Bitchy History - Boston Marriages and Women’s Right to Self-Determination

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Bitchy History, the Irreverent History podcast whose host should apparently invest in a desk calendar

00:00:06.420 because I thought that Thursday was the 14th and planned to release a Valentine's Day episode

00:00:12.480 and then actually Wednesday was the 14th, so you're actually getting this episode the day after Valentine's Day.

00:00:21.780 Oops!

00:00:30.000 all right everybody welcome to bitchy history uh we're back with another guest episode and

00:00:42.520 this is really cool because this is our first time we've had a guest returning from last season so

00:00:47.340 uh so amanda has been on the show before we did a history an episode on the history of drag

00:00:51.820 in america in the first season of bitchy history uh which i'll post a link to in the episode

00:00:58.180 description of this episode so you can find that episode if you'd like to go back and listen to it

00:01:02.260 uh and today we are getting together to do kind of a special valentine's day episode here

00:01:07.740 um on the concept of boston marriages uh so if you'd like to introduce yourself amanda

00:01:12.780 hello i'm just here to talk about the romantic concept of financial independence

00:01:17.300 i know so it's amazing like it's amazing concept right uh being being financially independent it's

00:01:24.100 very sexy. It's true. Yeah. Anyway, my name is Amanda Timpson. I am a public historian. I have

00:01:30.920 a social media platform called Yester Queers, where I talk about queer history from all periods

00:01:37.420 of time and all parts of the world. Fantastic. Because, you know, I do women's history,

00:01:42.380 you do queer history. It's a match made in heaven because, you know, perfect. Turns out there have

00:01:46.640 been some queer women throughout history. Turns out, yeah, which is remarkable. This is not

00:01:51.180 related to the topic of this episode but i always find it funny when any sort of like homophobic

00:01:55.520 legislation is up on anywhere it's always focused on men it's like the women don't even exist

00:02:01.000 yeah all which actually does kind of tie into this episode because i have a little thing i

00:02:06.180 want to talk to you about a talk later about which is uh the concept of women not having

00:02:10.780 sexual desires which is a weird little subset yeah it's it's amazing how it's amazing how much

00:02:18.080 women throughout history have managed to sort of get away with simply because it never occurred to

00:02:23.780 the men in charge that women would ever be interested in sex or romance or anything that

00:02:29.600 didn't involve a man it's amazing it's amazing uh i'm like what what is wrong with all of you

00:02:36.340 people but at the same time i also am hesitant to point out their stupidity because i i don't

00:02:41.840 want to have to deal with them on it you know like just if they keep ignoring us we'll be fine

00:02:46.100 just let us be queer and leave us alone please exactly just leave us be right so boston marriages

00:02:53.920 boston marriages are this cohabitation of two women they were usually wealthy usually

00:02:59.500 independently wealthy or at least one of them was uh and they were you know often from new

00:03:04.240 england though these these occurred all over the country and even in other countries as well

00:03:08.440 um college educated financially independent they had their own careers they're you know these are

00:03:14.300 women who want to be able to just live their lives without having to be tied down to a husband and

00:03:18.980 children, which is kind of the norm in America at the time. This is kind of during the late 19th

00:03:23.780 century. And you may know more about this, but from what I know, the term Boston marriage,

00:03:30.400 even though Boston marriages existed before this, like it becomes popularized in the 1880s

00:03:34.860 by a novel written by Henry James. Yep. Called the Bostonians. And he never used that term

00:03:41.640 himself to describe it, but the book is about two women, um, who live in a, a marriage like

00:03:48.220 relationship. And so that's how they came to be known as Boston marriages. Um, and I do think

00:03:53.400 it's important to point out that Boston marriages were almost exclusively, um, a privilege of

00:03:59.760 wealthy white women. Um, I have actually looked for examples of Boston marriages involving, um,

00:04:06.040 black women or other women of color. And I really couldn't find any, um, I'm sure they're out there

00:04:10.600 somewhere, because certainly there were Black women who were financially independent and

00:04:14.000 college educated. But I do think it's important to point out that this was a privilege of whiteness

00:04:21.180 and wealth that was not equally accessible to women throughout the country, unfortunately.

00:04:29.400 Yeah, absolutely. So many of these kind of like outside the norm behaviors, outside of the norm

00:04:34.240 behaviors are only accessible to women, white women during, during history, because, you know,

00:04:40.760 they're the only ones who are going to have generational wealth. A lot of these women are

00:04:44.640 wealthy because of inheritance, and not necessarily because they've done anything to earn money

00:04:49.620 themselves. Though some of these cases are women who have, you know, jobs, they're teaching at

00:04:55.220 colleges and things like that as well. But it certainly is, it's a very much a, like a wealthy

00:05:01.380 white woman or at least upper middle class white woman kind of kind of thing that they get to do

00:05:05.780 uh that means that henry james book the bostonian like got absolutely roasted by people because it

00:05:11.380 was yes super super like anti-feminist and anti he was not he was not writing a book that was like

00:05:17.800 positive about this kind of relationship no and that's and that's the thing it's you know it's i

00:05:22.780 feel like boston marriage is probably one of those terms that um like so many other terms applied to

00:05:27.940 the queer community started out as like a little bit of a jab, a little bit of a slur, you know,

00:05:32.640 and now has been reclaimed to describe this very unique type of relationship that took place during

00:05:37.520 this very unique point in American history and especially in feminist history, you know,

00:05:43.460 right around the end of the 19th century, beginning of the 20th. So yeah, I feel like it's one of

00:05:48.540 those. Yeah. So what do you find especially interesting about Boston marriages? So the

00:05:55.680 thing that i think is so interesting is that um you know first of all sort of unpicking the the

00:06:01.900 different types of boston marriages i think is really interesting because some of these women

00:06:06.380 were just friends they were straight women who were uninterested in tying themselves to a man

00:06:12.520 in um getting married having children and this was kind of the only way that they could um that

00:06:18.260 they could gain that type of independence because you know these are a lot of women who um you know

00:06:23.340 were college educated and then went on to become teachers like there's a whole sort of subset of

00:06:27.880 Boston marriages that take place around Wellesley College and they are called Wellesley marriages

00:06:32.100 and it's basically just like the faculty of Wellesley all um you know living with or being

00:06:37.440 in relationship with each other so um you know it's sort of interesting to unpick like who were

00:06:42.440 the women who were straight women who were friends who were uninterested in um getting married who

00:06:47.260 sort of joined forces? Who were the women who were in romantic, but maybe not sexual relationships

