Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 46

[cahn]

Background: The kids' school has a topic for "Unit" every trimester that a lot of their work (reading, writing, some math) revolves around. These topics range from time/geographic periods ('Colonial America') to geography ('Asia') to science ('Space') to social science ('Business and Economics'). (I have some issues with this way of doing things, but that's a whole separate post.) Anyway, for Reasons, they have had to come up with a new topic this year, and E's 7/8 class is doing "World Fairs" as their new topic.

Me: I know E's teacher is all about World Fairs and I know she is great and will do a good job. But I feel like if we had a different teacher who wasn't so into World Fairs, they wouldn't do such a good job and another topic would be better.
Me: Like... the Enlightenment!
D: Heh, you could teach that! But you'd have to restrain yourself from making everything about Frederick the Great.
Me: But that's the thing! Everyone does relate to each other in this time period! Voltaire -- and his partner Émilie du Châtelet, who was heavily involved in the discourse of conservation of energy and momentum -- well, I've told you Voltaire had a thing with Fritz -- and then there's Empress Maria Theresa, who went to war with him a few times -- and Catherine the Great --
D, meditatively: You know --
Me: *am innocently not warned even though this is the same tone of voice that is often followed by, say, a bad pun*
D: -- it's impressive how everyone from this 'the Great' family is so famous!
Me: *splutters*
D, thoughtfully: But of course there's probably selection bias, as the ones who aren't famous don't get mentioned. You never see 'Bob the Great' in the history books...
Me: *splutters more*

Comments

Anne/Jean-Baptiste Grandjean

[cahn]

Wow! That's crazy. I read the transcript at your link and have so many questions that will never be answered. Did Grandjean mind being basically forcibly transitioned to be a man? WTF with the verdict that Grandjean was a woman but couldn't associate with other women?? Did that really get upheld? Poor Grandjean and Lambert!

On the bright side (I guess), it's kind of cool that when Grandjean transitioned, everyone seems to have been like "ok yeah sure" except for the vindictive ex.

Re: Anne/Jean-Baptiste Grandjean

[luzula]

WTF with the verdict that Grandjean was a woman but couldn't associate with other women??
I know, that one is so weird! Because it's not like women would usually spend their time socially with men (who weren't their family), so if she didn't have male family, that would mean she'd be quite lonely. If, that is, (s)he actually did what the verdict said...

Re: Anne/Jean-Baptiste Grandjean

[mildred_of_midgard]

It seems to me that it's the same reasoning as us (i.e., our society's justice system) keeping convicted pedophiles away from children. I mean, the main reason the podcast gives for her confessor making her wear male clothing was to keep her away from girls:

He told the young person that she could not remain any longer without crime in woman’s clothing, that this clothing gave her too easy access to girls of her age.

So the way I see it, the verdict of the appeal was just keeping that part of the confessor's original decision, which it apparently deemed the correct part.

Re: Anne/Jean-Baptiste Grandjean

[cahn]

I get the reasoning! It just seems like an absurdly cruel and unusual punishment when women are basically the only people she would be hanging out with in the normal way of things (or at least that's my understanding?). Like, it's not particularly a cruel or unusual punishment to keep a convicted pedophile away from children, because pedophiles can hang out with other people who aren't children.

I mean, maybe I missed something (a lot about this case did surprise me) and maybe men's society would welcome her even with a woman's name and clothing, in which case I guess that's more-or-less okay.