My friend Ben (of LOLPorn fame) came up with the phrase “conjugal enemies” during a conversation in which I attempted to describe old-skool romance novels to him—I think I was talking about Catherine Coulter’s ouevre in particular, especially the WTF factor of “he uses cream to ease the way of the rape, so it MUST be lurve!” However, I can’t be certain; at the time, I’d shotgunned five old-skool romances in a row as part of research for The Book, and my brain had been addled by all the punishing kisses, cynical smirks, pointless misunderstandings and non-consensual fuckin’.
Anyway: conjugal enemies? Hell yes. The protagonists in these old-skool novels couldn’t stand each other. The heroine’s loathing for the hero was writ large every few pages (at least, until the first orgasm, and then the loathing transferred to her own body as well), but they still couldn’t stop conjugatin’ all over the piece. This lack of control over their passions—even if it was passionate hatred—was often transformed into passionate love through a mysterious alchemical means I’m not entirely sure I’ve figured out yet. At some point in the book, the heroine suddenly sees the hero’s lack of control and little signs of tenderness (not raping her until she bleeds, not forcing her to meet his former mistress, allowing her the freedom to indulge in some unconventional-for-the-time activity like sailing or running a business or communing with the whales or whatever the fuck) as signs of affection, and she re-interprets her actions and reactions as being signs of True Luuuurrrrve as well. I don’t find these transformations convincing, but I know many other people do, and the different reading and interpretation process is fascinating to me.
This isn’t to say that adversarial relationships aren’t fun to read about, or that they can’t be used as convincing indicators of two people who resist falling in love with everything they have. When these relationships are more balanced, I tend to think of them as “loving adversaries”—circumstances or their own personalities don’t allow them to act on their attraction, so they spar and snipe as a way to act out some of their tensions in ways other than bonin’ each other six ways to Sunday. I recently watched His Girl Friday, and that was the term that immediately came to mind. Underneath the constant quipping and sparring and attempts to one-up each other between Walter and Hildy was a sense of attraction and true affection.
But there was more to it, too. I think what made it an adversarial relationship as opposed to one based on enmity was the way the two of them were portrayed as equals. Walter would try to pull a fast one on Hildy, but oftentimes, she’d be just one step ahead of the game and have blocked his move before he could complete it. Hildy, at least until the end, is a strong woman with enough power and experience to make her choices and moves count.
And that’s not something you can say about the old-skool heroine. Most old-skool novels make a point of systematically stripping power from the heroine—she’s young, she’s alone in the world, and most of the meaningful choices over when, how and to whom she wants to express her sexuality is denied her. The only true power she has is her hold over the hero, but she’s unaware of this until a significant part of the book is over; her constant expressions of hatred were a way for her to deny the hero his emotional hold over her. The power imbalance results in a much more virulent hatred instead of a more playful sparring, and it’s this hostility that raises my hackles and makes it difficult for me to accept the transformation from conjugal enemy to lover. Adversarial relationships, on the other hand, are not necessarily based on enmity, and I find the resulting clashes much more satisfying and believable to write about.
Interestingly enough, the old-skool romance and His Girl Friday end in much the same way: the heroine capitulates to the hero, and the resolution feels a bit limp as a consequence. Hildy’s transformation at the end of His Girl Friday is less than convincing for me because the writer made her pliant—almost wide-eyed and confused. It’s disappointing because Hildy has real power that she seems to cede over to Walter once she acknowledges that she still loves him. The old-skool heroine’s often abrupt about-face, while startling, is at least consistent with the worldview of the book—she gains power once she stops struggling against the hero and accepts him.
Not all romance novels end this way. One of the reasons why I love Midsummer Moon by Laura Kinsale so much, for example, is how Merlin and Ransom are locked in an adversarial relationship throughout much of the book, but you never lose sight of how much affection and love the two of them feel for each other. Ransom finally makes a significant power-grab when he takes what Merlin loves away from her (those of you who’ve read the book know what I’m talking about), but in the end, the power balance equalizes when he learns to love and live with Merlin as she is, not as he wants her to be.