00:06:54.220 with these, with their partners? And then who were the women who were just, you know, what today we

00:06:59.380 would call lesbians who were in, you know, a marriage in every sense of the word. And so I

00:07:05.840 think it's interesting how this little microcosm covered all of these different types of women,

00:07:11.700 you know, women who were seeking independence, women who were today who might identify as

00:07:16.580 asexual but romantic um you know homoromantic but asexual um you know so i just think it's

00:07:22.100 interesting that it's like this little microcosm but even within that it's so many different types

00:07:26.340 of women and so many different reasons for being in these relationships but all of them are driven

00:07:31.400 by wanting to be independent from either the men in their family or from being forced to marry a

00:07:37.340 man right yeah and i think i think it's interesting because i like to use the word queer for this

00:07:43.100 in the general sense, because even the straight women, I think in this context, historically fit

00:07:48.680 kind of under the umbrella of queer, because they are doing something that's abnormal,

00:07:55.260 it's outside the norm of what's considered socially acceptable. So, you know, they're

00:08:00.620 queer representation, regardless of their romantic or sexual proclivities in their relationship.

00:08:06.880 They're queer in the broadest sense of being, you know, and this is something that I have

00:08:10.460 talked about on Yester Queers repeatedly about why I use the word queer and why it's so important,

00:08:15.820 you know, because queerness really is something that is abnormal, which is not to say unnatural,

00:08:21.300 but it is to say outside the bounds of this very narrow distinction of, you know, heterosexual,

00:08:28.560 monogamous, you know, they are, Boston marriages are outside of that, regardless of the individual

00:08:34.100 relationships that the women in them have with each other. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's

00:08:38.600 completely accurate. Yeah, I think the Wellesley College thing in particular is really interesting

00:08:43.800 because I know that a lot of the women who were in these relationships at Wellesley College were

00:08:47.540 in those relationships, not necessarily because they were or weren't queer women, right? But

00:08:53.120 because if they got married, they would be dismissed from their teaching jobs. And so even

00:08:56.680 having a romantic relationship with men, they couldn't do that and remain in their career.

00:09:03.620 So they had to choose kind of what's more important to them.

00:09:05.960 And they weren't allowed to live alone. Like it wasn't, you know, today a woman can get an

00:09:12.020 apartment and live alone and that's fine. But that was a, that was a thing that was not only

00:09:15.240 socially frowned on, but was literally not legal. Like you just, they couldn't do it.

00:09:20.340 Well, you know, women were not going to be able to get, you know, if you wanted to go and buy an

00:09:23.680 apartment, where are you going to get a mortgage as a single woman? Right. The only way to be able

00:09:27.220 to do it, even if, even if you had, and even if you had independent wealth that you could purchase

00:09:31.900 something with, it wasn't going to be easy to get somebody to sell you, sell you property or things

00:09:35.660 like that yeah uh and i know william faderman who has uh written the book written kind of the book

00:09:40.620 on boston marriage so much right i love her work so much uh in 1981 she writes surpassing the love

00:09:45.860 of men which is really just a huge documentation of boston marriage and she had done a study uh

00:09:51.620 that said that of the 53 women faculty at wellesley only one woman was conventionally married

00:09:56.400 to a man all of the other ones with the female companion i'm like wellesley college hmm maybe i

00:10:01.620 should have applied there for a PhD program. Sounds like my kind of, no, no, not my kind of

00:10:05.660 place. I don't know. But sounds like a fun place to live, or at least as fun as it could get in

00:10:10.840 the late 1800s for women. Anyway, I mean, just imagine all the parties that must have been.

00:10:16.420 I mean, you know, I think there's a, I think there was an incredible sense of freedom that

00:10:22.280 came with having sort of beaten the system a little bit, you know, like having, having found

00:10:28.120 a way to rebel within this very strict system that was still sort of on the up and up you know

00:10:33.920 and it was still um it was still like respectable you know and they um you know could still hold

00:10:41.820 their heads up in public and whatever but they still found this way to rebel that i think is so

00:10:47.720 genius they got to keep their jobs they got to work at a women's only college they didn't really

00:10:54.060 have too many men in the gen in a general sense anyway because they're at a woman's college

00:10:57.960 and then they get to you know they get to live their lives and have property and have a house

00:11:03.620 and and whatever else they need and and have you know have that kind of independence which is so

00:11:08.540 rare for women during this time period it's just incredibly rare for it uh and a huge number of

00:11:13.620 them also um you know got to live those lives with women who were probably the love of their lives

00:11:18.880 you know and that i think um i think the importance of that can't be overstated you know that they

00:11:26.200 were sort of um booking the system in plain sight which i just i love everything about that i love

00:11:32.200 it yeah that they got they got away with it and it was considered socially socially respectable

00:11:36.560 which unfortunately is going to become not so so i want to get short 1920s and i uh i kind of want

00:11:45.300 to go back and talk about how women got got away with it um a really interesting weird period of

00:11:53.060 history if you go way right in women's history there's some of this idea that women are licentious

00:11:58.220 and they're the original sin and all of these things but then somewhere around like the 1700s

00:12:03.660 and 1800s we start to kind of go into this weird period of time where women are seen as passionless

00:12:09.200 where they just don't have any sexual sexual needs or sexual urges in some way they're very

00:12:15.740 considered to be very asexual and so we all get into this period of time in which the idea of two

00:12:20.800 women being together it's like well what would they do right and we still get that say from

00:12:25.620 yes that hasn't changed together what are they going to do like there's nothing you know nothing

00:12:31.880 they can do and it's like um you're just not very creative are you buddy those people lack

00:12:35.820 imagination they do um i'm just saying to my you're not wrong i'm not talking about you

00:12:46.140 that you write right like you know uh yeah and i think it's really funny that i was reading

00:12:53.760 an article about this and an academic article about this uh it's called passionless an

00:12:58.220 interpretation of victorian sexual ideology it's by uh by nancy cott this is a little bit of an

00:13:04.260 older article it's from 1978 um but in it she kind of makes this this um she's not saying it's

00:13:12.380 true that she can prove it but she seems to be kind of implying that this began to appear because

00:13:17.980 women just didn't want to have sex with their husbands i mean yeah right and it was a way for

00:13:23.580 them to control their sexuality control their their reproductive reproduction in a time where

00:13:28.620 they didn't have access to birth control and things like that uh and so you start it's not easy access

