A Room of One's Own

Virginia Woolf

-She wrote all this is response to a question about women's relationship with fiction
-Why hasn't there been a female Shakespeare?!
-->It will happen in 100 years..! We hope..! Still waiting for 2028... women have not been given the same oppotunities for these amount of years

Why is there no female Shakespeare?
-Women have not been given the same oppotunities in education
-Women have been creating for centuries... in the medium of the home

-Think about Shakespeare's time... MEN were the ones who played women; women were not to act!
-->Women actors and writers were considered whores because, naturally, they just wanted to be with men... HA!
-->Men have a very high opinion of themselves, don't they?

Should women write like men, according to Woolf?
-Anybody who writes with a chip on their shoulder
-Think about when the man told her she could not walk on the grass because she was a woman. Her body differs from those [men] who are allowed on the grass
-->Prejudices... in the 1920's LESS THAN A CENTURY AGO!
-All the men are writing like MEN because of the women's movement
-->The way that men establish their own self confidence by putting down others
-->"It's not me I hate; it's her."
-By women writing like women and men writing like men, it is further increasing the problems.

Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Mary Wollstonecraft: Her Story

Mary Wollstonecraft grew up in a family with an abusive father. She started a school; she was well educated. She was considered to be a radical for women's rights.
Originally, she published "Vindication of the Rights of Men" anonymously. She said that it is irrational to distinguish between the classes of men. Later, she rights "Vindication of the Rights of Woman."
-->What does THE WOMAN indicate? Individualism? She is isolating THE WOMAN as a class of persons who have been treated the same throughout time.
Think, in relation of "men," she is referring to all humans. "Man" is the most normal of all human beings.
-->Man= the average human. Men are better, is the hint. Saying "mankind" is not correct anymore. Too many people have been offended. Men is meaning all people.
-Woman being used as a class, a category...

Vindication of the Rights of Women
-She is equally as hard on women as she is on men. NO MERCY!
-Society, as a system, through education trains women not to be virtuous, rational, and "manly." Society rewards women's immorality and irrational.
-Women have been degraded by female weakness. Women
-Women have been "believing" in this system, so they have been trying to find other ways to get power by "tyrannizing" the system.
-She believes in a meritocracy: one should rise due to their merits and goodness
-What about subordination? The idea that some are above others in society.
-->Subordination induced immorality! When people are trying to be better "graded," they are more likely to be immoral and do whatever is needed to be less subordinate.
-Mary Wollstonecraft wants everyone to be thinking for themselves and not worrying about others! Do what is best for yourself

Chapter 2

-Women are degraded by these morals because of the societal aim of making them more sensual to men.
-Women in comparison of soldiers: manners before morals.
-->Soldiers are "educated in the same way as women." If you educate men to behave in the same way as women, they will behave in the same way.
-Soliders= women. Women are not naturally inferior! They are NURTURED to be inferior. They are educated the same way as women.

-In terms of Rousseau, he spoke to the equality of MAN. Not women... needless to say, Wollstonecraft is not a fan of his.

Chapter 3

-Why do men adore women?
-Liberate women, and they will have less power... [I don't understand this...]
-Proving to men that women have a "puny appetite" because that is appealing to men, perhaps
-Women have more power playing on the weakness of men
-->Women who have "slept their way to the top." Become so alluring and attractive that men will elevate you to an ideal and thus worship you. That way, women will get what they want.
BUT THIS IS WRONG, according to Wollstonecraft.
-Restoring women as a humanity

-Women have been given too much. It is now time for women to work.
-Wollstonecraft proposes that women need to work harder to get what they want, rather than being given everything they wish to have.
-Both men and women need to reform.
-Wollstonecraft believed in virtue.
-->Allusion to her love life...not "married" to the man, but had his child, said she loved him, etc. He did not feel the same way.
-Wollestonecraft is very self-sufficient.
-She believed in absolute chastity, but your word should always hold true.
-->She was very consistent on her beliefs! VIRTUE IS NUMERO UNO!
-Virtue: honesty and transparency
-Her opinions on absolute republicanism
-Anna Barbowe allusion.
-->Butterflies?! No way, Jose!
-Every individual is a world in herself! People should act according to their individuality and their own opinions.

Mary Wollstonecraft

It is interesting, really. When I was younger, I guess I did think of me, being a girl, as being the weaker sex. I remember during P.E., girls would have dance two days a week, while the boys, with the absence of the girls, would play football and baseball. Whenever the girls and boys played together, we would play gender-neutral games like freeze tag and four square and soccer. I never really thought much of it; I was never jealous of the boys or anything. I remember the girls would have one dance recital per semester, and when the boys would watch us, they would jeer and hoot at us and mock us. We didn't think anything of it; we were all about six years old. Boys played football, girls took dance lessons.

