform to the stereotype of silly females than have them venture on the male dominion.

Visit my site www.kallahmagazine.com -- not just for kallahs. You can also see posts at http://www.examiner.com/x-18522-NY-Jewish-Bridal-Examiner

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