00:13:33.100 to it you know women being like not tonight honey i have a headache kind of going on where they're

00:13:37.900 like yeah i'm just not into it thanks i'm not i don't want to do this tonight i'm kind of taking

00:13:42.220 control of their of their of their sexual congress with their husbands which is very very rare for

00:13:48.940 women to be able to do during this time period as well i mean every time i teach women's history i

00:13:53.740 i talk about the fact that you know it wasn't until like the 1970s that marital rape is made

00:13:58.620 illegal in all 50 states in america and it's not it's not common for women to be able to say no

00:14:04.940 to their husband at all and uh throughout history and so they get away with this but also it creates

00:14:11.740 this illusion in society that women are just they're not interested they're not interested

00:14:17.620 in things if you put two women together in a house well all they're gonna do is i don't know

00:14:21.720 needlepoint and and like play with their cats haha that's yeah i know i just made a really

00:14:29.880 horrible joke listening i didn't make that joke didn't make it you didn't hear it

00:14:36.020 um yeah oh that's what all the men these days are saying about women oh they're just you know

00:14:42.260 lonely old ladies with their cats and it's like i don't think you understand the joke you're

00:14:47.100 you're implying well and i think another thing that's interesting is that this is also you know

00:14:52.520 late 19th century into the early 20th is also oh maybe not so much early 20th but it's also a time

00:14:57.960 where romantic friendships um between two men and between two women are a thing that exist and are

00:15:04.880 expected um and i think that that i think that that sort of plays into that the sense of like

00:15:12.620 women aren't sexual creatures because they um you know the assume that the affection between

00:15:18.540 women is just this um sort of emotionally intimate friendship which was also a thing

00:15:23.820 that men shared with each other at the time um and so i also again it's a little bit of a way

00:15:29.540 to sort of like stay under the radar you know like oh she's just my just my dear gal pal just

00:15:34.940 my dear bosom buddy my closest the closest other half of my heart that's just about each other

00:15:41.520 because that's normal uh and it was i mean it was normal for completely straight relationships but

00:15:46.100 it does make it really hard sometimes to negotiate the history of actual women from this period

00:15:51.440 because so much of the writing like the letters being written between people who were straight

00:15:55.260 and the letters being written between women who were in romantic relationships with each other

00:16:00.680 sometimes there's not very much difference and so that leads to the concept of like you know

00:16:05.280 and historians will call them best friends you know kind of concept where you know well we don't

00:16:11.080 know this is just the way women talk to each other back in the day but I do I mean I like

00:16:15.560 particularly uh Anne Fields and Sarah uh Sarah Orangeouette who are two of them who are like

00:16:20.900 very well known and as being part in a Boston marriage who were definitely in a you know

00:16:26.900 legit Boston marriage not yeah we would just call that marriage today right uh and they'll they

00:16:35.340 wrote you know poetry back and forth to each other things like that and it's so obvious like

00:16:40.080 the level of true affection and and not just not just like emotional affection you know sexual

00:16:46.680 affection is is clear in these in these poems you know uh yeah remember darling a year ago today

00:16:52.380 when we gave ourselves to each other like that's not that's not straight there's definitely some

00:16:57.220 it's not and this is like that tends to be the line that i look for when i'm researching stuff

00:17:02.680 like this and it's one of the reasons i find alexander hamilton and john lorenz so complicated

00:17:07.940 because their letters go back and forth um but i i am always looking for the undertone of

00:17:15.520 physicality, which is not to say, I don't want to say that a, that a physical relationship is

00:17:20.680 required for a relationship to be romantic or committed. Um, but generally when I'm looking

00:17:24.960 through letters like this, I'm looking for that kind of, um, that kind of burn that is separate

00:17:31.200 and distinct from, you know, you are the sister of my heart, um, you know, which is also emotional

00:17:37.240 intimacy, but like that tends to be what I'm looking for, um, between the lines. Yeah, exactly.

00:17:42.360 which is you know when we get there are so many cases where people will try to deny it and be

00:17:46.940 like i i dare you i dare you to find an explanation in this piece of poetry that that would not be a

00:17:52.100 like a sexual explanation for this line right attempt i would love to see you try to figure

00:17:56.980 that out uh and it does please tell me what the touching of the soft petals with their dewy drops

00:18:01.820 means to you sir oh they were just picking flowers uh-huh exactly what they were doing right isn't

00:18:08.720 it oh my gosh i'm trying to remember right now for the particular poet who write write something

00:18:13.620 about her you know best friend where it's like i've missed the taste of your mouth and it's like

00:18:17.660 that's not a straight thing to say we're not gonna we can't we can't write that out of history

00:18:24.240 we can't pretend that they that they clearly like you know the taste of somebody's mouth unless like

00:18:30.480 come on now yeah there is this idea too at the time like you said like these close close semi

00:18:37.220 or pseudo-romantic relationships were kind of this norm at the time. And it's true because

00:18:43.580 to a degree, it was seen that they were like practicing, right? Like they're like practicing

00:18:48.700 for marriage, but in a socially acceptable way. And I'm like, oh yeah, because that's what every

00:18:56.160 young queer girl has said to her. When they're making out with their best friends. Yeah.

00:19:01.420 We're just practicing kissing. It's not anything, you know, it's nothing serious,

00:19:05.840 right we're just we just we just want to make sure that we know how to do it so that when we

00:19:09.420 start kissing boys plot twist you're never going to start kissing boys but the other one

00:19:15.520 it was me i was the one who started kissing boys i think i've kissed a couple of boys in my time

00:19:22.740 no no gold star here hate that term um but that term so much that is another episode about how

00:19:29.760 much i hate that term we could definitely do a whole other episode on that uh it's just

00:19:35.720 just to kind of the casual, um, anti, you know, anti-bisexual vibe that comes off in some.