The more I think about it, though, the more I realize how much gender segregation there is at such a young age, and young children do not really notice it. Now, as I've gotten older and learned more, I am more attuned to things like this.

I enjoyed reading Mary Wollstonecraft's "The Rights of a Woman" because I felt that it spoke to many of these points that I have observed over the years.

The Truth Behind the Cinderella Story

Do men and women feel the pressures of the "Cinderella" story?
-Women need to be tall, thin, and beautiful
-->Women should be in distress! Someone will need to help you in order to meet THE ONE!
-->Temptation to failure?
-Men need to have money and be successful financially
-->Men are under a lot of pressure in our society, too!


Think about all the messages that art, music, and books send to everyone...

A Cinderella Story...Holly Madison

Meet Holly Madison.
Thin
Blond.
Tan.
Want more info? Great just go to Wikipedia, and you will find that in addition to her basic statistics of height, hair color, and eye color, there is also a blurb for "Measurements."
So...
Measurements: 36D-23-36

Now look up Barbara Walters. Where are her measurements, huh?!

Needless to say, Holly Madison is a star on the E! hit TV show, "The Girls Next Door." The "girls" are the acclaimed Playboy Bunnies in Hugh Hefner's mansion. I've seen the show a few times, and I won't lie, there are parts that are slightly humorous, and I may or may not have sat for an hour or so watching repeated episodes.

I always ask myself, though, what is it that brings these girls to get on this show? Why would a girl become a Playboy bunny? Where do they even go to do such a thing?

Madison's background, however, is interesting. She grew up in a lower-middle class family in Oregon, and her father constantly traveled, as he worked for the timber industry. When the time came for her to go to college, she competed in a bikini competition and worked at Hooters to earn money, as she, on her own, could not afford to go.

It was here that Playboy took notice. They asked her to join the mansion, an accepting group that would welcome her.

Over time, though, as Holly earned fame, she decided to get a nose job. After that, a breast augmentation. She speaks openly about her "adjustments," but it is all just to fit in.

Here is where my point lies. Women (and men) struggle to fit the perfect mold of what it is to be aesthetically pleasing in society. For nearly as long as I can remember, I will look in a mirror and glance at my thighs, skin, hair-- anything-- and wish that it looked different in some way.

Cinderella's are everywhere. Holly Madison did not grow up with a great amount of money, but the mansion accepted her. Is she truly happy, though, with a geriatric Hugh Hefner glued to her hip? Is he her prince?

Angela Carter: "The Bloody Chamber"

The Courtship of Mr. Lyon

As a young girl, I was captivated by the story of The Beauty and the Beast. Whenever I take an online "What Disney Princess Are You" quiz, my answer is always sputtered out to be the same: Belle. It didn't take me long to pick up on the parallels between the two stories.
People often do not look at the true meanings behind certain fairy tales. I related to this one because I was captivated by the way that one can look at this story in terms of a masculine/ feminine way. It is the reaction to the "otherness."
-Comparison to "Taming of the Shrew?"
-Differences in genderings...genetic vs. natural-ness
-Male potential to violence
-Even at young ages, men know they are strong and have an acclivity toward violence
**Mr. Lyon shows his wildness, but he is loved anyway!
-Parable to masculinity/violence...femininity/disgust to the masculinity


The Bloody Chamber
-Perhaps women are the ones who unlock the violence within men
-The "bloody chamber" could also symbolize the womb... bleeding on her wedding night. The act of consummation as stabbing...
-Room= womb; Room= potential for male violence
-She is taking charge of her sexuality
-The mother rides in at the last night to save her daughter from execution
-The piano tuner is a male and has the violent potential, but his blindness has muted his masculine potential
-->He cannot see the red mark... think Scarlet Letter! Her red mark marks the knowledge she has in her head now.
-She is impressed with her own corruption.
-When she enters chamber, she is realizing her ability to be corrupted (sexually and physically)
-->Falling more and more away from natural human discourse. She sees the "murkiness."
-"We're all looking for a piano-tuner husband who will accept you for who you are, despite all your knowledge."
-This may be a representation of normal discourse between a man and wife. Some part of that man must be "tamed" into a piano tuner. This may be telling the facts better than the true facts tell the facts.

