Tag Archives: Feminism

What It Was

When I was growing up, I took feminism for granted. Of course I was a feminist. Why wouldn’t I be? I don’t remember ever even consciously thinking about it. It just was.

Of course, I did go to UVic. At UVic, you could be a feminist liberal environmentalist and still only be slightly to the left of center. Perhaps this is why I never felt particularly radical. But that was later. Before that I grew up in a series of very small towns, surrounded by very average people. I didn’t know any “intellectuals.” For a good part of the time we only had access to two channels of TV. And of course, there was no internet. There were books, of course, and I read a lot. But it was mostly mysteries and horror and those 800-page historical romances, not Gloria Steinem.

And I still felt that way.

But now it seems that feminism has become a bad word. The same way liberal has.

What the fuck is up with that?

In one of my tutorials this week, we somehow got into a discussion of feminism. One student said that perhaps the current backlash has to do with the natural tendency for kids to rebel against whatever their parents did. Maybe. Another said that her problem is that she doesn’t really know what feminism is. And that turned into a discussion of Women’s Studies and why it’s called women’s studies. Someone said, “Yeah, why no men’s studies?” and a bunch of them jumped into say that it’s because everything else is men’s studies (so all is not lost). A number of them (male & female) said they were interested in taking a Women’s Studies course, but felt intimidated. Some said that Gender Studies would be a better name (I agree with this, but mainly because “gender studies” reflects a continuum rather than a polarity, not simply because it would be more inviting). A few said they had been warned not to take WS courses by friends/siblings who had taken one. But the one student who had actually taken a WS course declared that it was to his (yes, his) surprise “normal.”

Yay. And whew. I guess all has not gone to hell in a handbasket. Yet.

So for my student who wasn’t sure about it, and for anyone else who has ever said “I’m not a feminist, but [insert right you believe women should have here]”, here’s the definition of feminism:

1: the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes
2: organized activity on behalf of women’s rights and interests

You believe that women have equal rights? Then you are a feminist. No buts. You are.

It makes me sad that so many people seem to think feminism is something scary or shameful when it should be just what it is. (I mean, seriously. You don’t believe in equality? You’re not just an anti-feminist, you’re an ass.)

18: Writing a Woman’s Life

Writing a Woman’s Life by Carolyn Gold Heilbrun

I read this for my directed reading course this summer. At the top of my notes I wrote: “This might be worth buying.” That was in June. Then in July, on my annual Book Shop spree, I stumbled upon a copy of the book. Fate?

Heilbrun (1926-2003) was an English professor at Columbia when female professors were rarities and she was pissed off at how male academics treated their female colleagues. It probably would have made her life easier if she had publicly hidden that anger (and ranted in private, as one does) but she felt it was important that women express anger so that other women could learn from their experiences (or realize they are not alone):

The expression of anger has always been a terrible hurdle in women’s personal progress. Above all, the public and private lives cannot be linked, as in male narratives. … [W]omen are therefore unable to write exemplary lives: they do not dare to offer themselves as models, but only as exceptions chosen by destiny or chance. (p.25)

…

What matters is that lives do not serve as models; only stories do that. And it is a hard thing to make up stories to live by. We can only retell and live by the stories we have read or heard. We live our lives through texts. (p.37)

I like that last bit especially. Quote for my thesis, perhaps.

This has nothing to do with my thesis but I did find it amusing/sad in light of recent news articles:

In the last years of the twentieth century, it is unclear whether women who refer to themselves as, for example, Mrs. Thomas Smith know what servitude they are representing in that nomenclature. The same might be said today of women who exchange their last name for their husband’s. … Any possible ambivalence about this matter should surely have ended by the beginning of the 1980s at the latest. (p.85)

The 1980s! Haha! Heilbrun would no doubt be chagrined to learn that name-giving-up is more popular now than it was in the ’80s and that a Gen-Yer in Quebec (where “married names” have been legally prohibited since 1981) is suing so she can take her husband’s name. Gah. (Of course, the irony of Heilbrun’s position is that she adopted her husband’s name. That was, however, 40+ years prior to her writing this book, so I guess she had time to change her mind 😉 )

So anyway… after I finished the book, I looked Heilbrun up (ironically because I was curious about this series of detective novels she’d written—the Kate Fansler mysteries, as Amanda Cross) and that’s when I discovered that she quit her position at Columbia (age 66) because she felt unwelcome. Then she committed suicide (age 77) apparently because she felt her life had been completed.

