Date: Wed, 11 Sep 1996 03:55:33 EDT

From: "David A. Johns" daj000[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]FOX.WAY.PEACHNET.EDU

Subject: Re: oh those ignorant southerners . . .



At 09:05 PM 9/10/96 -0400, you wrote:



Speaking as one who lived the first 27 years of his life in the midwest and

the next 27 in North Carolina, I fail to understand why one should assume

that because a phrase conveys a sense of male oppression of women then that

phrase is most likely to have originated in "Southern" or "Appalachian"

culture. And speaking as one who has had a good deal of social interaction

with both the "lower socioeconomic classes" and the nonlower "socioeconomic

classes," I fail to understand why it is valid to assume that male oppression

of females must "certainly" originate in the "lower" orders, among all those

blue collars, dirt farmers, and black laborers.



Is it possible that the impulsive association of "barefoot and pregnant"

with the South comes not from supposed patriarchy but from the "barefoot"

component? How could you possibly keep a woman barefoot in the North?



Also, to get back on subject, I've always heard this as "barefoot, pregnant,

and in the kitchen," and always from a secondary source (i.e., "Men like him

always want to keep women ...").



David Johns

Waycross College

Waycross, GA