Jane Eyre was written in 1847, when India was on track to becoming the crown jewel of the Raj. So the references to India in Bronte’s novel, though a surprise to me, were very much with keeping up with the world she inhabited. Towards the end of the novel, Eyre is proposed by the clergyman … Continue reading ‘India’ in ‘Jane Eyre’
To him, Plath was ‘Laurentian’, not ‘women’s lib’ – that is, a disciple of D. H. Lawrence’s sexually liberated creative philosophy, not a campaigner for women’s rights. This line in Heather Clarke’s highly engrossing biography of Sylvia Plath, Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath, stumped me. I had no clue … Continue reading Laurentian Feminism
Norman Rush's 'Mating' was a complex, long read. A nameless female anthropologists razor sharp views on life, love and relationships set in the Kalahari during the Reagan era had some fantastic feminist takes on domesticity and love: I had to realize that the male idea of successful love is to get a woman into a … Continue reading Feminism in Domesticity
There’s a famous photograph of Robert Capa’s that has been pinned to the bulletin board above my desk for a number of years. It was taken in 1948 on a beach in France, and it shows a smiling young woman dressed in a cotton gown and a large straw hat striding forward across the sands … Continue reading Vivian Gornick on Picasso…
Feminism, like all isms, brooks no dissent. For this reason, Louise Perry’s argument against the sexual revolution, brought about and cheered largely by the feminist movement from the 60s, requires a wider reading. While I disagree with her conclusions, her courage to stick her neck out and make her arguments makes this an important addition … Continue reading The Case Against the Sexual Revolution
