We Learned From the Best: Literature’s Classic Feminists

Becky Brinkerhoff ’16 / Emertainment Monthly Staff Writer
The fight for equality between the sexes certainly isn’t a new one, and writers have been creating characters to battle gender-biased society for centuries. Certain characters have always stuck with us. Perhaps their way of dealing with sexism in their society is relatable, or maybe the issues that they are fighting—though centuries old—are the same that we fight today. Either way, we continue to relate to and learn from the classics. Brush off your high school English books; we are headed to some places that you might know well. But this time, instead of focusing on symbolism, let’s focus on the characters responses to something a little more relatable: sexism.

No Shame in Her Game: Hester Prynne from The Scarlet Letter

Many a woman knows the feeling of walking into a room and having it go deathly silent. Or walking down a hallway to have eyes and whispers follow. Or logging onto twitter and swearing that you’ve been sub-tweeted about—again. Sometimes, being the talk of the town is entertaining, and sometimes it is down right torture. Perhaps, this is why Hester has stuck with us throughout the years. The Scarlet Letter is one of the most well known literary works revolving around slut shaming. What makes her feminist? Besides dealing with an issue that many modern women face today (slut-shaming), she handles this issue with uncompromising ferocity.
Hester is a self-sufficient single mother who causes an entire community to question its puritanical values. Let’s pause for a second. She is a single mother in a puritan society. She runs her own sewing company, selling her wares to a town that hates her. She is doing it on her own and supporting what the town considers to be her biggest mistake.
The novel opens with her scarlet letter clad self standing in front of the crowds of judgy puritans with a “haughty smile”and “a glance that would not be abashed”(2.10). Yes, she cheated on her husband. Yes, she admits that she has sinned. But she’s already rebelled, so she might as well own her shame. For some unbeknownst reason, she ends up staying in the town that has her quite literally labeled a harlot when she has the chance to leave. But she would be damned (no, really) if she didn’t stay and take her punishment with a haughty smile. But, here’s the thing: she kills everyone with kindness. By the end of the book she basically becomes a saint. The entire town says that her A no longer stands for Adultery, but for Able.
She eventually requests that she and her love, Reverend Dimsdale, hit the road and run away. In that society, that was more than a no-no. That was just not thought of. But, as Hawthorne writes, she looked at her town with “hardly more reverence than the Indian would feel for the clerical band, the judicial robe, the pillory, the gallows, the fireside, or the church” (18.2). She doesn’t just respect the system because she is told to. That is a fight that many young women who grow up in religious backgrounds deal with.
Women in strict religious environments are taught to be ashamed of too many things to count. Their bodies, how they dress, how they speak, what they do behind closed doors, etc. The shame system is still very much in place and can be seen in, you guessed it, modern day America (even in places that are no technically religious). Let’s take a look at school dress codes, shall we? Girls are told to dress a certain way so as to not distract the males in their learning environment. Since we are talking about a school, let’s talk about sexual education.
More conservative states tend to have a higher level of church attendance. More conservative states also are more likely to have abstinence centered sexual education, which places shame on pre-marital sex. Which allows girls to feel shameful for “adulterous”actions in the back of their boyfriend’s cars. The shame comes from all sides—including from themselves. So they sew their own scarlet letters of shame due to an ineffective education. As Olive says in the 2010 movie Easy A, “Ironically, we were studying “The Scarlet Letter”, but isn’t that always the way? The books you read in class always seems to have a strong connection with whatever angsty adolescent drama is being recounted.”
There may not be fabric scarlet letters, but women today bare the some of the same societal shame that Hester did. So, perhaps, we can take that shame and hold it with a haughty smile.