Ack. Everything I’ve read tries to put a positive spin on this, in the vein of she wrote her own ending to her own story. But I can’t help but thinking: isn’t that classic cutting off your nose to spite your face? From what I’ve read a lot of women looked up to her as a role model. And she said herself that people need stories to follow. So for those who were following her story—they’re left with what? The jerks of the world will always win (or at least they’ll wear you down so you get tired of fighting) so you may as well kill yourself?

Ugh.

I really liked this book—but this coda left me conflicted. Lots to think about anyhow. Here are a few more links:

Ann Bartow at the Feminist Law Profs blog recently posted about Heilbrun / Writing a Woman’s Life.
The entire Spring 2006 issue of The Scholar & Feminist Online was devoted to Heilbrun.

6: Star Gazing

Star Gazing: Charting Feminist Literary Criticism by Andrea Lebowitz

This was mentioned in my Methods class. At only 69 pages, it’s closer to a booklet than a book, but as far as the yearly book tally goes, it counts!

I got a few good ideas for my thesis from it.

On collaborative work:

[A]nother constant of feminist literary criticism is the success of collaborative work. Feminist literary criticism has put to rest the cliche that good writing must be the work of one person. (p. 6)

And the Other:

[F]eminists have questioned the binary opposites of our culture which see so many things as opposed and mutually exclusive … This type of thinking sees one thing as ‘other’ and inferior to its binary opposite. (p. 7)

Oh, and interestingly: Lebowitz writes that “the two most important precursors” to feminist literary criticism are Virginia Woolf and Simone de Beauvoir. A Room of One’s Own and The Second Sex “have formed the basis of feminist literary critics’ thinking about gender and writing.” (p. 11) I guess this is not particularly surprising, but what’s interesting about it is that I went through that whole de Beauvoir / Woolf phase and I’ve read AROOO and parts of TSS (it’s long!). I mean, it’s sort of vindicating that some of the stuff I read during that time fits with what I’m doing now. Now that everything is starting to tie together, it feels like there really is a point to it all.

Once I wrote up a list of “books that changed my life.” Meet the Austins (the book that hooked me on Madeleine L’Engle) was on it, as was Writing Down the Bones (the book that got me started writing again). Also on the list: de Beauvoir’s Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter.

But I digress. On alternative/indie press:

[Feminists] have created alternative publishing and distribution networks and have founded many presses, journals and magazines. Some of these address an academic audience, while others speak for and from alternative cultural spaces. (p. 15)

On the novel:

[A]re there limits to what stories the novel can tell? … Does its structure, plot, narrative and closure keep women from writing stories other than the old familiar plots? (p. 19)

vs. “sub-literary” forms:

[L]etters, diaries, journals, sketches … have been widely used by women … studies into secondary forms have raised another fundamental question about evaluation. Why are some forms seen as superior? Conversely what makes a form inferior? (p. 20)

[I]dentity is not determined and fixed once and for all, but is rather in process. More fluid and fragmentary forms may offer ways of expressing this condition. … In autobiography and life writing more generally, the author is often not expressing a life already shaped and complete as she is using the writing as a way to express and make a life. (p. 21)

[I]t is not sufficient to use the old forms for new knowledge. We cannot simply reverse male stories, literary forms or critical criteria. Rather, language and form have become places for revision and experimentation. Most notably the private, fragmentary and intimate forms of expression have found a place alongside the public, completed and logical modes of expression. (p. 41)

Ooh. Well, that gives me something to chew on for a while.

