hedda gabler & a doll's house

by Catherine Partin

Two of Ibsen’s best-known plays, A Doll’s House and Hedda Gabler, have as their heroines frustrated bourgeois housewives whose lives are confined to the home and who prove themselves capable of more than is allowed them by societal constraints.  Nora and Hedda seem at first to inhabit separate worlds: one is a supportive wife and devoted mother; the other is a reluctant newlywed and dreads the responsibility of child-rearing; but both seek excitement and fulfillment outside the home and beyond the limited scope of their domestic duties.  Despite their apparent differences, both share a common quest for self-actualization through a rejection of social values and conventions, including a longing for excitement outside the domestic sphere and the idealization of a male character each of them attempts to influence and through whom they attempt to live vicariously.

            Nora and Hedda both challenge the roles they are expected to fill within a patriarchal society, especially in marriage.  Nora takes on the traditionally masculine task of working to bring a material income into the home, but her focus remains concentrated on providing for her family.  In contrast, while Hedda is virtually confined to the Falk Villa, her interest lies in the outside world, beyond the domestic sphere; unlike Nora, Hedda’s longing for independence is not masked by concern for a husband or children.  Patricia Spacks notes in The World of Hedda Gabler that Hedda “rejects the basic functions of women – marriage, motherhood; she rejects the real world of responsibility” (158).  Meanwhile, Nora is willing to devote herself to her role as wife and mother for the sake of the idealistic loyalty that she misguidedly ascribes to Helmer.  “I was completely certain – that you would come forward and take all the blame…it was to prevent that that I was ready to kill myself” (Ibsen, “A Doll’s House” 230).  While Hedda’s death is an act of rebellion against those to whom she is expected to submit, Nora’s contemplation of suicide is motivated by her notion that such an act would be a heroic feat of selflessness, a noble sacrifice to save her family from living in disgrace.  Nevertheless, despite Nora’s willingness to devote herself to her role as Helmer’s wife, she discovers a sense of satisfaction in violating the accepted conventions that discourage women from entering the world of work and business.  “[I]t was really tremendous fun sitting there working and earning money.  It was almost like being a man” (Ibsen, “A Doll’s House” 162).  In reality, the closest Nora and Hedda can get to experiencing the kind of freedom regularly afforded to men is through the idealistic hopes they pin on the male characters of Helmer and Lovborg.

            Both women maintain high ideals of love, sacrifice, and beauty that they initially cannot realize independently, each relying instead upon a powerful male figure to defy social conventions for them, thus fulfilling a romantic fantasy.  Arthur Ganz argues in Miracle and Vine Leaves: An Ibsen Play Rewrought, “Both women are prepared to throw away their lives to preserve the vision of the miraculous, the beautiful, that lifted their selves and their existences beyond the mundane… Each idealizes a man through whom she intends to achieve ‘the unattainable’ and whom she sees only as an instrument for the realization of herself” (11).  Although Nora ultimately does not commit suicide, her absolute faith in Helmer as the heroic figure she imagines him to be leads her to readily accept the idea of giving herself up in order to preserve her husband’s honour.  Nora abandons her thoughts of suicide as soon as she realizes that the cause for which she had been willing to die existed only in her mind as an unspoken desire.  Bereft of her own idealistic vision of Helmer as a loyal husband worth giving her life for, Nora finds herself liberated from the psychological shackles that had kept her captive in her role as a dutiful wife and mother.  She is then free to pursue her own personal and economic freedom.  The threat of poverty and public humiliation are of less importance to Nora than the self-actualization she can attain only by rejecting the role assigned to her by society.  For Nora, suicide would be the ultimate act of submission to the rules that value a man’s honour, not to mention a policy of strict obedience to men’s impartial systems of judgment, over a woman’s moral obligations, no matter how noble her intentions.  Unlike Hedda, whose suicide is a form of protest, Nora ultimately rebels not by seeking escape in death but by flouting social conventions in choosing to claim her life as her own.  Hedda, however, turns to suicide when Lovborg’s death fails to fulfill her vision of what she considers the beauty of free will.  She is so bound by the laws of society that she can see no possibility of liberation in attempting to defy them. 

            The obstacle facing both women in their struggles toward self-realization is the institution of marriage, portrayed in these plays as a sort of contract; women marry not for love, but for purely practical and economic reasons.  “I’d danced myself out.  That was all.  My time was up…and he was so determined…so sure he’d be able to support me…Why should I turn him down?”  (Ibsen, “Hedda Gabler” 41).  The husbands in both plays appear to dote on their wives, but neither relationship is emotionally or intellectually satisfying to Nora or Hedda.  Nonetheless, both women are willing to endure their unfulfilling marriages as long as certain conditions are met: in Nora’s case, her relationship with Helmer is kept intact only by her continued illusion that he is as willing to risk his life for her as she is for him; Hedda, driven by her “obsessive concern with the perception of society,” remains committed to playing the role of a loyal and devoted wife despite her own acknowledgment to Brack that she considers her marriage to Tesman a disappointment and a failure (Ganz 15).  Unlike Thea, however, Hedda does not see the possibility of deserting a dull marriage in favor of a passionate romance as an avenue to liberation.  To Hedda, Thea represents the bleak future of the woman who tries to live outside the constraints of society: she chases after Lovborg but fails to exercise any real control over him, and while she has freed herself from an unsatisfying marriage, she continues to depend heavily on a man for personal and emotional fulfillment but without the benefit of the legal bond that would at least ensure her financial security.  Despite her unfeminine affinity for pistols and her aversion to motherhood, Hedda appears in other respects a model wife: her relationship with Lovborg has never ventured beyond their illicit conversations into physical intimacy, and she refuses to engage in an adulterous affair with Judge Brack.  

