“The Yellow Wall-paper” is NOT about post-partum depression!

The Post-Partum Depression Theory of “The Yellow Wall-Paper” is tiresome and wrong-headed. The popularity of this stupid theory showcases how deeply reluctant people are to engage a feminist story on its own (pretty unsubtle) terms.

The protagonist has, it is true, recently given birth. But she struggles with no feelings of conflict regarding that fact, or the baby. Frankly, she doesn’t seem to give much of a damn about the baby one way or another. She mentions that it’s cute and she would spend more time with it except that she gets “nervous.” Her nervousness, however, is linked in the story, NOT to her child, but directly and repeatedly to a conflict over writing - she wants to write, her husband doesn’t want her to. She is not conflicted about being a mother; she is largely uninterested, and also un-allowed — as long as her interest in writing continues, she is cut off by her husband from the privileges of immersion in the domestic sphere and is instead “treated” by a forced reversion to childhood and dependence (symbolized by the nursery), the idea being that if she is “cured” by becoming more child-like, then she will be fit for, and allowed to join, the domestic sphere as a wife and mother.

In every way, this is a feminist short story. The post-partum depression theory has been seized on, consciously or not, by people who just can’t wrap their heads around the twin ideas that: 1-motherhood is not necessarily a profoundly emotional experience, and is not even necessarily part of the adult experience, and 2-chicks do things for reasons OTHER than their wacky biology.

Our editor teaches college and has tried to be tolerant of this viewpoint. No longer – it is not an innocent viewpoint, but one that is mendacious, sexist, and above all shockingly inattentive to the actual story.

“Feminism Depends On Hairy Choices”

An excellent article from Rachel Funari of The Sydney Morning Herald:

Feminists should fight the hairy-legged lesbian stereotype because it alienates the young ones, says Monica Dux, the co-author of The Great Feminist Denial. I say the problem with Australian feminism is not hairy lesbians, but the movement’s penchant for replacing them with suburban mums.

If it seems feminism is a bit old hat – or that it’s losing more of its battles – perhaps it is not because the average girl-child is scared of hairy legs, whether belonging to a lesbian or not.

Perhaps it is because the type of girl-child inclined to be feminist finds it difficult to get excited about work/life balance, or equitable housekeeping, or any movement that would call her a girl-child.

I, for one, will scream if I have to sit through another panel discussion about how this country devalues mothers and motherhood. This country thinks motherhood is the most important thing in the world. It’s so important, we ensure women do it despite discrimination, inequality, financial dependency and abuse.

What is devalued is women who do other things than just raise the next generation of consumers. Where despairing feminists such as Dux go wrong is to assume the average young woman would be a feminist if feminists looked just like her. But the average woman, young or old, has never identified with feminism and isn’t likely to any time soon.

Feminism is a movement of revolutionary change. It demands women take full responsibility for their lives, financially and emotionally. It requires the personal to be political, which means the good of the community, the world, our fellow women and each other’s children may demand that we give up individual desires that are in conflict with this larger good.

Feminism is not easy. Perhaps that is why many women, young and old, find it difficult to rally around it. But making it easier by limiting women’s choices – mainly whether to work or not while raising a child – dangerously dilutes its power.

What is the point of attracting young women to feminism if feminists become simply a bunch of waxen, anorexic, botoxed mannequins, with badly-behaved children, complaining their husbands don’t do enough housework?

Arguing the Western media undermined feminism by narrowing its field to a misrepresentation of the radical feminist is hardly new, and it seems awfully like accepting the imaginings of a misogynist mainstream than a fight against them.

Ditching the hairy-legged lesbian not only capitulates to a culture that requires the traditional family unit to uphold the inequalities of contemporary capitalism, but it also ditches a core message of feminism, that a woman’s value should not be in her beauty, proscribed femininity or heterosexual availability.

More at the Morning Herald‘s site.