Blog Post #3 - Kelly Chamorro

Public space in the time period that Zaeke's piece was focused on was gendered, sexist, and discriminatory. I think by now the sexism present in public spaces is common knowledge, however what I didn't know until now was the term "promiscuous audience" and how it was used as a scare tactic on women that tried breaking out of the social patriarchy. Immediately my mind jumped to "pre-marital sex" and sleeping around when I read promiscuous because of of today's connotations, but I would've never guessed that this negative use sprang from the words older use to describe gendered audiences. Seeing the way in which promiscuous as a word stuck around in our society but devolved into something even more oppressive and judgemental is short of distraughtly amazing. I can't help but imagine that those in power (Upperclass white men) realized that using the term "promiscuous audiences" on the women wasn't going to stop then on their way to equality and instead went right to using that word to attack their sexuality. Regardless of this, the efforts which men took to keep women in a position of subordination are ridiculous and the fact that everyone else was in on it too, some women included too is sad. The term promiscuous audience was being used all over the place against women speaking out about movements like the abolitionist movement and the women's suffrage movement. Even during moments where the fight was for abolition of slavery, women were attacked because of their "purity". When it's hard to attack the subject, attack the speaker. 
Public space today, as mentioned in Warner's piece, to me is still gendered in some places. Women are still being attacked publicly on their looks, their poise, and their sexuality. During the last presidential election, there were interviews done with Trump supporters and many times the "women are too emotional" argument came up rendering Hilary a volatile and inappropriate candidate. Her ability as a leader and politician, much less her years of experience in the government sector flew out the window for some of these people in favor of more sexist and misinformed generalizations based on her sex.