From: twain@milton.u.washington.edu (Barbara Hlavin)
Subject: Re: Androgyny & The Arts
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 18:30:37 GMT

In article <1992Sep10.171853.26300@grebyn.com> fi@grebyn.com 
(Fiona Webster) writes:

>Francis quotes a blurb pertaining to Woolf's "A Room of One's Own":
>>	"The male chauvinist and the militant feminist were alike
>>	incapable of producing good fiction...Great artists, Virginia
>>	Woolf asserted, were androgynous, their minds were unimpeded,
>>	and their imagination incandescent. And androgyny could only
>>	exist when one had intellectual freedom, and that freedom
>>	depended upon material things, the most fundamental metaphors
>>	of which were five hundred pounds a year and a room of one's
>>	own."
>
>I've been puzzling over this for a while now.  Curious that the author
>would choose such hackneyed, emotionally charged phrases as "male
>chauvinist" and "militant feminist" to set up in contrast to mental
>and imaginative androgyny (whatever that is).  

I would guess that those terms were chosen precisely because they're 
emotionally loaded caricatures, for the express purpose of immediately 
laying out the issue to be examined.  When you're locked in a stereo- 
type of what a man or a woman Ought to Be, and furthermore judge all 
men and women only in light of how well they fit these models, you're 
going to place some severe limitations on your creativity and ability 
to truly "see" (in Iris Murdoch's useful phrase) others.  This would 
be a disaster for a writer, unless he were a satirist, as all his/her 
characters would be one-dimensional figures of good or evil according 
to how well or ill they fit the approved models. 

>My usual response to
>anyone who insists on maleness as superior to femaleness, or vice
>versa, is to mumble, "Methinks he doth protest too much."  In other
>words, I wonder (don't you?) whether an outspokenly "macho" male, for
>example, is secretly conflicted about his heterosexuality, and
>frightened of the female traits he encounters within himself.  Such 
>conflicts, as we know well from such examples as Hemingway, can 
>often lead to excellent fiction.  

Yes, and these fears -- on the part of both women and men -- are 
taught and enforced.  And some of us learn these lessons too well. 

Whatever Hemingway's conflicts may have been in regard to his definition   
of himself as a man, I can't say that I believe his work is the 
consequence only, or even primarily,  of conflicted gender identity.
That's insultingly reductive.  (Although I did say here a couple of 
years ago, and got royally roasted for it, that I attributed the 
diminishment of his work and his unhappiness later in life to those 
limited notions he had of himself.)  Excellent fiction, excellent 
art of all kinds, is the result of a unique combination of talents, 
desire, personality, intelligence, character, and a lot of other 
indefinable qualities. 
  

>Androgyny in a state of total
>freedom might be too self-accepting, too content, to sustain the
>passion that gives rise to good storytelling.  

You'll have to tell me what you mean by "total freedom."  Even money 
and some privacy won't guarantee that; the world is still too much 
with us, we don't renounce our relationships or social obligations. 
If androgyny is the condition of recognizing, acknowledging, and 
appreciating the qualities that are claimed to be exclusively male 
or female as present in one's own psyche, that liberates us, but I 
don't see it as depriving us of passion. 

My understanding of the idea of androgyny is that our concepts of 
men and women are ludicrously lopsided, and in our actual fear of 
discovering the qualities of the Other in ourselves we not only 
deny their existence there, but overvalue them in the other person, 
thereby imprisoning him, all the Hims, in a single role that will 
certainly not fit everyone of that gender.  Thus we shut ourselves 
off from experiencing the full dimensions of our being and exploring 
our potential.  And not only prevent the Other from likewise fulfilling 
himself, but actively punish him for seeking it. 

(The common example:  emotional sensitivity is a weakness in a man; 
anger is unattractive and unacceptable in a woman.  So men heroically 
suppress their grief and joy; woman (equally heroically) suppress 
their anger, and what do we get?  Another day older and deeper in 
debt.  Er, we get inappropriate responses and frustrated people who 
are frightened and ashamed of their genuine feelings.  We deny them 
legitimacy, and expression.  In return we get bullies and shrews of 
both genders who express these frustrations in small acts of cruelty
and malice that contribute to a deteriorating social framework and 
inflict misery on everyone around them.  And then they pass the torch 
to the next generation.) 

