(Adjective?) Writer

"One of the most promising of the young Negro poets said to me once, 'I want to be a poet--not a Negro poet,' meaning, I believe, 'I want to write like a white poet'; meaning subconsciously, 'I would like to be a white poet'; meaning behind that, 'I would like to be white.' And I was sorry the young man said that, for no great poet has ever been afraid of being himself." -Langston Hughes

When I read the line "I want to be a poet--not a Negro poet" I interpreted a different meaning than Langston Hughes did. When I first read the line I thought it expressed a positive sentiment. If I were a poet I do not think I would want to be called a woman poet; I would feel that by tacking "woman" before poet it creates a separation between myself and other poets, "real" poets, male poets. Of course, that might just be the little feminist in me talking. But in any other situation wouldn't we feel offended by such qualifying terms? I wouldn't feel right about someone saying "a woman doctor" or "Negro lawyer." Are they any more or less a doctor/lawyer because they are black/a woman? Does that change the quality of their work?

I can see, that in the case of poets, the nature of the work might change due to race, gender, etc. But despite differences in subject matter, poets are still poets, are they not? Hughes is no more a less a poet for being an African American poet. Dickinson is no more or less a poet for being a woman poet.

Is there a benefit to making racial/gender/etc distinctions between poets?

Limits of Language

Just a brief word or two, before I leave off beating the dead (or if not dead, then dying) horse also known as the subject of gender.

I find it difficult to discuss gender, because our language for it is so limited, so bound up in the established, old ways of think about gender. Woolf had to coin new terms with man-womanly and woman-manly to even begin to talk about gender in a new and understandable way. The words man, woman, masculine, feminine, sex and gender have such heavy, ancient connotations to them--we can't use them without dragging the culturally established meaning along with them. We're still in the beginning of the Conversation on how sex and gender are two different things (or may be, since the discussion has not yet finished). And since we're still at the beginning, still using terms such as man and woman, and masculine and feminine, still hindered in our ability to discuss the issues due to the restrictions of our language.

Even now I feel myself spinning in circles because I don't know of a better way to state my point, but perhaps in admitting that I am making my point: that I am not shaping language to illustrate my point, language is shaping my point.

Please Put the Stones Down

“At the same time that women writers were being reconsidered and reread, male writers were similarly subjected to a new feminist scrutiny. The continuing result—to put ten years of difficult analysis into a single sentence—has been nothing less than an acute attentiveness to the ways in which certain power relations—usually those in which males wield various forms of influence over females—are inscribed in the texts (both literary and critical) that we have inherited, not merely as subject matter, but as the unquestioned, often unacknowledged given of the culture.” – Kolodny (2148-2149).

Sometimes I am really frustrated with feminism. I cannot fully explain why, but what little explanation I have would likely anger staunch feminists. You see, I often find myself feeling poorly for mankind (and by that I do not mean “humankind,” but the portion of society that bears an XY chromosome). It’s not that I don’t recognize, and to an extent resent, that men have been the privileged gender, that they have—for far too long—wielded “various forms of influence over females” but—and here is where I am liable to be stoned by hordes of angry female types—can we really blame the male gender as a whole?

My problem with some feminist writings (not necessarily Kolodny, she merely got me thinking) is that they gloss over the fact that men are just as much a product of culture as women are. We all (men and women alike) inherit “the unquestioned, often unacknowledged given[s] of” our own culture, be they gender related, race related, etc. How can we place such weighty blame on men’s shoulders when—for centuries—these men had no chance to form any worldviews that weren’t gender biased. Right from the womb the entered into a world of vast gender inequality. Their fathers had been raised in that world, their mothers had been raised in that world—that was all they knew. I don’t think we can truly blame men for going along with this “given” any more than we can blame women.

I am sure that this all sounds horrible and absurd. Of course we must place blame. There’s no true merit in the “well they just didn’t know any better excuse.” I wouldn’t try and argue that sexism is right any more than I would try to argue that the South had the right idea with slavery. What I think I am trying to say is that we have to be fair in our assessment—to blame complacent women as much as we blame complacent men. Of course when you reexamine male writing in light of feminism you will find that their work is fraught with gender inequality. But we must also recognize that many times literature, “even in the hands of women writers,” often implied “the inferiority and necessary subordination of women” (2149).

