![]() ![]() Downey continues by noting that “library planners were open to hiring women for these jobs because, in addition to their belief that women were suited for work within the walls of the library, they also knew that they could hire them for much lower salaries,” something that continued throughout the 20th century, as feminist women librarians fighting for better employment rights would discover decades later.ĭespite the association of women librarians with the sexist stereotype of the True Woman, there were plenty of examples of women librarians and library workers defying these patriarchal constraints and engaging in feminist activism. The “True Woman,” a stereotype rooted in passive femininity and patriarchal concepts of respectability, meant that women librarians were seen as productive members of capitalist society that nonetheless remained non-threatening to patriarchy a woman librarian would never out-earn her male counterpart, or any other middle-class man that she might one day marry. Librarianship was promoted as a perfect career for the True Woman, because it would allow her to use her natural qualities of purity, submissiveness, domesticity, and nurturance.” Downey dissects the idea of the True Woman, a role conforming to stereotypes of femininity, and argues that “white, educated, middle-class women were expected to find work that would still allow them to be True Women. When discussing women librarians in America in the late 19th and early 20th century in her essay “The History, Progression, and Issues of Women Librarians,” Annie L. Image from Pixabay Women Librarians and Feminist Activism A close look at feminist and library history shows just how intertwined the two fields are. Stereotypes around librarians have been impacted by stereotypes about womanhood and femininity at the same time, women librarians and library workers have been important, but underrated, figures in the fight for equality. The association of women with librarianship and library work has developed alongside, and intersected with, wider feminist discussions on the roles of women in society and questions of equal pay and employment rights. The stereotype of the stern or sexy female librarian is common, and while there are some well-known fictional male librarians (Lucien from the Sandman comics, The Librarian from the Discworld series…who is a male orangutan rather than a human man, but I think he still counts), many are female: Batman‘s Barbara Gordon, Lirael in her eponymous novel, and Marian Ashcroft in Beautiful Creatures, among others. today are women indeed, the only point at which male librarians were the majority was in the 1880s, where men just tipped the scales at 52% of the librarian workforce. According to an Oxford University Press study, 83% of librarians working in the U.S. Librarianship and library work is currently a mostly female profession, and has been so throughout much of library history. And as they count down the last days of the season together, she begins to tell him the story of another Christmas, decades earlier-and the love that set her on a course she never could have imagined. Increasingly dependent on a young assistant, she finds herself becoming close to him. Renowned travel photographer Maggie Dawes is unexpectedly grounded over Christmas, struggling to come to terms with a sobering medical diagnosis. From the author of The Notebook and The Return comes a novel about the enduring legacy of first love and the decisions that haunt us forever. ![]()
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