The Other Austen

Argh, one of my best friends refuses to accept that Austen is more than just “18th century romance novels”. He even went as far as to say that she’s the Regency era’s Stephenie Meyer. Help me win this argument, please?

Asked by: thegirlwhodidntmakesense

theotherausten:

1. OMG GET A NEW BEST FRIEND or TAKE THIS BITCH TO SCHOOL

2. Tell him to at least read a Jane Austen novel. Then tell him to read Twilight. I’m pretty sure he’s read neither.

3. His observations are sexist. Period. “Just” 18th century romance novels? Whatever you have to say about Austen or Meyer, you have to acknowledge that BOTH of them have made significant contributions to literature. Lumping all female writers into the bull shit ‘chick lit’ category makes their writing seem frivolous and inexperienced compared to supposedly solid, important, canonical male writing. No but you don’t get it, when Shakespeare wrote romances and comedies, they were like, so much better. If you’re going to delegitimize Austen for her ‘silly, girly’ romances, you might as well do it to Dickens, Fielding and the Brontes as well. Basically every writer ever actually. Well done!

4. His observation is more about the contemporary reception of Austen. The average 21st century dolt who has heard of that mad, scribblin’ Jayne Eyre Austin lady thinks she wrote about young ladies sitting at their windowsill, looking forlornly out the window upon the rainy English countryside, waiting for her Prince Charming/Mr. Darcy to show up. If you merely watch an Austen adaptation made in the last 20 years without thinking deeply about it, you might get this impression. From S&S 1995 to P&P 2005, there’s plenty of rain and dashing men on horseback to be had. But…

5. I’d say it’s a universal truth that people are fucking stupid and don’t understand irony. Austen is ironic about romance. Meyer is not. I’m not going to compare or add positive/negative value to their merits, because that goes against Austen’s “it’s only a novel” rant, in which she chides her fellow novelists for degrading each other and the medium itself. Not gonna do it. But it is extremely important to understand that Austen’s bread and butter was mocking the shit out of those ‘silly’ 18^th century romance novels. As a reader, she loved them and memorized their form and content. As a writer, she satirized some of their bull shit notions about women, marriage and money. Marriage was (and to me, still can be) a business transaction and was (to proto-feminists of her day) comparable to the slave trade. There’s a lot more going on in Austen that just silly girly romance.

6. But you know what, even silly girly romance has meaning. Twilight is political as fuck. Sex can wait until straight, white, Christian heterosexual courtship. A woman’s worth is defined by her sexual activity. Not that this does not happen in Austen as well, but I think there’s a huge distinction to be made. Meyer’s novels say things SHOULD be this way. Austen’s novels say things ARE this way and ain’t it shitty. I have not read Twilight, but as far as I know, Meyer is not interested in being critical of normative societal expectations. Twilight seems like romance played straight. Pride and Prejudice is romance with a razor’s edge. Romance and marriage don’t save you. They lock you in and bind you. If you’re REALLY REALLY LUCKY you will find a equal partner to spend your life with. But how many Austen characters find that? 7 or 8 maybe? That’s including the 6 hero/heroine couples plus a couple of side character couples that depict an ideal marriage (the Crofts in Persuasion, the Gardiners in P&P). Everywhere else is difficulty and bitterness and, I hate to say it, reality.

7. So I guess tell him that he can’t have a valid opinion about the subject until he’s read novels written by both authors. Until he’s read Claudia L. Johnson. Until he compares and contrasts the form and content of Austen and Meyer novels while taking into account historical context.  Tell him to remember that Austen uses IRONY. Please please please please remember that, everyone in the world. Tell him to take a closer look at why he delegitimizes the importance of female writers and readers. And if he refuses to do at least one of the above, tell to GTFO, like really.

thanks, cardinalheart, for making it rebloggable! :)

(via cardinalheart)

ravengoodwoman:

There is something wrong when someone thinks that this: “If you wish to practice the art of fiction, to be the equal of a masculine author, experience is vital. Your horizons must be…widened.” is the best line in Becoming Jane.

Why? Tom Lefroy was just so fucking creepy and skevy in that scene.

OMG PREACH. It actually might be the WORST line. A follower last May asked me to go into detail about my hatred of Becoming Jane. Here it is again for all my new followers.

