I've had a copy of Simone De Beauvoir's classic work, The Coming of Age, for a few decades. It was first published in France in 1970. I finally plan to read it cover to cover, starting tonite. I knew it'd come in handy some day. Perhaps the reading of it was waiting for a lifespan rainy-day: my 50's. Or more likely, I was hoping I'd age and thought a handbook might come in handy. I recently thumbed through it in analytic fore-play, and find that it has aged well.
Old Age is a good thing to do, and do well. It merits research. De Beauvoir was one of the first to do that. She wrote The Coming of Age after the book that gave her fame as a feminist, back when feminists were a new thing: The Second Sex. A succint quote from that book: "Man is defined as a human being and a woman as a female--whenever she behaves as a human being she is said to imitate the male" [1] . Whoo hoo! Strong words, Simone. "Feminist" of course quickly became a dirty word in some quarters. I think that in the decades since then, "humanist" more accurately describes someone who believes that there isn't a second sex, but universal humanity.
De Beauvoir had interesting ideas for the 60s, thinking that old people and women (outside of tribal studies) were worthy topics of research. An evolution of "the second sex" can be followed using my favorite girlbooks: do the protagonists act like a female, or a human being? Its an interesting overview of culture and era, too.
Start with The Complete Claudine, by Colette [3]. Colette is another Famous French Female Novelist. She is famous for intriguing novels which portray the worldly-wise French Schoolgirl Incarnate: Claudine. Colette also penned Gigi, which might give you an idea of the Claudine books. The Claudine stories deal with the heroine's spicy involvements with both genders and all ages at her girls' school and through to young adulthood. The heroine's entire documented life is centered on romantic interplay. Titillating, but narrow definition of female.
Compare the Claudine stories with another classic girlbook series: Anne of Green Gables, written by Canadian Lucy Maud Montgomery, and also set in the early 1900's. Anne is a lot more chaste then Claudine. She meets her future husband bang off the bat, never seriously considering other guys, or girls either (unlike that Claudine). Her school days actually lead to a stint as a teacher, which widens the role of women somewhat. But her guy is always around, waiting for her to ripen and pluck. The story wouldn't be the same without Gilbert.
Then there is Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series, set in the late 1800's. (I haven't read the American Girl series--it will probably shoot holes in my girlbook cultural definition theory but I'm going to read it someday. After de Beauvoir gets read.) Laura's heroine/ self didn't have the least little romantic interest until the last few books. She is thus, on my limited scale, closest to behaving "like a human being," with adventures and interactions. Sure, its autobiographical, but so was Claudine. I have no idea about Anne.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland also has a heroine based on a real girl. Alice, unlike the aforementioned heroines, doesn't deal with puberty or any kind of romance at all. (Although the Cheshire Cat does seem to leer, do you think?) She just has adventures. And because of that, she could've easily been a male protagonist, without loss of story. She acts just 'human.' And how about Dorothy and the Wizard? Frank Baum created Dorothy, who doesn't have a speck of romance going either. But then again, like Alice, she was pre-pubescent, and the girlbook chronicles of Claudine and Anne either began in or traversed through the girl-trait-loaded minefield of puberty. In fact, Baum purposely fashioned Dorothy as an American version of Alice's adventures. So, generally speaking, in some popular earlier literary depictions, females had to be defined by their relationships with men. However they weren't defined with the female trait of romantic preoccupation until they were sexually potent. Weeellll, does that happen in post-pube guy books? I'll have to check this out. (Why do I have to? Because I'm a frustrated anthropologist. And I care.)
I know I'm loading the die here, just using my limited knowledge and examples of the human vs. female literary data. I just remembered, for example, George MacDonald's wonderful wonderful Scottish children's tale (which I read all the time), The Light Princess. MacDonald says, in the book, that princes always get to have adventures, and princesses should get to have their own. Even tho he makes a good point, his princess is girly and undergoes transformation into a 'real woman' only after finding true love. No adventures, per se. And I bet there are other sports out there. If got paid to do this, I'd look a little harder. However, I'm in it for fun and for justifying my own viewpoint. Which a lot of people tend to do.
So, I like a good sex-role-stereotyped romance novel now and then, and some steamy sci-fi or anthropological fiction (Children of the Earth has a lot of sex, but I love the series anyway), where the men are all strong and the women are all good-looking but helpless. Its easy to keep things black-and-white and define wimmin as wimmin and min as min. But Simone has a point which I love when she says that females, at least in the past, had limited definitions. No one denies it. And "things" have changed. Disney proved that with Mulan, where the post-pubescent girl heroine (although still encumbered with romantic notions) does get to have a little adventure. In the neat sci-fi movie Avatar, the female lead alien does get in some hissin' and hittin'. Lots of stories these days give girl heroines some muscle, but alas very few I think allow them to escape the female defining role of romance. Captains and Commanders, the movie about a ship full of guys having adventures all over the ocean, does a fine job of eliminating the whole requirement of romance. I hope some good post-pubescent girl story exists somewhere with similar success. Men can be manly without romance, and girls can be girly without it, too. It lends variety.
I'm not complaining. In my 2 score and 17 years, things have greatly changed. Its fascinating to think how they have changed and track the changes. Like men where I grew up, in a rural area, pretty much let women drive the car these days when there is a guy in the car with them. No small cultural change, that. De Beauvoir's quote from above finishes with: "To emancipate woman is to refuse to confine her to the relations she bears to man, not to deny them to her; . . ." [1]. Too true. A little depth of depiction goes a long way.
References:
1. Simone de Beauvoir quotes, accessed 01/04/10 http://womenshistory.about.com/od/quotes/a/de_beauvoir.htm
2. Beauvoir, Simone de; The Coming of Age; G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1972; New York, N.Y.; Translated by Patrick O'Brien.
3. Colette was the surname of the French novelist Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (28 January 1873 – 3 August 1954). She is best known for her novel Gigi (upon which the stage and film musical comedies by Lerner & Loewe, of the same title, were based); Wikipedia; 1/04/10.
4. Picture: Daphne Emerging; charcoal, collage; by the author.
No comments:
Post a Comment