Hello everyone, again. My week here is just about up (although I still have about an hour and a half here on the west coast of the US.). I wish time and circumstance (a grueling heatwave) allowed me to post more, but I got a few good posts here. I probably should have signed up for two weeks because I’m a bit of a slow blogger in general. In any case, thanks again, everyone, for listening and sharing! I’ve had a great time! If you want to check in with me, I’m still blogging away when I’ve got something on my mind at From the Cracked Mirror.
To end with a fun discussion, and also because it’s good to start/end the week with a little bit of squee, I invite you to post your favorite feminist moments in fiction (of any medium) where a character says or does something, and it makes you think “Wow! They get it. They really get it.”
My current favorite is in Dorothy L. Sayers’ Gaudy Night (Despite my last post, I really adore that series, particularly the books with Harriet Vane.). There are so many awesome moments in this book, and the fact that it was written in the 1930’s and still manages to have so many relevant insights makes it even more fantastic. The part I’m going to mention, however, is a relatively minor moment in terms of the plot: In searching for the troublemaker who has been playing increasingly dangerous pranks at her old college (a woman’s college at Oxford,) she comes upon two of the male undergrads trying to sneak a very intoxicated female undergrad back into the college. In the context of the novel, it becomes clear that the male students aren’t intending to rape their classmate, thank god, but they did get her drunk for the amusement of seeing her drunk (This is ’30’s fiction; one can only go so far. Also, one of the men later becomes likeable, which would be impossible otherwise.).
Harriet catches them and instead of turning them in gives them a lecture of her own. She reminds them that if they break a rule such as being out after curfew or creating a drunken disturbance, they will get a slap on the wrist–a suspension at the very worst . The woman, however, would be expelled if caught, her reputation ruined, her academic career over (And she actually says, “Stop being an ass,” which makes me happy.). While part of me wishes that Harriet had been harsher with them (You should never ply anyone with alcohol for any reason,) I love how Harriet there, and consistently at other times throughout the series, is never afraid to call people out on their privilage. She does encourage the woman to take responsibility for her own academic career, of course, but I loved that she reminded the men of the double standard. It was such an awesome, and, well, badass (as far as anything is badass in the Wimsey novels) moment.