In March of 2009, I wrote to Elaine Showalter on behalf of The Rumpus, saying she inspired me as a writer, editor, and feminist. She agreed to an interview, the focus of which would be her latest book, A Jury of Her Peers. Ranging from the instigators to contemporary innovators, Jury is the first (yeah, first) history of American women writers. It was published in 2009. In it, Showalter catalogues the forgotten and the famous, resurrects the women disappearing from literary history, and encourages new writers to discover our own power, deepen our understanding of it, and move beyond it to create a space of our own.
Elaine wrote back:
“Dear Elissa,
You have really written something besides a set of interview questions; this is more like a short story, a dialog you are having with yourself with me as a sort of half-fictional figure…”
After I cried, I thought: My God, what a brilliant idea.
She didn’t answer three-fourths of the questions I asked her—because I gave her over thirty paragraph-length questions, because I read seven of her books, because she is the leading feminist literary critic of our time and introduced women’s studies into college curriculums and makes me want to be her, inhale her, and impress her—when she didn’t answer all my questions and tumbled just short of my dreams, I stepped into her own persona, as per her implicit suggestion. What follows is Showalter’s actual responses (in quotation marks) and those I imagined for her (in brackets).
***
The Rumpus: You published A Jury of Her Peers in 2009, but I’m sure it took an incalculable number of years to dream up, outline, research, write, rewrite, get frustrated, battle depression, question your life, and settle permissions. Can you discuss what’s been happening in the literary scene since Jury went to press: which writers are becoming great sources of excitement via claiming contemporary feminist intellectual heritages? If you could have an addendum to Jury, whom would you spotlight?
Elaine Showalter: “If I could have an addendum to the book, I might add the recognition of Marilynne Robinson, [who won] the Orange Prize this summer.”
Rumpus: [I like Marilynne Robinson; reading her is like eating chocolate cake. To me, she is a symbol of evolution in novel writing. Magazine writing seems less evolved.] You say that at the turn of the 19th century, “[women] had begun to edit periodicals whose titles, [included] gender-marked terms like ‘Ladies,’ ‘Mother,’ and ‘Home.’” What do you think about women’s magazines today? George Saunders writes for Esquire; why aren’t his female counterparts writing for Cosmopolitan? You ask it better than I do: is “the feminization of the literary market a good thing or a bad thing?” (And why does “feminization” translate into beauty tips and celebrity-diet-poop secrets and doing [explicative deleted] to men?)
Showalter: “I am a voracious reader of women’s magazines in the United States and United Kingdom, and I think they are a lot more interesting than Esquire. . . . A lot of very good women writers can be found in magazines like O, Vogue, Elle, and English magazines like Red. Their range goes beyond fashion, sex, and diets, but I suspect that our cultural-internalized disdain for such topics is part of the problem, whatever the quality of the writing.”
Rumpus: Maybe it’s a question of money: what makes money and who makes money. In her review of Jury, Sarah Churchwell (who studied with you at Princeton) said you gave her “the single most influential piece of professional advice [she’s] ever received: ‘Write to get paid.’” Writing for money seems inconceivable to me; your advice encourages me, but most magazines and the Internet deflate me. If more writers are writing a) disposable content and b) for free, how can women find valuable writing work that pays?
Showalter: “I told Sarah Churchwell (and all my graduate students), ‘Learn to write so well that you can be paid for it, rather than so badly that someone has to be paid to read your work.’ Many graduate students in English deliberately make their writing so obscure and pedantic that it is unreadable. But actually getting paid as a freelance journalist demands hard work and luck, as you know, and these days the market is tighter than ever.”
Rumpus: Back to novel writing, which depresses me less. You say, “The Awakening, which Chopin subtitled ‘A Solitary Soul,’ may be read as an account of Edna Pontellier’s evolution from romantic fantasies of fusion with another person to self-definition and self-reliance.” My friend asked me, “Can I be a woman without reading The Awakening?” I said, “No. The answer is no.” Do you agree?
Showalter: “The Awakening: certainly one of the most important feminist novels about romantic illusion, although not so good on what comes next.”
Rumpus: Like Edna, I’ve learned the main thing is a make fuss. Susan Sontag taught me this (indirectly). Through reading you, what she believes becomes clearer: 1) “Ironizing about the sexes is one step toward depolarizing them”; 2) “Writing comes from a kind of restlessness and dissatisfaction”; 3) “I never thought, ‘There are women writers, so this is something I can be. No, I thought, There are writers, so this is something I want to be.’” I think of Susan Sontag as one of my enduring teachers. Who do you consider your teachers?