However, Hedda’s reluctance to pursue a relationship with either man signifies not any sense of loyalty to Tesman, but rather a refusal to allow any man to exert power over her either materially or psychologically.  Her frustration stems in part from her repressed sexuality, involving fear of, desire for, and curiosity about a man’s world that a young girl “‘isn’t supposed to know anything about’” (Ganz 15).  Both Nora and Hedda are excluded from the freedoms exercised by the male characters in Ibsen’s plays, particularly economic and sexual.  As a result, their relationships suffer: Nora’s financial dependence on Helmer, although socially sanctioned, is a symptom of the distrust that leads to the dissolution of their marriage; Hedda’s unwillingness to accept a submissive sexual role compels her to resent Tesman and to reject both Lovborg and Brack.  Although they share similar desires for power and independence, sexuality plays a different role for each woman in her attempt to assert herself.  Ganz writes, “[Hedda’s] sexual allure has almost nothing to do with her manipulation of Lovborg…Nora is, after all, prepared to use her charms to get money, but Hedda tries to use her will and intelligence to ‘control a human destiny’” (16).  Hedda’s aversion to sexuality is underscored by her preoccupation with the idea of will and intellectual influence as the most powerful means of control, as she observes the dynamic between Lovborg and her envious husband , Thea and her positive influence on Lovborg.  In contrast, Nora recognizes her feminine charms as a source of power and uses them to her advantage, first flirting with Dr. Rank and then using dance to distract her husband.   She also realizes that her appeal will fade with time and age, and is prepared to use her secret as a kind of insurance against the inevitable waning of her beauty, which constitutes her only power over Helmer: “What I mean, of course, is when Torvald isn’t as fond of me as he is now – when my dancing and dressing up and reciting don’t amuse him any longer.  It might be a good thing, then, to have something up my sleeve…” (Ibsen, “A Doll’s House” 161).  Whereas Nora’s sexuality is her primary means of getting what she wants, Hedda resists men’s advances and prefers to exert her influence verbally, through her conversations with Lovborg and Tesman.  Although their means are different, their ends are the same.

            The trait that ultimately unites these characters is the idealistic vision each harbours of the man to whom she links her secret desires and private aspirations.  The tragedy of A Doll’s House is that Nora has spent eight years operating under the false and naïve expectation that Helmer would one day be revealed as the noble and worthy husband she longs for, risking her own reputation in the hope that he would readily do the same for her sake.  Hedda similarly envisions a grand gesture by Lovborg that would demonstrate her influence over his actions and validate her belief in the power of one’s will to overcome socially-imposed limitations.  She manipulates Lovborg as a way of experiencing a vicarious sense of liberation from the social conventions by which she is bound: 

“The vine leaves that she wishes to see in his hair are the symbol of beauty achieved by defiance of society; his dissipated life in the past, the dissipation she urges him toward in the present, represent to her the possibility of escaping rather than submitting to narrow social limits.  It is entirely for her own sake that she manipulates him: not merely for the joy of controlling a destiny, but for the immediate joy of knowing that she has, with perfect safety, with no apparent responsibility, caused a violation of conventional restrictions” (Spacks 158).

Lovborg has already earned a reputation for having led a depraved and self-indulgent past, but is easily redeemed and welcomed back into society’s good graces, but as a woman, Hedda cannot overtly rebel against social conventions without devastating consequences.  To Hedda, Lovborg’s suicide as she imagines it represents the fulfillment of her own desire for autonomy and the triumph of the will over worldly constraints: “All I know is that Ejlert Lovborg had the courage to choose the kind of life he wanted to lead.  And now this, this triumph, this beautiful deed.  He had the strength, the will, to tear himself away from the banquet of life…so early” (Ibsen, “Hedda Gabler” 100).  Lovborg’s death is admirable to Hedda because it suggests a kind of freedom from social pressures and obligations she herself could not expect to find in her own life.  Neither could Nora be considered able or expected to take on the full responsibility of her economic or legal decisions; her forgery must reflect badly on Helmer because she is at his mercy financially.  Both Nora and Hedda find themselves unable to act directly as individuals in the world, at least within the limits of their roles as women, but rely upon men as their representatives.  As Ganz notes, “The ‘miracle’ that Torvald is to perform and the crown of vine leaves that Lovborg is to wear are to have similar effects on the women who contemplate them.  For each of them this act – carried out on her behalf or under her influence – is to justify a life of restraint, conventionality, sacrifice, secret repression” (18).  However, neither heroine is granted this vicarious satisfaction of their desires.  Nora admits, “[W]hen the miracle didn’t happen…I saw that you weren’t the man I’d always thought you” (Ibsen, “A Doll’s House” 229).  Her disappointment over Helmer’s unwillingness to risk violating social conventions and Hedda’s disillusionment concerning the circumstances surrounding Lovborg’s death precipitate their decisions to move beyond idealizing or manipulating men to achieve their ends, and to take control of their own lives for the first time.

            Over the course of both plays, Nora and Hedda’s motivations gradually shift from the desire to control another person’s destiny to their own need for self-realization, propelling them both to their final acts of defiance and liberation.  Nora’s desertion of her post as wife and mother is a necessary sacrifice in asserting her autonomy, and Hedda’s suicide is a powerful statement of protest demonstrating willful control over her own destiny.  Both are a declaration of independence and a last courageous gesture of rebellion.

fasting girls

by Catherine Partin

In Fasting Girls: A History of Anorexia Nervosa, Joan Jacobs Brumberg traces the history of anorexia nervosa from its roots in the fasting demonstrated by medieval saints, through its resurgence in the Victorian era, and into modern times.  Great care is taken to distinguish between different forms of anorexia as the practices of refusing food evolved throughout the centuries, with Brumberg describing the transition from fasting as a form of religious devotion and piety to a symptom of insanity and finally a disorder of its own.  She attempts to explain, through careful historical examination of times and cultures in which food and femininity have been inextricably linked, how anorexia nervosa originated and why it has become so insiduous in our society.   Brumberg outlines three theoretial models of causation: biomedical, psychological, and cultural, the last of which is most relevant to feminist thinking.

