Women and men

Quotes

Comment

“these Oxbridge boys. Your historians” – pg. 8 HM

• Mrs. Lintott is the only female character in the play who has a ‘speaking’ role
• Mrs. Lintott is marginalised within the school ⇒ she is expected to do the grunt work of providing a solid foundation of ⇒ to make the boys “factually tip-top”
• But when it comes to the last important push to get the Boys into Oxbridge, she is passed over
• Hector, unlike Mrs. Lintott, gives himself the starring role in the ‘team’
• Rudge looks down on Mrs. Lintott, because he sees her lessons as “limited” because she is a woman
  • Men decide the contents of the education system ⇒ men define history ⇒ women (if they are lucky…) get to help teach it

“Vous étes un soldat” – pg. 15 Hector

• When the HM enters, Hector changes the scene where the boys are playing women and talking about sex to a more masculine scene ⇒ soldiers in wartime.
• Gender and sexuality are more fluid in Hector’s classroom than in the outside world – seen as “appropriate” in Hector’s class but makes HM concerned or angry

“Story-telling … is what men do naturally” – pg. 22 Mrs. Lintott

• The way people write history has to do with their gender
• Suggests Irwin’s educational philosophy is incomplete – DOES NOT acknowledge the way that women would tell the story
  • ⇒ Irwin is telling a limited story about the past

“One ought to know these things” – pg. 50 Mrs. Lintott

• Mrs. Lintott suspects that Irwin might have feelings for Dakin – she has cautioned Hector against being seduced by Dakin and she subtly tells Irwin the same thing
• Mrs. Lintott operates behind the scenes to help protect two major male characters in the play
• She is astute enough to sense their attraction to their students (⇒ so women are more rational than men) ⇒ and she tries to minimise the damage to the school’s reputation
  • ⇒ Women operate behind the scenes of history

“My wife…looks out of the window” – pg. 51 HM

• An off-stage female character (“wife”) changes the course of history ⇒ suggesting that women are a major driving force in the story
• This further dramatises the fact that women are often left out of a narrative, although they can have a large impact on society
  
  • The mere fact that Bennett has many more male characters than female ones emphasises this point

“Our Headmaster is a twat” – pg. 69 Mrs. Lintott

• Mrs. Lintott says it is condescending of the HM to assume so much discretion on her part
• HM treats her as a safe person because she is a woman – she would be discreet
• We have ONLY heard a male perspective of the events

“Women so seldom get a turn for a start” – pg. 83 Mrs. Lintott

• Women do not get the opportunity in life – as shown in this play, only one woman. And it is an all boys school.

“ ‘The world is everything that can be made to seem the case’ ” – pg. 84 Mrs. Lintott

• The men in the room have been blind to gender which affects admissions
• Irwin’s way of looking at things is “everything that can be made to seem the case” – straight male privilege. Able to shape history however he wants
  • There is no ‘one’ historical truth – it all depends on perspective and gender.
• Women DO NOT “get carried away…with the bow-wow school of history” – they do not promote whatever new thought that comes into their heads and then “find evidence”

“[women] never get round the conference table” – pg. 84 Mrs. Lintott

• History is more painful for women than men – Mrs. Lintott puts emotion into her argument – like Hector

“History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men” – pg. 85 Mrs. Lintott

“History is women following behind with the bucket” – pg. 85 Mrs. Lintott

• History is made up of men’s mistakes and women working strenuously to clean up their mess
• Women’s role in society (and history) is secondary; they are not the main face of history (instead they work in the background)
• The use of the verb “following” shows that women are not able to forge their own part of history; instead, they have to pick up the past pieces of men’s mistakes