The Self-Definer: Jane Eyre from Jane Eyre

Don’t let her humble nature fool you. Behind those gray frocks is a resilient woman with the innate capacity to stand up for herself. At first glance, Jane’s life seems like one unfortunate situation after another. Her parents are dead and her Aunt is abusive; her porridge always burns her tongue; the teacher always slams the ruler on her hand; her only friend dies, etc. However, she never let’s these situations define her. In fact, when Mr. Rochester asks her of her tale of woe she responds sincerely, “I have none.”For Jane, it is not her situation that matters; it’s how she handles it.
Her self-worth isn’t based on the conventions of marriageability or beauty (and neither is yours for that matter, dear reader). Nothing shows this better than the comparison of Blanche Ingram to Jane. Blanche’s self-worth is, in today’s terms, incredibly misplaced. All she is hangs in the pursuit of wealth, beauty, and the affection of men (preferably men with all of those things). Unlike Jane, she paints her face with the eyes of Rochester in mind, “coining her smiles so lavishly, flash her glances so unremittingly, manufacture airs so elaborate, graces so multitudinous.”
If her voice speaks the voice of reason, it does not matter whom she is speaking to. She doesn’t define authority based on convention.  She explains this to Mr. Rochester (her boss and a man), “Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! —I have as much soul as you —and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh: it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God’s feet, equal —as we are!” She is pointing out that if you strip the extremities of wealth and beauty that they, at their core, are equal. Now that’s forward thinking.
Let’s just say that Jane Eyre passes the Bechtel Test. Her story is enhanced by, not centered around, romance. We get a couple hundred pages of Jane’s story before any man enters her life.  Rochester doesn’t come into the picture until about half way through the book, and even when he does come in to the picture, she doesn’t automatically see him as marriage material. Romance does eventually bloom based on intellectual connection and, as Jane puts it, two souls appealing to each other. However, Jane doesn’t let her life be ruled by her emotional tie to Rochester.
As soon as that romance becomes unhealthy, she is unfaltering in taking him out of the frame. Rochester, already married, wants to be with Jane. She wrenches herself away from the arms of her lover saying, “I am no bird, and no net ensnares me. I am a free human being with an independent will; which I now exert to leave you.” Because she is an independent woman who isn’t defined by her relationship to men. So, there.
From start to finish, she knows who she is and she knows that won’t change: “I am not an angel,” I asserted; “and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself.”

The Smart Girl at the Party: Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice

Ever heard of Amy Poehler’s blog“Smart Girls at the Party”? It promotes the idea that girls can “change the world by being themselves.”This includes sarcastic commentary. No one exemplifies that girl more than Jane Austen’s Elizabeth Bennet. Lizzie is all about the insightful drop-the-mic moments. Soaked in sass, Lizzie is more than just sarcastic commentary. It may seem like she pulls her wit from thin air, but she is constantly observing the world around her. In turn, her sass is always insightful. Sounds a little bit like the female comedians of today, no?
Humor has the ability to reach us on a level that serious speak can’t. It makes us laugh and then pause, saying“oh, wait.”That’s the type of wit that Lizzie possesses. She, like the female comedic giants of today, makes humor out of the everyday realities of the women in her century—especially when it comes to men and their treatment of women.
Lizzie refuses to be anything but herself, even when the order of the day calls for her to be someone else. She’d rather be homeless than compromise and marry for material matters. This empowers her to laugh in the face of men who think that she should faint in gratitude at their marriage proposals. Amy Poehler once blogged, “girls, if a boy says something that isn’t funny, you don’t have to laugh.”Likewise, in Lizzie Bennet’s book, if they do say something so sexist it’s laughable, feel free to laugh. Enter her incredibly awkward cousin. While proposing, he explains his methods of flattery and giving small gifts to women. According to him, his manner of flirting allows him to choose any women his wishes. Lizzie, quite literally, laughs in his face. Because what he is saying is, well, stupid and deserving of laughter.
The men in Lizzie’s day think that they are entitled to their pick of whatever women they want. Hm. Sounds a little like a night out at the bar, huh? Just as the boys in Lizzie’s day thought they were entitled to the wedding fingers of her sisters, boys today can think that they are entitled to your time. At the bar, walking down the street, at a party, etc. Let it be known: Lizzie is there to set the record straight. She’d be the one at the bar saying, “keep your drink, just give me the money. Or on second thought, you can keep that too.”