Doing Domesticity, Advocating Feminism in Contemporary American

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Doing Domesticity, Advocating Feminism in Contemporary American Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2006 Interior revolutions: doing domesticity, advocating feminism in contemporary American fiction Kalene Westmoreland Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Westmoreland, Kalene, "Interior revolutions: doing domesticity, advocating feminism in contemporary American fiction" (2006). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 2665. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/2665 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. INTERIOR REVOLUTIONS: DOING DOMESTICITY, ADVOCATING FEMINISM IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN FICTION A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by Kalene Westmoreland B.A., Tarleton State University, 1995 M.A., Tarleton State University, 1998 May 2006 ©Copyright Kathi Kalene Westmoreland All Rights Reserved ii For Brett, Shauna, Brendan, Maya, and Momma. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge and thank Dr. Rick Moreland for his guidance, support, encouragement, and understanding throughout this project. Rick, without you, I would still be hunkered down in a chair, feeling overcome. I would also like to acknowledge my committee members for their support and invaluable instruction: Dr. Jack May, Dr. Sharon Weltman, Dr. Kevin Bongiorni, and of course, Dr. Robin Roberts. I would also like to thank my mentors from Tarleton State University, Dr. Mallory Young and Tom Pilkington. Dr. Young, you inspired me from the very first day of my college experience thirteen years ago; your teaching, support, and friendship have guided me through the difficulties and joys of both academia and life, even when we could not greet one another with “bonjour” every day. Dr. Pilkington, your support during my graduate career, first as my thesis director and then as my friend, has been immeasurable; you have never failed to encourage me and guide me, even when I felt defeated. Thank you to all my students who have encouraged me and made me a better teacher. Thank you to all the constants in my life, my friends and family. Kris, I have cherished every conversation we have ever had, and without your expertise (medical, intellectual, and personal) and advocacy, I would not have been able to finish this project. I am grateful for your presence in my life. Donna and Jesse Riley welcomed me into their hearts and family; thank you for embracing me and encouraging me. Teresa, you were there with me when this incredible journey in education began; you helped me realize a dream I never knew I could have, and for that, I owe my “Keeter” a debt of gratitude always. Dennis, thank you just for being you, for always keeping me in check, and for making me laugh. Daddy, thank you for your constant encouragement and pride in your middle child. Without the influence and constant support of iv my momma, Pat, I would not be the woman that I am today. Momma, you are the kindest, strongest, and smartest woman I know, and you and I share the kind of sisterhood that inspired my dissertation. Thank you for making sure that I was not simply as “smart as a whip” but that I ended up doing something about it. Kids--Maya, B.J., and Shauna--thank you for being in my life, for loving me, and for letting me love you. I wish I could make you know how much I have enjoyed my journey as your stepmother and how much I look forward to every day I have the privilege of spending with you. Brett: you know. You have loved me constantly, bolstered me when I was down, and guided me when I was confused. You are my best friend, my inspiration, my creative co- conspirator, and always, my tag team partner. Thank you. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Dedication……………………………………………………………………………...…………iii Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………………….…iv Abstract……………………………………………………….………………………………….vii Introduction……………………………………………………………………….……………….1 Chapter 1 Home-Sick: Personal Anxiety and Political Oppression in The Feminine Mystique and The Stepford Wives……………………………….….…….30 2 Sewing Subjectivity, Cooking Communities: Sisterhood and Domestic Resistance.............................................................................…57 Survival, Subjectivity, and Sisterhood in The Color Purple…………………….64 Cooking and Cross-Generational Sisterhoods in Fried Green Tomatoes….…....93 3 So Far From Sisterhood: Domesticity as Feminist Pedagogy……………..…………...112 Isolation, Sacrifice, and Unification in So Far From God……………………..120 Isolation, Sisterhood, and Disorder in The Joy Luck Club……………………..130 4 Revising Domesticity, Restructuring the Ideal: The Myth of Family.……………..…..149 (Dis)“satisfying” Stories and Sisterhoods in A Thousand Acres….……………157 Subversive Sentimentality in We Were the Mulvaneys…………………………182 5 Imperfect Arrangements: Contractual Domesticity and Comparative Mothering....…………………………………………………………...…199 Subversive Surrogacy in The Nanny Diaries……………………………….…..206 Imperfect Domesticities in A Perfect Arrangement……………………..……...218 Coda…………………………………………………………………………………………….232 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………239 Vita……………………………………………………………………………….…………….245 vi ABSTRACT Domesticity has endured as a facet of everyday life in the late twentieth century and beyond, despite cultural acceptance of feminist beliefs and ideals which encourage women’s movement away from the private sphere of the home. A tumultuous and remarkable cultural transformation has marked the four decades since the publication of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, a key text of early second-wave feminism. Equality and choice seem viable and attainable, yet many women today feel overwhelmed by responsibilities and the pressure to live up to the idealization of motherhood. Domesticity can be used as a tool of oppression, against which feminisms may provide useful forms of resistance; but feminisms and domesticity can also function in concert, which can strengthen their potential to transform individual women’s lives and cultural attitudes about women. Interior Revolutions: Doing Domesticity, Advocating Feminism in Contemporary American Fiction examines how various late twentieth century writers represent this complex relationship and reveals domesticity’s potential as a site of transformative feminist discourse and praxis. Through a third-wave, feminist poststructuralist lens I analyze nine contemporary works of fiction from a variety of genres and one key feminist text, The Feminine Mystique, in order to reconsider the scope of American domestic fiction. Interior Revolutions illustrates how “advocating feminism” is a useful means of personal and political transformation for characters, readers, and American women. Representations of domesticity convey ways that our culture perceives women and their relationship to domestic space; such representations may in turn influence how women see their own relationship to domestic spaces and responsibilities. Engaging with these representations can spur women to reconsider and revise their conceptions of the ways that feminism and domesticity function in their own lives, potentially prompting vii them to advocate feminism. Interior Revolutions examines texts and discourses about feminisms, domesticity, and the meaningful connections between these concepts. viii INTRODUCTION “The personal is political” (Robin Morgan, qtd in No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women) “For our generation, feminism is like fluoride. We scarcely notice we have it--it’s simply in the water” (Baumgardener and Richards qtd in Not My Mother’s Sister: Generational Conflict and Third Wave Feminism). According to postfeminism, women now have a choice between feminism and antifeminism, and they just naturally and happily choose the latter. And the most powerful way that postfeminism worked to try to redomesticate women was through the new momism. Here’s the progression: Feminism won; you can have it all; of course you want children; mothers are better at raising children than fathers; of course your children come first, of course you come last; today’s children need constant attention, cultivation, and adoration, or they’ll become failures and hate you forever; you don’t want to fail at that; it’s easier for mothers to abandon their work and their dreams than for their fathers; you don’t want it all anymore (which is good because you can’t have it all); who cares about equality, you’re too tired; and whoops--here we are in 1954. (Susan Douglas and Meredith Michaels, The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How it Has Undermined Women) Domesticity can be used as a tool of oppression, against which feminisms may provide useful forms of resistance, but feminisms and domesticity are not always and not necessarily opposed to each other. Feminisms and domesticity can also function in concert, which can strengthen their potential to transform individual women’s lives and cultural attitudes about women. Feminisms and domesticity are complex, fluid political
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