overlooked quote

[Jonathan Lighter]

Beaumont's astronaut may have been thinking of Voltaire's _Philosophical
Dictionary_ (1764):

"Very learned women are to be found, in the same manner as female warriors;
but they are seldom or never inventors."

With thanks to YBQ.


JL

On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 7:15 PM, Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: overlooked quote
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Jonathan Lighte wrote
> > The movie _Queen of Outer Space_ (1958) atars Zsa Zsa Gabor as a Venusian
> > physicist and freedom fighter.
> >
> > In the scenario, the busty, scantily-clad women of Venus have created an
> > Earth-obliterating ray they've housed in a futuristic, polka-dot shed
> with
> > some sort of blades on top.   A male astronaut exclaims dismissively:
> >
> >  "Oh, come off it! How could a bunch of women invent a gizmo like that?"
> >
> > The film appears to be the proximate cause of both
> >
> > 1. modern feminism
> >
> > 2. the manned space program.
> >
>
> This quote is mentioned in a few articles and reference works. A 2007
> review article includes the line and the interesting response that
> continues the theme.
>
> Cult Camp Classics 1 - Sci-Fi Thrillers. Review by David Cornelius.
> Posted July 9, 2007. (Date from website)
>
> And the sexism. Oh, the sexism! Surely Beaumont couldn't have been
> serious when he wrote such exchanges as this one, in which the
> astronauts discuss the aliens' ray guns:
>
> "How could a bunch of women invent a gizmo like that?"
> "And if they did, how could they even aim it? You know what women
> drivers are like!"
>
> http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/29049/cult-camp-classics-1-sci-fi-thrillers/
>
> The reference "Keep watching the skies!: American science fiction
> movies of the fifties, Volume 1" by Bill Warren includes this passage.
>
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>



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