This article by author Erica Jong in Publisher’s Weekly was linked from one of my book groups. I’m always interested in what she has to say, and as a doubly-marginalized author, even more so.
Ghetto (Not) Fabulous
Would the talented new breed of American women writers please stand up?
by Erica Jong — Publishers Weekly, 4/9/2007
Jeffrey Eugenides had his moment, then Jonathan Franzen and Jonathan Safran Foer. But the chair for the Serious Novelist is rarely held for new women novelists—unless they are from India, Iran, Iraq, China or other newsworthy countries. American women novelists are more often bracketed as genre writers—in chick lit, romance, mystery or historical fiction—and quickly dismissed.
Critics have trouble taking fiction by women seriously unless they represent some distant political struggle or chic ethnicity (Arundhati Roy, Nadine Gordimer and Kiran Desai come to mind). Of course, there are exceptions, like Annie Proulx and Andrea Barrett. But they tend to write about “male” subjects: ships, cowboys, accordions. There’s Pat Barker, who gained the most respect when she began to write about war. Margaret Atwood, who is Canadian and therefore gets a longer leash than most North American writers. And Isabel Allende, a wonderful writer, who has become our token South American female.
But deep down, the same old prejudice prevails. War matters; love does not. Women are destined to be undervalued as long as we write about love. To be generous, let’s say the prejudice is unconscious. If Jane Austen were writing today, she’d probably meet the same fate and wind up in the chick lit section. Charlotte Brontë would be in romance, along with her sister Emily.
The problem of valuing male writers above female writers is not any better in England. In fact, it’s worse. Canada seems less prejudiced against women, but maybe I only see it that way because I’m not Canadian. India, a very sexist culture, celebrates its women writers—who are numerous. And Germany takes literature by both sexes seriously in a way we can only wish for here. It is the only country I’ve toured in (besides Canada) where the journalists really read your book instead of the press kit. In fact, fear of reading may be at the heart of the problem. In countries that don’t read but look for the news peg (the U.S. is a perfect example), prejudices against women writers are harder to eradicate. In countries where books are still honored—even by journalists on deadline—prejudices can be addressed.
We may glibly say that love makes our globe spin, but battles make for blockbusters and Pulitzers. When writers like Eugenides write about families and relationships, critics marvel at their capacity for empathy. When a female writer does the same thing, they sigh and roll their eyes. Men aren’t penalized for focusing on family and relationship. Rather, we wonder at their empathy because of their gender.
Feminism didn’t change deep-seated priorities about what—or who—matters. I see deeply diminished expectations in young women writers. They may grumble about the chick lit ghetto, but they dare not make a fuss for fear they won’t be published at all. Their brashness is real enough, but they accept their packaging as the price of being published. My generation expected more. We did not always get it, but at least categorization outraged us. Where is the outrage now?
Feminists used to say the personal is political. I think we need to consider that message again now. We will never give peace a chance until we start paying as much attention to women as to war. Unless we value the bonds of love as much as male territoriality, we are goners.
I would like to see the talented new breed of American women writers—my daughter’s generation—protest their ghettoization. We need a new wave of feminism to set things right. But we’d better find a new name for it because like all words evoking women, the term feminism has been debased and discarded. Let’s celebrate our femaleness rather than fear it. And let’s mock the old-fashioned critics who dismiss us for thinking love matters. It does.
Erica Jong is the author of eight novels, including Fear of Flying, as well as works of poetry and nonfiction. Tarcher just published Seducing the Demon: Writing for My Life in paperback and will release the paperback of What Do Women Want?: Essays by Erica Jong next month.
She said a mouth full.
I’m reading “Seducing the Demon” right now and plan
to reread “Fear of Flying” next. What she said way
back when struck a chord with me and what she says
now still has an impact.
I think about a friend of mine who is a children’s
librarian tellin me that if I wanted to write a
children’s or intermediate reader’s book that I
better make the main character a boy, because while
girl will read books about both boys and girls, no
boy will read a book with a girl as the main character,
so publishers think they’ll lose half their audience.
Supposedly that’s why “Harry Potter” works. I
understood the rationale, but it still made me
angry.
That’s for posting this —
WOW. How infuriating (about the children’s books). Does this mean boys are STILL learning to devalue girls at an early age? This has to be a learned behavior, right? And they must be learning it from all their parents (I’m trying to include every kind of blended family I can think of here). What’s wrong with us that we perpetuate this after more than forty years of trying to reshape the roles and perceptions of women in our society?
Hmmm….I musta been a WEIRD kid then, because I read the Nancy Drew books just as eagerly as I did the Hardy Boys books. As a matter of fact I don’t recall even thinking it made a difference if the character was male or female. I just wanted a story that let me believe in it. I think one of my favorite all time books has a female protagonist. Meg Murray in A Wrinkle in Time is a character that I dearly love and admire.
Wikipedia says this: Margaret “Meg” Murry is the eldest child of scientists Alex and Kate Murry. Mathematically brilliant but less than adept at other subjects in school, Meg is awkward, unpopular, and defensive around authority figures as well as her peers. She loves her family, especially her brother, Charles Wallace, and longs desperately for her missing father. Like many 14-year old girls Meg is unhappy with her physical appearance, particularly her mouse-brown, unruly hair, braces and glasses; and considers herself a “monster” in comparison with her mother. Introduced on the first page of the book, she is the story’s protagonist.
I think I related TOTALLY to Meg, especially the parts in italics. Give me a protagonist that I can live through in a good story and I am yours.
But Nancy had Ned – and her dad – to get her out of scrapes. The Hardy Boys often rescued their dad. And their fat friend, who, since he was fat, was dumb.
Ugh. I read about four Hardy Boys and thought, “Why don’t the villains ever check for pen-knives before tying these kids up?” and threw them down in disgust.
So, I picked up my sister’s “Nancy Drew” (unread, of course). Ned rescued her. I blinked. She spent her days… housekeeping? I blinked again. I tried another one. Ned rescued her. I threw the book down in disgust.
I’d love to say I was ahead of my time, but really, I think I just wanted a gay hero. There were none.
Then, in grade eleven, the world’s greatest teacher handed me books. And I started to notice something. Occasional characters – side-characters, of course, would be gay. I remember the first one was a thriller, with a girl who’d been somehow genetically designed in some way, and she eventually gets rescued by a lady and her friend, the former marine. The gay former marine. And – he didn’t die at the end!
I told her I liked the book. She said she thought I might. She handed me another book. Another gay sub-character.
By the end of that year, I kissed my first boy. Or, actually, he kissed me. Years later, I sent her a thank-you card, and it was returned, I guess she wasn’t there anymore. One of these days, I’ll manage to find her.
Sorry. I think my mind just wandered.
Also, I loved Meg.
I read Hardy Boy, Nancy Drew, the Bobbsey Twins AND Trixie Belden(which has been reissued and mt neice loves…. YAY!!) Trixie was my favorite of the four.
I think that the worst thing is when WOMEN devalue other WOMEN’s work. Women that work in other genres think it’s totally acceptable to look down on women that write romance or chick lit, the same way writers in other genre’s look down on them.