             The cultural model of anorexia nervosa asserts that the disorder is caused by what Brumberg describes as “a powerful cultural imperative that makes slimness the chief attribute of female beauty.”  (33)  While eating disorders can be explained in biomedical and psychological terms, this feminist interpretation acknowledges that cultural forces are also to blame.  Brumberg writes, “Before Chernin, Orbach, and Millman, women’s dieting and weight concerns were trivialized or interpreted as masking a strictly individual psychological problem without consideration of the ways in which culture stimulated, exacerbated, and gave shape to a pattern of problematic behaviors.”  (36)  Without dismissing valid medical findings and psychological theories, Brumberg notes that the cultural model provides an additional explanation for anorexia nervosa by recognizing that social factors influence eating habits and disorders.

             Contemporary feminist analysis of disordered eating is based upon scholarly criticism of nineteenth-century women and medicine.  These scholars postulate “that women’s bodies are a locus of social control…and that ‘female diseases’ are socially constructed states that symbolize both the hegemony of scientific medicine and Victorian social constraints on women.”  (36)  Brumberg continues, “Thus, anorexia nervosa is painted as a young woman’s protest against the patriarchy– that is, as a form of feminist politics.” (37)  In this view, the refusal to eat is a symbolic rejection of oppressive social norms.  However, Brumberg takes issue with the classic feminist view of anorexia nervosa as a cultural or political protest on the grounds that it denies the biomedical factor and can lead to thinking of the illness as a conscious choice rather than a debilitating disease, arguing, “Although some earnestly believe that anorexia nervosa is a conscious and/or symbolic act against sexism that follows in a direct line from early-twentieth-century feminism, it is difficult from a historical perspective to see the analogy between the articulate and life-affirming political strategies of the Pankhursts and the silent, formulaic behavior of the modern Karen Carpenters…If the anoretic’s food refusal is political in any way, it is a severely limited and infantile form of politics, directed primarily at parents (and self) and without any sense of allegiance to a larger collectivity.” (38)  In other words, disordered eating may indeed be spurred by generalized dissatisfaction to which oppressive societal demands contribute, but to conclude that anorexia nervosa is then a conscious reaction against authority would be presumptuous.  Brumberg also notes that this way of thinking can lead to what she calls “an interpretation of the disorder that overemphasizes the level of conscious control,” (37); she recognizes the merits of the existing cultural model but argues that it cannot stand alone as an explanantion for a disorder that also has roots in physiology and personal psychology. 

            Brumberg hypothesizes, as many eating disorders experts do, that the causes of anorexia nervosa are intertwined; she posits that anorexia nervosa can be divided into two stages, the first involving a sociocultural framework for food-refusal and the second consisting of the mental and physical disturbances that feed the compulsion to starve.  Brumberg writes, “When we take the long history of female fasters into account, it becomes apparent that there are certain historical moments and cultural settings when a biological substratum could be activated by potent social and cultural forces.”  (42) 

            Fasting Girls mainly concentrates on the Victorian era, when notions of food and feminity were interwined to such a degree that anorexia nervosa emerged as an independent diagnosis amid myriad other variants of disordered eating associated with diseases such as dyspepsia and chlorosis.  Brumberg notes that the historical timing of anorexia nervosa corresponds with the idea that, following the Protestant Reformation, medicine took the place of religion in suppressing and dominating women.   When fasting lost its power as a religious practice, refusing food was then cast as symptomatic of mental illness, specifically hysteria, which in turn had its basis in the inherent weakness of the female body.  Brumberg writes, “The health of young women was definitely influenced by a general female fashion for sickness and debility…In Victorian society unhappy women (and men) had to employ physical complaints in order to be permetted to take on the privileged ‘sick role.’  Because the most prevalent diseases in this period were those that involved ‘wasting,’ it is no wonder that becoming thin, through noneating became a focal symptom.’  Wasting was in style.”  (168)

            Despite the passage of time, wasting is still in style.  Following a detailed analysis of anorexia nervosa’s roots, Brumberg discusses the evolution of beauty ideals from the early twentieth century up to the 1980s.  Her work shows that while cultural settings and expectations have changed, food and appetite continue to serve as a feminine mode of self-expression.  In her conclusion, she observes, “As in many psychiatric disorders, the behavioral symptoms are an expression of prevailing cultural concerns.”  (253)  Fasting Girls is a fascinating examination of an illness that is fed heartily, if not altogether caused, by the myths of beauty and femininity to which we as a society subscribe.

a room of one's own

by Catherine Partin

Does writing have a gender, and if so, how can we account for the historical differences in literary output between men and women?  Is there such a thing as masculine or feminine writing?  What is the difference, if there is one, and why have women been excluded from this form of cultural production?  Virginia Woolf’s essay, A Room of One’s Own, examines the history of women in literature and attempts to explain how and why women have been largely left out of the canon of Western literature.  Woolf argues that women writers are limited not by biological or intellectual capacities, but by societal barriers that have, for centuries, designated women as the second sex and deprived them of the range of liberties and experiences available to their male counterparts.   A Room of One’s Own identifies the history of women’s oppression, issues of economic privilege or poverty, and men’s interest in maintaining their cultural and literary authority as the determining forces upon which hinge women’s ability to write.  Although Woolf emphasizes the material independence that women have been denied, and upon which rests the intellectual freedom necessary for the production of great literature, as the primary reason for women’s exclusion from cultural production, many societal and psychological obstacles remain, even in the wake of the women’s movement.  Women’s writing continues to reflect the lingering effects of misogynistic cultural memes that have deprived women of a feminine literary tradition comparable to the Western canon of literature produced largely by men.  The woman writer’s creative identity and ways of expression are formed by her experience in a male-dominated society.  Because of the hindrances women have faced, women’s writing is necessarily marked by the challenges with which its authors have been forced to contend, and by patriarchal systems that have historically failed to allow for feminine modes of creation. 

