I was on a panel of intergenerational feminists early this week and we were all charged with telling the stories of how we became feminists. You might expect to hear about Gloria Steinem, or workplace harassment, or some other galvanizing force. And there was a little of that, but you know what was an almost universal thread? Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. How amazing and unexpected is that?
I remember being totally blown away by this book, and the rest of Morrison's deep, intricate, challenging work, starting in high school. I've read The Bluest Eye almost every year since that first time when I was 15 or 16 and every time I am reminded of why it broke my heart and made me understand social change and the human psyche better. She weaves body image, sexual incest, racial segregation, class issues, and so much more together in this tiny little tome on what it means to be human.
Toni Morrison does not describe herself as a feminist. In fact, she explicitly told Salon, after her book Paradise came out, the following:
"Paradise" has been called a "feminist" novel. Would you agree with that?Not at all. I would never write any "ist." I don't write "ist" novels.
Why distance oneself from feminism?
In order to be as free as I possibly can, in my own imagination, I can't take positions that are closed. Everything I've ever done, in the writing world, has been to expand articulation, rather than to close it, to open doors, sometimes, not even closing the book -- leaving the endings open for reinterpretation, revisitation, a little ambiguity. I detest and loathe [those categories]. I think it's off-putting to some readers, who may feel that I'm involved in writing some kind of feminist tract. I don't subscribe to patriarchy, and I don't think it should be substituted with matriarchy. I think it's a question of equitable access, and opening doors to all sorts of things.
Did you have any relationship to the word "feminism" when you were growing up, or did you have a sense of yourself first as black and then as female?
I think I merged those two words, black and feminist, growing up, because I was surrounded by black women who were very tough and very aggressive and who always assumed they had to work and rear children and manage homes. They had enormously high expectations of their daughters, and cut no quarter with us; it never occurred to me that that was feminist activity. You know, my mother would walk down to a theater in that little town that had just opened, to make sure that they were not segregating the population -- black on this side, white on that. And as soon as it opened up, she would go in there first, and see where the usher put her, and look around and complain to someone. That was just daily activity for her, and the men as well. So it never occurred to me that she should withdraw from that kind of confrontation with the world at large. And the fact that she was a woman wouldn't deter her. She was interested in what was going to happen to the children who went to the movies -- the black children -- and her daughters, as well as her sons. So I was surrounded by people who took both of those roles seriously. Later, it was called "feminist" behavior. I had a lot of trouble with those definitions, early on. And I wrote some articles about that, and I wrote "Sula," really, based on this theoretically brand new idea, which was: Women should be friends with one another. And in the community in which I grew up, there were women who would choose the company of a female friend over a man, anytime. They were really "sisters," in that sense.
I wish I could sit down with Toni and have a long talk with her about feminism, what it means to me, what it means to the women who I shared the stage with Monday and Tuesday night. I'm not even sure she would want this thank you, but I'm going to give it to her anyway.
Thank you for playing a pivotal role in making me a feminist. Thank you for making me a better thinker, writer, person. Thank you for giving the world your unparalleled gift for imagination and language.
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Morrison is, in my opinion, the most important and best American writer of last fifty years or so. She's utterly brilliant. Brilliant enough that her books contain all kinds of thought and nuance--feminism included.
I love Toni Morrison's work. I've got Beloved waiting for me on my bookshelf right now...
As far as the feminist thing, I understand what she's saying in defining herself as an author, because it would limit/change her writing, possibly?
If she wrote The Bluest Eye thinking "I am a feminist, what does a feminst write?" then the book would be completely different! I think the book is so moving because it shows you the world AS IT IS, not the way it should be, which inspires you to want change, revolution, feminism, etc.
It's my first time commenting here, but this hits really hard for me. I definitely have an exact place in time where I can say that I became a feminist. As it happens, it was thanks to Toni Morrison and the discussions I had with some very smart women about her book Sula.
It definitely caused some arguments about whether or not it should be considered a feminist novel after reading it, but I couldn't read it as anything different and it completely changed the way I looked at so many things with regard to women. I've never turned back since.
Sula is one that I think should be required reading for any feminist or borderline feminist.
She lost me on the whole rape as an expression of love thing.
I also thought that the no-holds-barred resentment of white beauty standards (and how they impact "unattractive" black men and women) was more sad than illuminating.
keshmeshi - Thick love.
Also, Dr. Jamie Barlowe is teaching an amazing Toni Morrison seminar at the University of Toledo... Just wanted to throw that out there.
i clicked on Courtney's link to Amazon and was shocked by the reviews of The Bluest Eye - there was only 1 review (1 star) and it TOTALLY missed the point of the book :( here's what they wrote:
"For those who care, she uses f-words and b-words in the book. The book is filled with sexuality. I didn't like it because if I want to read a book, I like to read something that doesn't pollute my mind and I thought, an skilful writer like her didn't need to decorate her work with profanity"
"I was on a panel of intergenerational feminists early this week and we were all charged with telling the stories of how we became feminists. You might expect to hear about Gloria Steinem, or workplace harassment, or some other galvanizing force. And there was a little of that, but you know what was an almost universal thread? Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. How amazing and unexpected is that?"
Amazing, unexpected, and maybe sad?
I mean, I don't remember exactly when I became feminist but it was around age 6. How many in the group read and understood The Bluest Eye that young (wow!), and how many didn't get a chance to become feminist until years later (sad)?
I don't find her work particularly inspirational or even enjoyable. I generally feel dirty after reading her work, or powerfully angry. 'Beloved' winged across my dorm room and nearly beaned my roommate.
I've read stuff that makes me uncomfortable on many levels - as a woman, as a white person, as a Southerner with a rather checkered family history. It's made me think, made me reevaluate my family history and how I feel about it.
Morrison's work simply makes me feel ashamed and dirty. No thanks.
I'm a white woman with brown eyes, and I identified pretty strongly with this book on the basis of not having blue eyes alone.
I thought TBE was breathtaking in its' poetry ("the years folded up like handkerchiefs" "it was much, much, much, too late"). Heartbreak. I can't say this book made me into a feminist, as I was 20 or so when I read it (and I've been a feminist more or less since birth), but Oh, God, the way Toni Morrison writes is simply astonishing.