This is yet another update in the ongoing debate sparked by Julie Bindel's article about Mills & Boon in the Guardian. Louise Allen, whose novel Virgin Slave, Barbarian King was cited by Bindel because of the language used in its back cover copy, has now had her response printed in the Guardian under the title "My heroines are independent. This is not patriarchal propaganda."But to return to the cover for a moment, though this time the contents of the front cover rather than the back, I have a suspicion that the cover art was inspired, at least in part, by the scene of Mr Darcy's bath, in the 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.
Well, I thought the one paragraph she wrote about her own book was really good. I wish the whole piece had been more like that. Overall, though, I didn't find it an effective response to Bindel's argument, in part because I think it misrepresented what Bindel said.
ReplyDeleteIt's very difficult to tell anything from that picture, Laura.
ReplyDeleteIngrid
Sorry Ingrid. You're right, it is a bit small. This one, from the American edition is bigger and clearer. You can see that the heroine is carrying a bucket of water.
ReplyDeleteI think it misrepresented what Bindel said.
Robin, over at Dear Author Louise Allen's said that "With 550 available words, and a request to include enough of Bindel’s arguements to help anyone coming new to the discussion, there wasn’t much space to develop the historical aspects." I suspect it made it a bit tricky for her to do try to respond to all aspects of Bindel's argument too, given the space constraints.
Most of the time Allen quoted Bindel's words, so I'm not sure how that involved misrepresentation. Are you thinking specifically of Allen's final paragraphs, in which she says
Bindel says: "I do not believe in blaming women for our own oppression. Women are the only oppressed group required not only to submit to our oppressors, but to love and sexually desire them at the same time." So, as a feminist, she believes that while reading or writing these "novels that perpetuate gender stereotypes" we cannot even take responsibility for our own actions.
Sorry, Ms Bindel, but among the freedoms I insist upon as a woman is the right to my own fantasies. I do not read fiction I find distasteful, and I don't write it either. How about updating your research for 2008 by reading another 20 Mills & Boon novels? Modern ones.
That's in response to Bindel's penultimate paragraph, which, to quote it in full, is as follows:
My horror at the genre is not directed towards either the women who write or, indeed, read them. I do not believe in blaming women for our own oppression. Women are the only oppressed group required not only to submit to our oppressors, but to love and sexually desire them at the same time. This is what heterosexual romantic fiction promotes - the sexual submission of women to men. M&B novels are full of patriarchal propaganda.
I don't think Bindel was very clear, which may be why you find Allen less than clear. Bindel isn't blaming women authors or readers. So who is she blaming? Is she implying that the authors and readers have internalised oppression and that that causes them to write the way they do? Does this mean that she's saying that the romance authors are less self-aware/less feminist than Bindel herself? Or is she implying that there are more tangible forces pressurising authors into producing patriarchal propaganda?
Allen, it seems to me, is saying that she takes responsibility for what she's written i.e. she doesn't think she's the victim of false consciousness or external pressures, so if any blame is due, she's willing to take it, but she doesn't think any blame is due because what she writes isn't "patriarchal propaganda" promoting the "sexual submission of women to men."
So, as a feminist, she believes that while reading or writing these "novels that perpetuate gender stereotypes" we cannot even take responsibility for our own actions.
ReplyDeleteThis it the meat of it right here, Laura. I saw Allen's comments at DA, and I understand what she's saying about word counts, etc. But I don't think Bindel is implying or stating that women are being exempted of responsibility for their choices or actions. Or rather I think that such an inference would require more interpretive steps to seem less to me like another version of the 'Brindel thinks women are stupid and weak-willed' dismissal. So again, as someone who disagrees with Bindel, I don't think the meat of her argument has yet really been taken on. Of course it might very well take more than 550 words to do that.
I think that such an inference would require more interpretive steps to seem less to me like another version of the 'Brindel thinks women are stupid and weak-willed' dismissal. So again, as someone who disagrees with Bindel, I don't think the meat of her argument has yet really been taken on. Of course it might very well take more than 550 words to do that.
ReplyDeleteRobin, you do know that now I'm going to have to ask you if, in more than 550 words, you could take on the meat of Bindel's argument? Which interpretive steps would you take?
Not that you have to do that, of course, but I'd be interested to know, and you've obviously thought it through already.
Laura, Robin, everyone, I had the same thought: we need to go through this piece in some detail, and see if we all in fact can agree on what the "meat" of the argument is.
ReplyDeleteLet me quickly post the piece, paragraph by paragraph, into a blog post and we can start, collectively.