bibliomani

This book by the psychoanalysist Susie Orbach ties nicely in with Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth (I really ought to re-read that), as well as the new, feminist books I’ve read lately (Delusions of Gender, Living Dolls and Female Chauvinist Pigs). It was quite academic and less popularly written than the three mentioned above – and I liked that – about our relationships with our bodies, based on concrete case stories and interesting and intellegently written. It also mentioned the psychoanalyst Donald W. Winnicott, whose name wouldn’t have meant anything to me a few months ago, but he plays quite a part in Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother? That’s how the universe sometimes converges.

Oooh, I thoroughly enjoyed Bechdels classic cartoon, spanning 25 years and a multitude of lesbian lives and political rants.

After I read Female Chauvinist Pigs I went looking for a similar book, but written more recently. This one is, and it’s British, which makes it a lot more resonant to the Danish society than Levy’s description of the USA. Living Dolls was well-written and interesting, but most of the arguments and references I had already come across in Female Chauvinist Pigs and, with regards to the second half of the book, Delusions of Gender.

This book can easily be read as an introduction to feminism today, and I’d recommend it to everyone who’s interested in feminism, gender roles or in raising their children responsibly. No less.

Yet another piece of non-fiction. I’m clearly developing a habit here. This is a lucid book about the curious mix of feminism and sexyness – or the variant which Levy refers to as raunch culture. I’ve always been ambivalent about breast augmentations, thongs for girls and Sex and the City, but have had a hard time pinpointing exactly why. This book doesn’t suffer from that. Read the introduction to this enlightening, clever and (at least to non-Americans) shocking book here.

My copy is from 2006 with a new afterword about the reception of the book. I would love to hear how Levy thinks the phenomenon has developed ever since. Did it have its day and then faded? Has it become even more polarised? Has Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton’s rise to fame/power had any influence?

I stumbled on an enthusiastic review of this memoir in … some magazine in New York, maybe Bust or Bitch. And I need to remember to buy books on a whim, because this was such a good, interesting and educational read. Nick Krieger tells about his journey from woman to … transgender, I guess is the term he’d prefer. But really, it’s about a person who pursues happiness, and that’s what makes this memoir both heartwarming and touching. I recommend this book to anyone interested in gender and the boxes we try to fit each other into.

I came across this book in the notes to Delusions of Gender (and bought it – bad strategy for getting through the unread books lurking on the shelves). I often hear parents describe how their offspring as if by magic are attracted to pink-glittery-princessy things in the case of girls, and blue-mechanical-rough-and-tumble things in the case of boys without them encouraging this in any way. And without any hands-on experience at parenting I find it difficult to argue my both intuitively and rationally based disagreement.

Anyway, An Unconventional Family is the autobiography of Sandra Bem about her hands-on experience with an egalitarian, heterosexual relationship and with gender-blind child rearing. The latter is enforced in a very practical way (among others) by drawing breasts and long hair on the, say, policeman in the childrens’ books, moustache on the milkmaid, and generally refraining from using the gender-specific pronouns (“the little piggy went to get his-or-her dinner”). It may sound comical and definitely radical, but it’s extremely interesting to hear this story in retrospect, especially because the book ends with interviews with the children, now in their early 20′es.

The egalitarian relashionship-aspect is much less exotic, but interesting in another way: Much of what Sandra Bem and her husband did was considered outrageous and provoking in the US in the middle of the 60′es and the 70′es. Things like being (truly) equally responsible for cooking dinner, buying groceries, remembering to buy said groceries, cleaning, raising the children and so on. But to a Scandinavian in this day and age this doesn’t seem exotic at first glance, and I kept having to remind myself how unusual this arrangement was in those days. And second glance, though, feminism in Denmark has suffered a gigantic backlash, and I bet quite few families actually verbalise the need – or wish – for the relationship to be truly egalitarian. But that’s a whole different story. Thought provoking book indeed.

The media these days seem to be full of more or less scientific articles about how very different men and women are, how men just can’t make a proper, healthy dinner, and how to best raise your gentle, sweet daughter and your outgoing, active son taking their so very different, innate abilities into consideration. And they make me flinch, mostly because I know very few people who behave like characters out of a Disneyfied fairytale, and I know how eager children are to adapt to expectations. Apparently, the Australian psychologist and university professor Cordelia Fine is my sister in arms here (and note how I need to state her gender in order to use that idiom, and also to write this sentence. In the languages of this part of the world it’s extremely difficult to avoid mentioning people’s gender.)