Showalter: “My teachers—dozens, including critics and scholars and journalists as well as literary artists. I admire a number of contemporary British newspaper journalists, columnists, and book reviewers, including Simon Jenkins and India Knight, and literary essayists including Michael Holroyd. The most inspiring teacher/scholar/writer in my life was the British historian Roy Porter who died very young. I think Joyce Carol Oates is a brilliant book reviewer.”
Rumpus: [I think Joyce Carol Oates is a brilliant six-word memoirist: Revenge is living well, without you.]
Showalter: [Mine would be: Born with vagina; wrote; changed world.]
Rumpus: It has not been easy for us. Even Edith Wharton and Willa Cather were “against women’s writing.” You discuss “their commitment to an art beyond the limitation of gender. . . . Paradoxically, American women’s writing could not fully mature until there were women writing against it.” Today we have “chick lit.” Do you believe this is the evolution of a Brontë/Austen tradition, or is this genre more like a parodic side effect of a new women’s media (one that extols the sexy new zeitgeist who is precocious yet mature, strong with weakness, and alone but never lonely)? Is “chick lit” hurting the integrity of women’s writing?
13 responses
My imaginary response to this is that it’s [totally fucking brilliant].
Great piece. Will be going to the Joyce Carol Oates/Elaine Showalter talk/brunch at 92Y this weekend in NY. Interested to hear more on her thoughts about the fight for use of a full range of language.
Do you mean women’s studies in the fourth paragraph?
“because she is the leading feminist literary critic of our time and introduced women’s students into college curriculums”
Thanks for being my editor, Michelle! I’ll fix it now. Can you read all my stuff?
Nice piece. I don’t remember ever reading Elaine Showalter, and I call myself a Women’s Studies major. Will have to check out her book, although lit crit makes me itch.
A few things that come to mind:
Didn’t women invent the novel as literary form?
As a writer the term chick lit annoys me, but really, I don’t care. Who cares if the book gets published with a pink cover if it gets read? I come from a women’s magazine background where the Taliban articles were wedged between makeover stories and pieces about the hot new eyeshadow of the season, and it worked—the message was still received. I followed this model when writing my novels. I sandwich the serious lessons in between optimism, feminism, fashion and beauty. The serious stuff is very dark though and I have yet to find a publisher.
90% of the time I’m incapable of writing in my apartment—I have to get out.
Is feminism still a dirty word? Most women I know won’t admit to being one (never been my problem). I mean, look at all the women who voted for the man in last election…
I do read some of what you write, Elissa, and most of it is pretty damn good. Great spin on Showalter not showing up for most of your interview questions.
Elissa, this is brilliant and hilarious! Your questions and imaginary answers contain even more insight than the brief and tangentially related points in Showalter’s actual responses. But, also, your passion for her work makes me want to check out some of her books immediately (or, rather, whenever the library opens tomorrow).
And, of course, I can’t wait to read more of your work. I completely agree when you-as-imaginary-Elaine encourage yourself to please, please keep writing!
One more tiny editing comment: did you mean Kathy Acker, not Kathy Acher?
Thank you so much. Attending a school without any sort of Women’s Studies department (or emphasis in Women’s Studies via history classes,grrr) this was especially refreshing/wonderful/hilarious/helpful.
I tried to go to sleep after reading Michelle’s comment (the second one) and just couldn’t. It made me think of this quotation from Lorrie Moore in “How to Become a Writer”:
“The only happiness you have is writing something new, in the middle of the night, armpits damp, heart pounding, something no one has seen yet. You have only those brief, fragile, untested moments of exhilaration when you know: you are a genius.â€
It’s the middle of the night, armpits damp, heart pounding. Not so brief or fragile, but a real sense of exhilaration. Michelle, good god, woman, let’s get a drink.
I had a similar feeling when I wrote this piece. At the time, alone in my apartment, I said aloud, loudly, “WRITING-GASM!” Nothing feels better–except that one thing.