            As the primary basis of differentiation between the sexes, the biological traits that distinguish male from female have historically been cited as signs of women’s inferiority.  The innate fragility attributed to the female sex, based on generalizations about women’s physical strength but extending to morality and intellect as well, has been used as an excuse for benevolent sexism and for the continued subjugation of women.  An ideal world, according to Woolf, would be one in which women were permitted the same opportunities as men. “[I]n a hundred years…they will take part in all the exertions and activities that were once denied them.  The nursemaid will heave coal.  The shop-woman will drive an engine.  All assumptions founded on the facts when women were the protected sex will have disappeared…” (Woolf 40)  The excuse of physical weakness has been used to dictate women’s work and recreation, and to deny women entry to the masculine realms of labor, politics, and education.  It has also played a role in preventing women from partaking in the variety of experiences available to men through work, travel, reproductive freedom, and personal autonomy.  Woolf notes that the works authored by women such as Colette, Jane Austen, and George Eliot “…were written by women without more experience of life than could enter the house of a respectable clergyman” (69).  To the detriment of women’s writing, societal disapproval of women’s attempts at those masculine endeavors deemed inappropriately strenuous for the female constitution or intellect has kept women safely ensconced in the domestic sphere, where they would be expected to fulfill a maternal role, to the renunciation of any potential career.   After questioning the failure of her generation’s predecessors to provide their daughters with the educational institutions and funds for scholarship, Woolf’s narrator concludes, “[T]o endow a college would necessitate the suppression of families altogether.  Making a fortune and bearing thirteen children – no human being could stand it”; she later notes that none of the successful female novelists she admires were mothers (22, 65).  Yet aside from reproductive realities and the domestic duties associated with motherhood, women’s bodies have always been belittled as inherently flawed.  Simone de Beauvoir, in The Second Sex, describes the ways in which physical features and functions exclusive to the female body are identified not only as variations from, but signs of inferiority to, a norm characterized by masculinity:

“Woman has ovaries, a uterus; there we have the particular circumstances that imprison her in her subjectivity; one often says that she thinks with her glands.  In his grandiosity man forgets that his anatomy also includes hormones, and testicles.  He thinks of his body as a direct and normal connection with the world which he believes that he apprehends objectively, while he considers the woman’s body to be weighed down by everything specific to it: an obstacle, a prison.”  (Beauvoir 5)

Where women differ from men, they are considered intrinsically flawed, the perceived shortcomings of the female body projected still further to the mind or immaterial self.  Women’s bodies are seen as a barrier between the self and an objective reality that only men can perceive.  Beauvoir cites saints and philosophers whose theories were nonetheless tainted by misogyny: “’The female is a female by virtue of a certain lack of qualities,’ Aristotle said.  ‘We should regard the female nature as afflicted with a natural defectiveness.’  And Saint Thomas in his turn decreed that woman was an ‘incomplete man’” (Beauvoir 5).  Women are measured by male standards and, like the Manx cat of Woolf’s essay, found lacking in some respect that has been taken as the defining characteristic of the species.  This absence of masculine traits has been used as justification for women’s categorization as the weaker sex not only physically but intellectually and morally as well, and for their subsequent exclusion from the realm of creative pursuits dominated by men. 

            Women’s rejection from male educational and artistic institutions has led to the lack of a substantial feminine literary tradition.  Woolf argues that the one of the greatest difficulties the early women writers faced, beyond practical and material hardships, was that of being compelled to adapt to forms and literary standards tailored to men’s creative strengths.  Describing the style and structure men’s writing took with the development of the novel, Woolf writes, “A book is not made of sentences laid end to end, but of sentences built, if an image helps, into arcades or domes.  And this shape too has been made by men out of their own needs for their own uses” (76).   Woolf also speculates that the popularity of the novel as the genre of choice among nineteenth-century women writers was rooted in convenience and practicality rather than authors’ creative inclinations.  Women took to novels because they could suffer the frequent interruptions and obligations that divided women’s attentions, they required less concentration to write than poetry, and as the act of writing became possible for women of less privileged classes than ever before, they could easily fetch an income (Woolf 65-67).  Despite this increased literary production, the growing body of feminine literature still failed to express women’s creative capacities.  Instead, it continued to reflect external restrictions encroaching upon the creative process.