I could go on. I won’t. The subtitle of Delusions of Gender is “The real science behind gender differences”, and Cordelia Fine’s mission is to examine the basis of those “neurosexist” books on the market. She does that in a witty-bordering-on-snarky manner and it’s all very interesting and entertaining to read, especially, probably, if you already agree with her underlying sceptic and feminist premisis. The problem is, of course, that when she goes through other researchers’ research and points to errors, irregularities and miscalculations in their work, why should I trust her more than I trust them? When she says that some book I haven’t read uses it’s statistics wrongly, I really haven’t got much evidence to back up where I put my trust – with Cordelia Fine or the people she’s bashing. I tend to trust Fine, but is it only because I agree with her conclusions about gender not being all black and white and innate?

Reading the book definitely made me want to read more on this subject, and especially the third part of it about raising children regenerating the traditional gender roles I found very interesting.  Thanks to Anna for recommending this book.

I finally remembered to buy the rest of Dranger’s fabulous graphic novels about women. They would work well as an introduction to feminism. For instance, did you know why Cinderella’s stepsisters were so mean? Because she was so freakin’ beautiful and always rubbed it in her ugly stepsisters’ noses.

Jeg kan simpelthen ikke finde ud af, hvad det er for et ærinde, Lessing er ude i her. Allerede i forordet går det galt:

[...] I had been wondering if men were not a younger type [of humans], a junior variation. They lack the solidity of women, who seem to have been endowed with a natural harmony with the ways of the world. I think most people would agree with this, even if a definition would be hard to come by. Men in comparison are unstable, and erratic. Is Nature trying something out?

Det da en meget pudsig tanke, og romanen er ellers en rigtig flot, lækkert skrevet rammefortælling, stort set uden hverken personer eller plot; og det lidt der er, nemlig omhandlende fortælleren, bliver aldrig afsluttet. Men udover, at jeg slet ikke er enig i hendes grundliggende præmis, så forstår jeg simpelthen ikke, hvad formålet er med bogen. Hvad har hun gang i? Grøftegraveri for viderekommende?

Den svenske roman Bitterfittan er noget så udansk som en feministisk chilklitroman. Meget udansk og meget svensk, fordi den handler om en kvinde, der med egne ord er blevet en “bitterfisse” af kampen for at opretholde ligestillingen i parforholdet, da de får børn. Og det udanske heri er naturligvis ordet “opretholde”, der indikerer, at der inden barnets ankomst faktisk herskede ligestilling; en bevidst, oprigtig bestræbelse fra begge parter på at være to om alt, også de sure husholdningspligter, og især også om at se behovet for de sure husholdningspligter. Det er nemlig dér filmen knækker i den typiske danske familie. Kvinder laver husarbejdet, og manden hjælper til. Hjælper til.

Nå. Ikke dermed sagt, at alle danske mænd er mandschauvinister. Blot at der er meget mere fokus på ligestilling i Sverige, og derfor er det muligt at skrive en bog, der kombinerer feminisme og chiklit. (mere…)

På forsiden af min udgave af Lady Oracle (Vintage, 2007, paperback) står der øverst oppe “a mistress of controlled hysteria. TIME”. Den tænkte jeg meget over; hysteri er jo en ting, der interesserer mig, og jeg kunne ikke rigtig få det til at passe med romanens handling. Skulle vi ud i en Elaine Showalter-agtig tanke om spiseforstyrrelser som vor tids massehysteri? Den køber jeg sådan set, men er det noget, der ender i en anmeldelse i The Time? Men, men, der er en forklaring på alt. Google kunne afsløre, at citatet stammer fra denne anmeldelse. Som er af Surfacing. Citatet har altså ingenting at gøre med Lady Oracle. Så forstår jeg det bedre. Og begrebet hysteri kan vel godt bruges om det, der sker for hovedpersonen i Surfacing. Det eneste spørgsmål, der står tilbage, er, hvem i alverden der finder på at klippe noget fra anmeldelsen af én bog, og sætte det på forsiden af en anden? Måske den samme som finder på at skrive de der fuldstændigt vildledende bagsidetekster (som LO i øvrigt også har en af)? Det her er afgjort et af mit livs helt store spørgsmål.

Men bortset fra det, var Lady Oracle helt oppe på siden af The Blind Assassin, Cat’s Eye og Alias Grace. Den er på mange måder en grundbog i spiseforstyrrelseskvindelitteratur, men den formåede det, som Surfacing ikke rigtig gjorde, nemlig at skille sig ud som en selvstændig, nærværende, medrivende roman.

… at få en stak bøger med posten fra Amazon. Det var en god fødselsdagsgave.