00:19:42.620 Yes. The biphobia is real. The pan phobia, the really is. They're like, well, you can't really

00:19:47.860 be queer. Cause you once kissed a guy like, that's not how that works. Not how anything works,

00:19:52.500 you know, but I think that's also sort of what's, um, you know, with these Boston marriages and

00:19:57.740 these relationships, I also think that that was, I think, and I, I'm trying to remember what book

00:20:02.940 it's in it might be in um it might be in the one about the queer history of the suffragettes or

00:20:08.780 maybe it was a paper i read i wish i could remember but um talking about how these relationships are

00:20:14.720 also a really great place for um homoromantic sapphic asexuals to sort of hide in plain sight

00:20:21.500 um you know because they could be with their partners and living together without any um

00:20:27.380 expectation or pressure that they um would have to participate in something that they were

00:20:32.920 not interested in participating in. And I think that that's such a, I think that's such a wonderful

00:20:37.280 little pocket that those, that those people in this very, you know, sort of rare air of like

00:20:44.420 wealthy enough to do it, educated enough to do it, but were able to just live their lives and

00:20:50.260 that it was all fine and they could just fly under the radar. And I always find it kind of

00:20:55.220 odd that there was this period of time where I'm not going to say that being gay was accepted. It

00:21:00.400 not being queer was not acceptable in society but it was sort of seen as like uh you whatever

00:21:06.160 it really was whatever you do within your own house is your business nobody really kind of is

00:21:10.640 nobody's asking too many questions about what happens within your own home and it's not until

00:21:15.120 like kind of the 1920s and up that we start to see like really really big push against on like

00:21:20.240 sodomy laws and things like that and and that's really when the practice of boston marriages

00:21:25.680 begins to die off. And it's, I think, in a way, it was kind of an unfortunate also effect of the

00:21:31.940 sexual liberation of the 1920s. I was just going to say that the combination of the suffrage movement,

00:21:37.560 which I'm going to shout out that amazing book called Public Faces, Secret Lives by Wendy Rouse,

00:21:41.820 which is about the queer history of the women's suffrage movement. It's amazing.

00:21:46.760 It's so good. But sort of the combination of the sexual liberation of the 20s and the women's

00:21:54.300 suffrage movement had the unintended consequence of making people look at women and go, oh, wait,

00:22:02.260 maybe these are people with, you know, like hopes and dreams and passions and wants and needs

00:22:09.060 independent of what the men in their life need and want. Right. It's not just extensions of men,

00:22:15.160 they are real people. And as a result, it's a double-edged sword where you start to see,

00:22:20.920 like they're like oh they remember women exist uh and realize that women have needs and wants

00:22:26.680 and sexual desires and they're like wait wait if women have those then what's going on wait a

00:22:31.880 minute we're living together and not ever dating any men or getting married or anything like that

00:22:37.320 there's something there's something hinky about this and so when they begin to get accused of

00:22:41.640 you know accused of lesbianism uh which is at the time you know still illegal um and you know it's

00:22:47.880 It's not something that men are much more prone to being, you know, actually put in jail for that crime during this time period than women.

00:22:55.200 But still, it's not socially acceptable.

00:22:57.200 And it would cause them to lose what jobs they had and what respect they had in their society.

00:23:02.460 And so women have to pull away from this.

00:23:05.340 Yeah. And the independence of women has always been a threat to a patriarchal system.

00:23:10.180 Right. And I also think that what happened with Boston marriages, not only, you know, because that also like the beginning of the 20th century is such.

00:23:17.880 an interesting time in American history, because it is also the period in time across the country

00:23:22.800 where the country as a whole is getting more conservative. It's when we're starting to rewrite

00:23:29.520 the mythology of the frontier to tell this, you know, sort of disgusting manifest destiny,

00:23:35.560 you know, strapping men. Yeah. Yeah. And so this is happening across the country. And so,

00:23:41.780 and and i boston marriages i think are just another um you know another victim of this

00:23:49.640 thing happening because i also think they sort of reached a tipping point where it was like

00:23:53.020 you know it was mostly fine they were like concentrated around universities in new england

00:23:58.880 mostly um you know but then i think we got sort of to like a saturation point you know where

00:24:04.280 suddenly it was like wait a minute women want to be able to vote and they want to be able to

00:24:09.280 show their knees and have sex and drink alcohol and now they want to live together and not rely

00:24:17.260 on men in any hold up you know so i think it all sort of you know i think yeah we've had so many

00:24:25.240 periods in american history where we had these sort of like brief um i won't say halcyon because

00:24:31.160 we've always had a lot of problems but brief moments in history you know like reconstruction

00:24:35.000 is like that, where like for a very brief moment, we were on the right track and things were going

00:24:39.720 in the right direction. And then it all just blew up spectacularly, you know, and I sort of feel

00:24:45.160 that way. Somebody has to mess it up, which i.e. men. Straight white men. Straight white men,

00:24:50.420 mostly men in general. Yeah. It's like, I think this might be your problem. Like, I think you

00:24:54.460 may have caused this problem. I think it goes into also, I think what you're saying about like,

00:24:59.540 they're saying, oh, women are now kind of, they're getting some more independence and things like

00:25:03.100 that. And I think it ties in nicely to some of the things we're seeing today with like men's rights

00:25:07.940 activists and people like that who are, who are like, well, you know, women just have too, their

00:25:12.140 expectations are too high and men, you know, they don't need it anymore. And that's a horrible thing.

00:25:17.540 And it's like, well, no, it's not a horrible thing. It's saying that you need to rise up. You

00:25:21.280 need to be better so that women will want to be in a relationship with you, not need to be in a

00:25:26.860 relationship with you. And I think that goes into this a lot where it is like women don't need

00:25:32.920 Yes. They can just rely on each other and have their own money and have their own.

00:25:37.520 We can't have that. That's no. We can't have that.

00:25:39.920 To find a way to push it back, to push women back, which is exactly what MRAs and trad wives and all of that are trying to do now, which is the idea that like, oh, women shouldn't be able to vote and women shouldn't be able to work outside the home because it makes it harder for us to be needed.

00:25:55.540 or it's like it's you know it's it's forcing us to change and grow and adapt and become better

00:26:04.800 humans and like that's sorry you don't want to do the work I don't I don't know what to tell you

00:26:09.320 that's right that's and I don't I don't know you know I'm not really a sociologist so I don't know

00:26:15.020 if this is an American thing or a western thing or or what but this this desire to sort of like

00:26:19.800 drag people down to where you are as opposed to rising up to where they are is just it makes me

00:26:28.280 crazy you know like the whole reason that people exist in communities is to like grow better

00:26:36.500 together to do things together and it just oh it makes me insane it just and I don't think it's a

00:26:42.760 purely American purely an American problem or even a western problem they're you know they're

00:26:47.640 just a human problem i think it's just a human problem and i think it depends culturally like

00:26:51.800 different cultures have different ways of doing it because i know that in uh there is kind of this

00:26:56.040 stigma against being exceptional in some countries right uh that we have that that's a problem in a

00:27:01.880 lot of scandinavian countries where the idea of being exceptional isn't something to be proud of

00:27:06.680 or in japan the idea of like this the nail that sticks out gets hammered down like different if

00:27:11.960 you go outside the norm that's that's not something to be uh that's to be celebrated um and we see

00:27:19.000 that a lot and and of course we also see every culture has had these periods of time where you

00:27:24.280 start to see a little bit of an increase in the rights of the oppressed especially women or people

00:27:30.040 of color and then you very quickly see a backlash against that where it pushes the other direction

00:27:35.800 and like you said the 1920s is this weird period of time well the 20s itself is the roaring 20s

00:27:44.120 we're having a fun fun post-war period for a bit then then we start to see that push back again

00:27:52.360 yeah it's not a great i mean people wanted to let their hair down and have a party after

00:27:56.440 everybody died from the spanish flu right it's a thing um but we'd see that push back again

00:28:01.560 because we start to see things like fascism in America and things like that.

