Anybody else besides me notice that there was a missing element in all of our readings?
Let me start at the beginning (of my thought process that lead to the above question)
It's midnightish and I'm just getting home from a farewell party for a friend of mine who is packing up and heading west to greener career pastures. It was a great night. There was plenty of food, fun stories and best of all, the party poopers left early so us all-nighters let our hair down and our belt buckles out a notch while we belly laughed and hooted for three hours straight.
We weren't the most intellectual crowd, in fact, our finale consisted of progressively more horrifying or hilarious birthing stories, (which unfortunately climaxed at about the same time that Carmelle's husband thought it safe to return - boy was he wrong!) but, there was something so human and basic and right about spending that time together with my group of girlfriends that it started me thinking.
Which brings me back to my question. Did anyone notice that there was a missing element in all our readings?
The women characters or writers we studied in this term seem alienated by either their craft or their situation from other women. Their relationships with men were bad, but their relationships with women - if they had any - seemed even less meaningless. Margery Kemp is so disassociated that she refers to herself in her text as, "This Creature". And although Mary Wollstonecraft believes that women are potentially capable and rational, she finds that "The conduct and manners of women, in fact, evidently prove that their minds are not in a healthy state".
It would seem that our authors and/or the characters they create are alienated or alienating. Where was Mary W's posse when she was contemplating her controversial thoughts? Did she sit around with the girls and say, "You know, you would be way smarter and useful if it wasn't for the crappy education card you were dealt." Did they respond, "Gee Mary, I never thought of it that way. Maybe you should write book about that. You go, Girlfriend! or did Mary work by herself in her own little universe - which is what it seems from her writing. Could Evelina (A character from another course but same time frame) have had any close relationships stronger than the reported superficial interactions with family and friends during her coming of age story?
Did women have strong and energizing relationships with their friends in the 18th Century like we do now, or is this something new that has only become valued in our time and place? Did the 18th C. "art of conversation" undermine the potential for spontenaity and deep and fulfilling relationships that are possible now. Was the feminine community somehow different in that time or was it just something that didn't happen to make it to the written page? I'm curious about this, because in all these readings by women in writing, none of them is about unity or belonging. Perhaps it's the selections, perhaps it's just the style of the time, or maybe there really was a different level of interaction among women.
Any thoughts, fellow thinkers?
Reading the letters to Betsy from Gayland and Saving (Chapters 3 & 4 respectiviely) sent me on a journey through time in a rummaging session through my "old memories chest", which is a blue, musty trunk I keep stored in the basement. I thought I had safely locked all my skeletons in my closet (actually 1st drawer of my dresser) when I edited and locked up my old diary and stuffed it away where no one would ever look. However, I completely forgot about all my old letters, and as it turns out, even more journals, which I had shut away in my memory box of young love, best friends, early parenthood, frustrated relationships and dreams for a perfect future. It's funny that I went to all the trouble to lock away my teenage angst but left in the family room downstairs, for all the world to find, my life's story from my early adulthood. So, thanks to Eliza Haywood, and in particular those letters from her suiters -which reminded me of some old love letters of mine that I had shut away until today - I was led to spend time reliving my life as it is recorded, patchwork-style and out of sync in that box in the basement.
Aside from all the reminiscing, this sifting and exploring through the box in the basement made me really reflect on our discussion during our Burney class which centered around the reliability of Burney as narrator and recorder of her own life. I believe that if a person tried to piece together an idea of who I am from the contents of that box in my basement, they would have a very incomplete and skewed picture of the person that emerges. Although I did not consciously edit the contents of the box, I note significant gaps of time which passed unrecorded. I also found a lot of what seems like junk to me now; items that are unimportant to me and even pictures of people that I can't remember. I'm not sure where the unreliability rests; with my memory or in the initial recording stages in my journals.
Given my experience today, and with a view to all the editing that is evident in Burney's diary, does this mean that Burney was unreliable in the editing phase of her diary, or only unreliable during her initial recording? Originally, I thought that Burney was editing in order to influence the picture of herself that was being created for her audience, but now, after my own encounter with going back years later and seeing the picture that emerges, perhaps in retrospect she worried that the picture she created initially was just not true. For her, editing may have been a way to create the truth, which she felt she missed in her first writing, not just a process undergone to create a version of the truth that she thought would be more pleasing to her readers.
