January 21st, 2026

I watched the second episode of The Pitt last week and it was good. The episodes are almost an hour long yet I am always surprised when they end, they are very good at getting you to go “AW MAN” once the end credits start going. I told my mom to start watching it a while ago and she finished season 1 loving it, she refuses to start the second season until all the episodes are out because she is not fond of waiting a week for the next episode to release. She is so real for that, to be honest. I am torturing myself with waiting a week for some semblance of closure (I haven’t gotten it yet) but I think it is worth it especially because if I waited for the entire season to finish I would immediately be spoiled by the fandom since I am deep in those trenches. I am also deep in the Heated Rivalry trenches and there is some fucked up discourse about how that show is apparently Russian Propaganda! If you want to know more let me know and I will explain, but for now let’s get into today’s content.

Today was half lecture and half discussion. The lecture portion covered some background information about the suffragettes before World War One, and the discussion was about some oft he characters from the book The Return of the Soldier. Next class should cover more about the war itself, but for now let’s get into the suffragette campaign. Apparently they used a lot of the same rhetoric from the age of revolutions, the same rhetoric that secured most men the right to vote in Britain and France. In the 20th century, suffragette activists utilized more radical tactics like civil disobedience and hunger strikes to push their movement, apparently this was inspired by the Irish (I believe my professor said something about Irish independence). The most radical suffragettes committed acts of mailbox bombings, arson, and the like. The state would respond with mass arrests and force feeding supporters.

This led to going over Emily Wilding Davison. I remember learning about her many semesters ago so this felt like review. She was forced to-fed 48 times, and this was a record. She is “famous” for her stunt in June 1913, where she threw herself in front of the King’s horse at the Epson Derby. No one knows her true motives for this move: was it to bing eyes on the suffragette movement or an act of suicide? If it was suicide then she did technically succeed due to her dying from her injuries a few days later. She then became a martyr for the movement.

Next we wet over anti-suffragette stereotypes. Women who wanted the vote were portrayed as being neglectful. Misandrists, unattractive, and mentally ill. They were also said to be emasculating their husbands, as is shown on propaganda posters that were making the rounds during this era. Women were blurring the gender spheres (men in the public and women in the private), and thus were troublesome. Only women who were physically undesirable to men, who had no husbands, became suffragettes. They had nothing better to do. There were also anti-suffragette women who celebrated the so-called “cult of domesticity” and “natural maternal morality.” These women trusted that their male loved ones would vote in their favour, which is a very naive thought, but whatever. Suffragette groups agreed to postpone the cause to support the war effort, this is called the Wartime Pause.

The lecture ended by showing a map of all the countries that were involved, showing that it was a truly global conflict. The Triple Alliance consisted of German, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottomans; the Triple Entente was Russia, the UK, France, and their respective colonies. Fighting mostly occurred on the western front, but troops were pulled from all over the world, India specifically sent thousands. Although my professor did say that she i sure many of the solders were angry due to this not being their war.

We ended class with a discussion about three characters from the book The Return of the Soldier. it is a very short book, there is a free audio book on YouTube and I got the kindle version for free. The three characters we talked about were Jenny, the narrator, Kitty, and Margaret. We were told to get into small groups again and as I was on my own my professor came up to ask me about how I felt about Jenny. I stated that Jenny seemed unusually close to her cousin, that she clearly loves him a LOT.

I did not want to imply that there are incestuous feelings there, only that she seems to revolve around him and idealize him. I also talked about some of the classist comments made throughout the first chapter that made me believe that there was something else going on regarding how Kitty and Jenny posture themselves, especially against Margaret who is the target of said classist comments. She said what I had to say was good and I should share with the class.

I did end up doing that but it was because she pointed me out and asked. If it makes any of you feel better, I did put up my hand unprompted to answer the question “why did Jenny and Kitty not trust Margaret?” It is because they thought she was a scammer, which apparently was common during the war, people saying they hand information about loved ones but required payment in exchange for said info.

This is basically where class ended and now I have to read chapters 3 and 4 for Friday. I honestly might just finish the book entirely by then so I can work on this weird Biology “paper.” If you’d like to know, I basically have to pick a concept from my biology class (genes, evolution, biochemistry, inheritance, etc.) and find a pop-culture reference (newspaper, video clip, magazine, product claims, etc.) to it and then break that reference down with real scientific studies. I then have to use AI and show what it had to say about the concept. Sound confusing as shit? It is! I have no idea what to do here. I have to display critical thinking by critiquing the pop-culture reference with real sources.

Anyway, yesterday I had my first Biology quiz and I got 98% so that’s cool. Good for me. I watched the movie Pillion when I got home and WOW that was not the black comedy they said it would be. I have a lot of mixed feelings which I think was the point.