Storytelling as the ‘Other’ (Part 2) is coming soon I
promise! But I haven’t quite finished sorting through all the data yet to
compose what I really want to say/explain/impart. So instead I thought I would give
an update on my latest reading endeavours.
First and foremost on my mind has been a book called Modern Misogyny: Anti-Feminism in a
Post-Feminist Era. This is a recent study on feminism (published Nov 2014) by Kristin
J. Anderson, a Professor of Psychology at the University of Houston-Downtown in
the US. I read this book over a cup or two of coffee in a single afternoon
(it was honestly that good!). If you’re
looking for a concise, well-researched, but easy-to-read summary of the state
of Western feminism (or post-feminism) today, then this is a must-read.
While Anderson doesn’t discuss women’s leadership in any
great detail, feminism is one of the key informing concepts I’ll be using in my
research to justify the use of women’s literature and the value of women’s perspectives.
Rather than being gender-neutral as many people would like to believe,
leadership discourses are still informed, however implicitly, by hegemonic
masculinity and “impregnated with concepts of the hero” (Ford, Harding &
Learmonth, 2008, p. 116)
Anderson begins her analysis by discussing post-feminism, she writes that “…post-feminism
is marked by the shift from feminism as a collective movement for women’s
liberation to superficial empowerment of the individual and her choices” (p.
19). In this neoliberal, and increasingly narcissistic and self-focused
culture, feminist goals, Anderson contends, have been depoliticised and collective action rendered largely irrelevant: “Post-feminism is about the individual woman –
personal choice, individual expression, and individual career success – and no
recognition of the need for a united and collective social movement to liberate
all women and enact structural change” (p. 19).
Anderson then goes on to discuss a whole range of current feminist
issues, including hyper sexualisation and pseudo ‘empowerment’ in Western culture,
sexism as part of a wider system of
inequality, the double bind faced by women in the workplace, popular understandings
of the term ‘feminism’ (i.e. ‘man-hating’ feminism), and the ‘end
of men’ and ‘boys crisis.’
The key point Anderson makes is that we still need feminism (and not post-feminism), and I think she does a fantastic job of explaining why.
I particularly like this salient quote: “Feminists tend to see women and men as not very different from each other, and this is threatening to the gender status quo. If, as feminism argues, women can do what previously only men were thought to be able to do, then you can see how some would perceive manhood as under assault and the perpetrator of the assault feminism. Manhood is exclusionary and, to the extent that men’s activities can be performed by women, it is no longer a special role, no longer male. If women can perform the men’s role, it must mean neither the qualities nor the role are so special after all” (p. 66).
The key point Anderson makes is that we still need feminism (and not post-feminism), and I think she does a fantastic job of explaining why.
I particularly like this salient quote: “Feminists tend to see women and men as not very different from each other, and this is threatening to the gender status quo. If, as feminism argues, women can do what previously only men were thought to be able to do, then you can see how some would perceive manhood as under assault and the perpetrator of the assault feminism. Manhood is exclusionary and, to the extent that men’s activities can be performed by women, it is no longer a special role, no longer male. If women can perform the men’s role, it must mean neither the qualities nor the role are so special after all” (p. 66).
As a result, a whole tribe of anti-feminist authors
(for example, Kate O’Briene, Harvey Mansfield, Roy Baumeister, C. H. Sommers,
to name a few) have emerged who are not interested in equality but rather “in
keeping boys and men at the centre. But not any men, white men in particular”
(p. 163). I really like how Anderson alludes to this idea of an identifiable “centre,”
a centre that has the potential to be deconstructed and re-imagined. While
replacing patriarchy with matriarchy, or male with female, is not my intention,
there is definitely room to destabilise systems of inequality by exploring and
emphasizing women’s narratives that disturb the centre.
We desperately need more self-labelled feminists in
business who can see beyond the individualist rhetoric of post-feminism and
recognise the need for structural change. As Anderson argues, feminists need to
remain focused on raising women’s awareness of continued gender inequity in
order to motivate young women to understand that work still needs to be done
(p. 12).
Not convinced? Before you disagree with me, I challenge
you to read Modern Misogyny (it’s
at the public library so you have no excuse!).
Novels, Stories,
Narratives…
I spent several hours last week trawling through all the
women’s reading lists I could find and it turned up a few new exciting
possibilities (Year of Wonders by
Geraldine Brooks, Calling Invisible Women
by Jeanne Ray, The Ten-Year Nap by
Meg Wolitzer)! At this point I feel I'm abandoning the idea of using short
stories…I have found one really excellent short story (‘Sur’ by Ursula Le Guin)
but that’s it so far (note to self: Summer reading list = short story
collections).
