Summary

“a brief history of the homely wench society” opens with an email from Willa Reid to Dayang Sharif with the subject title of “JOIN US.” Willa gives a history of the Bettencourt Society, an all-male group at Cambridge University. Each year, every member of the Bettencourt Society was allowed to invite one female. Giles Rutherford, the 1949 President, was one day writing a poem and sent out a call for the “homeliest wench” (221) at the university who could inspire him to write about ugliness. The Bettencourters produced a list, which fell into the hands of some of the women who had been invited to the annual society dinner. They decided to share the list with the women and together formed an alliance. That year, ghostly sounds interrupted the dinner and the men went up to investigate. When they...