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Apr. 15th, 2008 12:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
megwritesI've been slacking on my linkhopping tour through literary history, because I've only researched one writer in the last week, and that was Simone de Beauvoir. I guess you can count Sartre by association, but it was really focused on her.
I did that because I was reading over at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
oursin's place about a review of a biography of de Beauvoir and the thoughts that oursin had about it. And since my knowledge of who de Beauvoir was or did was woefully slim, I decided to go across the interwebs in search of knowledge.
What caught my eye was the basic argument that de Beauvoir was being perfectly reasonable in not running off to the U.S. and leaving her husband and the comment that she took shit for doing what men have gotten away with for centuries.
I tended to agree, but since I knew next to nothing about Sartre, de Beauvoir, or Algren, I refrained from commenting.
I think the point stands. Especially when taken generally, and not just in literature, but in the arts in general. It seems like women and by extension, their work, recieves more judgement for personal choices than men do. Especially when it comes to domestic woes concerning sex, marriage, and children.
I can think of any number of male artists, writers, actors, directors and musicians such who have basically been child molesters, rapists, thieves, and have had ungodly amounts of affairs - but they get a pass because their art was great.
I wish the patriarchy was a literal person, so there could be literal nuts that could kick with my literal foot. Literally. I'll have to settle for literarily, I suppose. Eh. Good novels last longer than testicular pain anyway.
Oh, I came here to post a poem, didn't I? I think I did.
Occupational Hazard
By: Meg Freeman
Commonly asked, "What do
you want to be when
you grow up?" I think I find
the best wisdom in sarcasm
when I
think (though not say), "I
want to be washed
on the shores of a desert island
utterly alone
without any possesion but time
so I could strip the bark
from the softly sloped trees
and write with my blood from
pricked fingers and peeled scabs
so that when you found
my makeshift papyrus curled up
next to my sandblasted bones
you'd have no cause to question
because it would
be forensically evident
what I wanted and who I was
and that they were the same thing."
I did that because I was reading over at
oursin's place about a review of a biography of de Beauvoir and the thoughts that oursin had about it. And since my knowledge of who de Beauvoir was or did was woefully slim, I decided to go across the interwebs in search of knowledge. What caught my eye was the basic argument that de Beauvoir was being perfectly reasonable in not running off to the U.S. and leaving her husband and the comment that she took shit for doing what men have gotten away with for centuries.
I tended to agree, but since I knew next to nothing about Sartre, de Beauvoir, or Algren, I refrained from commenting.
I think the point stands. Especially when taken generally, and not just in literature, but in the arts in general. It seems like women and by extension, their work, recieves more judgement for personal choices than men do. Especially when it comes to domestic woes concerning sex, marriage, and children.
I can think of any number of male artists, writers, actors, directors and musicians such who have basically been child molesters, rapists, thieves, and have had ungodly amounts of affairs - but they get a pass because their art was great.
I wish the patriarchy was a literal person, so there could be literal nuts that could kick with my literal foot. Literally. I'll have to settle for literarily, I suppose. Eh. Good novels last longer than testicular pain anyway.
Oh, I came here to post a poem, didn't I? I think I did.
Occupational Hazard
By: Meg Freeman
Commonly asked, "What do
you want to be when
you grow up?" I think I find
the best wisdom in sarcasm
when I
think (though not say), "I
want to be washed
on the shores of a desert island
utterly alone
without any possesion but time
so I could strip the bark
from the softly sloped trees
and write with my blood from
pricked fingers and peeled scabs
so that when you found
my makeshift papyrus curled up
next to my sandblasted bones
you'd have no cause to question
because it would
be forensically evident
what I wanted and who I was
and that they were the same thing."
