Bluestockings – once mocked – are back, hosting salons and writing
The term ‘bluestocking’, referring to a scholarly woman, has a colourful, intriguing history. The meaning has evolved over time, reflecting the capricious social attitudes towards women with a passion for learning. Occasionally, it is still used as an insult, deriding women deemed to hold an unhealthy appetite for knowledge. But the term has been reclaimed for others, including second-wave feminists and, more recently, a group of literary ladies at my college, Christ Church, University of Oxford. We are reviving bluestocking practices, including hosting intellectual salons and publishing new writing. The history of the word bluestocking now makes it a joyously facetious – even punk – epithet. The original bluestockings of the mid-18th century were an eclectic group of accomplished women and men. Among them were writers, actors, artists, historians and social reformers.They gathered at evening salons where they shared knowledge, practised rational enlightenment and promoted moral virtue. Since women were...
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