            The disparities between women and men in their encounters of the world mean that creativity must be expressed differently between the sexes: women cannot write like men because their experiences are uniquely feminine.  In A Room of One’s Own, Woolf lauds the novelists Jane Austen and Emily Bronte for refusing to emulate a masculine style of writing and instead finding their own ways of writing about the truth, believing that “literature arises when a human being tries to attend to reality with as much integrity and truthfulness as she can muster, and then tries to communicate that vision to others” (Moi 268).  Reality, however, has traditionally been defined by men, who perceive their view of reality as the true and objective one while women must relate to the world subjectively (Beauvoir 5).  The argument that gender should be irrelevant forces women writers to renounce their subjectivity and “to masquerade as some kind of generic universal human being, in ways that devalue their actual experiences as embodied human beings in the world,” but to write intentionally as a woman, Woolf believes, presents and even greater risk because it means sacrificing the integrity of the work (Moi 265).  Only when women can write as men have written for centuries, unconscious of the hardships and disadvantages unfairly inflicted upon their sex, will women’s writing be recognized for its own merits and not because its authors are female.  The fatal flaw that Woolf finds in many novels by women is what she describes as a sense of bitterness and a hint at the desire for self-expression that women have not been permitted to openly articulate.  Women’s attempts to defend or compensate for their gender have shaped women’s writing in ways that lead Woolf to declare, “[I]t is fatal for anyone who writes to think of their sex…It is fatal for a woman to lay the least stress on any grievance; to plead even with justice any cause; in any way to speak consciously as a woman” (103).  Nelly Richard writes in Masculine/Feminine: Practices of Difference(s) that both masculine and feminine forces “…act together in every process of creative subject formation: it is the dominance of one force over the other that polarizes writing” (21).  This idea bolsters Woolf’s argument that the essence of creativity itself is not gendered, and echoes her assertion that both masculine and feminine qualities can and should be found at work together in good writing, for, “It is when this fusion takes place that the mind is fully fertilized and uses all its faculties.  Perhaps a mind that is purely masculine cannot create, any more than a mind that is purely feminine…” (97).  Only the androgynous mind is capable of producing truly great works of literature, unaffected by the societal constraints associated with an author’s identification as masculine or feminine.

            The labeling of literature in such binary terms can be useful in a historical context, but as Woolf argues, writers must surpass cultural ideas about gender if they are to write with integrity to their vision; such binary oppositions as male and female “are more than theoretically interesting examples of human cognition, for the processes of defining by negation are sometimes used to justify the political and economic practices of exclusion” (Penticoff, Brodkey 229).  Fixating on the sex of women writers only serves to underscore gender divisions still fraught with tension.  Unless women are allowed to write unimpeded by and unconscious of their sex, they cannot achieve the creative successes that their male counterparts have been free to attain.  Though Woolf occupies herself with questions about women’s writing and its place in literature, her ultimate hope is for a future in which it will be possible to transcend the patriarchal mentality that has imposed such damaging limitations on writers, both masculine and feminine, and their creativity.

Works Cited

Beauvoir, Simone de.  The Second Sex.  Trans. Constance Borde, Sheila Malovany-Chevallier.  New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2009.  5-14.  Print.

Moi, Toril.  “I am not a woman writer.”  Feminist Theory 9.3 (2008): 259-271. Web.  23 Nov. 2010.

Penticoff, Richard, and Linda Brodkey.  “Writing About Difference: ‘Hard Cases’ for Cultural Studies.”  Writing Permitted in Designated Areas Only.  Ed. Linda Brodkey.  Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996.  229.  Print.

Richard, Nelly.  Masculine/Feminine: Practices of Difference(s).  USA: Duke University Press, 2004.  Print.

Woolf, Virginia.  A Room of One’s Own. USA: Harcourt, 2005.  Print.

the handmaid's tale

by Anna

            This is a talk back assignment for an Intro to Women’s Studies class where I wrote a personal response to Margaret Atwood and her novel, The Handmaid’s Tale. 

Margaret Atwood,

“Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.”  I love that you included this Latin phrase throughout The Handmaid’s Tale.  The use of a dead language which was used by one of the most well organized groups of people creates an aura of secrecy and also revolution.  It is this secrecy that is the basis of Gilead’s government that makes this novel so poignant and also so possible.  As a historian, I read your novel and think of other fanatical governments.  Gilead reminds me of Bloody Mary and how she burned almost 300 Protestants in the name of God and tortured so many more so that she could help her people follow “the one true faith.”  The Spanish Inquisition comes to mind when I read your novel, and how Spain threw out all the “undesirables,” and those that refused to leave: they killed them.  If I look at a more contemporary event, I would have to compare Gilead to Nazi Germany and their forced labor and death camps.  You wrote that the leaders of Gilead forced their own “undesirables” to perform forced labor in nuclear waste lands which would inevitably lead to their death.  Your creation of Gilead is a perfect caricature of fanatical governments and also a terrifying look into what we as people are capable of.  When I read your novel I couldn’t help but wonder what was the basis of Gilead and what is the basis of the society in which I live.

I believe that even though we have definitely moved beyond the Spanish Inquisition and Bloody Mary’s reign of terror we are still living in a society that believes in punishing “the sinner” or those that choose to live a life different from the dominant discourse.  Saepe peccāmus, which translates as: we often sin.  Would the leaders of Gilead use this to describe the world in which we currently live?  Sometimes we sin, not by what we do, but also by what we don’t do.  Offred said, “I didn’t go on any of the marches.  Luke said it would be futile and I had to think about them, my family, him and her.  I did think about my family.  I started doing more housework, more baking.  I tried not to cry at mealtimes” (180).  Isn’t this a sin?  Isn’t self denial lying?  I was taught that lying is a sin and that in order to reach that divine fairy tale land where all the “good people” go to after we die I could not sin.  Wasn’t Offred sinning just by lying there in her red dress and aching for Luke while she was caressed by Nick?  Wasn’t it a lie when she allowed the Commander to kiss her?

The ways in which you describe what happens between the Commander, Serena Joy and Offred is so vivid and frightening in its realism.  Did you write these scenes believing they were rape?  I view them as rape.  I know that not everyone agrees with me.  There are women I know who view that scene as sex.  They think that it is acquiescence when Offred states: “Therefore I lie still and picture the unseen canopy over my head.  I remember Queen Victoria’s advice to her daughter: Close your eyes and think of England.  But this is not England.  I wish he would hurry up” (94).  Do you view these scenes of copulation, fornication as sex?  Is Offred making the choice to have her body used as an incubator?  Offred never describes it as anything resembling a positive experience.  She states:

What’s going on in this room, under Serena Joy’s silvery canopy, is not exciting.  It has nothing to do with passion or love or romance or any of those other notions we used to titillate ourselves with.  It has nothing to do with sexual desire, at least for me, and certainly not for Serena.  Arousal and orgasm are no longer thought necessary… (94).

