Men develop ideas and systems of explanation by absorbing past knowledge and critiquing and superseding it. Women, ignorant of their own history [do] not know what women before them had thought and taught. So generation after generation, they [struggle] for insights others had already had before them, [resulting in] the constant inventing of the wheel.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of understanding and building upon past knowledge to avoid redundancy and struggle.
Gerda Lerner highlights the way in which men often create new ideas and systems by learning from and evolving past understandings, while women may not have the same access to their historical contributions. This lack of awareness can lead to repeated struggles in discovering insights that have been previously established, ultimately suggesting that recognizing and honoring the past is crucial for growth and advancement.
In practice
In a seminar on women's studies, this quote could be used to discuss the need for historical awareness in women's contributions.
Everything that explains the world has in fact explained a world that does not exist, a world in which men are at the center of the human enterprise and women are at the margin "helping' them. Such a world does not exist - never has.
When I started working on women's history about thirty years ago, the field did not exist. People didn't think that women had a history worth knowing.
Hear this or not, as you will. Learn it now, or later -- the world has time. Routine, repetition, tedium, monotony, ephemeracy, inconsequence, abstraction, disorder, boredom, angst, ennui -- these are the true hero's enemies, and make no mistake, they are fearsome indeed. For they are real.
A glorious failure can sometimes be more life affirming than a cautious win.
Guard your own spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds.
The older I get, the less I obsess about material stuff. In fact, stuff has become the enemy. There always seems to be more of it than I have storage in my house!
It's not about the past; it's about knowing your history so that you can fight in the present. Otherwise, you don't know who the real enemy is, what the real issue is, because it had been covered by many layers of bad information, of lies, and manipulation.
You cannot invent an algorithm that is as good at recommending books as a good bookseller, and that's the secret weapon of the bookstore - is that no algorithm will ever understand readers the way that other readers can understand readers.
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