There were two reviews of Joanna Russ’s How to Suppress Women’s Writing on tor.com over the last few months, both of which made it sound really damn interesting. So I went looking for it. As it turned out, it’s available on the EBM network (which means you too can get it if you happen to have access to one of these), and I had a slow day at work and a moment of weakness.
It was an interesting read, and I’m certainly glad I have a copy to loan around. (See? This is why I buy books.) I have a couple of friends who probably need to read it, even if they also probably don’t know that they do.
The bit that sticks with me, of course, is the anecdote referenced in this entry’s title: it’s a story about men’s pants. I believe (and I don’t have my copy of the book handy) it’s related by Delaney — Hacker put on a pair of his pants (what? It was laundry day. That’s what you do. Any clean pants in a storm! Or … never mind.) and kind of freaked out because they had pockets. Real pockets, such as are meant to hold things. Not mere decorative flaps. And this is still true. Seriously, one of my friends has a pair of pants where the “pockets” are actually holes in the pants. What is the motivation behind designing garments lacking in, seriously, a feature of such significant (and obvious) utility? Maybe it’s nothing, but maybe it’s based on a cultural assumption that women either carry too much stupid crap around and couldn’t possibly fit it all in mere pockets, or in the assumption that our primary concern is a slim silhouette. I don’t believe that it’s nothing. Men get great pockets. Maybe women’s “tactical pants” (marketed to people whose work requires carrying a lot of things hands-free – EMTs and police, for example) have good pockets. I intend to investigate. But – back to the matter at hand – what does this have to do with women’s writing? Not much. Except that it illuminates one of the essential background assumptions about women that colors an unnerving amount of commentary about women’s lives and work.
And that’s the thing. It’s a collection of sort of minor irritations and off-hand remarks based on erroneous assumptions, and maybe one of the tendencies Russ lists wouldn’t be such a big deal, but it really is all of the above. I mean, I’ve never read a Bronte, because … well. I don’t really know. They just fit into this stereotype of ridiculous nineteenth-century girly novels, right? So obviously they don’t have anything to say to me. *sigh* And some of the problem I have with nineteenth century girly novels is that I was assigned Mansfield Park in a college class and I hated it. Hated. With a blind, frothing passion. It was boring, it was trite, it was full of stupid rich ladies, the men were all dull, and nothing happened.
You’d think I would know better, too, since Voltairine de Cleyre is one of my heroes, and she talks about some things that can be unpacked to be relevant here: namely, that if you keep a plant (woman) locked up away from sunlight and fresh air, of course it (she) will be weak and retiring. I wish I had the exact quote — it’s much more eloquent. But here’s the thing: Austen (and the Brontës) were laboring from a position of, if not being stuck in the metaphorical windowless room, at least not having much in the way of fabulous! adventure! Unless — and it has taken me a while to get to the point — you think of (to take an example from Russ (who is quoting yet another scholar)) Villette as a prison-break novel. At which point it gets pretty interesting.
Now, some of the way I’ve been looking at the nineteenth century is colored by a certain misapprehension that the nineteenth century is all Academy and dull rich people having Seasons. Or not. I was an art history major, and fell into a bad crowd — namely, the European seventeenth century (where there are few women, but those few are spectacular). It took the invention of the Linotype to get me interested in the nineteenth century at all, and only recently have I come to terms with the fact that I might also enjoy certain aspects of its literature.
But back to the issue of women’s writing. So there’s this attitude — which even us radical feminists aren’t immune to — that a certain female-dominated genre is pointless. Because when you don’t look underneath the surface, it does seem pointless. As I said, nothing happens. Of course, I remember one of my friends reading Tolstoy and going on about how much time he spent lavishly describing ball gowns, so it can’t just be women who talk about “frivolous” things. And then there’s all the assumptions about genres, and how obviously a genre in which women write (SF, except women don’t really write SF because their brains can’t handle hard science; mysteries, which are all just cozy little stories, and thrillers aren’t mysteries at all; “chicklit” because obviously everything written by youngish women about youngish women goes into the same pile) is mere “escapism.” And don’t get me started about “escapism” as a negative term … I’ve been thinking about that lately too. (I read something on the internet that got me going on a tangent.)
Suffice it to say that there are an alarming number of things Russ discusses which still ring true, despite the fact that this book was written in the 70′s. It’s an outline, not an exhaustive discussion — but therein lies its strength. It provides plenty of hooks for contemplation, but never drags, and it’s a fast book to read.
Which is good, because I was inspired to get cracking on reading a number of texts I’d never really considered before. I feel like that makes it a successful piece of criticism.
And one final detail — the last chapter, in which she acknowledges the issues her arguments have when it comes to women of color, is pretty great. It’s heartening to see people address the things they’ve been wrong about in a thoughtful manner. Makes me hope that I’ll be able to do the same.
This is suminagashi, not traditional at all, from sumi ink in a little bottle (I’ve had it for a while, and it seemed worth experimenting with) and Kodak Photo-flo for fun with surface tension. On French Paper Co’s excellent recycled Speckletone. (This batch of paper has amazing wet strength for a machine-made not-rag paper. I’m quite pleased. I hope that the formula is consistent, because I’d like to be able to keep using it.)
This is the easy way — plain water, ink, and PhotoFlo. FUN. It does seem like cheating, though. It’s too quick. (Which leads me to make mistakes.)
I marbled some paper.
It was a triangle shawl-ette that I’d blocked and have considered finished for a while, but … I dunno, it was looking at me this afternoon and I think it will work better as something rectangular. Also, linen improves with use, so maybe this time the finished product will have a more pleasing texture.
The skull’s name is Oliver. The mask doesn’t have a name. They’re sitting on a copy of Class Struggle which I really ought to get some people to play one of these days.
Now I have to come up with somewhere to put these things.
The Stove Factory (mostly the 
That’s my case of Bembo. I thought, Oh, I will set type and then I can print tomorrow. But in fact, it turns out, I will set type and then order some more. I’m down to my second-to-last g, and there are seventeen more lines in this poem.