Anyway, the point is, a few things come to mind re: your things (and thank you for your contribution):
I personally haven’t read anywhere that women invented the novel as literary form. If it’s true, it’s not well attributed. A Jury of Her Peers is very much about this, the idea that women contributed in ways that have been concealed, misunderstood, and confused. I managed to confuse a few things myself…
When I was in high school, I subscribed to Marie Claire. Doing so made me feel sophisticated, worldly, prepared for sex, etc. (NB: magazines don’t prepare well for sex). In one issue, I read an article about women being sold into sex slavery. It scared the shit out of me. What scared me more was that the article was between ads for perfume and bras and diet pills. Lightbulb moment. Something is fucking wrong here. I was close with my European history teacher, one of my first female role models (she is a goddess), and just baffled, I showed it to her. I needed her to tell me why. She looked at me in a way that I interpreted as, “Yeah, this is the world, cupcake. I’m sorry you just figured it out. But deal with it.” Your comment turns it all around for me. “The message was still received.” Yes, you are right. Elaine made me rethink a few things, particularly my immature and thoughtless hatred of “chick lit,” for example.
In the uncut original interview questions, I asked Elaine if she was a feminist. She didn’t respond. Fair enough. And I can’t imagine what she could have said to that question. I, Elissa Bassist, would say this: That same history teacher taught the evils of “isms,” and I can understand why not everyone is into the label. But I know, secretly, that if you are a person who cares about equality for all people, you’re a feminist. If you’re a woman who’s in school or working or being a good mom, you’re a feminist. I know a ton of people, men and women, who are feminists and just refuse to use the term. Lots of my boyfriends have refused to use the term “boyfriend” or “relationship,” but that didn’t fool me. Words schmurds.
Want to send me your serious dark stuff? That’s my favorite kind. I think you’re right that you have to put it between optimism, humor, etc. I think that’s how Lorrie Moore gets away with it…balance, dimension, honesty. That woman is a black pit of despair, but she’s hilarious and smart as hell about it.
And, I have to say, even though E. Showalter didn’t respond to all my questions/insanity, she’s still my reason to get up in the morning.
Also, Michelle, most of what I write? Not all? Was it the Ayn Rand piece?
Thanks, Danni! Where’s The Rumpus proofreading department?
Will have to check out the Ayn Rand piece – she’s one of my favorites.
The Tale of Genji written by female courtesan Murasaki Shikibu in the eleventh century is considered to be the world’s first novel. We learned in my 1993 (gasp!) Women Novelists class that women, especially in the 1700-1800s invented the novel.
Wild, I worked for MC when that issue with the sex slavery article came out. Have a lot to say about the magazine business (and new media) but must get back to work writing headlines like ‘unwanted hair is gone—forever!’ If it will let me take a few months off later this year to rework my novel, it’s all worth it.
Looking forward to reading more of your stuff – Michelle
Nice, on Ayn Rand. You know the model for her supermen was a serial killer, right? http://exiledonline.com/atlas-shrieked-why-ayn-rands-right-wing-followers-are-scarier-than-the-manson-family-and-the-gruesome-story-of-the-serial-killer-who-stole-ayn-rands-heart/
You can Google around, there’s lots of stuff out there on this.
Showalter’s a little whacked on a few things, too. Like stating that certain illnesses are hysterical when you’re not qualified to assess. That’s kinda arrogant…when you don’t know what you don’t know. Plus, she totally misrepresented Tillie Olsen’s claim about Silences, at least as I recall it. And then she rebutted the wrong claim. I’m about to blog on this myself. Grrr.
I understand that Elaine Showalter has contributed to the field of feminist literary criticism, but in my eyes the damage she has done in the field of women’s health far outweighs any of her positive work. How could anyone outside the medical field presume to offer an “expert” opinion that serious, debilitating diseases like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome are “hysteria?” Not only did she ignore countless articles in medical journals, the CDC, and the up to 4 million American patients, she also ignored the history of her own field. Multiple Sclerosis and polio were also once labeled as “hysteria?”. Most CFS patients are women, although many are men. Although she implies that it is a disease of white, rich women, like most diseases, poor people and people of color are at a greater risk. I truly don’t understand why she would use her power as a well-known feminist academic to undermine the efforts of millions of people to get their illness taken seriously. The medical establishment has a long history of ignoring and psychologizing diseases that affect mostly women; why would Elaine Showalter buy into that?
Ms. Showalter deserves public censure for what she’s done, not adoring praise. She’s the most anti-feminist feminist I’ve ever known.
Lee Davis
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