I really dislike Becoming Jane because, simply put, it is sexist. The film suggests that Jane Austen could not have possibly written her works without the help of a man and ‘real experience.’ Calling what LeFroy has ‘experience’ and what Jane has ‘lack of experience’ completely delegitimizes the lifestyle women have been forced to live for centuries within the domestic sphere.

The film displays her being upset by one man insulting her work. It also shows LeFroy teaching her about literature, something that the real Austen never had a problem with learning on her own. Her letters and books display no such prudishness when it comes to sexuality found in novels of the time.

The film is basically fan fiction that tries to attribute Austen’s genius and talent to what in real life was a two-month flirtation. It doesn’t occur to people that perhaps Jane CHOSE to be an ‘old maid’ (both she and Cassandra dressed like ‘old maids’ in their 20s because they WANTED that status).

And I wish I could like it as a film and see it as separate from Jane Austen, but I still think the plot is sexist whether the main character is really Jane Austen or NOT. The ending of the film treats Jane and Lefroy as if they always regretted never marrying and hints that Lefroy named his daughter after Jane (when most likely he and HIS WIFE named their daughter after Mrs. Lefroy’s mother, Jane).

The film, while it might have good performances, gorgeous cinematography and beautiful (if inaccurate) costume design, still perpetuates the disgusting myth that women need men and that single women are cursed and unfulfilled. Ugh ugh and MORE FUCKING UGH!

ginny-wrocks:

“…women should avoid what are defined as masculine areas. According to Fordyce, “argumentative” talents are only sought by those “masculine women” who wish to share the male “province” of education; and Gisborne defines “accomplishments” as “ornamental acquisitions” (dancing, French, Italian, music) which are “designed” to supply “innocent and amusing occupations” and to “keep the mind in a state of placid cheerfulness.”

Lloyd W. Brown, “Jane Austen and the Feminist Tradition”

(Source: ginnabean)

fiercedandelioness:

One of my women’s studies professors told our class on multiple occasions that telling women’s stories was the first and one of the most fundamental parts of feminism.  That women have been erased from the narrative for so long, the first step to equality is simply to tell women’s stories.  Whether they are the stories of women speaking out, women fighting back, women rejecting convention or simply the stories of women living lives, women in domesticity, women in the quiet background of history, we need to tell their stories.  I would add to this queer people, trans* people, people of color, everyone whose story is never told — the silent majority, if you will.  The first step to fighting back is simply telling our story, saying out loud, “We are here.”

This same professor hates Jane Austen.  Like really, really hates her and her books.  And she was so disappointed by the fact that I love Austen, I actually felt a bit guilty about it.  But then I thought, aha, watch me use your own argument against you, Irlene!  And so now I am.

Because see, Austen was all about telling women’s stories.  Yes, she was writing about a very small socioeconomic niche in society — the landed gentry somewhere between the nobility and the professional classes.  So, yes, a bunch of privileged white British women.  And yes, the stories are just these tedious little snapshots of the day to day, and they are all romances in the end, but don’t you see how the tedium is important?  The stories are small because real women in their situation lived small lives.  But that doesn’t mean they’re not important; it doesn’t mean they aren’t stories worth telling.

Lizze Bennet, who rejected two perfectly good offers of marriage, knowing full well she was expected to accept whatever was offered and consider herself lucky, knowing she could die an impoverished old maid.  Elinor Dashwood, emotionally supporting her whole family and putting her own suffering to the side because she loves them and they need her to protect them from the cruelties of society.  Emma Woodhouse, running this show and talking too much, and laughing at the world that seeks to silence her.  Fanny Price, who steadfastly refused to give in, no matter that she was threatened with rejection, poverty, and the disapproval of the only family she’d ever known.

Read these books and tell me these women aren’t strong.  Tell me they’re not fighting the society they’re trapped in.  Hell, for their time in place, the idea of marrying for love rather than social politics and money was absurd and nearly revolutionary.  And here was Austen, writing them the ending she never had, writing them the endings society at the time could never truly allow, writing the little lives of the women she knew, telling their stories, because they were important, because they were there.

Yeah, and she looks kinda pissed. So step off!!!