"SPLITTING OPEN THE WORLD" - SEARCHING FOR THE TRUE WOMEN'S WRITING BY JENNIFER DONOVAN A thesis submitted in part fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (Honours). Department of Sociology University of New South Wales February, 1991 SYNOPSIS This thesis explores the contention presented by the so-called French feminists (including Irigaray, Kristeva, and especially Cixous) that the situation of women cannot change until they have their own discourse and that women's writing must be based in their bodies. The purpose of "l'ecriture feminine", these writers claim, 1s to inscribe difference, to awaken women to one another, and to undermine patriarchy. My ambition was to find actual examples of this "ecriture feminine", and evidence of its effects. In attempting to deal with the abstruseness of much of the writing by the French women who encourage women to celebrate the difference and "write the body", I have briefly indicated some points of contact and divergence between Anglo-American feminists and the French. I have also described the persistent patriarchal obstruction to women's writing in order to highlight the revolutionary potential of writing the body. I examined writing by women who were variously woman­ identified, feminist and anti-feminist. I also considered various styles of women's writing, particularly poetry, which seemed to approach most closely the discourse envisaged by the French theorists. The writers discussed include Tillie Olsen, Marge Piercy, Christina Stead, Adrienne Rich, Mary Daly, Susan Griffin and others. ACKNOWIEDGEMENTS This thesis owes its existence to the energies of many people other than just the author. Thanks firstly to my supervisor, Lizabeth During, for her continued enthusiasm and encouragement, and especially for her invaluable help with refining the many drafts. Thanks also to Frances Lovejoy who coordinates the Women's Studies programme which makes research such as this feasible. Special thanks to Doreen Martin for her typing ability, and to John Donovan for access to - and assistance with - the world of word processing. Finally, grateful acknowledgement goes to the Martins, Donovans, and all at No.42 who helped so generously with childcare and the removal of distractions. DEDICATION This thesis is dedicated to the French women who inspired it, especially to Annie Leclerc and Madeleine Gagnon who gave me some time and attention in Paris, 1988. Also to Phyl who began learning with me. The advent of female literature promises woman's view of life, woman's experience: in other words, a new element. Make what distinctions you please in the social world, it still remains true that men and women have different organizations, and consequently different experiences ... But hitherto ... the literature of women has fallen short of its functions owing to a very natural and a very explicable weakness - it has been too much a literature of imitation. To write as men is the aim and besetting sin of women; to write as women 1s the real task they have to perform. -G.H.Lewes, "The Lady Novelist", 1852. Language is a translation. It speaks through the body. Each time we translate what we are in the process of thinking, it necessarily passes through our bodies. If a woman disposes of her body (and I'm not talking about women who are alienated from their bodies, but about those who have a body which is theirs, who inhabit it, live in it), when she speaks, her words pass through it. This gives another universe of expression from men. -Helene Cixous, "Conversations" TABLE OF CONIENTS Synopsis page 1 Acknowledgements page 11 Dedication page iii Introduction page 1 Chapter One: The problem of definition: what is women's writing? Patriarchal methods of silencing The significance of difference Searching for a feminine aesthetic A history of patriarchal interference with women's writing page 5 Chapter Two: Definition and historical overview of American and French feminism Theory of difference Luce Irigaray Julia Kristeva Helene Cixous Searching for the women m French feminist theory page 20 Chapter Three: Continuum of woman-identification Christina Stead's The Man Who Loved Children Marge Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time Tillie Olsen's Tell Me a Riddle Analysis of the failure of women's writing "The body" in Stead, Piercy and Olsen Language use by Stead, Piercy and Olsen Mary Daly's Gyn/Ecology: strategy or poetry? page 36 Chapter Four: Inscribing "jouissance": the power and limitations of poetry Adrienne Rich's The Dream of a Common Language Other forms of expression - articulate silence - the mythical world - body language (giving voice) - dream imagery page 53 Conclusion page 77 Bibliography page 80 INTRODUCTION The significance and power contained in the ability to write cannot be underestimated. Writing is the way in which human beings express creativity