Bluestocking
Encyclopedia
A bluestocking is an educated, intellectual
Intellectual
An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...

 woman. Until the late 18th century, the term had referred to learned people of both sexes. However it subsequently was applied primarily to intellectual women, and the French equivalent bas bleu had a similar connotation. The term later developed negative implications, and in some instances such women were stereotyped as being "frumpy". The reference to blue stocking
Stocking
A stocking, , is a close-fitting, variously elastic garment covering the foot and lower part of the leg. Stockings vary in color, design and transparency...

s may arise from the time when woolen worsted
Worsted
Worsted , is the name of a yarn, the cloth made from this yarn, and a yarn weight category. The name derives from the village of Worstead in the English county of Norfolk...

 stockings were informal dress, in contrast to formal, fashionable black silk stockings. Curiously, the most frequent such reference is to a man, Benjamin Stillingfleet
Benjamin Stillingfleet
Benjamin Stillingfleet was a botanist, translator and author. He is said to be the first Blue Stocking, a phrase from which is derived the term bluestocking now used to describe a learned woman.-Life:...

, who reportedly lacked the formal black stockings, yet still participated in the Blue Stockings Society.

History

John Amos Comenius referred to bluestockings in 1638, deploring how women had been excluded from higher education in ancient times. The name may also have been applied in the 15th century to the blue stockings worn by the members of the Compagnie della Calza
Compagnie della Calza
The Compagnie della Calza were theatrical associations in Venice in the 15th and 16th centuries. The members wore distinctive hosiery which gave them their name and met to arrange entertainments such as feasts and games....

in Venice, which then was adopted in Paris and London; and in the 17th century to the Covenanter
Covenanter
The Covenanters were a Scottish Presbyterian movement that played an important part in the history of Scotland, and to a lesser extent in that of England and Ireland, during the 17th century...

s in Scotland, who wore unbleached woollen stockings, in contrast to the bleached or dyed stockings of the more affluent.

The Blue Stockings Society was a literary society led by Elizabeth Montagu
Elizabeth Montagu
Elizabeth Montagu was a British social reformer, patron of the arts, salonist, literary critic, and writer who helped organize and lead the bluestocking society...

 and others in the 1750s in England. This society was originally founded by women, and included many prominent members of English society, both male and female, including Harriet Bowdler, Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....

, Sarah Fielding
Sarah Fielding
Sarah Fielding was a British author and sister of the novelist Henry Fielding. She was the author of The Governess, or The Little Female Academy , which was the first novel in English written especially for children , and had earlier achieved success with her novel The Adventures of David Simple...

, Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...

, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
The Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was an English aristocrat and writer. Montagu is today chiefly remembered for her letters, particularly her letters from Turkey, as wife to the British ambassador, which have been described by Billie Melman as “the very first example of a secular work by a woman about...

 and Frances Pulteney. M.P
M.P. (play)
M.P. is an 1811 comedy play by Thomas Moore first staged at the Lyceum Theatre by Samuel James Arnold. The plot concerns a Member of Parliament Sir Charles Canvas who has cheated his elder brother, a naval officer Captain Canvas, out of his inheritance...

, an 1811 play by the Irish writer Thomas Moore
Thomas Moore
Thomas Moore was an Irish poet, singer, songwriter, and entertainer, now best remembered for the lyrics of The Minstrel Boy and The Last Rose of Summer. He was responsible, with John Murray, for burning Lord Byron's memoirs after his death...

, was also known as The Blue Stocking. It contained a character Lady Bab Blue who was a parody of bluestockings.

Intellectual women have increased greatly in number since, as women now enter higher education
Higher education
Higher, post-secondary, tertiary, or third level education refers to the stage of learning that occurs at universities, academies, colleges, seminaries, and institutes of technology...

 in large numbers. For example, in Britain, women are now 55% of new entrants to university
University
A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...

 and outnumber men at every level up to PhD
PHD
PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

. But beliefs persist about the need to dress fashion
Fashion
Fashion, a general term for a currently popular style or practice, especially in clothing, foot wear, or accessories. Fashion references to anything that is the current trend in look and dress up of a person...

ably and an old saying is "women don't become bluestockings until men have tired of looking at their legs." Successful intellectual women such as Susan Greenfield
Susan Greenfield
Susan Adele Greenfield, Baroness Greenfield, CBE is a British scientist, writer, broadcaster, and member of the House of Lords. Greenfield, whose specialty is the physiology of the brain, has worked to research and bring attention to Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease.Greenfield is...

 and Noreena Hertz
Noreena Hertz
Professor Noreena Hertz is an English economist, author and campaigner.In her 2002 book The Silent Takeover: Global Capitalism and The Death of Democracy, Hertz warned that unregulated markets, corporate greed, and over-powerful financial institutions would have serious global consequences that...

 dress attractively for publicity photoshoots. Even former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...

 was described by the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 in 1957 as "very pretty, and dresses most attractively. Very feminine ... her main charm was that she does not look like a career woman.""The Bluestocking" is the name of the yearbook of Mary Baldwin College, a traditionally all-women's school in Staunton, Virginia.

There were older prejudice
Prejudice
Prejudice is making a judgment or assumption about someone or something before having enough knowledge to be able to do so with guaranteed accuracy, or "judging a book by its cover"...

s such as that of William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt was an English writer, remembered for his humanistic essays and literary criticism, and as a grammarian and philosopher. He is now considered one of the great critics and essayists of the English language, placed in the company of Samuel Johnson and George Orwell. Yet his work is...

 who said, "The bluestocking is the most odious character in society ... she sinks wherever she is placed, like the yolk of an egg, to the bottom, and carries the filth with her." In Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, a literary magazine Seitō (Bluestocking)
Bluestocking (journal)
Bluestocking was a Japanese feminist magazine founded in 1911 by Raicho Hiratsuka and produced by Hiratsuka and other members of the related group, the Bluestocking Society . An exhausted Hiratsuka turned over the reins to Noe Ito in 1915. Ito produced the journal with little assistance for almost...

 was launched in 1911 to provide an outlet for creative Japanese women. It ran until 1916 when the anarchist editor, Noe Ito
Noe Ito
was a Japanese anarchist, social critic, author and feminist.-Biography:Itō graduated from Ueno Girls' High School in Ueno, Tokyo, and joined the Bluestocking Society , producer of the feminist arts and culture magazine Seitō in 1912...

, became exhausted by conflict with the government and moved more deeply into the Japanese anarchist movement.
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