Not all romance novels use the conjugal enemies/loving adversaries model; Patricia Gaffney’s best work, for example, as well as Barbara Samuel’s, don’t set up their conflicts that way. But it’s a fun way to set up a story, and like the Energizer Bunny, it’s easy to allow the conflict to go on and on and on. I also know that many people view the adversarial relationships between hero and heroine in old-skool romances than I do. What do you think about power structures and loving adversaries vs. conjugal enemies?
Andrea Dworkin never said that ‘All heterosexual sex is rape’… it’s a quote taken out of context, used to discredit her and feminism in general.
If I might digress back to the subject of beastiality: In 16th Century France, a man was caught in the act of having sex with a she-ass. As was the custom at the time, he was condemned to death, and so was she. However, the villagers all signed ( or more likely made their mark on) a petition asking for clemency – for the she-ass! They said that she was a honest creature who would never willingly take part in an unnatural sex act, and should not be blamed for having been raped. The result was that she was parolled to the custody of her owner; he was hanged. The incident featured in a movie a saw a few years ago, of which I cannot remember the title, but it really did happen. It’s ironic that the she-ass got more sympathy than a raped woman would have, but then, SHE was valuable! Spamword is Live11. Mayve the she-ass lived to be 11.
I saw that blog as well! I couldn’t stop laughing at how completely ridiculous that woman was. And, it was both on LJ and an outside blog that she set up because she was picked on so much on LJ.
It actually made me want to watch Firefly and Serenity. And I’m glad I did because it is now one of my favorite fandoms.
Kimberly Ann, I’m sorry if my comment made it sound like all feminists are Femi-Nazis. I was referring to just the ones that spout the “Join me or die” drivel.
I don’t call myself a feminist because I hate having to have so many labels applied to myself. I simply go about my life with the knowledge that, no matter what anybody else says, I am worth as much if not more than any man.
Maybe I’ve been lucky because I live in one of the most liberal states in the country, but I can’t think of a single person I know outside of the internet who has faced discrimination because they were a woman. I have faced more discrimination based on my religious beliefs and the fact that I look younger than I really am than I have because of my gender.
This would be hilarious if it weren’t so sad and screwed up & wrong. That woman needs a little thump with the clue stick. I have a bit of a rant about some things that happened at the end of Buffy that I felt undercut the feminist vibe of the show, but that doesn’t change the fact that Whendon very consciously writes women who are anything but weak & subjugated. And he very proudly calls himself a feminist.
As for terms & labels, the one I won’t use ever is actually FemiNazi. I don’t care how obnoxious a person is, I just can’t bring myself to use a term coined by Rush Limbaugh to denigrate any woman with the temerity to disagree with his crap. I just can’t use his frame as any part of how I look at the world.
My first experience with anyone talking about feminism was actually a very conservative fundy. christian girl in my high school calling me a feminist (in the tone normal people would use for racist or pedophile) because I suggested the women in Things Fall Apart might like Christianity because it gave them some basic rights/a bit of a voice. Am so glad I live in a big liberal city now, and go to a grad school where “I’m not a feminist” would probably not be a socially wise statement.
I completely agree that one of the (sadly many) problems with the general view of feminists/feminism is who gets airtime/notice. If it isn’t the extremists, who make us look kinda crazy, it tends to be women from an older generation. I completely respect and look up to Steinem and the movement she was part of, and understand all the important things their work means for so many aspects of my life. But making gender the single most important thing in any dialogue, rather than looking at the intersections of race, class, sexuality, gender, etc, is causing huge problems for the newer generation of feminists (I’m 23). Sadly, it’s getting to the point where saying “I’m a feminist” is problematic in some places not for the same reasons it is in more conservative areas but because it’s becoming tied to a sort of white, middle-class privileged outlook that suggests I don’t appreciate the various other, equally important disenfranchising problems.
Maybe I’ve been lucky because I live in one of the most liberal states in the country, but I can’t think of a single person I know outside of the internet who has faced discrimination because they were a woman.
