Happy International Women's Day!

[lokifan_import]

Happy International Women’s Day!

I encourage you all to make a contribution to Amnesty International, who fight for women’s rights around the world – for the prosecution of rapists, the protection of mothers and an end to female foeticide. (If anyone wants to suggest other charities aimed at helping women – especially ones related to education – please do so in comments.)

Since I’m thinking about Jane Eyre anyway (I’m about to do an essay on it) a question for you – do you consider Jane Eyre to be a feminist or proto-feminist book? What sort of statement do you think it makes for its time? If you do consider it feminist, I’d love to know why. And not just because I can use arguments for/against in my essay. ;) I don’t, truthfully; although its protagonist is a woman, and its status as the first English bildungsroman about a girl matters, I don’t see much feminist cred there. “Women feel just as men feel” was not a revolutionary statement to me: the ‘women feel, men analyse’ paradigm was well-entrenched by 1847.

...Heh. I am SUCH an English undergrad today!

Comments

[vaysh11.livejournal.com]

I am sure you are familiar with the "Mad Woman in the Attic" argument for Jane Eyre to be a feminist novel. It is, in my view, but then, of course, it depends on how you define feminism (now and back then). But the mirror image of the "mad woman" is astounding, if you read it not only as a gothic element, but as a dark template the author deliberately inserted into the novel to show all that has to be hidden in the "attic" for Jane Eyre to be a "good woman". Also: male impotence (blindness!) as a prerequisite for a happy ending always seems like a feminist play to me. ;)

[magic-at-mungos.livejournal.com]

It depends. Is it a feminist text at the time or do we start seeing the feminist messages (if any) later)?

What I would love to do is compare the models of women between Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea which has intersectionally all of the shop.

I must admit - I loathed Jane Eyre. I just thought she was just really wet and holier than thou and was slightly uncomfortable with how the French girl and the 'fake' gypsy were portrayed. But that's me.