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As Hillary Clinton suspends her campaign for the Democratic nomination for president and supports Barack Obama,
the timing appears right to address Margaret Atwood and her poem Tricks with Mirrors.
Atwood wrote the poem in 1976. What I find fascinating
is that he poem is non-gender specific. The narrator could be a man or womyn, heterosexual or homosexual. Atwood deservedly earns praise for her ambiguity in terms
of gender. This way the poem is open for personal meaning. From reflection for the mate lost, or for the egalitarian-minded
individual, or the natural passive person who is happy to be so, yet not wanting to be objectified. Even an abused child could
be the narrator in the poem.
In one sense it is a pity I had never heard of Atwood
before my divorce. The knowledge I have now may have at least left the breakup civil. However, not all is lost, as I have
remarried and now have a better sense of relationships and of gender equality. As well as being married to a womyn who exemplifies
the true meaning of spousal love, and patience for a male firmly indoctrinated into the fallacy that is patriarchy.
Margaret Atwood's prose should be a prerequisite to marriage. I am of the belief that the main reason American culture has a 50 percent divorce rate is due to patriarchy and stereotypical
gender roles.
Atwood has helped me look back at my previous marriage
- through her writings - in a self-critical yet progressive way. That said I have chosen to interpret the poem as a womyn,
shut out from true interaction with her male partner.
Scholars have analyzed Tricks with Mirrors. Some have recognized the subordination the narrator endures and others have seen the invalidation of self by a partner. To me it is a statement of quiet desperation, a dystopian narrative of a mate, collaborate, a lover
ignored.
When Atwood began professionally writing about the second-class nature
of womyn, Patriarchal society and culture - with her first novel The Edible Woman (1969) - equality for womyn, i.e., opportunity and choice, were extremely limited.
Atwood said in an BookLounge interview that in the 50s she gave up trying to think of becoming a fashion designer because of the advice of a high-school textbook.
"In the guidance textbook, which you got in grade
nine, there were five professions listed for womyn, in 1952. They were secretary, airline stewardess, public school teacher,
nurse and home economist," Atwood explained.
Yes, I suspect Margaret Atwood was watching Clinton as she conceded the Democratic campaign race for president of the United State of America (2008), to the first African-American man
to secure the nomination. I would not be presumptuous as to suggest what Atwood may or may have not been thinking about Hillary
Clinton, but I suspect she must have felt a sense of pride - as a womyn - to see Senator Clinton at the
top of her game while on an international stage.
But for all womyn within a patriarchal society real
breakage from the traditional roles of gender is still far away. Ordinary womyn have not come far in the last 30
years. I base my arguement on scholarly research, blogs (linked to this website) and from reading/listening. I am of the opinion that womyn have far to go to be viewed
by society and by men as not sexual possessions or housemaids and /or birthing machines.
The world Atwood blossomed into when she decided to pursue a writer's life, there were very few role models for her to pattern herself after. She attended an Ivy League university
and described the experience as, "you had to dress in suits, with a little feminine touch ... to show that you were a girl. You
had to have nice manners and you had to have a service mentality."
In a professional sense, there has been change. Research has shown that in egalitarian relationships, the majority of the womyn are highly educated as are their male mates. However
for those womyn who do not possess an advance degree a post-gendered relationship is not the norm.
Society is still a man's domain and men must accept
the responisbility for this. I am also of the belief that womyn too must accept some responsibility especially in the unconscious
or non-verbal support of sexism in mainstream media. The media is one major way society
and Corporate America influences the perception and treatment of womyn by men.
Men control the media, which according to Media
Theory - Communication Theories for Everyday Life (Baldwin, Perry and Moffitt 2004) - and the argument
of Agenda Setting Theory, the media can’t tell an individual "what to think" but it can tell them "what
to think about".
This is a powerful tool for shaping or influencing
an ideology of a society. This concept, as well as another, social learning theory, have been adapted by critical scholars,
especially feminist scholars, in fighting against social myths, which represent the unquestioned rules and beliefs the members
of a society follow and live by, but more importantly, that people are not aware
they are following said rules or acting upon them.
