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Summary: The Roll Call

Decent Essays

I like Gladwell, despite his tendency to be iconoclastic for its own sake, and that tendency was not on display in this first (of ten, allegedly) podcasts that seek to explore forgotten or misremembered moments in history.

This one uses the example of The Roll Call by Elizabeth Thompson (later Elizabeth Thompson, Lady Butler) to illustrate moral licensing, where one virtuous act is used to justify future less virtuous acts. In this case, displaying Thompson's painting gave cover to the Royal Academy (the gatekeepers for art in 19th Century England) to refuse her and any other women admission to their ranks for another six decades.

Gladwell then pivots to the similar case of Julia Gillard, the first female Prime Minister of Australia, and

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