Saturday, September 29, 2012

Orlando: The Man, The Woman

File:Portadaorlando.jpg
Original cover
User: El-luismi
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Orlando is a novel by Virginia Woolf that takes the idea of being a man and woman in one lifetime (or several lifetimes) and puts it to good use. The title character, Orlando, is a nobleman living in England during the Elizabethan period. He is content with his life except for the loneliness, having been engaged, married, or assumed to be engaged to four women in his lifetime. When he meets a Russian princess, he thinks that life has finally rewarded him with his one true love. Unfortunately, the princess does not reciprocate and leaves Orlando. Distraught, Orlando turns to his other passion: writing. He takes writing seriously, writing plays, poems, and stories, all odiously long. Away in his country manor he writes and writes, until he is visited by a famous writer Nicolas Green. Green reads Orlando's work and writes up a poem to satire it, thus making Orlando hate humans and turn even more inward while at his country estate.
Later on, Orlando visits other European countries, encountering gypsies as he does so. One night, he has a strange dream, and as a by-product, becomes a woman. There is no shocking reveal or loathing from Orlando at having turned into a woman, only acceptance. With his/her new worldview, Orlando comes to see how different her life will be as a woman. Her return to London is a lesson in women's rights, because she realizes that she can no longer own her land, manage her finances, or vote. Small things come to Orlando's attention now that she is a woman, like the fact that men cannot cry in front of an audience. A man falls in love with her, and when she refuses him, the man begins to cry, and though Orlando knows from experience that men cry just as women do, that they are not supposed to openly weep, and so she is shocked at the emotion display of her thwarted lover.
File:Orlandoasaboy.jpg
"Orlando as a boy"
paiting by Cornelious Nuie
(1650)
User: El-luismi
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Orlando life spans many generations. He/she goes into deeps slumbers every few years, almost like a bear hibernating, and this (or some other type of magic) prolongs Orlando's life from the 1500's, taking the story all the way to the 1920's.
As a man, Orlando never questioned his privilege or sexuality (believing himself to be inherently heterosexual and powerful). Yet, as a woman, Orlando's eyes open up to see that the world is often one-sided in its treatment of women. Orlando the man fought in wars and dueled men to the death, but he/she is aghast when a gentleman treats her like a dainty flower, as she feels much more capable than she is given credit for, not just as a woman, but as an equal division of humanity.

Woolf, Virginia. Orlando: A Biography. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1956. Print. 

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

"The end of masculinity would also mean the end of femininity", and other thoughts from Marlene Barr

Source: Google Images

All female societies, pregnant nursing males, and the end of masculinity are only a few of the topics discussed by Marlene Barr in her book Lost in Space: Probing Feminist Science Fiction and Beyond. Through a series of essays, Barr comments on the equality (or disproportions) between men and women, using feminine sf stories as a basis of comparison. Authors like LeGuin, Russ, and Gilman are quoted by Barr, though she is fair in her feminist sf study by including male authors (an unwanted but undeniable presence in feminist sf).

In the introduction to her SF analysis, Barr shares the story of her academic rise. By choosing to study sf through a feminist lens, Barr says that many of her male colleagues were threatened and tried to negate the academic quality of sf for study. Sf writer Gary Westfahl is quoted by Barr, warning sf writers to “never conceal, compromise, or apologize for [your] interest in this field” (p. 2). If sf was a laughable avenue of study to her colleagues, Barr realizes that a feminist-led criticism sf might be met with greater laughter. Still, she forges ahead with the dismantling of patriarchal sf by comparing them to feminist sf stories of the same caliber.

Chapter 6 talks about the end of masculinity. At face value, the term ‘end of masculinity’ could be interpreted as a threat to men everywhere. What Barr means by the end of masculinity is to also end the other side of that particular coin, femininity. Like ying and yang, one cannot exist without the other. Without masculinity or femininity, men and women would unite under a singular definition of gender, one in which both men and women would be caregivers, providers, and valuable members of society. Barr's text is a valuable tool in the study of sf, especially given her gender critiques.

Barr, S., Marlene. Lost in Space: Probing Feminist Science Fiction and Beyond. North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 1993. Print.