and imagination, record their history, analyse and attempt to make sense of their existences, communicate thoughts, ideas and opinions with one another. While patriarchy has not succeeded in denying women literacy and creativity, it has utilised several tools to restrict women's access to writing and publication. Dale Spender explains the effect of patriarchy thus: a patriarchal society depends in large measure on the experience and values of males being perceived as the ONLY valid frame of reference for society ... it is therefore in patriarchal interest to prevent women from sharing, establishing and asserting their equally real, valid, different frame of reference, which is the outcome of different experience.1 When this theory of patriarchy is applied to the way in which our society is encoded and perpetuated through writing it becomes apparent that for women to write is a subversive activity. Women who write challenge patriarchy's view that male experience is the only experience; they challenge patriarchy's view of women as lacking creative genius and adequate intellect, as being too emotional, as having nothing worthwhile to say, and they challenge patriarchy's view of women's proper sphere being in the home and invisible in the public domain. When women appropriate men's tools and write it is subversive; when women create new tools and write in their own language it will be revolutionary. The methods used by patriarchy to restrict women's access to writing are manifold. Women are silenced by deprivation of resources which has left them less educated: women suffer from a far higher rate of illiteracy than men. The traditional social role created for women by patriarchy and physiological demands restrict women's time and space in which to write. When they do write they have difficulty getting published. When they are published they are forced to hide behind male pseudonyms, or 1Spender, Dale Woman of Ideas (1982: pp.4-5) 1 restrict themselves to approved genres, are more often ignored or contemptuously reviewed by male critics and their patriarchal double standards, then quickly pass out of publication. They are alienated from the patriarchal language they are forced to employ, a theoretical point which will be pursued in greater detail further on. And because of all these factors, women who do write, work in a vacuum, being prevented from discovering the tradition of women writers before them, and lacking models to inspire them. The cover of Joanna Russ' How To Suppress Women's Writin~ bears the following dialogue: "She didn't write it. (But if it's clear she did the deed ... ) She wrote it, but look what she wrote about. {The bedroom, the kitchen, her family. Other women!) She wrote it, but she wrote only one of it. (Jane Eyre. Poor dear, that's all she ever ... ) She wrote it, but she isn't really an artist, and it isn't really art. (It's a thriller, a romance, a children's book. It's sci fi!) She wrote it, but she had help. (Robert Browning. Branwell Bronte. Her own "masculine side.") She wrote it, but she's an anomaly. (Woolf. With Leonard's help ... ) She wrote it BUT ... "2 It is important to analyse the methods used within patriarchy to silence women's writing in order to recognise the fear that is its prime motive. Such effort would not be expended unless there was reason to fear what women can produce and the effect that their writing could have. This thesis examines women's writing in order to discern what patriarchy fears: that is, its difference. It discusses the problem of defining what is meant by women's writing, and examines the philosophical notion of difference as propounded by contemporary French feminist theorists including Irigaray, Kristeva, and especially Cixous. It examines the efforts made by the patriarchy to silence women's writing, and evaluates the failures and successes of the women to overcome these obstacles and "write the body" or discover an effective feminine discourse. It analyses the work of specific writers (Adrienne Rich, Tillie Olsen, Marge Piercy, Christina Stead, Mary Daly) in the light of French feminist 2Russ, Joanna, How to Suppress Women's Writing (1983: cover) 2 theories, and it attempts to predict the revolutionary potential of true women's writing. The thesis will explore several questions about how theories of difference relate to writing; whether women writers in the English language match the expectations of the French philosophers; whether there is currently such a thing stylistically as women's writing, and if not, why not? Will there ever be? What form will it take? And what effect will it have? It seeks a blueprint and a precedent for "writing the body" with the expectation that they cannot yet be found, but that they one day may. It understands that ecriture feminine must be found or created as it is the necessary tool for women to dismantle patriarchy.