Latest reads/possibilities:
1. The Women’s Room by Marilyn French
Applicability Rating:
6.5/10
Relevant Themes:
Expectations & perceptions, women’s work, feminism
Key Thoughts:
Published in 1977 at the end of the ‘sexual revolution,’ The Women’s Room sparked outrage for its controversial and
forward-thinking ideas on women’s rights and desires (addressing the ‘what
women want’ question). Set in 1950s America, The Women’s Room follows the life of Mira Ward, a conventional and
submissive young woman in a traditional marriage, and her gradual feminist
awakening. Now considered a ‘classic’ piece of women’s literature (although I
doubt many women my age would have even heard of it), French suggests in her
opening introduction (written in 2006) that it is just as relevant for today’s audiences
(think white, middleclass women) as it was 38 years ago. She notes that “despite
many easements on female life in the west, the world’s ethos has moved in the opposite
direction – toward more hostility between the sexes” (p. xvi). I’m not quite
sure this is the case and whether or not The
Women’s Room transcends time boundaries in quite the manner French intends
(there is a fair amount of material which is concerned solely with issues
addressed by second-wave feminism), however I did find this novel much more
engaging and interesting than Mary McCarthy’s The Group (1963) which follows a similar coming-of-age, 'awakening' premise.
One of the best things about this novel are the lively
discussions French crafts between Mira and her female friends at Harvard. These
scenes make you wish you were part of their dynamic group! Underpinning all
their debates is, as Val succinctly observes, the issue of equality between
the sexes: “The simple truth – that men are only equal – can undermine a
culture more devastatingly than any bomb.”
However, I am still a bit hesitant to use this book as part
of the literary research section. First of all, it is very long (a mere 526
pages!) and rather than read huge chunks all at once, it’s more a book you want
to read in snippets (it took me about 5 days rather than my normal 24-48 hours).
Secondly, there is almost an insuperable amount of ideas discussed and
contained within the text, from politics, to feminism, to marriage, to racism,
to sex, etc...It moves between topics and themes with dizzying speed, leaving
nothing sacred. It left me feeling unsettled, but at the same time revitalised.
But I can imagine some women absolutely hating it! Nonetheless, French is a
witty and observant storyteller who is entertaining and engaging even if she does
spend pages and pages discussing women’s domestic work and the trials and
tribulations of the middleclass housewife.
Would I use The
Women’s Room then? I think it definitely has a lot of potential as a text
which can work to deconstruct patriarchal/male-dominated grand narratives, but I can’t imagine women sitting down to read the full novel in as short a timeframe
as they would, say, The Lifeboat or The Invention of Wings. With this
consideration in mind, I may use it as a reference text (there are some
excellent discussions in there!) or as a suggestion for further reading.
2. Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin
Applicability Rating:
5/10 (or, perhaps 8/10)
Relevant Themes: Gender
roles, maternal leadership, crisis situations
Key Thoughts: I
love Le Guin so I was very excited when I found she’d recently (in 2008)
written a historical novel featuring, and even named for, an ‘historical’
female character. The novel relates the life of Lavinia, princess of Laurentum,
a very minor character from Virgil’s epic poem the Aeneid. Sounds like a great
premise, right? Unfortunately, Lavinia never emerges as the strong, decisive
female character you want her to. Instead I found her underdeveloped and rather
wooden, as well as unlikeable. She vacillates, cries, makes odd decisions, and
is, ultimately, painfully complicit in her 'fate' (in other words, the
decisions of men).
There
were, of course, a lot of interesting, well-researched details in the story and
I can see what Le Guin was trying to achieve by 'completing' or fleshing out
one of Virgil's female characters – giving her a 'voice' as Queen of Latium
(filling Le Guin’s “immense white area”). But somehow the whole story fell
flat, for me at least, due to the fatalistic tendencies of its heroine
(although I’m not sure I can even call her a heroine – she didn’t really do anything). In terms of women’s
leadership, Lavinia does exhibit a form of maternal leadership for her
‘people,’ but readily abandons her ‘power’ in favour of her son. Everything she
does is vis-à-vis men, even though she has so much potential to break out of
their confines and rules. Perhaps this is a good discussion point (e.g. why are
women often so complicit in their own oppression?), however, I think Le Guin’s
‘Sur’ makes a better contender for my research project. Although perhaps there
is room for simultaneously analysing multiple Le Guin stories? I have her
non-fiction book, Dancing at
the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places (1989) so I will test the
potential of this idea further as I read her critical essays.
