I know the word "scorn" means "a feeling and expression of contempt or disdain for someone or something" but I cannot understand the meaning of the phrase below:
Take action in scorn of
deference
So, Could you please tell me what the meaning of the phrase is?
The main text is here:
That night everyone stayed indoors. Mother was blending oils in the
kitchen. Dad was in the extension, which I had begun to jokingly call the
Chapel. He was lying on the crimson sofa, a Bible resting on his stomach,
while Kami and Richard played hymns on the piano. I sat with my laptop
on the love seat, near Dad, and listened to the music. I had just begun a
message to Drew when something struck the back door. The door burst
open, and Emily flew into the room.Her thin arms were wrapped around her body and she was shaking,
gasping for breath. She wore no coat, no shoes, nothing but jeans, an old
pair I’d left behind, and one of my worn T-shirts. Mother helped her to the
sofa, wrapping her in the nearest blanket. Emily bawled, and for several
minutes not even Mother could get her to say what had happened. Was
everyone all right? Where was Peter? He was fragile, half the size he
should have been, and he wore oxygen tubes because his lungs had never
fully developed. Had his tiny lungs collapsed, his breathing stopped?The story came out haltingly, between erratic sobs and the clattering of
teeth. From what I could tell, when Emily had gone to Stokes that
afternoon to buy groceries, she had returned home with the wrong crackers
for Peter. Shawn had exploded. “How can he grow if you can’t buy the right
food!” he had screamed, then he’d gathered her up and flung her from their
trailer, into a snowbank. She’d pounded on the door, begging to be let in,
then she’d run up the hillside to the house. I stared at her bare feet as she
said this. They were so red, they looked as if they’d been burned.My parents sat with Emily on the sofa, one on each side of her, patting
her shoulders and squeezing her hands. Richard paced a few feet behind
them. He seemed frustrated, anxious, as if he wanted to explode into action
and was only just being held in check.Kami was still seated at the piano. She was staring at the group huddled
on the couch, confused. She had not understood Emily. She did not
understand why Richard was pacing, or why he paused every few seconds
to glance at Dad, waiting for a word or gesture—any signal of what should
be done.I looked at Kami and felt a tightening in my chest. I resented her for
witnessing this. I imagined myself in Emily’s place, which was easy to do—I
couldn’t stop myself from doing it—and in a moment I was in a parking lot,
laughing my high-pitched cackle, trying to convince the world that my wrist
wasn’t breaking. Before I knew what I was doing I had crossed the room. I
grasped my brother’s arm and pulled him with me to the piano. Emily was
still sobbing, and I used her sobs to muffle my whispers. I told Kami that
what we were witnessing was private, and that Emily would be
embarrassed by it tomorrow. For Emily’s sake, I said, we should all go to
our rooms and leave it in Dad’s hands.Kami stood. She had decided to trust me. Richard hesitated, giving Dad a
long look, then he followed her from the room.I walked with them down the hallway then I doubled back. I sat at the
kitchen table and watched the clock. Five minutes passed, then ten. Come
on, Shawn, I chanted under my breath. Come now.
I’d convinced myself that if Shawn appeared in the next few minutes, it
would be to make sure Emily had made it to the house—that she hadn’t
slipped on the ice and broken a leg, wasn’t freezing to death in a field. But
he didn’t come.Twenty minutes later, when Emily finally stopped shaking, Dad picked
up the phone. “Come get your wife!” he shouted into it. Mother was
cradling Emily’s head against her shoulder. Dad returned to the sofa and
patted Emily’s arm. As I stared at the three of them huddling together, I
had the impression that all of this had happened before, and that
everyone’s part was well rehearsed. Even mine.It would be many years before I would understand what had happened
that night, and what my role in it had been. How I had opened my mouth
when I should have stayed silent, and shut it when I should have spoken
out. What was needed was a revolution, a reversal of the ancient, brittle
roles we’d been playing out since my childhood. What was needed—what
Emily needed—was a woman emancipated from pretense, a woman who
could show herself to be a man. Voice an opinion. Take action in scorn of
deference. A father.
Educated by Tara Westover
Best Answer
The whole ending of that paragraph is written in a poetic register, violating the rules of grammatical prose and even normal usage. There is no rule against trying to write in a poetic register except that others may find it obscure, pretentious, or both.
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower drives my red blood is meaningless if interpreted literally, but it is great poetry. Of course, few of us can match Dylan Thomas, who wrote the only decent villanelle in the English language, so, in my view, few of us should even try.
The meaning of that purple prose is What was needed -- what Emily needed -- was a woman emancipated from the pretences of tradition, a woman as strong as any father imagined by tradition, a woman willing to scorn the dictates of traditional deference, willing to speak out and to act.
Some can write like Dylan Thomas; most of us cannot. In my opinion, those of us who cannot should learn to write prose. As written, the quoted passage is facially absurd: at what time in the history of the world were women not able to speak. What is meant is that women would be punished, socially or physically, for doing certain things and so, quite rationally, were frequently unwilling to do them. The women who emancipated women were brave women who did what other women could have done but feared to do. I wear my clothes, not men's clothes.
EDIT: The quote about clothes (actually a slight mis-quote) is from the 19th century feminist doctor, Mary Edwards Walker, the only woman to have won the Cobgressional Medal of Honor, which was awarded for her work as a battlefield surgeon during the Civil War. I should have attributed it initially.