Arousal and orgasm for women are not thought necessary.  I’m certain that the Commander reaches climax and that he achieves some form of arousal.  Much like when a woman is being raped, this is only about the man’s needs, wants, and desires.  Offred just becomes the hole in which he uses to dispose of his erection.  Her body is no longer a body anymore, it is simply a receptacle.    

I was intrigued at the lengths that you took to demonstrate how very far the leaders of Gilead went to make the Handmaids’ bodies property, thus making them no longer a human being.  Offred states, “I’m taken to the doctor’s once a month, for tests: urine, hormones, cancer smear, blood test; the same as before, except that now it’s obligatory” (59).  Offred has no right to decide what will happen to her, her body, herself.  How did you know how to write about being so out of control?  I understand being out of control and having everyone around me have control over my body and how I and they can use it.  You wrote, “I stand up, in the dark, start to unbutton.  Then I hear something, inside my body.  I’ve broken, something has cracked, that must be it” (146).  This line made me weep.  I remember that moment in my life when I broke.  I remember the moment when it became clear that I would never be able to forget what had happened and that I would never be able to live a day without the memory of them breaking me apart and tearing apart my body and my soul.  How were you able to show this moment?  I think so many women in our world are forced to know this moment.  Are you saying that it is universal?  Whether or not we live in society such as our own or in a society structured like Gilead will women always be forced to become possessions of men and to have their “self” ripped from them?  Will you write of a world where this doesn’t exist, or is that actually beyond the scope of what we can even imagine because this form of slavery is so ingrained in us?

Cicero once said, “Possumusne, Ō dī, in malīs īnsidiīs et magnō exitō esse salvī?” Translated, it means, “Can we be safe, O gods, in wicked treachery and great destruction?”  We can’t be safe, and we aren’t safe.

does it get better?: youth, sexuality, & suicide

by Kaleigh

In the last months of 2010, the United States’ media has been flooded with stories of queer youth, bullying, and suicide.  The recent influx of queer youth suicides has brought widespread attention to the experiences of hatred that queer youths have endured as a result of the perpetuation of heterosexism in mainstream American culture, despite the fact that this issue was named more than a decade ago.  Hershberger, Pilkington, and D’Augelli (1997) broke ground by explaining how sexual orientation plays a role in youth suicide, when previous studies merely mentioned the higher instances of suicidal behaviors in queer youth.  In 1999, medical and public health professionals identified lesbian, gay, bisexual and questioning youths to be 3.41 times more likely to report attempting suicide than their heterosexual peers (Garland & Zigler, 1999).  Given these empirical understandings, it is a wonder that the general public hasn’t engaged in discourse on queer youth suicide until the end of the year 2010.

            In reaction to the societal outpour of emotive responses surrounding LGBTQ youth suicide, bloggers, vloggers, and journalists have taken to the internet to engage in discussions on the issue.  One of the most notable responses to the recent tragedies has been the formation of the “It Gets Better Project” by columnist Dan Savage and his husband, Terry Miller.  The internet campaign to raise awareness on LGBTQ youth suicide and bullying was started by Savage and Miller, who made a Youtube video to explain to queer youths who are bullied in middle and high school that “it gets better” (Savage & Miller, 2010). 

The campaign has since gained massive notoriety, with such people as President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, Representative Nancy Pelosi and numerous Hollywood celebrities all contributing videos ascertaining that “it gets better” (Savage & Miller, 2010).   The “It Gets Better Project” has both been critically acclaimed by the liberal media and deeply criticized in the radical queer community.  In this essay, I will explore these opposing viewpoints through the lens of youth suicide prevention research, and will analyze the ways in which “It Gets Better” both aligns with empirical prevention findings, as well as how it is likely to be ineffective as a means for prevention.  Finally, utilizing these viewpoints, I will synthesize this knowledge into my personal stance on “It Gets Better.”

The “It Gets Better Project” has been embraced on a national level as a means to provide queer youths with hope, which is, perhaps, the key element of IGBP.  In a blog post, Savage responded to some of the criticism he had been receiving by saying, “The point of the videos is to give despairing kids in impossible situations a little thing called hope,” (2010).  Hope is an essential factor when assessing risk of suicide, because hopelessness has consistently been found to be a correlate with suicidal ideation and behaviors (Gould, Greenberg, Velting, & Shaffer, 2003). 

Additionally, a construct that is intrinsic in Savage’s statement is the idea of youths in crisis.  Crisis interventions have been one of the most widely utilized prevention strategies for suicide (Garland & Zigler, 1993).  The rationale for these interventions, such as hotline services, is that the youth is able to access support immediately through accessible means (Gould et al., 2003).  The theoretical foundation of crisis interventions aligns with the goal of “It Gets Better,” in that IGBP was formulated to provide an expansive network of support for queer youths at the click of a mouse.  This is similar to hotline crisis intervention strategies, and is perhaps the method of crisis intervention of the future. 

As the internet has become increasingly more available and accessible over the past two decades, the idea of community has been reinvented and redefined to reflect the virtual communities of the internet, such as the Youtube vlogging community.  Youtube provides an instantaneous community for discussion and support (Burgess & Green, 2008).  IGBP has tapped into this emerging form of community and has provided a space of positivity and support for queer youths in moments of desperation, which is at the very heart of the reasoning behind crisis intervention strategies.

The creation of a Youtube community for LGBTQ youths also has positive implications for social support.  Access to culturally relevant means of support has been found to be a protective factor for suicidal behaviors in queer youth (Morrison & L’Heureux, 2001).  Affirming sources of support for queer youths, such as IGBP, decrease feelings of isolation and aid youths in the coming out process (Morrison & L’Heureux, 2001).  The “It Gets Better Project” on Youtube provides social support unlike any other, where youths can hear from and engage with their peers, as well as adults whom they respect, from all over the world.

