The Brontes have been 'queered'

Good point - Commedia Del’Arte in Italy used women from I think around the 1550s - they had to get permission from the Vatican.

It’s interesting Spain and Italy are both strongly Catholic countries - and yet the approach to women in the theatre was more enlightened.

But the CdelA was much tamer than Shakespeare and pantomimic - so I don’t know if that was an issue.

They adopted these names because they couldn’t have published their work under their own names. Establishment publishers of the time wouldn’t have touched them, and there would have been a huge scandal and serious consequences given their stories weren’t conventional and “appropriate” for women writers. They wrote passionate, often disturbing novels about strong-willed, intelligent, flawed, sometimes unlikeable female characters in utterly patriarchal worlds, and male-sounding pseudonyms were a way to get their work out and for it to be judged on its merits. Ascribing their motivations to “gender identity” is anachronistic and completely ahistorical.

Thank you very much for that.

And also for kindly ignoring my misspelling of Woolf!!

😁

Yes, the convention is old. I am curious that in continental Europe women performing was allowed at various times e.g. sixteenth century Spain.

Anne is very underrated as both novelist and poet, I think. She was extremely observant of others - she saw her brother conduct an obsessive affair with her employer's wife, then watched him ruin himself with drink and drugs; and working as a governess, she was in a good position to see all the machinations and relationships of a well to do household. People talk, and Anne listened.

I agree the Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a brilliant novel, and wonder, has the fact the writer takes on the first person persona of a man writing the story been remarked on, and has she been transed accordingly? ( I have not read all the thread from today.)

It is so far before its time in its social realism, from small details of domestic life, to the portrayal of a woman in a dangerous marriage with a monster, and its portrayal of a woman earning a living from her own skill.

Heathcliff and Mr Rochester are both very suspect characters, were they to be real, yet their very cruelty is sublimated into love and passion in the novels.

Anne Brontë goes for the truth of what a relationship with a brute would be like. Must read again, tonight.

It’s an interesting question. In the U.K. I agree it stems from the church, mystery plays etc, and the general status of women.

But it’s a very ancient practice - in Ancient Greece women did not appear on the stage. If Nietzsche is right - that tragedy developed from the mystery rituals of Dionysus - it’s interesting because originally women would have taken part in those rites - the Maenads. (In fact in the Bacchae the Maenads kill Pentheus after he banned the worship of Dionysus). I guess the practice of mask wearing may have made the characterisation feel more symbolic anyway.

Ancient Egypt too had its own performances with words spoken by actors representing different Gods. I highly doubt women were involved in that.

@MrsWhattery

but this such a narrow, gendered view

Historically the world was a narrow gendered place. You are confusing my comment on historical practices and conventions with my own personal views of contemporary gender - which you‘ve invented to continue this ramble.

the problem with “living as a gender different from your birth sex”? It strongly implies these gender boxes are appropriate and good

... and real.

I did Villette for O level. Would it be chosen as a GCSE text now? Probably not.
I remember finding it rather unsettling, unsurprisingly perhaps.

Agree! Fantastic novel and Helen is a strong, stoic heroine who pulls out all the stops to protect her child from the terrible effects of her husband's alcoholism. Women like this have existed through history and are just as worthy heroines - more so - than your Catherine Earnshaws and Lizzy Bennets.

It's an incredibly powerful novel and does make you wonder what Anne must have witnessed in her life.

Thank you @fromorbit , I enjoyed reading that.

Great essay on this sexist nonsense on the Brontes from the new SEEN in publishing network.
https://seeninpublishing.substack.com/p/why-didnt-women-write

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is also good - and an exposure of how women were badly treated in marriage, too.

The implication is unfortunate, which is that because the books are (1) good and (2) not ladylike the Brontes are not “woman gender”. A bit like Joan of Arc and Elizabeth I being “queered” because of their unladylike behaviour. Begone with your fatuous stereotypes I say.

But historically people have lived as if they were a man/woman when they were born a woman/man to different degrees

but this such a narrow, gendered view. Yes, some people took on the full disguise of the opposite sex, like James Barry, but for an ulterior motive.

Charlotte Brontë objecting to the restrictions and expectations placed on her as a woman and arguing she should be free to learn, write and be taken as seriously as a man would, and going on to do so, isn’t “living as a man”. It’s refusing to conform to gender stereotypes, and wanting to dismantle and oppose them, so that all women can have more freedoms and be respected and so on. And ideally the same should go for men so they are less restricted by unnecessary limits.

saying “no I won’t spend my life knitting and cleaning and birthing because that’s what women are expected to do” isn’t choosing to live as a man. It’s choosing to live as a freer woman. If you just jumped into the stereotypes expected of a man to avoid the stereotypes of a woman, you’re embracing stereotypes. That is not what 99% of gender non-conformity is.