00:28:06.320 And just earlier today, I was walking through the living room

00:28:09.080 and the people in my house are watching a documentary

00:28:13.660 on the German-American Bund in America.

00:28:15.780 And I was like, yep, there you go.

00:28:18.460 There's the growth of fascism in America.

00:28:19.800 Have you read Rachel Maddow's latest book?

00:28:21.680 It is so good.

00:28:23.280 I have it.

00:28:24.060 It's coming.

00:28:24.380 It's coming soon.

00:28:25.360 I've got it shipping.

00:28:26.740 I think it should be here next week on Amazon.

00:28:28.500 So it's so good, but also just so infuriating.

00:28:30.820 just and so and then obviously it's why she wrote it right now but it's so um so resonant to what's

00:28:38.240 going on now of like you know how close to the knife's edge um we really are and it just oh it's

00:28:45.540 so good this has nothing to do with Boston marriages but it's so good and I need you to

00:28:48.720 read it so that we can talk about it I will I will I think it's coming next it's coming sometime

00:28:53.080 this week uh in the mail I know that I ordered it but um I'll probably have to maybe we'll have

00:28:58.480 another episode talking about it just because it'll be okay there's so many things and i think

00:29:04.780 i think it honestly does tie in really well in kind of a general large concept of what we're

00:29:09.360 talking about here which is that is that we are seeing once again that pushback 20s 30s you get

00:29:16.440 that pushback that ruins this one good thing that women had going for them and again we're seeing

00:29:22.880 that same thing now it's something i tell my students all the time when we're talking about

00:29:27.260 history which is that anytime anything you know goes wrong somebody is going to find somebody to

00:29:33.060 blame it on uh and it's usually immigrants or women or you know whatever you're going to find

00:29:38.760 someone who's outside of the the power to blame for it and you're going to try to to destroy

00:29:45.440 anything good that they have and we're seeing that right now in this in this right we're coming up on

00:29:51.360 you know coming up on like what two years now since Roe was overturned things like that which

00:29:57.920 is exactly what they're doing in this case is trying to make it more and more difficult for

00:30:01.540 women to thrive for women to be able to work outside the home I'm going to go off in a

00:30:07.020 feminist rant here but did you see the guy from Kentucky about who was you're gonna have to be

00:30:11.480 more specific yeah I know it's Kentucky guy in Kentucky who's going to pass pass legislations

00:30:16.480 to protect unconceived fetuses oh god yeah i mean between that and the the dude who um

00:30:24.500 is trying to make it legal for people to have sex with their first cousins and you know and

00:30:30.640 the thing about that is that everyone's like oh it was a mistake it's not a mistake they're going

00:30:34.760 after abortion because one of the only reasons that people will allow abortion is in the case

00:30:41.220 of incest and so if you get incest off the books then now there's no reason right it's not a problem

00:30:48.280 anymore it's totally Kentucky I'm like why does Kentucky consistently trying to live down to

00:30:53.640 everyone's worst expectations of them no and can I say I have I've spent a weird amount of time in

00:30:58.580 Kentucky because like I've worked on a project there the people of Kentucky are lovely and

00:31:02.700 normal and it just like everywhere it's just the freaking legislators legislators who are so

00:31:08.620 insane but like everybody says we're a bunch of hicks so we're gonna prove it like i i don't know

00:31:15.440 why why why are you trying to make your state's reputation worse i yeah i i have a problem with

00:31:20.940 kentucky itself good stuff about kentucky people of kentucky i love you your legislators

00:31:27.720 the way that they are like please do something about them in a legal way just vote them out

00:31:34.700 office i'm not saying to do anything bad just the thing you know the thing that's so interesting to

00:31:40.780 me is and you can see this with boston marriages um you can see it like my particular area of

00:31:46.200 nerdery within the vast realm of queer history is queer history of the american frontier um i am

00:31:52.840 just i'm fascinated by it because i you know i think people don't understand how queer and also

00:31:58.740 a little bit how socialist the American frontier was before we started rewriting the narratives.

00:32:06.120 And you can see this in a bunch of, you know, queer people and especially trans people on the

00:32:14.240 American frontier. Like you can watch how the stories that are told about them change as the

00:32:20.100 country is going through this period of really rewriting its own mythology and really sort of

00:32:28.560 retconning the entire history of the frontier yes yeah they just literally in season three

00:32:35.000 were like you know what we're just none of that happened we're gonna rewrite it and and i think

00:32:39.180 you can see that happening with boston marriages too because there are um there are several cases

00:32:44.900 of uh trans people in the american frontier just living in their communities um especially uh

00:32:51.020 trans men who married widows with children um and they you know had long marriages and raised kids

00:32:58.420 and had farms or whatever um a lot of times the communities didn't even know they were trans until

00:33:02.760 they died um and then it was sort of like not an issue you know they were just like oh didn't know

00:33:07.660 that about frank and then they sort of went on with their lives um but then as the story starts

00:33:12.460 to change you suddenly you know these trans people are the um you know the worst thing that ever

00:33:17.840 happened to the country and they're destroying the morals and they're ruining the frontier and

00:33:20.700 like and you can see that happening with boston marriages too because for a while they were

00:33:24.420 absolutely seen as a completely respectable um you know expected way for you know women who

00:33:32.240 weren't suited for marriage to sort of get on with their lives and you can watch the stories

00:33:35.780 about them change where you're talking about the same women in the same relationships but suddenly

00:33:40.920 you know they're suspected of being you know lesbians and perverts and they're um you know

00:33:46.160 they're they're drawing young women into their web of it just but it's like that's the thing

00:33:52.900 that kills me is that you're talking about the same people and it's just the story around them