More on the Man Front

There’s just something about feminism that makes me want to stick up for the male population.

I’m all for gender equality, but I really don’t think we’re there yet. Women have been seen as “inferior” to men for…well…a really long time. But now I feel that we’ve gone in the opposite direction, that men are beginning to be seen as inferior. If you want proof of this phenomenon, I challenge you to look at almost any television sitcom—what do you find? Bumbling men who constantly make mistakes, can never understand their significant other (who, usually is some snappy bombshell who is only with the poor schmuck by the grace of God), and generally causes mayhem due to his, well, stupidity. (Of course, you also tend to have a plethora of shrewish wives and girlfriends, which could support a continued inequality for women, but considering that the shrews are usually at least intelligent—and often beautiful—the shrewish-ness can often be explained away as frustration with the bumbler. Wouldn’t you be frustrated if every occasion ended with a cake/pie/pastry in a guest’s face?)

Women have worked quite hard for equality, but I think in trying to make themselves equal to men, women have felt the need to make themselves out to be better than men. I used to describe this as a “pendulum swing:” men had been superior (pendulum at extreme left), women—to gain equality—are overzealous and end up swinging the pendulum to extreme right rather settling in the middle (equality). Recently, however, I found a new metaphor that works a bit better.

My mother works as an office manager at a doctor’s office. Recently she had to forbid the other employees from touching the thermostat, declaring herself the only one able to adjust the temperature. No, she’s not a control freak. The other employees simply couldn’t grasp the way the thermostat works. If they felt too chilly they would move the temperature from, say, 65 all the way to 80. Now, obviously this would then make the room too hot, so they would change the temperature back to 60 or less. What my mother couldn’t get them to understand (no matter how many times she explained) was that although moving the temperature to such extremes will make it hotter or colder almost instantly, that “perfect” temperature will only last for a brief while. What they were too impatient to do was move the temperature by a few degrees and wait for the system to adjust. Sometimes I feel that’s what has been done. Women were too impatient to get equality, wanted to do it as quickly as possible—so they flung the pendulum or temperature or whatever to the opposite extreme; they made men inferior in order to make themselves superior.

What brought on this epic rant? As I read Cixous (and I regret that I do not have a nice quote to insert), I found myself wondering what she would think about the state of gender relations today. Would she be happy with this new inequality? Would she think that the role reversal is justified? Perhaps she would think that men have had their say for long enough, it’s time to give them a taste of their own medicine. I’m not sure. I really don’t have a handle on Cixous’s thoughts; that’s what makes me so curious. Would a woman who wrote so passionately for women be able to feel sympathy for what her cause has done to men?

"The Madwoman in the Attic"

In their book, The Madwoman in the Attic, Gilbert and Gubar write about the artist's "anxiety of influence." They explain it as the artist's "fear that he is not his own creator and that the works of his predecessors, existing before and beyond him, assume essential priority over his own writing" (2025 in Norton). Gilbert and Gubar go on to argue that this anxiety functions much like the Oedipal complex, where the artist seeks to prove his worth as an artist by "killing" his predecessors. This, they maintain, is the struggle that male artists endure; the struggle for female artists is quite different. For women, they argue, the struggle is to find a "female precursor who, far from representing a threatening force to be denied or killed, proves by example that a revolt against patriarchal literary authority is possible" (Norton 2027).

I understand the argument. Men have to worry about proving their worth as an artist, women have to prove that they can be artists. The distinction makes sense, especially examining the history of patriarchy as Gilbert and Gubar do.

However, in reading yet another work that emphasizes the difference between men and women, between their experiences and between them as artists, I find myself wondering when it will end. When will we look at an artist and not have to distinguish them as male or female, but just as an artist? Why can't we just say "author," why do we have to say "female author"? Can't we just accept what Woolf suggests: that we all are masculine and feminine, just in different proportions? I agree with Woolf that an awareness of our sex causes issues--it is what makes us scramble to label artists male or female. I wish we could erase the need for such qualifiers.

Orlando (No...Not Bloom)

When I first read Virginia Woolf's Orlando I hated it.

