Reading Notes (on Feminism)

This article I was editing for TSWL cites Susan Gubar's 2006 work, Rooms of Our Own, and I was so struck by the description of the book that I decided to take it home and read it. While I did have to go through the text really fast because it was on Interlibrary Loan, I would definitely like to check it out again since it sort of exemplifies this weird genre that I have been trying to conceptualize in my mind (and perhaps even write about in the near future). [Although at this point I should totally thank my friend Court for helping me think through some of these ideas and for even coming up with some impetus for me to pursue this idea.]

I think one of the best ways to classify this genre is creative criticism. Sort of like a variation on creative non-fiction. I have been finding some works that fit into the genre and was thankful to come across The Intimate Critique--a bright prospect for future reading!

Well, what I want to share comes from Gubar's text. In her rift on Woolf's Chapter One and talking about first-wave feminism, Gubar writes:

"Still the poorer half of humanity, still woefully unrepresented in political circles, women have nevertheless begun to earn wages nearly equal to those of men. The Pill, birth control, abortion: did these trigger transmutations in sex (the biological manipulation of the body) and in gender (the societal manipulation of the roles of mother, caregiver, nurturer), or was the real basis for change economic, the opening up of virtually all professions to women for the first time in history? In any case, birth control and woman's greater employment had driven home and the real point behind Wollstonecraft's and Fuller's, Mill's and Schreiner's polemics, their attack on biological determinism, their resistance to the idea that anatomy is destiny, that biology justifies or dictates social norms." (pg. 32)

This particular question really got me thinking. Is one of the reasons that we have a shift in how we conceptualize gender today because of the technologies of birth? And how much does our understanding of genetics and hormones influence it? Gubar's question made me realize the significance that birth plays in how we think of gender. If woman uses the pill and aborts fetuses, is she not a woman? If a woman hates her offspring, is she a man? I had thought of these questions in some form or another before, but it was reading this that catalyzed these thoughts. And yet even if anatomy is not always destiny, it is important to remember that anatomy is important sometimes. So, I guess it is a good question. What causes a change in people's thinking, woman's control of their body or woman's ability to be equal in the social arena? And doesn't woman's ability to be equal socially (say in the workforce in particular) may entail a control and manipulation of their biology?

Sharing Some "Oh My!"

I came across The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould recently when I was reading some essays by Barbara Kingsolver. I don't have much to say about it except that it was a really interesting read. I wanted to share this particular section about female brains/skulls because I just thought it was too interesting not to.

Gustave Le Bon was a follower of Broca's school of thought in the field of craniometry. In La psychologie des foules (published 1895), Le Bon wrote:

"In the most intelligent races, as among the Parisians, there are a large number of women whose brains are closer in size to those of gorillas than to the most developed male brains. This inferiority is so obvious that no one can contest it for a moment; only its degree is worth discussion. All psychologists who have studies the intelligence of women, as well as poets and novelists, recognize today that they represent the most inferior forms of human evolution and that they are closer to children and savages than to an adult, civilized man. They excel in fickleness, inconstancy, absence of thought and logic, and incapacity to reason. Without doubt there exist some distinguished women, very superior to the average man, but they are as exceptional as the birth of any monstrosity, as, for example, of a gorilla with two heads; consequently, we may neglect them entirely. [....] A desire to give them the same education, and, as a consequence, to propose the same goals for them, is a dangerous chimera....The day when, misunderstanding the inferior occupations which nature has given her, women, leave the home and take part in our battles; on this day a social revolution will begin, and everything that maintains the sacred ties of the family will disappear" (pg 104-105 of Gould)

To think, to give woman the same goals as man would mean the ruination of family! I guess you could see why I went, "Oh My!," when reading this. Of course, there was a bit of giggling at 3 am when I read this, but I still think it is important to discuss things like this. Undoubtedly, someone in America, or even the world, still thinks like this.

Old Notes

I was going through some old notes for Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook when I came across this recycled phrase on my notepad that never found its way into my paper: “Why can’t we say something like this—we are people, because of the accident of how we were situated in history, who were so powerfully part—but only in our imaginations, and that’s the point—with the great dream, that now we have to admit that the great dream has faded and the truth is something else—that we’ll never be any use” (51). This line comes from Anna who is debating with Molly over issues such as gender equality and the fall of the Communist Party in the late 1950s. The book, of course, deals heavily with these issues, and yet, so many of its queries and commentary on 1950s British society could apply to so many other countries and times. How effective is a philosophy like socialism when it counteracts its positive impact by its very underpinnings and workings? This is something Anna has to come to terms with throughout novel as she evaluates how effective her work has been for the CP.

I like this quote a lot though, even though it never found its way into my paper. I guess one reason why was because this quote didn't really impact the second-wave feminist reading of the text that I was going for. However, I think one reason I copied it out was because I was reading this novel during the election season last year. I always think about my own reason for existence and the effective-ness my life has had on people around me. And it seems that at least in this renunciation made by Anna to Molly that they both have to admit their own redundancy, something that people struggle with all that time I think. How much of our life is accident or chance and how much "written"/fated? And is that what truly distinguishes humans from so many other species and even intra-species--that we are nothing more than accidents who think more of themselves. Just some thoughts to ponder...