"a wounded heart"

I found a wounded heart, &, as that heart cast itself upon me, it was my ambition to heal it. -- William Godwin about Mary Wollstonecraft

the female narrative

from Vindication A Life of Mary Wollstonecraft Lyndall Gordon


Misogynist Writers

A telling exchange between Dr. Johnson and Boswell in 1779

Johnson: 'A husband's infidelity is nothing.' [A couple is connected by children and fortune.] 'Wise married women don't trouble themselves about infidelity.'

Boswell: 'To be sure there is a great difference between the offence of infidelity in a man and that of his wife.'

Johnson: 'The difference is boundless. The man imposes no bastards upon his wife.'
246

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"sex-starved dupe"

[my words] One need only understand Wollstonecraft's voyage up to this point by pointing out the three stages through which most women travel:

"First scene: ambitious female shows true colours as sex-starved dupe. Second scene: fallen woman gives birth. Third scene: abandoned mother becomes clinging bore, to be shaken off with repeated excuses."
243

things don't change: on Wollstonecraft and Tina Fey

"Two feelings remained acute: irritation with her own sex -- the boisterous, unmeaning laughter and bickerings of 'silly females' -- and persistent alienation: 'I am an exile -- and in a new world.'" Vindication A Life of Mary Wollstonecraft 86

I kind of hate women of today. There, I said it. I liked them better in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth century when they had to fight for their individual freedom. Even though there were plenty of women then who were, by Wollstonecraft's account, "silly females' -- caring only for show in order to acquire husbands, focused only on begetting babies, not caring for others feelings save their own -- there were also those who were upset with their inferiority in society and strove, as Mary Wollstonecraft did, to change that.

Now women have been given lawful rights and education they seem not to know how to use it. They still parade in showy dress (or no dress) excentuating their physical body, neglecting their mind. We praise and veritably stalk female celebrities (twitter, anyone?), but not one among us can name a famous female scientist. I feel like women today have given up, retreated into their silicone bodies, and so have become the new creator of their own inferiority: Doctor Frankenstein and the monster in one.

There are a scant number of women today who, wittingly or no, provide a model of the true liberated female. The big one in my book is Tina Fey* and her character (that she created and embodies) on 30 ROCK. Liz Lemon (and by extension, Tina Fey) is pretty, in a non-model nerdy and quirky sort of way. And she is an in-charge woman, the boss of her employees, script writers and actors who are composed of dorky men and Liz's best friend Jenna, a platinum blonde, attention-seeking narcissist who was the lead actress of Liz's "The Girlie Show", now renamed for the incoming of a more popular (african american male) actor. Her boss Jack Donaghy is played by Alec Baldwin, a controversial figure in his own life and in the show no less. He is at once the model of the patriarchal gentleman, wielding his power over all, ruthless, exacting -- and Republican. He owns Lemon's show, like a 19th century land-owner. A corporate big-wig -- but one with a heart, who desires to take Lemon under his wing, be her mentor, improve her life. He criticizes her and uses his power to improve her. Which is a bit Pygmalion-esque mixed in with a little Emma of the Jane Austen variety. And this probably proves more than anything that things don't change. Men still have a desire to shape women to their ideal, and because of long-held social mores or gender DNA, this will probably, in my life-time at least, always be so. What makes Tina Fey's character so inspiring for me is that no matter how much Baldwin's character tries to improve her, she is, and will always be, (mostly, granted, as a vehicle for comedy) a scatter-brained, cute but never beautiful, faulty, smart, witty woman who embraces her independence. And for those of us who live in the real world, this is a relief.



An addendum -- couldn't fit this in above, but a counter-argument could be that such female models like Tina Fey's character have been around for a while: Murphy Brown, for instance. But what I see in Tina Fey is a 21st century model of an independent woman, for obviously she exists in this time period, but also she comes at a critical time, when our desire to control technology supplements our socially unacceptable desire to control others, and women, subjugating themselves on television in reality T.V. shows and home-made movies, need some models other than the Kardashians and the Girls Next Door of this world.

An addendum to this addendum: I watch, and even enjoy, both of the latter programs.

*another favorite of mine is Chelsea Handler.
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Gordon, Lyndall. Vindication A Life of Mary Wollstonecraft 2005