Re: ...continued...fpbDecember 15 2010, 06:32:15 UTC
If it is a matter of power relationships, I suggest the picture is far more complicated than you imagine. One might think that power devolves first and foremost to the elderly male heads of the family, but as a matter of fact few Austen creations are more helpless than upright Sir Thomas Bertram and kindly Mr. Woodhouse (Emma's father, who has almost no part to play in the novel). And it is not, as would be with a lesser author, a matter of hen-pecked husbands (although JA certainly knows of this) but of over-tolerant older men dragged along and incapable of stopping the mechanics of a mostly female household. Sir Thomas Bertram has the appearance of stern elderly authority, but where does he actually manage to make himself felt? Of course he is out of sight for a significant part of the story, but I think he is only effective when the despised Fanny is there to back him up. Male power (or rather the power vested in individual males) is a blunt instrument, not capable of dealing with daily pressures, and even when used with malignant purpose (the General in Persuasion), doomed to fail and achieve the exact opposite of what it wished. And the worst enemies of women are other women. In Mansfield Park, the real injustice is not that Sir Thomas eventually sends Fanny away, but that he is manoeuvred, manipulated and pushed to do so by her female adversaries. In fact, he would rather do nothing of the kind and he is glad to revoke the edict. (Fanny, incidentally, is both a wimp and a prude, and is generally regarded as the least likeable Austen heroine of them all.) In a world where inequality was not only the rule but the accepted truth, it often turns out that the apparently less powerful figures are more effective than those with the most power; and that is one reason why I suspect JA might actually have been among the female opponents of female suffrage, since one of the main arguments was that female influence on society was of a wholly different kind from male. Certainly no writer has ever described better the real relationships of power and influence within a family and its circle.
Re: ...continued...inverarityDecember 15 2010, 06:55:44 UTC
Power dynamics in individual families will vary even in the most oppressive societies. That doesn't change the dynamics that prevail in society at large. So I don't know why you think this argues against Austen perceiving that women got a raw deal in general. She certainly experienced this personally.
since one of the main arguments was that female influence on society was of a wholly different kind from male.
It was a stupid (as well as circular) argument, though. I suppose it's possible Jane Austen might have bought into that, but I doubt she'd have been horrified at the idea of women being able to vote.
Re: ...continued...fpbDecember 15 2010, 07:09:07 UTC
Who ever said "horrified"? I said that I suspect that she might have supported the opposite point of view. And no more than suspect. In matters so obviously hypothetical it would be idiotic to have more than a hypothesis; I would say the odds are about six to four in favour. More to the point, I doubt she would have felt very strongly either way. In her world, a place in Parliament, like a house in "town", was merely a reflection of the real source of power and esteem, which was money. (Sir Thomas Bertram on his prospective son-in-law Mr. Rushworth: "If this man did not have £12,000 a year, he would be a very dull fellow indeed." Of course, Rushworth's candidacy is hotly pushed by the female half of his household.)
Re: ...continued...fpbDecember 15 2010, 07:27:48 UTC
P.S.: dumb mistake of the day: General Tilney, father of the love interest and all-around bear, intervenes brutally and unsuccessfully in Northanger Abbey, not in Persuasion.
Re: ...continued...fpbDecember 15 2010, 09:35:55 UTC
Anyway the point is that no amount of remarking upon skewed and unequal relationships makes a woman - or for that matter a man - a feminist. They lack the essential ingredient: "A voice cries in the desert: prepare the ways of justice, make straight her paths. Every mountain shall be knocked down, every valley raised up; the crooked shall be made straight, the rough shall be flattened." Unless these things are pointed out, not as the way things are, but as unjust in themselves, deserving to be knocked down, and able to be knocked down without consequences, you are not speaking of a feminist. And there is nowhere where JA even shows an understanding that change is possible. It was only at the end of her life that she even described an individual having an actual career, that is, rising in status; that order in society might change was beyond her.
Re: ...continued...inverarityDecember 15 2010, 18:39:47 UTC
That's why I called Austen a "proto-feminist." I think she had an awareness of inequality and a wish for things to be different. She probably never made the leap to more actively desiring change -- she'd have had very few role models at the time to suggest that it was even possible.
We've both agreed it's pure speculation as to what she would have believed had she been exposed to the women's suffrage and feminist movements that came along later. I still think she probably would have regarded them favorably.
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since one of the main arguments was that female influence on society was of a wholly different kind from male.
It was a stupid (as well as circular) argument, though. I suppose it's possible Jane Austen might have bought into that, but I doubt she'd have been horrified at the idea of women being able to vote.
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We've both agreed it's pure speculation as to what she would have believed had she been exposed to the women's suffrage and feminist movements that came along later. I still think she probably would have regarded them favorably.
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