Feminist writing: not just for women

by Marlena Chertock, September 7, 2010

It’s the new f-word, some say. But feminism shouldn’t be a negative word. Sylvia Plath wasn’t afraid to speak her mind and divulge her feminist opinions, according to English professor Tita Ramirez. Plath’s book “The Bell Jar” offers a look into 1950s society and her feminist opinions. She wrote about the inequality between women and men in 1950s society, a time when she was growing up. She describes a stifling environment where she feels trapped: the bell jar — a place where air doesn’t circulate, a place where she can’t fully achieve her goals.

English professor Rosemary Haskell recalls “one contemporary reviewer of the book (saying) that it was in the J.D. Salinger “Catcher in the Rye” vein — but from a girl’s adolescent perspective, rather than a boy’s.” She said that comment helped her to see the book not only as a rendition of Plath’s own anguish, but also as a creative response to teenage life in the early 1950s.

English professor Megan Isaac said Plath’s writing resonates with many readers, not just those looking for feminist writing.

“Plath’s writing captures the ambition and angst many talented young women felt in the middle of the twentieth century, and the simultaneous fear of failure and success that ‘The Bell Jar’ includes has a continuing resonance for

some readers,” Isaac said.

Isaac said feminist authors are important to read for many reasons.

“Sometimes they are strong writers telling compelling stories with style and skill,” she said. “Sometimes they remind readers of the varied ways that societies can be organized, women can live, people can interact and humanity can exist. Sometimes feminist writers have social, political or personal agendas that can inspire readers to re-imagine their own lives.”

But Isaac also said it is unfortunate when writers are given labels such as “feminist” because it can turn readers away.

“(Labeling authors) can serve to pigeonhole an artist who is not one label but many things to many different readers,” Isaac said. “We don’t label Shakespeare and Twain as ‘masculinist’ authors, so I’m not sure it usually serves any great purpose to label other writers as ‘feminist.’”

Isaac said she also doesn’t believe feminist authors write only for women. She also said men do need to consider the issues that are explored in this kind of writing, and that there is a lot readers of both genders can learn from feminist authors.

“Feminist authors are liable to spend more time exploring the condition of women as individuals and the opportunities available and limitations enforced upon women in various points of history or different cultures,” she said. “But it is a mistake to think that women can be explored in isolation. Women and men live together; so if we read about what happens to women in a certain culture at a certain time, we are also implicitly reading about men and the ways their relationships with women and the whole world are shaped, the ways their roles are enlarged or restricted.”

“And, of course,” Haskell added, “men can be feminist authors, too.”

Elon’s own feminist club, EFFECT, holds events to spread awareness of feminism and change its negative perception.

“People say feminism and think man-hating ([or) ] lesbian,” said EFFECT president Elisabethe Maselli.

But feminism is really “the drive for gender equality,” Maselli said. “Gender equality should be for everybody — not just women, not just men — anyone who’s different. It’s about fairness and justice.”

This year EFFECT will host “The F-word,” an open discussion on feminism’s negative stereotypes and connotations. The other big event is the “Vagina Monologues,” held annually on Valentine’s Day.

Plath’s depression, mental illness and awareness of the disparity between men and women caused her to contemplate life, its meaning, her place in it and suicide. Her struggle with humanity, with the very nature of existence, can resonate in everyone — not just women, not just men. We all exist, which echoes Plath’s “old bray of (her)  heart: I am. I am. I am.”

Favorite women writers

Ramirez: It is hard for Ramirez to pin down a favorite woman writer. She mentioned Jhumpa Lahiri because “her writing is so well-crafted, and her details are perfect.” But she also mentioned Flannery O’Connor, Lorrie Moore and Beth Anne Fennelly. Ramirez said Fennelly writes a lot like Plath. When Fennelly visited Elon as visiting writer, Ramirez asked her about the similarities and Fennelly said that Plath is definitely one of her influences.

Isaac: Isaac named Ursula LeGuin as her favorite author “because she writes of ideas in ways that inspire me — ideas about what it means to be female, to be young, to be a parent, to be a teacher, to be a student, to be curious, to be old, to be brave, to be male, to be sexual, to be powerful, to be alone … or maybe it would be better to just say that she writes about the idea of humanity. LeGuin also writes in many different genres and has been a powerful writer for decades. Books that I read when I was a teenager have different sorts of meanings for me now, but she is still writing new tales and poems as well.”

Haskell: Haskell’s favorite women writer is “Jane Austen, of course,” she said. Haskell asked, “Is there a novelist in English who is able to depict in more exact and often comic detail the intersection of the human mind with its social world? Who else has the ability to portray the important moral struggles which even the most mundane life can produce? And, of course, who else has been able to produce characters of such interest as Elizabeth Bennet, Mr. Collins and Mrs. Elton?”