>But the sort of androgyny that contrasts to "(fe)male chauvinist" is
>not exactly what Woolf meant, is it?  

Well, I don't know what Woolf meant; it's been a good while since I've 
read _A Room of One's Own_ and the blurb quoted above was not written 
by Woolf herself.  I do believe from the evidence of her diaries and 
letters, not to mention the fiction itself, that many of Virginia 
Woolf's troubles arose directly from a sense of herself as being 
alienated from her society's concept of what she, as a woman, Ought 
To Be, since this was at odds with the considerable strengths of 
her intellect and talent, not to mention her ambitions. 


I suspect that Francis posted
>this blurb because it doesn't quite hang together, because this
>assertion cries out to be challenged.  So let's do it: let's challenge
>it.  If the money for time and a "room of one's own" is available,
>then what remains to justify calling androgyny a useful quality in
>the artist?  

See above.

>If a mind is "unimpeded," then what will drive the com-
>pulsion to write?  And can one not write with passion, while remaining
>very much invested in a set of (supposedly) female, or male, virtues?

I don't believe anyone is pushing for a definition of androgyny in 
which one's primary gender identification is concealed or made 
indistinguishable from the Other, but rather for an appreciation 
of an androgynous mind.  There are plenty of other impediments to 
the free expression of passion; one is not continuously preoccupied 
with gender issues.   

As for your second point, I suppose you're referring to the irritating 
propensity of, say, some feminists who assert you can't be a good 
feminist yourself if you paint your fingernails, wear make-up, sleep 
with men, enjoy flirting.  I see nothing in the concept of androgyny 
or in one's choice of feminist stance to prevent you and me from doing 
any of those things.  The point of androgyny is to incorporate those 
qualities *we already possess* into our conscious sense of self, not 
to impose further limitations on ourselves. 

I seem to recall a rash, or some other unattractive eruption on the 
body politic, some years ago of women being encouraged to agonize over 
whether they were Really Women.  I didn't initially understand this. 
Of course I was a woman; why would I question it for an instant?  I 
was a woman because of my primary sexual characteristics.  Then it 
dawned on me that what I was supposed to be worrying about was whether 
I was Womanly -- you know:  kind, patient, nurturing, nice to men and 
children and probably small animals.  I guess this was in the '70s, 
when marriages and relationships were breaking up over issues raised 
by Women's Liberation and a popular accusation was "You're not a Real 
Woman!"  Real Women greeted their Men at the door wearing Saran Wrap 
or something idiotic like that. 

I still didn't see what the problem was, though.  Men and women being 
the individuals they are, you're going to have an infinite combination 
of intellectual and emotional characteristics, and what of it?  While 
I wasn't a Perfect Human Being I was most assuredly a Real Woman, and 
if someone didn't like my choices or opinions or politics, or the way 
I lived my life or expressed myself, well, tant pis.  That's me, and 
I'm *still* a woman.  There is nothing anyone else can do to invalidate 
me as a woman.  Politicians and rotten human beings like Pat Buchanan 
are *still* trying to load the word with meanings I refuse to accept. 


>Another way of putting it: I feel, intuitively, that there is truth
>in the statement that androgyny is good for art.  But how do we
>re-cast Woolf's version of it, for the times we live in now?  What
>are *defensible* arguments for the value of androgyny?

Well, I made an attempt.  Thanks for raising an interesting topic, Fiona. 

Now, can we add the concepts of Anima and Animus to the discussion?  
Maybe you can help me with this:  why is the Anima such a positive 
empowering concept for a man, but the Animus always seems punitive 
and even inimical?  Or am I projecting?  :-) 

--Barbara 

[Book reference:  _Toward a Recognition of Androgyny_, Carolyn Heilbrun]

Oh, one other thing... can someone identify for me the person who said, 
"Someone who was exclusively male or exclusively female would be 
a monster"?