I've always written, but outside of my personal writing, I’ve never really revealed much about myself in anything that I've put down in black and white (which is why I don’t blog a lot – it makes me feel very exposed!) A few weeks ago DR. J. said (well, she didn't say this exactly, but I interpreted it this way) that what category or genre you choose to write in, or how you develop and apply your craft makes as much of a statement as the words that you actually put on the paper. In another Women in Writing class she put forward the idea that literature can include more than the traditional genres and formats like poetry, short stories, novels, etc.
During the past six months, while on leave from my work, I’ve consciously avoided business writing (with the exception of developing some marketing materials for a friend’s business and creating some fundraising brochures and letters). When I left my work, I initially thought that I might not go back, but while I’ve been away, I’ve developed a fresh perspective and new insights about why I do what I do for a living.
Corporate communications has been my field. Whether it has been PR related, HR focussed, or Marketing driven, I've never ventured far from my Communication roots. Writing in business is fun and interesting because it's a place where a person can touch many parts of the business and interact with a variety of people. The work can be very fulfilling because communications serves a real clarifying role by helping company leaders develop and speak to a vision for their company's future. It can also be a unifying role, because good communication brings together people under that common vision.
There are few people who walk among and between the worlds that exist within a company. Among those who inhabit this in-between space are Corporate Communicators. Sometimes it can be exciting to be in a place where you can really see and understand the big picture; where you are in a position to help others see and understand it too. Sometimes it’s alienating because there is no place in particular that you can call your own. Everyone knows what Engineers do, what Managers are supposed to do, what Cashiers do, what Accountants and Administrative Assistants do. What about the Communicators? In a world that worships the bottom line, how can you justify spending millions to improve something as vague as communication? How do you even define it? How do you implement it? How do you measure it? Beyond the writing itself, these are the greatest challenges that Corporate Communicators face.
Before choosing to go back to my field, I really had to know that I wanted to face these challenges again and that what I do is really worthwhile. Personally, the hardest part was questioning if what I did for a living was relevant. My year in school and in particular, the Women in Writing course led me to believe that my work makes a difference. It is a reflection of who I am. I understand why I have chosen to write for business and I finally don’t worry that it’s irrelevant , even if it never wins me a literary prize.
Last spring when I was in British Columbia, I bought a Haida print of a frog. The description that went along with the print described the frog as a creature that bridges the space between two worlds – the water place and the land place. He speaks to the aquarians on behalf of the land dwellers and vice versa. I see myself as the frog. Like him, I feel at home with the people across the business regardless of the setting. I see how we are all alike and that most issues are universal, although the methods for approaching and solving the issues need to be adapted to suit the differing environments. After years of feeling like the ugly duckling because I thought I lacked something for not fitting tightly into a specific space, I’ve come to see that the frog is a valuable contributor to pond life. This perspective has been influenced by the Writing in Women course discussions and the accompanying readings of works by brave women who dared to express themselves their own way.
It seems like many of the women writers that we are coming across in class have led very interesting lives. Their personal lives or sexuality through the 21st century lens is constantly being scrutinized. I know that it is important to know some background information about a writer to help understand their writings; however, I also feel that reading too much into their personal lives can compromise the true intent of their writings. I don't feel that the sexual orientation of a male or female should compromise the integrity of their writings. The feeling of being in love, angry, happy or sad is the same for a person of any sexual orientation. The negative term of being "man hating lesbians" has often and wrongly been associated with feminists. Having these types of negative views of feminists and looking through a 21st century lens makes it all too easy to discredit and misinterpret the beautiful poetry of writers like Catherine Phillips.
Peripherally related to the course, as we were talking about female sexual vulnerability in Aphra Behn's "The Unfortunate Happy Lady":
An excellent post by Ampersand on Alas, a blog about the elements that make up (our/everyone's?) "rape culture." Be sure to read the comments as well.
Crossposted to scribblingwoman.