I’ve just finished reading The Boston Girl (2014) by Anita Diamant (author of The Red Tent) and I’ve also skimmed Top Girls (1982) by Caryl Churchill for
the third time. They are both possibilities as well but I’ll leave my reviews
of them for the next entry.
Sometimes it seems that I am reading a lot of women’s
literature which won’t be applicable or useful for my study. However, as Jane Smiley
(the Pulitzer Prize winning author of A
Thousand Acres) points out: “Sometimes the reader has to read novels that
don’t work for her and think about why
they don’t work – representative lists, unlike “my favourite” lists, have to
include uncongenial works” (quote found in Thirteen
Ways of Looking at the Novel, 2005, p. 271). I admire Smiley’s approach to
literature – she read 100 ‘great’ novels over the course of 3 years and then proceeded to write about her experience and the effect/s the different books had on her
as a reader (reflective thinking at its best!).
What else I’ve read…which won’t work:
- Property by Valerie Martin (2003)
This short novel won the Orange Prize for women’s fiction in
2003 and I can understand why! It’s a very gripping tale set in New Orleans in
1828 against the backdrop of civil unrest and slave uprisings. Property tells the story of Manon
Gaudet, the unhappy wife of a plantation owner, and Sarah, Manon’s house slave
whom she brought into the marriage. The drama is centred on the fact that Sarah
is not only Manon’s slave, but also her husband’s unwilling mistress, causing resentment
on both Manon and Sarah’s sides. There is no happy ending to this haunting
tale, in fact it is quite grim and heart-breaking in the way it explores humanity's predilection for cruelty. However, it doesn’t say anything about the ‘women
question’ or leadership in particularly. Its strength lie is in its historical analysis
and narrative power rather than in topical relevancy.
- House Girl by Tara Conklin (2013)
Conklin’s debut novel is a reasonably well-written & mildly interesting story, but overall it lacked finesse and depth. The narrative
switched between the late-1800s, where it followed the unhappy tale of a young slave
woman, and the 2000s where it focuses on the story of a young, outgoing, annoyingly
‘perfect’ female lawyer who is trying to 'survive' in a male-dominated law firm.
While Lina, the litigation lawyer, makes some pertinent (although rather cliché)
remarks on male and female dynamics in the workplace, there is nothing in
particular that makes this story stand out. It's more a journey of uninspiring self-discovery
for the not very likeable lawyer and a tragically (though predictable) ending
for the fictitious slave girl. Ultimately it fails to engage the reader and, I
feel, trivialises the horrors of slavery in the way it flits between meaningless details about Lina’s contemporary existence and the slave girl's sad story. It's a
piece I wouldn't be quick to recommend.
- How to Be Both by Ali Smith (2014)
Now, I was very excited about this book when I first got my
hands on it. Shortlisted for the Man Booker prize in 2014, and the winner of
the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, How
to Be Both promised to explore gender boundaries and perceptions in a new and
exciting way. Unfortunately I didn’t make it even half way through before I
became extremely frustrated with Smith's disjointed, overly complicated narrative
style. Yes, it is a clever post-modern ‘work of art’, but I just didn’t like it.
- A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley (1991)
On the other hand, I did love A Thousand Acres, the 1992 Pulitzer prize-winning novel by Jane
Smiley. Following the basic plotline of Shakespeare’s King Lear, Smiley tells the story of an aging farmer (a patriarchal
and misogynistic white man) who offers his prosperous Iowa farm to his three
daughters. Tragic (although not quite as tragic as Shakespeare’s classic), dark
and unpredictable (well, unless you’re familiar with King Lear), the novel explores family power relations and the
transformation of Ginny (the oldest daughter and narrator) from a naive and
weak pawn in her family’s power struggle, to an independent and strong woman.
Why won’t it work for my analysis? Ultimately, I think the novel says a lot
more about trauma and family relationships than leadership, so to reduce it to
a ‘lesson’ on leadership would distort its more salient themes. But I highly recommend
this book if you haven’t read it already!
I am more than halfway through reading and note-taking
for my section on Women and Leadership. A couple more texts to go through and
8-10 journals. The plan is to finish the research by midweek and then work on a
comprehensive outline. It may be a little bit ambitious to try and have the
whole section written by the end of October, but I least want to have half of
it done by then! #goals
Anderson, K. J. (2015). Modern
misogyny: Anti-feminism in a post-feminist era. New York, NY: Oxford
University Press.
Ford, J., Harding, N., & Learmonth, M. (2008). Leadership as identity: Constructions and deconstructions. New
York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
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