The Great Feminist Manifesto Has Not Yet Been Written

The “Introduction” opens with a review of the problems women are exposed to in current times, such as the stalking pursuit of Grace Van Owen by litigator Michael Kuzak in L.A. Law: “This is all supposed to be romantic, but… Kuzak seems more like a stalker…” (x). Good point, but then the author digresses into self-questioning without any concrete specifics. I mentioned feminism earlier in this set of reviews in judging the Pakistan Partition novel to not be legitimately feminist. In reviewing this book, I hope to figure out just what type of “feminism” I personally agree with. Gay admits that it is “healthy” to question the dimensions and contents of the “feminist canon”.
The first section “Part I: Laying a Foundation” is made up of anonymous, and multi-bylined pieces that seem rambling and too recent to be of significance. I tend to favor older theories, as these help me understand origins. So, I turned to “Part II: Early Feminist Texts”. It is troubling that there are no first-publication dates on pretty much any of these pieces. The place and date of a first-release is significant to understanding a perspective. The first piece here is by Henricus Agrippa, described as being written in the “1500s”, when it was first-published in 1529. No city of publication is offered, but it was published somewhere in the Holy Roman Empire in Latin. It is a very bad introduction that forces readers to do their own research to figure out what the pieces in an anthology are about. Agrippa puffs women as creators, who were made to be “superior to man” (51). Barbara Leigh Bodichon’s “Most Important Laws Concerning Women” is puffed as a rare piece because its author was untrained in the law, and yet made a significant contribution to this field. My research into canonical British ghostwriting found only a single female ghostwriter, Elizabeth Montagu, who died in 1800. So, this essay must have been ghostwritten by a male ghostwriter, and assigned to a female byline because of its feminist subject. The editor does specify that this article was published as a book in 1854; it “was crucial to the passage of the Married Women’s Property Act”. It was indeed improbable that without a right to property, or education, any woman could have written this dense legal treatise. And a woman is not likely to have said: “These are the only special laws concerning single women: the law speaks of men only…” She would not have been able to research special cases, such as: “The consent of the father or guardians is necessary to the marriage of an infant…” (60). And there were no female ghostwriters in the Renaissance, when “Mary Astell’s” A Serious Proposal to the Ladies (1694) was published. This essay is likely to have been ghostwritten by Walter Lynn (1677-1763), when he was only 17, because it echoes other titles in Lynn’s G-group, such as “Jonathan Swift’s” “Modest Proposal” (1729). Given this context, I question the “seriousness” of this proposal, as it was probably similarly a satire. As apparent from the tone: “You shall not be deprived of your grandeur, but only exchange the vain pomps and pageantry of the world, empty titles and forms of state, for the true and solid greatness of being able to despise them…” (56). I did not do enough research on Americans to judge if Lillie Blake’s essay was ghostwritten. It would have helped if the editor provided a publication year for this essay, as the timing is significant. It is possible that this “tract” was undated, and thus could have been written after her death in 1913, which would push it out of historical significance granted to this section. I did not test “Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s” “The Yellow Wall-Paper” (1892), but, again, there were only male ghostwriters in Britain in 1892, so this was created by a man. I remember reading this essay back in grad school, it had a significant depressing influence. Knowing that it was probably a man’s perspective on women lightens my perspective on it. The female narrator reports that this wall-paper is making her “sick”, but physicians and her husband do not believe this is physical, but rather a “nervous depression” or “a slight hysterical tendency”. She reports that they advised her to avoid work, but she wrote in spite “of them”, which exhausted her “a good deal” (76). She stages histrionics, until in the end she pulls “off most of the paper” and shouts about it (92). Why is this worst-possible portrayal of women in a feminist anthology? Perhaps the first text in this collection actually written by a woman is Anna Julia Cooper’s “The Higher Education of Women” (1890-1). “In 1925, she became the fourth African American woman to ever receive a PhD when she graduated from the Sorbonne in France” (93). Professional writers have historically needed higher degrees, unless they had some other access to publishing, such as serving apprenticeships to printers or booksellers. The before-mentioned Elizabeth Montagu, back in the 18th century, appears to have put on trousers and pretended to be a boy to attend Cambridge, as her letters hint. Cooper writes: “Her tongue may parrot over the cold conceits that some man has taught her, but her heart is aglow with sympathy and loving kindness…” (97). The next article is Susan B. Anthony’s “On Women’s Right to Vote” (spoken in 1920).
“Part IV: Feminist Labors” includes an essay I remember reading in grad school: Helene Cixous’ “The Laugh of the Medusa” (first-translated: 1976). This is a pretty violent and sexual essay, in retrospect: “our lovely mouths gagged with pollen, our wind knocked out of us…” (206), “Her appearance would necessarily bring on, if not revolution… at least harrowing explosions” (207), and “To write… will give her back her goods, her pleasures, her organs, her immense bodily territories which have been kept under seal…” (208). Is this really feminism at its finest? Is the liberation of women about being gagged, and ungagged, or being a sexual being first and one that only writes to express her sexuality…
Pat Mainardi’s “The Politics of Housework” seriously explores how men and women decide who will do the housework, as if this is a monumental achievement of “women’s liberation” (211-2).
One thing is clear to me from glancing through this book: the great feminist philosophy has not yet been written, and needs to be. I might give it a try as my next project…
There are some glitches with this book, but it is good that it has been put together. Others who are trying to figure out where we now stand in this feminism genre would benefit from browsing through these pages.
—Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Fall 2024: https://anaphoraliterary.com/journals/plj/plj-excerpts/book-reviews-fall-2024

Deeply enjoyed reading this text. I hadn't realized there were no new or updated versions of these contemporary feminist readers since I was an undergrad studying Women's and Gender Studies. I appreciate the breadth of writers and topics covered in this edition, hopefully there will be more, and look forward to returning to this text over and over again.