V-Grams

V-Gram 22

June 28, 1996


The crying game

The American Association of University Women is raising funds on a claim that eighty years ago(!) Madame Curie's admittance to the French Academy of Sciences was "blocked because she was a woman." Since Marie Curie was a member of the Academy of Medicine, the circular is a calculated call to arms against men by those who find guerrilla warfare preferable to useful activity.

I clearly recall the biography of Madame Curie (written by her daughter Eve) on our bookshelf as I was growing up in Hungary 50 years ago. Nearby were the novels of Jane Austen. The idol of every budding musician was Annie Fischer, whose piano recitals produced people hanging from the rafters every time. The films I saw, the books I read filled me with particular admiration for the accomplishments of American women.

My impression is that, for the most part, women who had a notable contribution to make simply made it. Once they made it, history recorded it. There have always been many whose aspirations remained unfulfilled, and they came in every shape, color, and sex. What is new is the shameless trading off the myths about by-gone ages, which has become the livelihood for a growing number of Americans. Encouraging a nation of doers to turn into a heap of whiners is the historic crime of Liberalism.