Comments on: The Problem Femme: On Colette

By: Samantha b.

Samantha b. — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 12:46:28 +0000

TD, but isn’t it a bit anachronistic to assume that that much was known about sexuality then? I’m not a fan of the “it was another time argument” by any means, but can you expect her to have been familiarized with what just wasn’t discussed? Unenlightenment is just the right word, but you can’t assume she wouldn’t have willing to become enlightened. I tend to think she should be commended for making sexuality a topic for discussion when it was brave to do so, which sent us down the road to being able to discuss all aspects of sexuality in frank and shame-free terms.

By: TD

TD — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 21:17:34 +0000

‘And a great quote from Susan B. Anthony refers to sexuality as “the highest and holiest function of the physical organism.”‘

Wait, so SBA was anti-asexual-people? Unenlightenment in every corner!

By: shallowwater

shallowwater — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 18:48:17 +0000

As someone who is fond of old things, blog posts, books, and interesting women authors, I appreciate the heck out of this blog post. Off to find myself a book by this lady and see what’s the what!

By: Samantha b.

Samantha b. — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 17:08:49 +0000

@Right! I am not expressing myself terribly well. Close to well. No, I’m agreeing with that absolutely, and saying it’s important that we allow for that. Thurman I do take issue with somewhat, although I really haven’t done the research to argue that with full confidence. My point, mostly, is that I wish Thurman didn’t need to validate Colette as ahead of suffragettes, because the suffragettes contained multitudes; I think Thurman is really unfairly reductive, and she doesn’t need those points to argue for Colette as an admirable figure.

By: Sady

Sady — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 16:09:55 +0000

@Samantha: I don’t think I ever did argue for Colette as having unflinchingly firm commitments! What I said was that she had concerns and addressed topics that, for the most part, went unaddressed for many decades by much feminist theory. And that her chief concern was herself; she was able to address the topics because they affected her. Which, of course, led to a certain amount of inconsistency and change as she grew and experienced more things.

By: Samantha b.

Samantha b. — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 15:38:05 +0000

@Sady, right, well of course. But, to my mind at least, it makes it hard to argue that she had unflinchingly firm commitments to a certain brand of feminism. And I think it’s important not to reduce role models to hagiographies. It’s important to allow for women to make convenient conclusions when they’re younger, change their minds when their older, and all the banally petty shit we’re all prone to. We shouldn’t have to be fucking superwomen from the get go to be allowed to have a relevant voice. I’ve read enough commentary on “real feminists” (hint: I wouldn’t be allowed because I have dated men that were pretty mean to me! They did not always say nice things about women, and I did not always correct them.) to feel like there’s a real problem with the Super-Feminist model.

By: Sady

Sady — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 15:20:48 +0000

The earlier Claudine series argues on behalf of the marriage of much younger women to older men and then the later “Cheri” argues that, in essence, young women are simply too petulant and callow to effectively satisfy an older man. So there may have been some opportunism there. Well, maybe more to the point: the Claudine series was written while she was a very young woman married to a much older man, and Cheri was written when she was a middle-aged woman and developing a taste for younger men. Later, she'd write a story about how pathetic older men attracted to younger women were. Her ideas about sexuality, unsurprisingly, changed over the course of her life, and her work tended to mirror them.

By: Samantha b.

Samantha b. — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 14:55:52 +0000

I’m not sure that Thurman is right about that. Per Shelia Rowbotham’s “Dreamers of a New Day,” the suffragettes were damn diverse in their ambitions. And a great quote from Susan B. Anthony refers to sexuality as “the highest and holiest function of the physical organism.” It strikes me as pretty reductive to argue that suffragettes were only concerned with women’s right. But Thurman could be easily be right that this would have been the distilled message that Colette would have received across the Atlantic. Dunno. But I tend to feel like Thurman’s argument does Colette a bit of disservice, in that she should be allowed to be fucking complicated, sometimes disappointing and sometimes heroic.

My Colette phase was mostly when I was 13 so it’s a little/lot/fuckload blurry, but, as I remember it, the earlier Claudine series argues on behalf of the marriage of much younger women to older men and then the later “Cheri” argues that, in essence, young women are simply too petulant and callow to effectively satisfy an older man. So there may have been some opportunism there.

But, you know, fine. Again, she should be allowed her complexities. At the age of 13, at any rate, I found her depiction of unfolding adolescent sexuality empowering as hell, even if the final conclusion grated. I can’t think of any author that could have done that I would have connected to so thoroughly on the subject of adolescent sexuality (although Christ knows teen fiction is not something I know a lot about.)

By: Jonah

Jonah — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 14:15:04 +0000

First-time commenter (moderate-length-of-time-reader) here. Hi everyone!

This whole (astrological) month has been awesome, blog-wise. Here are some dollars.

Also, PayPal thinks your name is Sara?

By: Crito

Crito — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 12:11:48 +0000

You always know just which article to post along with your solicitation. Lovely piece.