Bowerbirds
Dec. 18th, 2008 12:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annundrielI was reading Stephen Colbert's I am America (And So Can You!) a couple of weeks ago and ran across this:
Which just struck as really strange considering my professor in Masculinity in the Middle Ages, who would sometimes bring in things she thought reflected themes we were discussing, once had us watch a clip of David Attenborough talking about bowerbirds. (This one, I think.) Because in their behavoir there's a reversal of how humans expect gender roles to work.
I think we were reading Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde at the time. Or she brought it up in context with the background reading we did on knights and brotherhoods and chivalry.
I miss that class. And now I want to re-read "Parlement of Foules."
Anyway. It was just weird to run into the same thing used for a similar example by Stephen Colbert.
Unfortunately, most of today's women resemble bowerbirds that force suitors to build elaborate nests of twigs, leaves, and discarded garbage before choosing a mate. Any male who doesn't meet her standards doesn't get to mate that year; one assumes he just stays in his bower, reads bower manuals, and watches bowerbird porn.
Which just struck as really strange considering my professor in Masculinity in the Middle Ages, who would sometimes bring in things she thought reflected themes we were discussing, once had us watch a clip of David Attenborough talking about bowerbirds. (This one, I think.) Because in their behavoir there's a reversal of how humans expect gender roles to work.
I think we were reading Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde at the time. Or she brought it up in context with the background reading we did on knights and brotherhoods and chivalry.
I miss that class. And now I want to re-read "Parlement of Foules."
Anyway. It was just weird to run into the same thing used for a similar example by Stephen Colbert.