That kind of discrimination can be difficult to prove on an individual basis, though. Decisions could be affected by very subtle things, like the sound of women’s voices (the pitch can automatically make people feel that the woman is less experienced/authoritative). However, in the article by Kira Cochrane that others linked to, she wrote that in the UK woman are “still paid 17% less than men for full-time work, 36% less for part-time work.” That’s one indication that there’s a systemic problem which disadvantages women.
And I know men sometimes get groped, sexually assaulted and raped, but how common is it for this to happen to men versus how commonplace it is for women? Karen Scott recently asked her readers to give their personal stories, and it’s no surprise to me that a lot of people reported having been flashed at, groped, had sexual nuisance phone-calls. Clearly, even without even taking into account the number of women who are seriously assaulted or raped, there’s a lot of sexual harassment of women going on. I don’t think men experience that in the same way or at anything like the same frequency, and what might seem like low-level sexual harassment does have an effect on women:
Sorry, I seem to have messed up my links a bit.
Can someone link to the Whedon blog topic—I’d love to try and see what her argument could be!
I blame Marti Noxon for the end direction of Buffy which undercut many of the previous values. If you trace MN’s involvement in the series, you can see that it’s her choice every time female sexuality is punished.
Exactly, Laura! I mean, how many of us *expect* to be groped when we go out dancing/clubbing/to a bar. We will probably try to stop it or move away, but I am aware that it’s a distinct possibility every time I go out. (I’ve only been groped once, fortunately, and the guy got an elbow to his ribs for his trouble, but still.)
We expect to be cat-called, told to “smile” by random strangers, and have our chests instead of our faces spoken to.
But, you know, that’s not discriminatory! That’s just *life*. Men can’t control themselves! /sarcasm.
Here you go, Diana: A Rapist’s View of the World (I think that’s the title).
“Enjoy” reading it. It’s … special.
Also, I have one last thing to say. For those who think that feminism is unnecessary, or that women aren’t discriminated against, what do you say to the spread of pharmacists and doctors unwilling to give unmarried women contraception? Or even, sometimes, married women? What do you say when women’s health needs are ignored because of things like abortion or a community’s fear of reprisals from anti-choicers? You don’t have to be pro-choice to recognize the importance of low-cost health care for women, which Planned Parenthood provides.
The discrimination that I’ve seen/experienced in the corporate world is of the subtle & hard to prove variety and it can be overcome, but it definitely exists. For example, if I woman puts forward a new idea she’s expected to have all sort of facts & figures to back her up. A man offering the same sort of idea will be assumed to know what he’s talking about. It’s not so much that the expectations for women are unreasonable. I think you should be able to back up your ideas. The problem is that men can often skate on assumption of authority or the chummy old boy thing.
I doubt that I know more than a handful of women who haven’t experienced that kind of thing.
Anaquana, I’m sorry that I wasn’t clear. I didn’t mean to imply that you were calling all feminists “Femi-Nazis”. I was just saying that in my area, that’s what I always hear feminists called, be they militant or moderate. And though I object to using that label for any feminist, I certainly can understand the reasoning behind it.
IMHO, the militant “Join me or die” bunch do behave unreasonably, but the moment you use the word “Nazi” – or “fascist” as happened earlier in this thread – people stop listening. The terms are thrown around so much that they’ve lost meaning, and only serve to degrade the conversation to an “am not/are too” dynamic.
So, to my mind, using the term “Femi-Nazi” – even when you’re referring to a specific subsection of the movement – brings down the discourse for all of feminism. Even if only because, as an admitted feminist, I am always forced to add, “but not one of THOSE feminists.”
Discrimination is still very pervasive in this and other ways. The fact is, old white guys still hugely dominate the upper tiers in almost all companies. Women are still paid only 77 cents for each dollar a man makes. And I see it all the time in academia. I’ve known female PhDs who have done world-renown research who are being paid a fraction of what their male counterparts *and* are expected to take on tasks their male counterparts are not. In my field of graphic design women are also discriminated against. I was once an editor at a large University department where I had direct supervision of 2 full time and one part time employee plus did design work and editing/mangerial duties. I was paid $20k less a year than a male in the exact same title who had been in his profession 10 years less (and in his job 7 years less) than I had…and he had responsibility for a single annual magazine.