I include myself in that. I was a short-haired girl who loved tree climbing, airfix, trousers etc. but I wasn’t a boy, nor was I embracing a boy stereotype- I was just me. I also liked drawing, sewing and art. I just wanted to do what I liked without restrictions. These days I’d have been told I was a boy and needed body parts cut off and praised for being wonderful and special if I went along with it.

can you really not see the problem with “living as a gender different from your birth sex”? It strongly implies these gender boxes are appropriate and good, and that everyone who isn’t your special non-conforming self should stay in them.

the aim should be to open up the boxes so people are free to be in or out of them to the extent they like. Gender is a whole range of cultural stuff that changes over time and from place to pace - it isn’t innate. It’s just as bad as if you expect people to behave in a particular way and have particular likes and dislikes because of their ethnicity, age, disability etc.

However - trans ideologues have seized upon these ancient niche practices, made claims for them way beyond their original remit, and used them to justify nebulous and deeply questionable concepts.

So would you agree that the world would be a better place if we could ditch the whole stupid concept of gender altogether, Mirabai?

The idea that a little girl must really be a boy because she prefers short hair and comfortable clothes goes beyond insane into the realms of psychotic. And yet that’s where some people are.

@NoBinturongsHereMate But the discussion would be more interesting if there were.

@OldCrone They are two different things which is why I expressed them in different sentences.

I don’t think that living as a different gender is a new idea. But it has never taken the form it has, never been widespread or mainstream, never been politicised, and never had the current flawed ideology applied to it.

I don’t think you could say that the Winkte were not living as a self chosen gender though, they chose to live as women - taking on women’s narrow gender roles in that culture, and also chose to live as this third concept - which had its own role boundaries too.

However - trans ideologues have seized upon these ancient niche practices, made claims for them way beyond their original remit, and used them to justify nebulous and deeply questionable concepts.

Enjoy!

My very favourite Woolf is her last novel, Between the Acts, but as a result of this thread I also fancy giving Orlando a re-read. This was when she really started coining it, and they extended and replumbed Monk's House (which I recently visited and is well worth the trip) with the proceeds.

The most undersung Bronte IMO is Anne. Villette is also a cracking novel: better IMO than Jane Eyre.

Exactly. It's sexist and in some cases homophobic.

If you don't wear dresses you're not a proper woman so we have to find a different box to put you in.

If you don't fancy women you're not a proper man so we have to invent a new category for you.

Get rid of gender and all you've got is "if you're female you're a woman and if you're male you're a man".

It is now. But historically people have lived as if they were a man/woman when they were born a woman/man to different degrees, in different ways and for different reasons regardless of gender ideology. Historically, birth sex did go with very narrow gender stereotypes and roles that they do not now. And in societies with a further gender/s, that too had its own narrow stereotypes and roles.

Yes, this. You've articulated this really well.

Gender non conformity = rejecting gender stereotypes.

Identifying as/living as a particular gender = actively embracing gender stereotypes.

It doesn't matter if you're actively embracing different gender stereotypes to the ones society attempts to impose on you. You're still embracing them.

@Mirabai
My point was simply that “gender non-conformism” and “living as a gender different from your birth sex” has been around for a long time.

These are two different things.

Gender non-conformism has been around for a long time. This is simply people not conforming to the gendered stereotypes expected of them in the culture they are living in. Gender is imposed on people by society. Some people push back against this and want to live in a way which is inconsistent with those expectations. In some societies which have very strict rules about how the sexes should behave, some accommodations have been made for some of those people who find the gendered expectations imposed on them unbearable.

The idea of living as a gender is a new one. This is the novel idea that people can choose a gender for themselves and live as that self chosen gender. It has made gender into something which appears to be based on individual choices and preferences and ignores the social and cultural expectations which are the root of gender. It makes "having a gender" a desirable concept, rather than something imposed by society to place limits on the behaviour of individuals. As far as I am aware, this has never occurred in other times or places.

The groups of people you mention who were/are living outside the gender norms for their society aren't living as a self-chosen gender. They are still living in a gendered way which is deemed acceptable by their society, even though it's different from the way most people live.

But “living as a gender different from your birth sex” is a gender ideology concept. It assumes there is such as thing as a gender stereotype that should go with a sex. That's sexist, regressive and opposes feminism, which is about being free to ignore "gender".

If you can use a phrase like that and not see how it's regressive and sexist, well, that's why I think it should be pointed out. You may not have been talking about trans but gender ideology is where that concept has come from and they embody the same basic approval of gender stereotypes.