Some of these myths include societal beliefs and
values in regards to money and possessions, and in the physical traits (cultural defined beauty) of womyn; all patriarchal
dogma. I suspect it is reasonable to assume that a majority of people will agree that this has contributed largely to the
failings of our society in treating womyn as equals and in how many men respond their wives, girlfriends and lovers.
From my personal philosophy,
any societal equality for all its members regardless of race, creed, gender and class, can only be obtained through a combination
of feminist theories. I strongly suspect Atwood would agree.
I further suggest that society borrow from three distinctions
forms of feminism. The first is Liberal Feminism, which seeks to extend to womyn the rights already possessed by men, as in equal pay for equal work, and the division of household
duties. (This would be the simplest to implement) The second is Marxist Feminism, where they see the capitalistic economic structures as the root of womyn’s oppression, and the third is Radical Feminism, which advocates the revolutionary transformation of society, and the development of alternative social arraignments to those
currently in place.
The combination of these three theories, what I call Womynism, embodies all peoples, and all of nature in a sans-stratification social system, where nurturing is the
primary function of all members of society. This would take a global effort. And for patriarchy to cease as a societal ideology,
it would need men to accept, perhaps at the brink of planetary annihilation, that it’s time to relinquish power, and
to heal and nurture the planet, each other and ourselves.
Atwood was asked if she thought there would be less war if more countries were ruled by women.
"No. If all countries were ruled by women, perhaps, but that has never happened. Do I think
that a lot of political things that happen actually revolve around the position of women in society? Yes, I do. A lot of men
have a lot of investment in keeping women in whatever holes in the ground they happen to have them in, because if the women
are down there, then the men are up here and that shows you're a man. You don't actually have to put any more work into it
than that."
So how far has genderism evolved since Atwood penned Tricks
with Mirrors? As I have argued, not so far in terms of true equality. Atwood, in an interview with Emma Brockes writer for British publication The Guardian, said this.
"No. I'd say there was probably more similarity between the nexus of things in the Edible
Woman and now, than there was between that position in 1963 and what was happening in 1969. In 1969 all bets were off; suddenly
people had the pill, they were sleeping with everybody. Marriages were breaking up right and left, the sky was the limit.
There isn't that feeling now. It's much more a case of, look out who you sleep with, they might have Aids. Or, do I have to
stay stuck in this shit job for ever? Where was this wonderful world of careers? All of that is still there. Whereas there
was a little window between about 1968 and 1974 when it was all looking great."
Sadly Atwood is correct, yet a promising example
of the progress womyn are making in terms of the gendered power struggles and the sexist contests that Atwood detailed in
her early poetry and in her dystopian novels such as Bodily Harm and Surfacing and then The Handmaids
Tale, is Hillary Clinton.
What Clinton has done in her insistent campaign
was to inch womyn closer to splintering the gender limits patriarchy has placed on womyn for eons.
"Although
we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it has about 18 million cracks in
it and the light is shining through like never before," Clinton told her supporters - in one of her finest speeches - in her consession to Barak Obama and at the same time acknowledged the hopes
of millions of other womyn.
As important and demonstrative of her forward thinking,
Clinton added that there are "No acceptable limits "No acceptable prejudices in the 21 century."
Yes there is hope and while Obama is breaking barriers
himself, he acknowledged Clinton's presence and cause and effect.
"I honor her today for the valiant and historic campaign she has run," he (Obama) said. "She shattered barriers on
behalf of my daughters and women everywhere, who now know that there are no limits to their dreams. And she inspired millions
with her strength, courage and unyielding commitment to the cause of working Americans."
We as a species have a moral and ethical
obligation to all of humanity to see past the swindle of patriarchal capitalistic entrepreneur-ism and grasp the societal
macro instead of the individualistic micro, and reject the cause and effect from our misguided ideology. I am of the belief that Margaret Atwood would agree, but don't just take this under-graduate's word or
opinion, Margaret Atwood's voice is out there to be heard, and for men in particular,
there is knowledge and wisdom to be learned.
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