Amputations...of the Woman

The Cinderella Complex
Colleen Dowling

Like most girls, I have always looked to my mother as a role model. I found her way of doing things and living life the norm. My mother was married at the age of thirty-nine to my father and had me at age forty. Many would find this strange and absurd, but to me, it is perfectly normal. While my mother has never encouraged me one way or another to marry young or old, I think of her every time I think about my personal life. The independence my mother has had is something that she holds with great pride. If I marry young, will I loose this? What does this mean? I do NOT want to live like my mother, but I want independence.

I think, perhaps due to my mother (a business woman), I feel pushed to find a job and be independent. Yet, there is something in me that wants to get married, too and be different from my mother. I believe that I can find an intermediary between the two.

(Side Note: When I was in high school, I did theatre. We put on a play by Studs Terkel called Working. There was a character, a housewife, who sang a song, which I find quite pertinent:

All I am is just a housewife
Nothing special, nothing great
What I do is kinda boring
If you'd rather, it can wait
All I am is someone's mother
All I am is someone's wife
All of which seems unimportant
All it is is
Just my life

All I am is just a housewife
Just a housewife, nothing great
What I do is "out of fashion"
What I feel is out of date
All I am is someone's mother
Right away I'm not too bright
What I do is unfulfulling
So the T.V. talk-shows tell me every night

Moving now to the artistic retelling of stories... does art help or counteract ideology?

I'm a little foggy on what I'm saying here, but I'll do my best..! Or at least I'll call this the "Elizabeth Interpretation." When I read Jeanette Winterson's "Weight," I am reminded of a riddle I heard when I was about in the seventh grade that has kind of always stuck with me. I goes like this: A man and his son were in a dreadful car accident in which the man was killed on scene. The son recieved severe brain trauma and damage, but he could have an extremely risky surgery to have a shot at life. The family opts to have the surgery for the boy, but then the surgeon walks in, looks down at the boy and says, "I cannot operate. This is my son." Who is the surgeon?
If you ask the common person, the response is most likely, the grandfather, God, the unlce, the step-father, the brother.... Rarely does someone say the true answer: the mother.
Winterson, I believe, is speaking of how certain art like fairy tales gives one the expectation of how something will play out. The reason the obvious answer to the riddle becomes almost funny is because it is not what is expected in a patriarchial society. Art can counteract the expectations, and I believe that is why it is called art.

Ashputtle: Or, the Mother's Ghost
Angela Carter

The child starts off burned. The lesson in this story is independence. We don't know if she actually learns the lesson or not. She gets the man...then what? It's not happily ever after...but what is it?

...the next day...

Anne Sexton


-The use of "once:" less dramatic, as opposed to once upon a time
-The bird DROPPED down the dress and delicate little slippers
-->Bird droppings, crap, sicko...
-Cinderella is still mourning for her mother after her death; her father, however, moves on no problem
-THIS TIME, CINDERELLA FIT INTO THE SHOE: does this mean that she is the same person as her stepsisters???
-->Women "amputating" themselves to fit in to society...
-->Women all trying to look the same
-Anne Sexton does have an interest in her writing with psychological thinking (like Freud)
-Happily ever after?
-->To fight does not mean that someone is unhappy... fighting is ok in a relationship
-->But what is "happy?"
-->Getting everything you want does not yield happiness; if you get everything you want, it looses its specialness
-Cinderella didn't do anything (she never worked; the animals did everything for her and everything was dropped in front of her)
-->Was she really so pious? If you just be something, then you will get happiness; you may not even have to do anything
-Cinderella starts of wealthy, and when she loses it, she is on a mission to regain her status






Fairy Tales: What is their purpose? What does it say about art?

-What do children see/read in fairy tales?
-Pig Story
-What does art do to the instinct of hunger for the wolf?
-The wolf challenges him... art challenges us!
-Karl Marx: "Religion is the opiate of the people."
-What is art in relation to us as humans?

Cinderella, Cinderella!

It would be wonderful to think that life worked as simply as the genre of the fairy tale; imagine if "happily ever after" truly existed. I like Sexton's final sentence in her poem, to which she simply remarks "That story," in a very tongue-in-cheek manner.
In Grimm's version of Cinderella, we catch a glimpse of the more drawn out details of Cinderella's life, and there is a more materialistic undertone, in my opinion. It places the emphasis on Cinderella's outward appearance, and only until she receives gold-woven clothes does anyone take time to notice her. Her family is described as being very involved in their own personal outward beauty, which, in turn makes them ugly. I found myself circling many material words, which leads to Cinderella's ultimate salvation.
Sexton's version reads more like a skeptical eye against a beauty magazine. It gives the abridged overview of "Cinderella," skipping the gory details. There are more similies and metaphors, comparing the new happy couple to "two dolls in a museum case" and to the Bobbsey Twins.

The message is material, in the story of Cinderella. And that's the story.