The Brontes have been 'queered'

[biddyboo]

For Pride month, the Bronte Parsonage museum has posted a number of Facebook posts exploring the Brontes and 'gender identity'

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/eGENRmGQPkz7omY5/

The posts talk about the Brontes using 'androgynous' pseudonyms, rather than the male pseudonyms they were necessitated to use due to the sexism of the times they lived in 😕

It hasn't gone down well. Comments were disabled, and the museum posted about commitment to equality and diversity and not tolerating bullying and hatred (I haven't seen evidence of this, just a lot of people outraged about history being rewritten to suit a narrative).

Wow! And their response is to ask commenters to stop 'bullying staff'. No member of staff was bullied. I happen to know someone who works there and I really hope this wasn't their idea...

They did publish under androgynous names though.

Currer Bell.
Acton Bell.

Neither Currer nor Acton are given names.

The only one which is more traditionally male is Ellis Bell, but Ellis is often used for girls as well, so it's a unisex name.

It's true that there was a lot of speculation about the authors identity and commentary on how the novels couldn't have been written by women.

I don't actually see what's wrong with this.

The implication of the posts is that they chose androgynous names as they were playing around with their 'gender identity'. Not that they had no choice but to do this to stand a chance of being published (and to avoid the scandal of a woman having written about the topics they covered). It's a dishonest representation of what they were doing.

No it isn't. There is no implication in any of the posts that they were queer.

The museum is - quite rightly - talking about how female authors were perceived at the time and how taking on these pseudonyms allowed the Brontë sisters to break down barriers.

The only part that I eyerolled at is the comment on a character in a Brontë novel playing a gender queer role in a play, but that's a small part of a larger thread.

The rest of the thread is completely accurate.

They didn't use the androgynous names in any other situation other than getting their work published because of the overwhelming prejudice against women writers.

I'm posting screenshots for those who don't have FB. Apart from the idea that Lucy (a character) played a gender queer role, everything else here is historically accurate and although I think it's a stretch to shoehorn it into Pride week, it's true that the sisters used androgynous publishing names because of expectations around mens and women's roles in society at the time.

..it's true that the sisters used androgynous publishing names because of expectations around mens and women's roles in society at the time.

Which is sexism.

Nothing to do with modern-day gender ideology.

I don't actually see what's wrong with this.

It's a museum devoted to 3 women who were unable to go to university because of their sex, whose options for income were severely limited because of their sex, who weren't able to publish initially under their own names because of their sex, and one of whom died in pregnancy because of her sex.

The modern middle class luxury belief of gender identity has literally zero relevance to their lives and works.

Why not"queer" the history of steam trains at the National Rail Museum in York? Include the thoughts of drag queens on the Sea Henge display in Kings Lynn? Fly Pride flags from the polar ship Discovery in Dundee in honour of the TQ?!& inhabitants of Antarctica?

@Flickersy ‘Androgynous ‘ means equally male or female. There is no way that a girl born in 1816 would have been christened Ellis or Currer, these are male names ( usually given to reflect the surname of a relative or potential benefactor).

if you want to conceal your sex, why would you choose an androgynous name anyway? ( if such a thing existed in the early Victorian age , which I doubt) .

Next week, why George Eliot was really a man… ( in drag, natch)

I know, which is why I said it's a stretch to shoehorn it into Pride week.

Despite what the OP claims though, the museum is not "rewriting history" or claiming that the Brontë sisters were queer.

Ellis is a unisex name.

Currer is a surname, not a given name, and is unisex.

An earlier post on the page talks about 'shining a light on queer 19th century histories' and that, along with the suggestion that Lucy was gender queer, is looking at it in a revisionist way, which is what I meant by their legacy being 'queered'. And then posting about them using androgynous names also seems to be viewing it through that lens.

I like the comments!

What is the relevance of posting this during pride month then?

You didn't say anything about their legacy being queered. You said the Brontës had been queered (it's literally the title of your thread), which is patently untrue.

Look, I agree this shoehorning is ridiculous and they're going to dislocate something from reaching like that about Lucy. But the bulk of what the museum has posted is not a lie, it's historically accurate.

I think people have seen the rainbow flags and assumed, without reading what has been written.

A lot of excellent comments on the post, I’m encouraged to see that.

I understand a little where @Flickersy is coming from but the fact they’ve chosen to do this during pride, with all the pride banners, and describing it as an exploration of gender identity does make it clear they’re taking a gender ID angle. It could and should more properly be described as an exploration of sexism and the barriers women faced at that time, and I don’t see how it has any connection to pride.

I apologise that the title of my post wasn't clear. By the Brontes I didn't just mean the individual people but their legacy, history etc.

It's not an outright lie, no. It's what it's implying.

The title slide is "Pride at the Parsonage: The Brontës and Gender Identity".

The patriarchy was what was wrong with it. The fact that women couldn't publish under their actual names and still be taken seriously (cf. also Mary Ann Evans). Androgyny in this context does not equal 'queer'.

The patriarchy was to blame then, and it's to blame now. The TRA lobby hates women, but not enough so that they will ever be willing to leave them, their spaces, or their achievements well alone.

Personally I think applying gender identity theories to 19th C literature is like applying Freudian theory to the bible. The Bronte’s would have had no concept of gender identity, just the knowledge that if they obscured the fact they were female their books might stand a chance of being published. It’s a complete misreading of the Bronte experience.

Sigh… did this type not learn when they tried to “queer” Anne Lister? Morons.

It's a stones throw from Hebden Bridge after all....

The Parsonage museum knows this. Everyone knows this. Which is why this is misguided at best, dishonest at worst.

The implication of the posts is that they chose androgynous names as they were playing around with their 'gender identity'. Not that they had no choice but to do this to stand a chance of being published (and to avoid the scandal of a woman having written about the topics they covered). It's a dishonest representation of what they were doing.”

How do you know that they weren’t?