Among the markers that distinguish interpretations of women and literature, and the presentation of women in literature, from the interpretations of class and literature, and the presentation of class in literature, is the frequency of the assumption that differences of sex and gender are immutable, ascocial, atemporal — a human embodiment of natural law. Ironically, both sexual conservatives and certain radical cultural feminists share an attraction to such assumptions. The former tends to prize the male; the latter certainly celebrates the female, but both seek synchronic securities in dimorphism.Catharine R. Stimpson. "Ad/d Feminam: Women, Literature and Society (1980)" in Where the Meanings Are: Feminism and Cultural Spaces
I like the way she continues the argument:
A powerful conceit magically lifts the artist from society and stabilizes the assignment of creativity to an ahistorical realm. [...] to compel some women to find substitutes, signs of female creativity that draw on female biology, on blood, ova, genitalia. Such efforts repeat the pattern of using organic language of the body to transform a social role into a transcendent calling.Implicitly here in this commentary on metaphors of writing, we are invited to consider just what sort of calling might be the act of reading.
And so for day 701
13.11.2008