It was really weird. I mean really. The protagonist starts out as a young man in Elizabethan England and then decides that he will never grow old. And he doesn't. He just continues living until one day--poof!--he's no longer a man (physically), he's a woman (physically). She then continues living and the book ends with Orlando a woman in the 1920's. That's not a storyline I'm used to.

However, after reading the essay on androgyny from V. Woolf's A Room of One's Own, I have a better appreciation for what was happening in Orlando.

The character Orlando is fascinating, once you move beyond the supernatural sex change. When Orlando is physically a man, he seems effeminate, more emotional and submissive than one generally assumes a man to be. And when Orlando is a woman, she seems masculine: less emotional and more assertive than one generally assumes a woman to be. (What one expects of the time period, I mean, or perhaps what one stereotypically expects.)

Gender is a complicated problem throughout the novel. The book begins in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, a grotesque character in the book, but in real life a woman succeeding, peculiarly, in the post generally held by a man. Orlando's first major love interest, Sasha, is a very masculine woman. Indeed, when Orlando first spots Sasha (while Sasha is ice skating), he is unsure whether she is a man or a woman, for she appears androgynous. In addition, Sasha is Russian, which makes her name even more interesting, as it is usually a name used for Russian men. Compared to (man) Orlando, Sasha is far more masculine; in their relationship, it is almost as if the typical "roles" were reversed, with Orlando playing the woman, and Sasha the man.

Later, (woman) Orlando will marry Marmaduke Bonthrop Shelmerdine, Esquire: a fellow who, like Orlando (and Sasha), does not fit neatly into gender categories--for just as Orlando is “as tolerant and free spoken as a man” and Shel is “as strange and subtle as a woman.” In one scene, Orlando exclaims: "You're a woman, Shel!" to which he replies "You're a man, Orlando!"

The above, I fear, barely touches the surface of the issue of gender in Woolf's Orlando, but it is necessary, I think, to even be able to begin talking about her opinions on androgyny.

Woolf asks "whether there are two sexes in the mind corresponding to the two sexes in the body, and whether they also require to be united in order to get complete satisfaction and happiness" (1025). She seems to answer her own question with a yes, for she goes on to state that "a great mind is androgynous. It is when this fusion takes place that the mind is fully fertilized and uses all its faculties" (1025). In Orlando, Woolf presents many of her characters as androgynous. Some are more "man-womanly," others more "woman-manly," but many of the major players defy the typical ways of thinking about gender.

In light of all the gender issues in today's world (homosexuals, bi-sexuals, transsexuals, transgender, etc), I wonder whether Woolf didn't have it right. Can we clearly label men as simply masculine and women as simply feminine, or is the distinction far less concrete. Is there a distinction between the genders at all, or merely distinctions between individuals?

Walk the Tight Rope

Writing is supposed to be a craft.

I get it.

The craft, the artistry of a work is what makes it beautiful, worth reading--it is what sets it apart from fleeting, mundane, mediocre works. True writers work diligently to hone this craft, laboring over every word, every comma, every blank space, every nuance--as they strive towards perfection. These artists seek not only to master an existing craft, they seek to make it their own.

I understand that writing is a craft, and I will be the first to say that the label of "artist" should be applied in an exclusive manner to writers who attain excellence in the craft (and not willy nilly to any Tom, Diane or Harry who calls themself a writer).

Being a craftsmen is one thing--being able to read said craft is another. The question was raised (in class) whether writers/artists should seek to make their work accessible to others.

...

Exactly. How do you begin to answer that? On one hand, we have the possibility that in attempting to reach the common man the craft will be lost--the work will have to be dumbed down. On the other hand, why does the work have to be dumbed down? I'm sure many of us have had an experience reading a piece where it felt like the writer was doing everything in their power to ensure that you had no chance of understanding their work.

I think that a writer should strive for excellence, for mastery of the craft, yes. But I also feel that, perhaps, they should not strive so hard to keep their craft behind closed doors--limited admittance: born and bred intellectuals only. What about the common man? If writers are to be "liberating gods" shouldn't they seek to actually liberate? Why keep their knowledge, their talent hidden away from the majority of the world? Couldn't there be a way to lift the common man up without dumbing their work down?