00:33:57.540 that is changing and being able as historians to stand back and watch that story change

00:34:02.700 is wild it's wild wild it's it's mind-boggling because you see it happening and it happens over

00:34:11.260 and over again and then you watch it happen again like in the modern day on an issue and it's like

00:34:16.620 do you you guys realize that we've done this before we've had this conversation before and

00:34:22.720 realized you know like that we were wrong in that case too so why are you doing this yeah and I on

00:34:29.620 the frontier have you mentioned the frontier I was an episode I did a little while ago which was

00:34:33.160 women in homesteading and um and it was I mean that's one of the things that I I didn't really

00:34:38.160 talk about it a lot in there but there were women that were homesteading together like they would

00:34:42.940 get their homesteading land together and then they'd build their house across their property

00:34:46.140 line and they lived together and some of them would end up marrying men but a lot of times

00:34:50.760 they just stayed together and farmed their farmed and it's like that's that's not uh we can't call

00:34:55.260 it a boston marriage because it's not new england it's not around it's an oklahoma marriage

00:35:00.200 oklahoma marriage i don't know i think an oklahoma marriage has more to do with the incest law

00:35:04.740 that's not fair to oklahoma sorry oklahoma i'm from arkansas everybody makes those jokes about

00:35:11.620 my state too yeah i mean it's just they're one of my favorite stories is that there were um

00:35:18.740 um when you know fur trapping was a was a huge trade for a while and when um fur trapping sort

00:35:26.460 of got out of fashion when the bottom fell out of the whole industry there were a bunch of male

00:35:31.480 fur trappers who you know had lived for years lived together in camps and like trapped together

00:35:35.880 and worked together and decided they just didn't feel like rejoining society they were sort of

00:35:41.000 uninterested in that and like 20 or 30 of them all bought this big piece of land in um arizona

00:35:48.260 I think or maybe New Mexico and just move there all these men together and just like they just

00:35:54.040 stayed together they were not interested in being a part of sort of this new story that was being

00:35:58.260 told or like rejoining this new world and they just went and founded a queer bird trappers colony and

00:36:04.660 they all stayed there till they died and that's like it's my favorite story and also I wish I

00:36:09.140 could have hung out with all of those men because I'm sure that was a slightly cranky good time

00:36:14.820 If I ever win the lottery, I am so starting a queer commune somewhere.

00:36:21.120 I am there.

00:36:22.140 It will be hidden away.

00:36:23.360 No one will know where we are.

00:36:24.980 It'll be, well, it won't just be queer.

00:36:27.120 I'll allow all my great female friends to join in.

00:36:31.040 I'm an excellent gardener.

00:36:32.520 I'm a really good cook.

00:36:33.920 I'm a good baker.

00:36:35.500 You know, it'll be great.

00:36:37.040 I am, however, a terrible gardener.

00:36:39.040 So, but yeah, I think it'd be great.

00:36:40.720 We'll just bring up the Boston marriages thing, only turn it into a commune.

00:36:44.640 and then it'll be great it's perfect the best situation with a possible being

00:36:49.240 maybe uh maybe i'll win a little bit watery soon and we can make this happen yeah i love it i'm in

00:36:56.560 sounds great yeah it doesn't sound like i'm joining a cult at all sounds great i mean come

00:37:02.300 on now who wouldn't want to join a cult run by me i'm great it's me i would not like to join any

00:37:08.500 cold run by anyone okay fair enough it's not not going to demand anything from you except

00:37:14.420 so i'll have to wear white dresses and we all have to braid our hair the same way

00:37:19.540 no absolutely not doing that we're not we're not turning this into midsummer

00:37:24.200 we're not what we're going for here at all still don't understand some marriages to our queer

00:37:31.360 commune questions people are just like what what are we listening to anymore right episode has

00:37:39.000 gone off the rails this is how guest episodes go my most recent guest episode with uh uh with

00:37:45.060 elena went kind of off the rails too it's all right we get we get into these weird conversations

00:37:50.800 occasionally yeah well i mean i think it you know truly it's because you cannot put you cannot talk

00:37:56.700 about just one thing in history because it is all interconnected and especially when you are

00:38:02.160 talking about any groups that have been historically marginalized whether that is women or queer people

00:38:07.160 or black people like there is so much intersection in the way that those groups are oppressed and

00:38:13.900 the way that they are you know prevented from um you know thriving essentially that it's like you

00:38:20.320 can't you can't just talk about Boston marriages because you have to talk about the context of

00:38:23.960 like what was going on in the world at the time and like why did it change why did we have sort

00:38:27.980 of like 50 years give or take where where boston marriages were fine and then suddenly everyone

00:38:33.820 thought they were super weird because it also because it applies to the modern day like we're

00:38:38.420 saying yeah you can see it repeating in history and and that's one of the biggest struggles i

00:38:43.260 have when teaching like non-history majors history is that they think it's just a bunch of boring

00:38:47.140 stuff that doesn't apply to their lives and i'm like yeah let's try to explain to you how this

00:38:52.080 is still ongoing and how the lessons we can learn from this can be applied here uh we're talking

00:38:58.000 about about um tenement buildings and and how bad in it during the 1800s and i was like you know

00:39:05.560 people started rioting because of the fact that their rents were too high and they're

00:39:09.680 they were living in horrible places uh being upkept and i and then i stopped and i was like

00:39:14.740 huh sounds like today that sounds familiar sounds familiar sounds like maybe we might

00:39:21.620 have not learned our lesson from this, but which, you know, I'm sure some student is going to be

00:39:26.000 like, she's being too political. I did. I literally said in class on Friday night, I was like, I hate

00:39:31.080 landlords. I mean, and then one of the kids are like, but also just landlords. I was like, also

00:39:36.620 just landlords. Yeah. I mean, you know, I think it's, I always, the thing that's interesting to

00:39:43.420 me, cause as you know, like I am not a, I'm not an academic historian. I did not, you know, come

00:39:48.080 up through the university system. I don't have a doctorate or anything. So one of the things that

00:39:53.260 I realized sort of very organically is that when you start to study these things and look at how

00:39:59.600 everything is connected, like it's, do you remember those magic eye posters? You might be a little too

00:40:04.360 young, but they were like super huge in like the nineties. And it was like, you know, it just looks

00:40:09.060 like a page full of swirls and you have to like, you know, focus just right. And then you can see

00:40:13.000 like a sailboat or whatever. And that is very much how history feels to me now, where it's like,

00:40:19.580 I can't not see the boat, you know, of like, oh, I see how this is all connected. I see how we sort

00:40:25.360 of keep repeating this cycle. And I think a lot of people would probably find that, I think a lot

00:40:29.860 of people probably do find that discouraging. But in a way, I find it sort of hopeful, because we

00:40:34.720 don't go all the way back every time, you know, and it's a frustrating way to make progress,

00:40:39.860 Cause I think we all want things to be, you know, linear and easy.

