Sisterhood is Complicated
Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1975) by Judith Rossner
The novel was inspired by the murder of Roseann Quinn and examines the
underside of the seventies sexual liberation movement. The protagonist, Theresa
Dunn, is a young woman who spends her days teaching first grade to a classroom
of deaf-mutes and her nights hanging out in singles bars of New York in the
1970s. She is a beloved and dedicated school teacher who loves her job but very
anti-marriage and want no children of her own makes, which renders her a
complicated woman.
For centuries, women weren't allowed to be complicated: They were
ladies or tramps. Of course, that binary doesn’t work for all women on
the planet. So what happens when they don’t mind being both and even enjoy it? The
sequence of “the good boy at family dinner scene” which raises her parents’
hope for a possible marriage is followed by the scene at the bar with another
and clearly bad boy (Tony) who jokes about the Bible that Theresa finds her in
purse (stuck by her mother). The answer is
-as long as the movies are made by and for the patriarchal system- their end is
not the happiest. Even worse, these products can send signals or messages to
the audience that women better not complicate life and roles for their own well being
and safety!
Janis Joplin’s poster on the wall is significant at T’s flat where Tony inflicts
physical abuse on her and becomes a stalker after a one-night-stand. The bloody
end that Theresa faces can be interpreted as a punishment for many conservative
viewers but also refreshingly criticized by several other readers from the opposite end of
the spectrum. And hey, what’s with Janis
Joplin?
Give Sorrow Words – Maryse Holder’s Letters from
Mexico (1979)
I came across Maryse Holder’s Give Sorrow Words - Letters from Mexico at a giant secondhand book fair in San Francisco
in 2014, and picked it out of the hundreds books that I scanned on that
wonderful day at Fort Mason. Despite the book’s cheesy Harlequin style cover, its
foreword was written by Kate Millett so it was more than enough for me.
Holder’s experiences and adventures with men are expressed in letters in
a language that an average reader would call unsettling. Some sections can be
said to border pornography and f-words are generously used, which LA Times
referred to as intellectual erotica. Without being judgmental, based on the
letters, one can call Maryse self-destructive and enigmatic. Her style is
compared to Jean Genet and Henry Miller at the time. Like Roseann Quinn/Theresa,
Maryse too paid the price of being ‘rahat’. She was
murdered in Mexico at the age of 36 in 1977.
For a woman with a degree in literature from Cornell, the seventies
sexual liberation movement must have triggered several ideas, probably along
with expectations of some sort. However, at some point, Maryse’s anger turned
to herself, as hinted by Kate Millett. I do share Millett’s regret that
Maryse’s inferiority complex regarding her physical being could have been curable
in women’s collectives or consciousness raising groups at the time. To Edith
Jones, recipient of Maryse’s letters, Maryse describes her time in Mexico as
her "vacation from feminism." Why would anyone need a vacation
from feminism, and furthermore why bother with the patriarchy’s radical
representatives, the machos of Mexican bars during this so called “vacation”?
Millett’s reference of Mary’s self-destruction in regard to Janis Joplin is
telling (ix).
According to Millett, most women have hard time to shake off the “guilt”
of freedom and turn them into a self-destructive form, killing themselves
factually or metaphorically. As a reader, I keep thinking “wow, the notion of
sisterhood is indeed complicated.” In “Feminist Sexual
Politics and the Heterosexual Predicament”, Lynne Segal describes the book as “gloomily
absorbing” and finds it hard to decide whether it was Holder’s notion of
feminism or her own predatory view of sex which was the more depressing. Even
more dispiriting for Segal is “the fact that many feminists would confidently
endorse Maryse Holder’s dual depiction of feminism as anti-heterosexual
pleasure and heterosexual pleasure as anti-woman” (77).[i]
Janis Joplin, Theresa (Roseann in real life), and
Maryse Holder’s choices to make themselves available to men probably was a way
to cover their "unfitness" according to the beauty standards of the times (thus
feeling insecure and unwanted). However, because they were smart women, ability
to discern between the reasons why daily partners were around at any time took
away the spiritual satisfaction. If only
they could have tasted the empowerment and the comfort of being supported by other women friends or strangers who are sympathetic and compassionate under any circumstances! Millett laments that the
nonjudgmental girlfriend Edith was not considered a potential partner, for
instance. Being backed up by women’s solidarity is the cure for patriarchy's damage, and women
who are aware of this solidarity and choose to extend it over never would feel weak or lonely. It saves
one from sinking into many demoralizing and destructive relationships or moods.
[i] Lynne Segal (1997). “Feminist Sexual Politics and the Heterosexual Predicament.” In: Segal
L. (eds) New Sexual Agendas. Palgrave Macmillan, London.
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