Flirtation addiction: Boarding the Modern US woman on the Pequod, Thoughts from Prof. Nicola Millers' Session

     After attending Professor Nicola Miller's session today , titled "Philanthropists and Flirts: Imagining US Women in Ninetieth- Century Latin America," I found myself wondering how will a modern woman should be like if she was to board Meliville's ship the Pequod. In Miller's session, I noticed that one of the central points discussed was the images of the ideal modern US women in late 19^th century. Miller presented US women as imagined by Latin Americans and other US visitors, exploring the modifications done to women by modernity and the price they had to pay for modernity's freedom.  Miller explained that US women who were previously identified as mysterious were  now superficial and materialistic. They were now more and more fashionable, to the extent of being addicted to flirtation (relevant for men as well), indulging their new formed seductive powers. Miller also pointed out that due to having evidently a price for this kind of freedom, US modernity is no longer necessarily an ideal for some.

     This discussion brought up in my own mind an image of a modern fashionable, non-angelic woman, boarding the worn –out fatigued Pequod. This image immediately also rose up a sense of isolation and misplacement. Would the masculine sailors find themselves obsessed with flirtatious interests for this new type of woman suddenly joined with them, doing their absolute best to draw her attention flirtatiously? Or on the contrary, would the men be aggressive towards her due to her non-femininity, non-virtuous conduct? Will her price for this new womanhood will be to remain in isolation for no one will see her as wife-material? Or, will she be strong enough to encourage the evolvement of the new man, in order to fit her modification? Will this kind of new woman be as if 'thrown out to the threatening wolves,' or on to a new promising, safe even, 'Yellow (White?!) Brick road'?

     My thoughts thus kept drifting away to this new type of woman now sailing away along with the crew.  Will she need to forgo motherhood for the sake of economic success among the male-dominated ship? And later on, when she finally returns from the long journey, will she return in order to remain at home, or search for a new adventure to follow?

     What will happens to the new woman in our times' flirtationSHIPS? I wonder.