Asimov Would Like Me to Say: "That's funny ..."

For those of you unfamiliar with the Isaac Asimov quote I reference in the title of this post, I will repeat it for you here: "The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny ..." The following quote from Dobson's and Zagarell's chapter "Women Writing in the Early Republic" provoked a "that's funny" response from me: "[T]he proliferation of magazines specifically addressing female 'domestic' concerns provided opportunities in writing and editing that could take individual women out of the domestic arena" (374). This post is as far from a Eureka moment as one can get—and I'm definitely not heralding anything worthwhile (yet)—but this quote raised some interesting (at least for me) questions about gender roles and authorship. In our reading from last class, we saw how male authorship was defined by masculine values such as earning a living and supporting a growing family. Writing was not a worthy way for a man to spend his time, because he was ignoring his social role; however and I could be grossly misinterpreting our reading for today female authorship appears to have kept women from performing their prescribed social roles as well. I believe someone during the course of last class inquired about whether or not it was okay for a man to write about masculine topics such as participating in the market and earning money. I don't remember the exact answer, but I believe it was determined that regardless of topic, it was unacceptable for Early Republican men to be authors. Why would women be encourage to write to the detriment of their social roles, while men were punished for doing the same thing. I don't want to pull out a "double-standard" card, but i find this incredibly interesting; additionally, do not interpret my questions or anything in this blog as support for Early Republican ideas regarding gender roles. I don't want to say that women had it easy, nor do I say that men were some sort of victim (you shouldn't read until you find the victim anyway, it's a bad habit). Again, there could be something in this week's reading that I completely missed that discusses or expands upon this idea, but I wonder if these contrasting definitions of authorship along gender lines will warrant more attention in our discussion in class. I don't mean to say that a discussion of female authorship will only make sense in context of a discussion of male authorship, but perhaps we will have a better understanding of both if we talk about them together. Lots of disclaimers here...