sexism

Female Body as Commodity

~ Antonia ~ Leave a comment

Tristan begins her chapter on sex workers of London in the Victorian Period with an explanation of why they exist in the first place. Her argument is that all sex work is survival sex work. She says that their existence stems from the inequality of the sexes, particularly in England. The culture that places stigma on pre-marital sex for women, but does not instill that stigma for men invites this job as a remedy. It means that men can seduce or abuse young women with no risk to themselves, but at the cost of destroying those women’s lives. A woman must marry in order to assure a living for herself , because she is not allowed the same “occupations and professions” that allow for a living wage. However, in doing so she gives up her existence. Tristan describes this as choosing “between oppression and infamy.”

Tristan also blames the materialism and capitalism of an industrialized England. The more money accumulated by the upper classes, the poorer the poorer classes get. The more money these men get, the more they have to spend on the sex workers that they are creating by exploiting the poor classes that they come from. She describes seeing in a “finish” a beautiful Irish girl, who later that night she saw on the floor, her dress ruined, because people kept throwing drinks on her. She also describes seeing men create orgies in these finishes, in clear view of others, because they paid so much money that they should have that right. Tristan is describing a market of women’s bodies; where, rich men use them as things to consume and throw away, a growing symptom of the wastefulness of the industrial age. The actual humanity of these women do not matter, and is in fact ignored. When a sex worker is found struggling for breath after a john abuses her for allegedly giving him a disease, the man is not charged with any crimes towards the woman, but rather a crime for disturbing the peace of the neighborhood.
Hood’s poem, describing the body of a sex worker who committed suicide by jumping into the river, takes a stance on the “purity” of this woman. The speaker says to think “Not of the stains of her, / All that remains of her / Now is pure womanly.” And in the final stanza says “Owning her weakness, / Her evil behaviour, / And leaving, with meekness, /Her sins to her Saviour!” The implication of these words is that only through death could this woman receive any kind of forgiveness. She has done the noble thing by taking herself out of this world and placing her soul in the hands of God. Tristan says in her essay “To brave death is nothing; but what a death faces a prostitute! […] moral death all the time, and scorn for herself! I repeat: there is something sublime in it, or else it is madness!” The poem sees something sublime in her death, but sees her life as pitiful. It demands respect for her dead body that she would not have been given in life.

At the Ladies Club

~ Antonia ~ 4 Comments

After learning about the Gentleman’s Club in the “Victorian Period” game, I decided to look into the “Ladies Club” section of the Victorian Dictionary. There was only one article in the section, and it was by the satirical conservative newspaper Punch. However, through the mockery that they give to the idea, they expose exactly what they fear women obtaining. The Ladies Club did not even actually exist, but the piece speculates on what might occur if it did, and how it’s possible formation incites “fearful questions.” Their first question is if there will be a club committee, and if there is how many women will be allowed to speak at once. This betrays a fear of women organizing and having a voice completely outside the control of men. They then question whether there will be a smoking room, and if “cigars will suffer to be lighted” or, for fear of illness, only “the middlest cigarettes.” Not only does this show disgust at the idea of women adopting a symbol of masculinity for their own pleasure, but it doubts whether they will be able to do that, or if their delicate constitutions would prevent it. They then question what women will discuss. Whether it will be topics they feel appropriate, such as “the nursery” and “bonnets,” or if they will talk of more scandalous matters such as love, marriage, and even divorce. In this question they restrict the interests of women to the domestic life. They do not even consider that women may talk about politics, literature, science, or anything outside of marriage and children. They go on, continuing to trivialize women, and their interests, even suggesting that ballots will be represented by cotton balls instead of actual ballots. Perhaps paper is just too heavy. They predict a woman in the club scorning her husband and leaving him to take care of the children for a night, while she takes time for herself. This practice, which men a known to do, is seen as selfish in a woman because her first concern should be the family and not herself. The last point they make on behavior in the club gives a good insight into the male gaze of the period: “what a sensation would be caused on the street pavement, if the Club belles were to congregate about the Club beau-windows, and stare through their eye-glasses every handsome man who passed.” They are revealing an anxiety about being objectified the same way that they objectify women. The entire article shows a fear, not of equality, but of a world where women have power over men in the same way that men have power over women.

Works Cited

“The Ladies Club” Punch. Victorian London Dictionary. Web. 12 February 2016. http://www.victorianlondon.org/women/ladiesclub.htm

Introductions and Sermons

~ Rachel W. ~ 1 Comment

Hello everyone! My name is Rachel and I am a senior English major at SUNY New Paltz. My favorite novelist/short story writer is Franz Kafka although recently I’ve been getting into some of Roberto Bolaño’s novels as well as Carlos Fuentes’.  Among my favorite poets are Sylvia Plath, Stevie Smith, Pablo Neruda, and T.S. Eliot. I like to read in Spanish as well as English.

Before I dive into the text of Pride and Prejudice and how it responds to James Fordyce’s Sermons to Young Women, I just want to point the irony in the section titled “On the Importance of the Female Sex.”  Fordyce seems to lament that women in society are more highly scrutinized than men when he writes “The world, I know not how, overlooks in our sex a thousand irregularities, which it never forgives in yours; so that the honor and peace of a family are, in this view, much more dependent on the conduct of daughters than of sons…” (394).  However he has written two volumes worth of sermons telling young women how to conduct themselves and behave in society, only adding to the scrutiny.  I thought also there is much irony in the way he claims that women have so much influence over men because of their sexuality and therefore should act in certain ways.  It is incredibly sexist to want to control women’s behavior just because their sexuality, according to Fordyce, impacts men so much.

Elizabeth Bennet’s conduct in Pride and Prejudice completely undermines what Fordyce expects about how young women should act. Fordyce advises that women refrain from exercising wit and instead aim for piety.  For Fordyce, wit is something already to be frowned upon but it is “especially […] dreaded in women” (400).  Elizabeth on the other hand does not act very pious at all, in fact religion is scarcely mentioned except for when it is said that everyone attended church services.  Elizabeth engages in witty banter with Mr. Darcy and she is also highly sarcastic. When in the company of Miss Bingley and Mr. Darcy one evening at Netherfield she makes sarcastic remarks makes fun of Darcy right to his face.  She says  to Miss Bingley, “Mr.  Darcy is not to be laughed at!” (92) and continues “That is an uncommon advantage, and uncommon I hope it will continue, for it would be a great loss to me to have many such acquaintance. I dearly love a laugh” (92). She sarcastically says straight to Darcy “Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies do divert me, I own and I laugh at them whenever I can.– But these, I suppose, are precisely what you are without” (92).  Despite her mocking him, Darcy seems to enjoy their conversation and they continue back and forth, much to Miss Bingley’s dismay.  Fordyce advises women to speak with grace and to never be rude.  And yet while Elizabeth is mocking Darcy, they both are enjoying themselves.  It is evident in Pride and Prejudice that wit does not make for dreadful women, it makes for fun and interesting conversation, fun and interesting women.