00:40:43.740 And this is definitely, it's definitely a three steps forward, two steps back kind of

00:40:48.400 situation, but we're not quite, you know, we're not quite falling all the way back,

00:40:54.560 but we're not quite moving all the way forward either at the same time, which is unfortunate.

00:40:57.540 And yeah, we just going to, I think we, I think that's just the nature of the beast

00:41:01.860 because we do some long-term fight between like the progressive side of things and the,

00:41:07.040 and the conservative side of things and people who hate change and don't want anything to change

00:41:12.080 because you know it's going to make life more difficult for them somehow somehow and that's

00:41:17.200 that's the thing that kills me especially about um you know especially about all of this this

00:41:22.760 viciously cruel legislation around trans people i'm like how does the existence of trans people

00:41:27.940 impact your life at all yeah like it does it doesn't it somebody whipped you up about this

00:41:33.300 you know you saw a post on you know whatever right-wing website and now you're all spun up

00:41:39.140 about it but it's like trans people have existed since the beginning of history and it has literally

00:41:44.840 no impact on your life whatsoever right how would you you know how how i i can think of a number of

00:41:51.360 things that i'm more concerned about than anything like no point has a trans person being in the

00:41:56.720 bathroom with me ever been on the list of things i'm worried about like at all um i would i would

00:42:01.380 take a hundred trans women in a bathroom over one creepy straight dude right exactly i have no you

00:42:07.640 know and i think that really is i think it's what it comes down to is like that they are afraid that

00:42:12.840 they are just losing control of the narrative and losing control of of the situation yeah and i do

00:42:17.980 think and i think and i do think this is what happened um also at the time when boston marriages

00:42:23.120 suddenly people started looking at them side eye is i do think that um i do think that men

00:42:31.040 in particular straight men legitimately feel sort of like lost in the modern world um because all

00:42:37.480 the things they were promised are not true like they do not have dominion over the world like

00:42:42.600 they don't get to decide what women do with their bodies so i think um i i think rightfully there

00:42:50.740 are a lot of people who feel very lost and very angry and scared um the problem is how they are

00:42:57.080 expressing that yeah you know and that they are trying to hold tighter to this idea of this world

00:43:03.720 that never existed you know they have this vision in their heads that comes out of some leave it to

00:43:09.940 beaver reruns about like how the world used to be and that never that world literally never existed

00:43:14.420 maybe for a certain subset of middle-class white people but certainly not for anybody else

00:43:19.380 and I think that's what you see in the 20s too where suddenly people are like oh my god I don't

00:43:25.320 understand the world oh my god i don't understand young people oh my god it's all it's all gone

00:43:30.560 insane um you know and it's just this it's i mean in general every i think almost everything terrible

00:43:36.720 that happens is at some point driven by uh fear and lack of understanding um you know which does

00:43:42.180 not remove certainly the uh responsibility for that like you don't you don't you don't get to

00:43:49.160 do things just because you're afraid of change and that that makes it it doesn't but but i do

00:43:53.160 murder kind of situation. Like you've got, but that doesn't make it a good reason to do what

00:43:58.440 you're doing. And I think one of the things that I think today, especially one of the things that

00:44:01.960 we're dealing with, and, uh, I have a bumper sticker on the back of my car and it's always

00:44:06.040 funny to me that, that I, you know, guys, guys driving trucks like to tailgate me. I think it's

00:44:10.180 because I see the sticker and it's, you know, one of those, uh, you know, uh, have the confidence

00:44:15.400 of a mediocre white man sticker. And, um, and I know it makes him mad and, and I'm like, well,

00:44:21.520 you're just telling on yourself because you think you're a mediocre white, but I think what it comes

00:44:25.300 down to is that they feel like they've been promised a certain amount of certain something

00:44:29.540 because of a white man. They've been promised a certain level of success or notoriety or something,

00:44:35.380 and now that's not enough. Being a white man isn't enough to get that anymore. You have to

00:44:39.620 actually go above and beyond, and I think a lot of this has to do with, and this is getting off

00:44:44.060 topic again, but this will be a great episode for off topic. This will be a chaotic episode for

00:44:49.880 Valentine's Day, everybody. I think it's great because it all just, you know, connects. But

00:44:55.780 I think a good portion of this is to do with like, I'm writing a research paper right now

00:45:02.720 in the 1950s. And it has to do a lot with the weird promise that we made with the American

00:45:08.320 dream, right? If you work hard and you do everything you're supposed to do, you'll be

00:45:15.840 wealthy. You'll make a success out of yourself. And we see so many people that's not

00:45:19.640 happened to and instead of it's an absolute lie right instead of blaming the lie and saying hey

00:45:24.860 about how to get success we're going to blame the people we see as the problem which is i don't

00:45:31.020 know women being in the workforce or people or black people or whoever else because it's not

00:45:37.360 it's you know it's not even their fault necessarily that they haven't been successful

00:45:40.920 and they haven't become the next elon musk right it's a lie system doesn't work for anybody except

00:45:46.140 billionaires like newsflash the system is stacked against literally everybody to varying degrees

00:45:52.120 like white men it's stacked against the least but and so you said and you see that when they realize

00:45:58.160 the lie or they realize that they are not getting what they've been promised and this goes all the

00:46:01.860 way back to the boston marriage thing they have to lash out against somebody and in the case of

00:46:05.740 the 1920s and 1930s that is people of color and it is also women who are not not giving them their

00:46:12.520 do right not yeah not being subservient to them because they're saying this is causing us a

00:46:17.320 problem because women are deciding to be independent and that's not helpful for us uh yeah i was i was

00:46:23.560 promised a wife and a mother for my children and you know that's all the women aren't doing that

00:46:28.200 what i want and you know that's unfortunate it's like maybe work on yourself or work on the system

00:46:33.960 that promised you things that's harder but that's hard i mean literally that's harder and i think

00:46:39.480 the thing that is true of you know i think again all all people from groups have been marginalized

