WRITING
Gender and Love
Losing the plot: Twentieth-century literature’s deconstruction of gender and love
In the nineteenth century female writers were only able to conceive of and construct two types of narrative endings for their gender: heterosexual love and marriage, or death. In response to this dichotomy many feminist writers of the twentieth century attempted to construct stories that transcend the interaction and interconnection between gender, heterosexual love and narrative closure. Novels such as Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea and Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing separate the concepts of the female and heterosexual love, but ultimately end in madness or paralysis. These texts, which sever the narrative from formerly conventional structures of fiction, may momentarily imagine a world devoid from the patriarchal expectation of heterosexual love yet they ultimately leave their characters with feelings of futility, confusion and resignation. This paper argues that the narrative impact of separating female protagonists from heterosexual love is the creation of a new ‘madwoman in the attic’; what I term the ‘eternal madwoman’. Building on Rachel DuPlessis’ Writing Beyond the Ending, and the collection of writing Famous Last Words edited by Alison Booth, the paper aims to offer possible responses to Marta Caminero-Santangelo’s question, ‘How can the symbolic resolution of the madwoman in fictional texts contribute to the transformation of gender ideologies?’ Rather than reinforcing further ruptures in the female/love narrative, Maureen Murdock’s The Heroine’s Journey is seen as a possible framework for a more hopeful narrative world where descent and ascent and, in turn, the concepts of love and the female can be reunited.
Beyond blogging: how mothers use creative non-fiction techniques in digital environments to dislodge the mask of motherhood
Does Australia Need Feminism? An Interview With ‘Politically Incorrect’ Phyllis Chesler
Plenty has happened, but what has changed? Dr Megan Rogers interviews an iconic feminist with a unique take, and tales of a remarkable journey that got her there.
Truth comes from the collision of different ideas. The conflict between two mutually inconsistent concepts such as the past and the present plays an essential role in showing us a different perspective. When I began reading Phyllis Chesler’s new book A Politically Incorrect Feminist, and then interviewed her, I hoped to gain some insight into why we need feminism in modern-day Australia. I wasn’t disappointed.
We live in a time obsessed with the power of now, with the belief that too much time spent in the depths of the past can cause depression and that too much focus on the future can generate anxiety. There is logic to this perspective, scientific research even, and certainly if your goal as an individual is the allusive “happiness” touted in so many blogs and shiny-covered books then maybe, and it is a maybe, this type of middle ground will keep you safe from emotional highs and lows.
Maternal Theory: Essential Readings, The 2nd Edition
Theory on mothers, mothering and motherhood has emerged as a distinct body of knowledge within Motherhood Studies and Feminist Theory more generally. This collection, The Second Edition of Maternal Theory: Essential Readings introduces readers to this rich and diverse tradition of maternal theory. Composed of 60 chapters the 2nd edition includes two sections: the first with the classic texts by Adrienne Rich, Nancy Chodorow, Sara Ruddick, Alice Walker, Barbara Katz Rothman, bell hooks, Sharon Hays, Patricia Hill-Collins, Audre Lorde, Daphne de Marneffe, Judith Warner, Patrice diQinizio, Susan Maushart, and many more. The second section includes thirty new chapters on vital and new topics including Trans Parenting, Non-Binary Parenting, Queer Mothering, Matricentric Feminism, Normative Motherhood, Maternal Subjectivity, Maternal Narratology, Maternal Ambivalence, Maternal Regret, Monstrous Mothers, The Migrant Maternal, Reproductive Justice, Feminist Mothering, Feminist Fathering, Indigenous Mothering, The Digital Maternal, The Opt-Out Revolution, Black Motherhoods, Motherlines, The Motherhood Memoir, Pandemic Mothering, and many more. Maternal Theory is essential reading for anyone interested in motherhood as experience, ideology, and identity. 55. The Maternal Journey: Defining and Constructing a Maternal Narratology, by Megan Rogers