Us excellent women

Last night in class we discussed whether men actually want their women strong and independent or if they just say they do...and whether or not women also want to conform to the gender roles in place (wife, mother, housekeeper, slave, etc)...

How fortuitous as I just read a hilarious novel, which swirls around these topics, by the delightfully funny British author Barbara Pym. Now, the outside of her book, Excellent Women, portrays her as a 'modern' day Jane Austen. Opening the book I was all pshh, she is nothing like Jane Austen and I DON'T find this funny.



But her author picture is her with her cat, which is awesome. So I kept reading.

And then I started chuckling.

Because as with black and white stereotypes, black and white satire of these same stereotypes is incredibly entertaining. I think we can all agree that if we were to have a serious discussion on the topic of gender roles, the majority of the discussion (if it was rationally based) would take place in the tricky gray area of life.

However, the gray area is almost never funny.

And sometimes a girl needs a little funny. Especially when she is currently realizing that quirky funny might be her thing because when she is serious her mother calls her writing 'clinical'. Ouch.

And so I give you Barbara Pym's musing on marriage, men, and society:

I'd be a liar if I said I didn't feel this every time I go on Facebook...
"They all sounded so married and splendid, their lives so full and yet so well organised, that I felt more than usually spinsterish and useless."

Oh yeah, I have my college five year reunion coming up...
"We had neither of us married. That was really it. It was the ring on the left hand that people at the Old Girls' Reunion looked for. Often, in fact nearly always, it was an uninteresting ring, sometimes no more than the plain gold band or the very smallest and dimmest of diamonds. Perhaps the husband was also of this variety, but as he was not seen at this female gathering he could only be imagined, and somehow I do not think we ever imagined the husbands to be quite so uninteresting as they probably were."

Only if you are planning on manipulating him...
"I think it's much better to keep men in the dark about one's plans, don't you?"

To be fair, I know at least one women who also does this (Felicity from TV, I'm looking at you)...
"Men do seem to like the women they know to become friends,' I remarked, but then it occurred to me that of course it is usually their old and new loves whome they wish to force into friendship."

Honestly, who can remember to shower every morning much less put on an unwrinkled outfit...
"One should always start the day suitably dressed for anything, she had often told me. Any emergency might arise. Somebody - by which she meant a man - might suddenly ring up and ask you out to lunch. Although I agreed with her in theory I found it difficult to remember this every morning I dressed."

Typical...
"It was not the excellent women who got married but people like Allegra Gray, who was no good at sewing, and Helena Napier, who left all the washing up."

And, saving my favorite for last:
"'And perhaps you could help me with the index too? Reading proofs for a long stretch gets a little boring. The index would make a nice change for you'...I agreed. And before long I should be certain to find myself at his sink peeling potatoes and washing up; that would be a nice change when both proofreading and indexing began to pall. Was any man worth this burden?"

Oh, snap. After those last biting observations I'm so very tempted to answer NO. I'll hold off though and simply say thank you for the much needed chuckle Barbara Pym.

Now, do we think she writes a book on how to get the dim ring and the boring husband and the piles of work? No? I have to go to the self help aisle for that? Oh, okay. No thanks then, I think I'll just go make some delicious spinster tea instead.

"Perhaps I need some shattering experience to awaken and inspire me, or at least to give me some emotion to recollect in tranquility. But how to get it? Sit here and wait for it or go out and seek it?...I expect it will be sit and wait."
Barbara Pym