Despite the various seemingly positive contributions that IGBP has provided to LGBTQ youths in crisis, numerous critiques from the radical queer and feminist communities have surfaced on the internet in conversations on blogs and independent news sources.  One of the most circulated blogs was an exhaustive list written by Zoe Melisa, which complicates the intentions of IGBP by introducing the constructs of privilege, trivialization, safety, and the elimination of differences (2010).  The essential argument against “It Gets Better” is that there is so much more complexity in the issue of queer youth suicide and a band-aid of false hope isn’t going to affect change on a systemic level.

Through a prevention lens, despite the prominence of crisis interventions for suicide in the mental health community, results have been inconclusive regarding the effectiveness of this strategy (Gould et al., 2003).  The continual lack of significance in the efficacy findings on crisis intervention is an indicator that these types of interventions alone are not the answer to preventing LGBTQ youth suicide.  Savage (2010) has explicitly stated that IGBP’s goal is to provide hope and support for queer youths in crisis, so the project can thusly be understood as a crisis intervention strategy.  Empirical evidence has consistently shown that crisis interventions have yet to be statistically significantly effective, therefore we can hypothesize that IGBP may not be effective, either.

“It Gets Better” also aims to increase awareness of LGBTQ youth suicide through the media, which has potentially problematic repercussions for the youths themselves.  Findings have indicated that the media’s focus on LGBTQ issues can cause queer youths to experience greater levels of internal stress, which in turn increases risk for suicide (Morrison & L’Heureux, 2001).  There is also the likelihood of contagion, which is the phenomenon of individuals becoming aware of suicides, and the increase in instances of suicide following that awareness (Gould et al., 2003).  IGBP has attempted to provide support and awareness for queer youth, but the campaign may be doing just the opposite by increasing sexual orientation related stress in queer youths.

Furthermore, “It Gets Better” lacks to acknowledge the complexity of youths’ experiences with suicide.  It may be one step in the right direction to understand youth suicide through the lens of sexual orientation, but an integral facet of youth suicide is also race.  Native American male youths have the highest rates of suicide and Latino/a youths have the highest rates of suicidal ideation and attempts (Gould et al., 2003).  IGBP does not mention the component of race in youth suicide anywhere on their website, and it is rarely (if ever) directly discussed in the videos being submitted to the project.  The simplification of queer youth suicide doesn’t take intersectionality into consideration, which subsequently limits how youths can identify with the faux support of the campaign.

Given the research that has gone into this essay, I have had the opportunity to analyze the “It Gets Better Project” from the two opposing sides at the forefront of debate.  While I value the various opinions that have been voiced regarding IGBP, it has been useful to understand the project through a clinical prevention lens.  In the end, regardless of what our opinions are on an issue based on our philosophical assumptions, if something works, it works.  It was my goal in this essay to explore whether “It Gets Better” can really accomplish what they have set out to accomplish.

In reviewing the literature on LGBTQ youth suicide prevention, and youth suicide prevention in general, it became clear to me that the “It Gets Better Project” is not likely to have as positive of an effect for queer youths, in terms of suicide prevention, as the liberal media might have the public believe.  As stated previously, this kind of intervention has not conclusively been shown to be effective.  More importantly, the research conducted by Morrison & L’Heureux (2001) illuminated how this kind of media attention can even make queer youths experiences worse.  Based on these findings, I think it is imperative that people do their research on what can actually help youth before setting out on a mission to supposedly help them (while subsequently gaining massive amounts of praise and self-promotion).

I do, admittedly, take great issue with the way this project has been implemented and the lack of true thought and consideration that went into bringing it to fruition; however, it took me a while to come to this conclusion.  Upon learning about IGBP and watching the first videos, I was glad for its existence.  As a survivor of suicide, my initial reaction was that this was a beautiful way to reach out to youths who were aching.  If I had had access to something like this, I wonder how I would have felt.  At the time in my life where I was blinded by my anguish, I pined for connection; I yearned to feel something outside of myself. 

I honestly think that if I was able to hear people talk about where they had come from, and how they climbed out of that abyss, I wouldn’t care about the simplicity of the program’s implementation.  When I was experiencing the most devastating grief of my life, I know that I wouldn’t be thinking about how this program wasn’t informed by feminist and queer theory, and that it didn’t reflect my radical ideologies.  I think being able to recognize these deficits in the project is a privilege that someone who is suicidal often does not have, and that is a privilege that even the most radical of bloggers has failed to consider.

In summary, I have explored the “It Gets Better Project” through a clinical prevention lens, and have utilized my findings to formulate my personal stance on the issue of the project and LGBTQ youth suicide.  I have found that, overall, the theoretical framework of IGBP is not supported by empirical prevention efficacy findings.  Finally, I have come to the conclusion that my opinion of “It Gets Better” is very much in the gray area, and that I am extremely conflicted about my position.  As a self-professed radical, in terms of my politics, I see, understand, and agree with all of the ways that IGBP is incredibly problematic; however, my identity as a suicide survivor causes me to empathize with the cause, and to see that in some youths’ situations, it just might provide the support they need. In the end, I am content in knowing that this is a complex issue, and my complex feelings are valid.


*References available upon request.

talking back to Charlotte Bunch

by Kaleigh

The following is a critical response to Charlotte Bunch's "Lesbians in Revolt." I wrote this years ago in the beginnings of my coursework in Women's Studies.  Looking back at this piece, I smile at the freshness and determination in my younger voice.  I like to believe that my understandings of the world, and my ability to articulate them, have grown and evolved in some ways since this was written, but it is lovely to look back and hear my passion emerge as I opened my eyes to feminism for the first time.

