Some lazy googling indicates the phrase “beaten like a red-headed stepchild” was raised to contemporary popular consciousness in 1986′s “The wrath”, years after Daly and Wilson. Originally it was racist, specifically referring to the way one might treat the result of a wife’s earlier dalliances with Irish immigrants.
I’m not sure I trust my intuitions about what an average high school dropout could tell me in the 1970′s. But I consider it significant that professionals looked into this question, and did not notice that factor previously, an unlikely result if it was both widely known and actually present.
I suspect this may be a case of the professionals not wanting to notice because they didn’t want to seem politically incorrect.
I think you’re right. It is usually best to conform and be politically correct in most cases, biding time until there is a specific issue on which you can make a stand with an expectation of significant benefit to yourself or your objectives. Choosing a battle.
Some lazy googling indicates the phrase “beaten like a red-headed stepchild” was raised to contemporary popular consciousness in 1986′s “The wrath”, years after Daly and Wilson. Originally it was racist, specifically referring to the way one might treat the result of a wife’s earlier dalliances with Irish immigrants.
I’m not sure I trust my intuitions about what an average high school dropout could tell me in the 1970′s. But I consider it significant that professionals looked into this question, and did not notice that factor previously, an unlikely result if it was both widely known and actually present.
I suspect this may be a case of the professionals not wanting to notice because they didn’t want to seem politically incorrect.
The time prior to the Daly and Wilson paper (1980) included a lot of time when modern notions of political correctness were not operative.
I think you’re right. It is usually best to conform and be politically correct in most cases, biding time until there is a specific issue on which you can make a stand with an expectation of significant benefit to yourself or your objectives. Choosing a battle.