Book(s) to Read

This looks interesting: Rethinking Commodification: Cases and Readings in Law and Culture … Not that my “to read” list is in need of any more books, but when has that ever stopped me from adding to it?

Sometimes I want to chow down on a sack of Cheese Puffs…

…but that doesn’t mean they have nutritional value (Part 1)

I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that I was a bad feminist for pointing out that chick lit treats women like they’re stupid. (Bookslut)

Women’s studies, my ass (Maud Newton)

On the one hand, I respect a person’s right to write and read fluff. It sells. People enjoy reading it. Cool. I used to read Judith Krantz. What of it?

But on the other hand, the implication that it’s anything more than what it is bugs. It might be an entertaining story, a good yarn, as they used to say. But it’s not literature. Literature isn’t obsessed with shoes.

I was having a hard time getting started on my NaNo and I remembered a book I read earlier this year (The Rules of Engagement by Catherine Bush). I thought reading a page or two might inspire me because, as I recalled, it had a style/tone similar to what I was trying to achieve. Anyhow, one of the back cover review quotes says, in part: “As any fine novel should, it raises more questions than it answers…”

Yes.

A literary work is contemplative. The writer thinks about things, which means the narrator/protagonist thinks about things, which in turn makes the reader think about things. It’s a dialogue, a conversation, because it requires the reader to actively work to fill in what the writer has left unsaid. Because of this, two people who read the same book might be left with very different impressions of what it means.

A fluffy book doesn’t require thinking. In fact, thinking too much spoils the effect of the fluffy book, because it usually exposes inconsistencies or flaws in the narrative. With a fluffy book, the writer tells the reader a story. There is no ambiguity as to what it is about. It’s meant to be entertaining, fun, “an escape,” just like a summer movie or a cheesy soap.

Not-thinking is the entire point of fluffy books! Thus, it’s oxymoronic to claim that they are substantial works that actually make a statement about something.

To be continued…

You’re with us or you’re against us.

A few weeks ago, I hit on what bugs me about the usual liberal vs. conservative arguments as we have them today. I will use abortion as an example.

With the abortion issue, you are either “pro-life” or “pro-choice”. Pro-lifers see the issue as black/white. All abortions are bad. Period. No one should ever, ever, ever have an abortion. No discussion, no exceptions. They paint pro-choicers as their polar opposite when the two “sides” are not opposites at all. The opposite of the pro-life stance would be: All abortions are good. Every woman who ever gets pregnant should have an abortion. Clearly, that’s not what pro-choicers believe. Yet, that is what “pro-life” implies. It also implies that pro-lifers believe in the sanctity of all life, however, I’ve noticed that the most fanatical anti-abortionists also tend to be pro-death penalty. How do they reconcile that?

Anyhow, pro-choice is not the opposite of pro-life. It encompasses the pro-life view. It allows for it. A person who is pro-choice could be personally for, against, or undecided about abortion, but irrespective of her personal views, she respects the rights of others to make their own decisions about the matter. A person who is pro-choice doesn’t think, “abortion! yay!” She understands that a pregnancy is more often than not a gray issue. A baby could be much-wanted but endanger the health of the mother, or have a severe genetic defect. A pregnancy could be the result of rape. A family could already have more children than they can support. A pro-choicer understands that there may be situations when abortion is the best—not the easiest—choice for all concerned.

This is where the true meat of the argument lies: In what situations do you think it would be appropriate to have an abortion? When would it not be okay? If everyone could accede that people have the right to hold their own opinions on the matter, then we could have a true, rich, nuanced debate on the moral, medical, philosophical, etc. implications. Instead we just have two factions yelling at each other.

So that’s what bugs me. It seems no matter what the issue, you’re “conservative” if you have your opinion and you’re sticking to it and goddamn it so should everyone else, and you’re “liberal” if you allow for the fact that everyone has opinion and that there is a whole spectrum of ways to look at an issue not just two (see: “you’re either with us or against us”). It’s just impossible to have a real debate on anything if that’s what the two “sides” are.