00:46:48.120 to varying degrees um it's easier to see this scaffolding of the oppression you know what i

00:46:53.960 mean whereas if you are a person for whom the system has theoretically been designed

00:46:59.560 and you are not thriving in that system um you know your your first inclination is not going to

00:47:07.680 be to look at the scaffolding and to blame the system like your first inclination and again i'm

00:47:12.500 not excusing this behavior i think it's reprehensible and i think all of these men need

00:47:16.120 to shut the fuck up and go find a good therapist and pay them a lot of money to help them work

00:47:20.320 through all of this um you know but i do think that that you know that their first instinct is

00:47:27.540 to blame the other to blame the unknown to blame the new to blame you know whatever it is that they

00:47:32.940 don't um understand you know and it's and it's not our problem to fix that's the other thing um

00:47:39.360 i don't know if you follow uh portion noir on tiktok who i love and adore uh but she says this

00:47:44.740 all the time you know that like there are people who are willing to teach and you should learn that

00:47:50.040 but like not our responsibility you know to explain the problem to you you should be able to

00:47:56.980 figure this out yourself definitely uh yeah so i think it's definitely the case and it's it's

00:48:02.780 kind of just a repeated thing. We see it over and over again. I know you say, you were saying,

00:48:06.380 oh, it's easy to get like bogged down in it. And I'm the person who always gets bogged down in the

00:48:10.400 repetition of everything bad. Like, I'm just like, oh, we have learned nothing. Like, why are we-

00:48:15.800 I tend to get bogged down in the repetition of the good, of the part where people, you know,

00:48:21.200 come together and rise up and force a change for the good of everyone. That's the part that I get

00:48:27.880 bogged down in and I love that that I love that you're a positive optimistic person about this

00:48:33.240 and I'm not otherwise I'd never get off my couch man I would just I would just lay on my couch in

00:48:38.980 a pit of despair at all times like I just I have to I have to appreciate the fact that Boston

00:48:44.900 marriages existed yeah for a while you know I have to appreciate the fact that men coming back

00:48:51.040 from World War II founded motorcycle gangs so that they could keep having queer sex and wearing

00:48:56.260 uniforms, you know, like. Exactly. I've got to appreciate that about this. For me, the thing

00:49:02.100 that keeps me from curling up in a ball and on the couch is I have Zoloft for that. That's what,

00:49:06.980 that's what. That's what the Zoloft is for. I mean, yes, that is also what the Wellbutrin is

00:49:13.040 for, but. Exactly. But yeah, I mean, I try, I do try to see the positives in these things. Man,

00:49:19.200 I wouldn't make this podcast if I didn't think there was some positive effect about teaching

00:49:23.160 history. Right. But yeah, I mean, and it's not even like, I hate the sort of like, you got to

00:49:28.180 stay positive. Like, I kind of hate all of that as a, as a life setting. But, but my default setting

00:49:37.820 is optimism. My default setting is not positivity, especially in that sort of like, false plastic

00:49:44.800 smile, everything's fine kind of way. But my default setting is optimism. And I just, for my

00:49:51.880 own mental health, if nothing else, have to believe that we always come back around to a time

00:49:56.960 where people say enough is enough. And it's very hard to believe right now with all the things

00:50:03.240 going on in the world. Maybe sometime, maybe, maybe, maybe in a few more years, maybe things

00:50:08.780 will get better. That'd be nice. That is my hope. That's my, that's what I want. Everybody should

00:50:15.200 try to make that happen. That'd be nice if we all try to be a better place, you know, just a little

00:50:19.400 bit tiny bit uh unfortunately a lot of people don't want to make it a better place but you know

00:50:23.600 i guess a few of us can make a change make change on it anyway and try yeah i mean as someone who

00:50:29.060 continued to do a thing i was very good at but hated a lot that made me miserable for much too

00:50:34.580 long um i sort of understand the whole like devil you know thing i do yeah i get it so thank you so

00:50:42.140 much for coming on and talk we had this was a great episode despite being all over the place

00:50:46.340 because i really love how history interconnects on things and so it is just boston marriages and

00:50:51.820 other things calling this episode uh boston marriages and everything else that you know

00:50:57.840 is a problem in the world um yeah oh god uh it's a valentine's day episode guys valentine's day

00:51:04.900 nothing says romance like a far-reaching conversation about history yes that's why

00:51:13.680 love language and if you're this is a great time if you are in a heterosexual relationship to

00:51:18.600 explain the problems of you know heteronormativity to your male partner or something i don't know i

00:51:24.400 don't like it i don't know what straight people do on valentine's day i i don't know make it i

00:51:29.940 had a guy take me to olive garden once i mean it does have really good breadsticks

00:51:34.600 they do have excellent breadsticks yeah great so we're uh i know you mentioned at the beginning

00:51:41.280 the episode where we could find you but yes you can you can find me on tiktok and instagram

00:51:46.380 at yesterqueers and also at yesterqueers.com awesome yep her content is so amazing i love

00:51:52.740 all of it so thanks all right well i will see you guys back here next week

00:51:57.040 i know i know i know i have not been around i've not been putting out my weekly episode

00:52:11.040 the show is on a weird hiatus right now this episode was pre-recorded so I decided to go

00:52:16.440 ahead and get it out on the day that it was scheduled for but this semester has just been a

00:52:22.940 nightmare so it's just been a lot of work I'm really trying to keep up with you know everything

00:52:28.400 for my students who obviously take priority when it there's a semester on right so hope you guys

00:52:35.660 don't mind the fact that once again, my posting schedule is a little bit chaotic. Also, I'm

00:52:41.480 juggling a bunch of stuff like writing conference papers for conferences that I have to present in

00:52:46.220 in March and April. I'm writing a book chapter. There's a lot going on. I have a lot on my plate

00:52:51.720 right now. That being said, I do have a set of plans for new episodes going forward. I just need

00:52:58.500 to sit down and write them. I also have a huge slate of guests that I'm going to have on just

00:53:04.200 just a ton of great people that I'm going to have on in the coming months. Um, so please stick with

00:53:10.240 me. Do not get so frustrated that you unsubscribe. That would make me feel really, really bad. Um,

00:53:16.460 just, you know, keep the, keep me on your, on your subscription page for whatever podcast, uh,

00:53:23.200 platform that you use. And I will get back to regular posting as soon as I am possibly capable

00:53:30.520 of doing so. But until then, thanks for sticking around.

Bitchy History - February 15, 2024

Boston Marriages and Women’s Right to Self-Determination

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