Ny, svensk antologi om “hur vi delas upp och hur vi hör ihop”, som undertitlen hedder. Spændende både mht. form og indhold. Formmæssigt fordi indlæggene består af alt fra artikler med højt lixtal og alle de politisk korrekte feministiske termer til et poetryslamagtigt digt og en småpornografisk novelle. Og det fungerer rigtig godt. Forholdet mellem kønnene er et svært, mangesidet emne, så det skal selvfølgelig også belyses fra mange sider.

En anden fed ting, og jeg er sikker på, at det er overlagt, er, at forfatterens navn ikke er angivet ved det enkelte indlæg, men til sidst i en oversigt sammen med et par ord om hver. Det betyder, at man ikke kender forfatterens køn, og det betyder faktisk meget, opdagede jeg, når man læser feministisk kritik/musings. Jeg læste bogen sådan, at jeg efter hvert indlæg slog op i oversigten og læste om forfatteren. Det gav tit et nyt/andet perspektiv på det, jeg lige havde læst, og på min egen reaktion. For ja, det er meget nemt at forudsætte forfatterens køn, især når teksten handler om feminisme og ligestilling. Og så var der de tekster, hvor forfatterens køn blev “afsløret” et stykke inde, og så sad jeg der med sprækker i feminismen. For hvorfor gik jeg ud fra at det var en kvinde, ikke en mand, der var på vej hen for at hente sit barn i børneinstitutionen?

Jeg er på det sidste blevet mere opmærksom på, at der faktisk pågår en debat om feminisme og ligestilling i Danmark også, men hold kæft, hvor er svenskerne bare længere fremme.

En feministisk roman? Nej, ikke i den traditionelle forstand. Hovedpersonen er for eksempel en mand. Men måske i den forstand, at den handler om normalitet og vores måde at definere normaliteten. Og ikke mindst vores tendes til at definere normaliteten. Og det er jo et klassisk tema inden for den feministiske litteratur. Mænd er normaliteten, kvinder er hysteriske, mandhaftige, irrationelle når de forsøger at analysere, argumentere, ændre og pirke i status quo.

I denne roman er det en mand, der befinder sig i den situation, at fordi han opfører sig anderledes, bliver han diagnosticeret som syg. Han lider af hukommelsestab, og hvad er hans garanti for, at den (for)historie, man siger er hans, er mere sand end det, han selv kan huske eller fornemme om sin fortid?

Det hele er nemlig (bare) historier, og én er ikke mere værd eller sand end en anden. (mere…)

And here’s another disturbing novel about childhood traumas and memory. I read most of this in one day, cancelling appointments and tasks as I went along. If I ever get to teach po-mo lit, remind me to use this novel. It would go well with Ishiguro’s When We Were Orphans, but it has the female/feminist perspective. My kind of novel exactly.

Smuk og foruroligende.

Cool, couragous and slightly mad. Feminist, lesbian, antropologist. And a very good writer. I’ll recommend this book to anyone interested in the workings of men, of women, and of men and women. Very impressive.

Hverdagsfeminisme serveret i øjenhøjde, her defineret som Slet ikke bekendt med feministisk teori. Og jeg synes det fungerer godt, og jeg tror også, det lykkes. Jeg fik også meget ud af den, selvom jeg ikke befinder mig helt i målgruppen. Bogen er meget praktisk orienteret og fuld af lister og konkrete tips, meget i stil med Bom og Bjerkes “Udslag” fra 2002.

Dog synes jeg, at bogen går i et par af de klassiske fælder indenfor den feministiske teori. En af dem er den med at kritisere det patriarkatiske samfund for, at alting foregår på mænds måde, men samtidig råde kvinder til at være mere udadvendte, mindre undskyldende osv. De to ting er ikke nødvendigvis det samme, det ved jeg godt, men jeg hører ikke bogen reflektere over det, der nemt kan ligne et dilemma.

Et andet, og virkelig stort problem er, at bogen er layoutet som en teenagepigeblad. Hjerter, børnetegninger, og hverdagseksempler under overskriften “Mit livs novelle”. Hvad er formålet med det?? Jeg synes i den grad, forfatterne skyder sig selv i foden. Det er muligt, de ironiserer over 50′ernes kvindemyte, men det fungerer overhovedet ikke. Omslaget ligner en “venindebog”, og ved en hurtig gennembladring ser bogen ud til at regne sit publikum for 10-årige amøber, godt sovset ind i gammeldags kønsroller. Jeg følte mig talt ned til af lay-outet, samtidig med, at teksten netop formåede ikke at gøre det. Tal om modsatrettede signaler. (Og den ene forfatter er jo også forlagsejer, så man kan nok desværre ikke skyde skylden på Det Onde Forlag).