Vagina ≠ Feminist

During our book club week, or whatever it was, Bernie mentioned feminism in Beloved while we were discussing the themes of motherhood and self-realization and identity. Although I get the concept of reading from a feminist point of view, I really think that in the case of Beloved feminism is just assumed through the emphasis on Baby Suggs' and Sethe's motherhood and self-realization because they're women.

At some point, when you examine themes like race and gender, you just start associating the ideas of equality with a black person or a woman out of habit. I suppose that ties back in with the poetry debate about over analyzing. There are obviously intended statements about racial equality in Beloved. That's not contrived. But as for women in the novel, I'm not sure gender equality is the point.

Sethe and Baby Suggs both struggle with their identities, when Sethe is proud of saving her children without anyone's help (not without a man's help, she mentions women that helped her, too) and Baby Suggs starts her new life as a free woman. Neither of these imply self-realization in spite of men, just self-realization, like Paul D finally opening his tin can heart thingy.

And although motherhood applies exclusively to women, I did not get the impression that this aspect of female life during and after the Civil War was related to feminism in the novel. Maybe feminism in the sense that it was and is considered an important part of the female experience, but not as a power or right to be compared to men. I think that the emphasis on motherhood was just to emphasize motherhood, nothing more.

Comments

[Sarah S.]

Thank you. I thought the exact same thing. I do not think that Sethe's struggle had much to say about gender equality. I mean, they were probably a little too preoccupied by the oppression of slavery and race to feel significant effects of gender oppression. Yes, Beloved deals with a majority of female characters, but that does not equal feminism.

The only way I see it as feminist is that it presents these characters pretty much without making a deal out of their gender. Maybe it could be called gender-blind?

[Kate E.]

I agree with you too. I don't feel like this book is here to inspire women through these female characters, it's depicting a struggle and life as a female ex-slave.

[Marcus M.]

Eh, I could take or leave Bernie's commentary on femminism in Beloved. Motherhood is given a certain power and stigma in Beloved and I think that celebrates the female experience and is therefore feminist in some sense of that awfully multi-dimmensional word. Then again there's no direct moral lenience towards anything in Beloved. In fact, I think the book actually blurs moral lines, so it would be quite difficult to say that it rhetorically endorses equality of women or really anything at all.

[sydney t.]

I also did not clearly see the feminism in Beloved. I think that motherhood is a very powerful part of womanhood but does not show the female characters in Beloved being equal to their male conterparts. I dont think equality amongst the sexes was very stressed in Beloved.