Don’t ever think it’s over. Discrimination has gone underground and it’s lessened some, but it’s still very much there.
This is certainly still true in many male-dominated workplaces.
On a similar tack, I am reminded of one of my favourite old Punch cartoons (date unknown).
Five men and one woman sit round a table at a meeting: the woman has obviously just contributed to the discussion, and the chairman, smiling cheerfully, responds.
‘That’s an excellent suggestion, Miss Triggs. Perhaps one of the men would like to make it’.
From the comments on this thread, it seems to me that the situation is different in many ways in the USA from the UK and Europe, but at the risk of repeating myself, I want to emphasise again that social stratification is, of its nature, changeable – and indeed, we are fortunate that this is so. All sorts of factors combine to influence our role and position in society, some of them fair and reasonable, others irrational, prejudiced and completely obnoxious. Even if we think that our position (whether as women, or as representatives of any other group) is secure and respected, it is not. It never is. We always have to work to keep our standing.
I do have the impression that some younger women, possibly more in the USA than here, think that feminism is no longer relevant, that it is an outdated social concern typical of the mid, or even the late, 20thC. Quite apart from the fact that the whole movement is a good 200 years older than that, and that knowing its history prior to the 1950s helps one to see the broader picture, the attitude is intrinsically dangerous, because it facilitates the efforts of those who would like to put women back ‘where they belong’ – out of the workplace, and permanently into the home, whether or not that is where their talents and interests lie.
AgTigress, you are so correct. We must continue to fight this. And the current war on women is insidious and subtle.
I’ll say the following from the context of being raised a Christian in the Southern U.S., but Presbyterian, which of a whole is a very moderate faith. But I feel some of the most alarming things are both depriving women of choice and also some of the truly fanatical right-wing religions who quote the bible in saying that women should be under men (in all ways) and should submit to men.
And of course we only have to look so far as the Taliban to know what women suffer there. Or the Sudan, where women are still routinely castrated and have their vaginas stitched almost completely shut to both ensure they have no sexual pleasure but that the man gets the most possible sensation.
I see the routine denigration of Romance novels as just another way to diminish women and tell them that their likes and tastes are not just unimportant, but unworthy.
Heh. I used to work with a woman who, like me, was overgenerously endowed on top. We were working on a project with a guy who CONSTANTLY spoke to our chests. We were complaining about it, and another guy who worked on the project with us walked by. “Don’t worry about,” he said, “he does that to men too. He just can’t look people in the eye when he talks.”
I mostly don’t say anything to this because it makes me inarticulate with rage. I turn red in the face, and choke and splutter, and say a bunch of curse words, but if I want to communicate anything that is comprehensible, I have to write it down, and edit it a great deal.
What I especially don’t like is fundie evangelical churches sending volunteers to Canada during election campaigns to harass voters into supporting the conservative running, purely on their religious grounds. Get out of my country! We have enough of our own fundie whack-jobs, we don’t need your exports.
On a positive note, though, Dr. Henry Morgentaler has just been awarded with the Order of Canada by the Governer General. (Morgentaler is the premier abortion-rights activist in Canada, he was pretty much the driving force that made access to safe abortion legal.) And, of course, our conservative PM has distanced himself from this in his usual petulant way.
(The GG is the Queen’s representative, and her actions are not necessarily directed by the sitting government.)
choice99 !
You have used exactly the right word. The procedure, the removal of the entire clitoris, is generally called ‘female circumcision’, which downplays the extreme and vicious nature of the mutilation.
Western women do not at present need to fear such extreme socially-approved violence, but we deceive ourselves if we imagine that the social equality which is our natural moral right has been achieved, and no further action is required on our part. It hasn’t, and it behoves us to remain vigilant.
Kinsale’s Midsummer Moon is almost my keeper di tutti keepers because of how intractable Ransom is about his phobia and how his transformation is so much in character. Regarding conjugal enemies, Coulter et al. were okay for me to read as a teen and a young woman. I think they catered to a certain acceptance of sexual powerlessness in some women in much the same way today’s Harlequin “Greek billionaires pregnant mistress” titles and the like cater to something similar today.