“Talk Back” Critical Reading Response

Charlotte Bunch,

Upon reading your essay “Lesbians in Revolt” it appeared to me that you were primarily addressing a very specific group of people.  The group of people in question is feminist women, and more particularly, lesbian feminist women.  I would have to say that I do somewhat identify with being a part of that audience, specifically with your definition of the group in the passage “The lesbian, woman-identified-woman, commits herself to women not only as an alternative to oppressive male/female relationships but primarily because she loves women” (Bunch 83).  I identify with this definition of the target audience in a general sense, in that I am deeply committed and passionate to improving the lives of women because I love them, but I don’t love women to the exclusion of men and all other genders. 

My love for women doesn't detract from my love for all humanity.  It is in this way that I am excluded from your target audience, at the same time that I am partially included.  I am excluded because I do not reject men, as you say we must in order to put an end to oppression (Bunch 85).  I, instead, invite them to join me in the struggle for equality.  As stated in an article published by Agenda Feminist Media by Ira Horowitz, “Sexism hurts us all.”  Men aren’t excluded from the equation; therefore, I choose not to exclude them from my life.

Another way that your target audience may be seen as exclusionary is that your message has left out the population of women (and people, in general) of color.  It appears that you do make an attempt to be inclusive in your statement “race, class, and national oppressions come from men, serve ruling-class white male interests, and have no place in woman-identified revolution” (Bunch 85).  However, The Combahee River Collective sees it in a different way.  They state “although we are feminists and lesbians, we feel solidarity with progressive black men and do not advocate the fractionalization that white women who are separatists demand” (Combahee River Collective 166).  This statement furthers the idea that oppression, including sexism and racism, is damaging to all people. 

I agree more with the idea that men are products of socialization and that it is not their inherent “maleness” that is the cause for sexism (Combahee River Collective 167).  Therefore, by discriminating men solely on the basis of their biological sex, I feel that we would be furthering sexist attitudes instead of working towards ending them.  I also agree with the stance that lesbian separatism isn’t an adequate political analysis and strategy because too many people are left out, including men, women, and children of color (Combahee River Collective 167).  As Andrew Matzner states in his article “Separatism,” “radical feminist ideology (holds) the white, middle-class woman as its standard, and that, in particular, the needs of women of color (are) ignored” (Matzner 2).

Another group of people that are excluded from your target audience are people in the trans community.  You state that in order to be a part of the lesbian feminist movement to end oppression, one must be a “woman-identified-woman”.  This again puts the emphasis on biological differences as opposed to socialization.  By deducing that the root of all sexism, and therefore the root of all oppressions, is biological, socialization is completely overlooked, even though it is a very valid and probable theory. 

I believe that by excluding male-to-female transsexuals from the definition of what a woman is, you are denying someone the right to their own identity and therefore contributing to the oppression of those peoples.  This oppression of trans individuals by radical feminists can be seen in the history of the radical feminist movement.  In the 1970’s, there were various male-to-female transsexuals that were forced out of communities of lesbians because they were born biologically male.  One such case is that of Beth Elliott.  Elliot was serving as the Vice President of the San Francisco chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis, and was “outed” as a transsexual and subsequently forced to resign from her post (Matzner 2).  Another case is that of Sandy Stone.  When rumors began to fester that she was a transsexual, she was asked to resign from her post as a recording engineer by Olivia Management (Matzner 2).  In my eyes, these are further examples of oppression by people whose aim is supposedly to end all oppression.

            

I feel a bit uncomfortable when I read your statement about lesbians in the workplace.  You iterate “The lesbian is also a threat on the job because she is not the passive/part-time woman worker that capitalism counts on to do boring work and be part of a surplus labor pool” (Bunch 86).  When I read this, it seems that you are insinuating that any woman who does not conform to your idea of what a feminist should be must immediately be weak and “passive.”  I don’t believe that all of the people who are excluded from your audience (women of color, male-to-female transsexuals, heterosexual women) are inherently passive.  If a woman chooses to work part-time and not put all of her focus and energy into her work, that is her choice.  To me, feminism is about the right to choose, and by immediately categorizing women whose main goals in life don’t revolve around their career is denying their right to choose and is therefore counterproductive in the feminist movement.

           

One of the strengths that I see in your piece is the idea that “sexism is the root of all oppression.”  Your argument for this idea is made quite adequately when you say “the first division of labor, in prehistory, was based on sex…  Having secured the domination of women, men continued this pattern of oppressing people, not on the basis of tribe, race, and class” (Bunch 84).  Robin Morgan, along with various radical feminists, agree with the idea, saying “sexism is the root oppression, the one which, until and unless we uproot it, will continue to put for the branches of racism, class hatred, ageism, competition, ecological disaster, and economic exploitation” (Morgan via Katherine, 282).

            

I suppose that my way of thinking is from more of a liberal feminist perspective, in that my views are heavily based on equality for all people, and not necessarily for the advancement of women beyond men and other genders.  Yes, I believe that the rights of women need to be advanced in order to achieve this equality with white males, but so do the rights of people of color and people in the LGBTQI community, as well as other oppressed communities.  I also believe that socialization has a huge role in the roots of oppression, as opposed to being based solely based on the biological.  It is in this way that I agree with Mary Wollstonecraft when she says that if men were confined to the same cages that women are confined to, they would also develop the “same flawed characters” (Wollstonecraft);  those flawed characteristics being the generalizations that are made in regards to the female sex.  To me, Wollstonecraft is explaining that we are products of socialization, and I wholeheartedly agree with her in that regard.

            

In conclusion, I feel that your piece “Lesbians in Revolt” is incredibly provocative and stirring.  Although there are various ways in which I don’t completely agree with your agenda, I agree with your purpose, which is to end sexist oppression. 

*References available upon request.