Hedda Gabler

The translation is by Una Ellis-Fermor. 

1/ At the centre of the play is the marriage between Jørgen Tesman and Hedda (née Gabler).

Jørgen is dull—respectable and learned but dull, and not particularly perceptive. He is reminiscent of both Charles Bovary and Mr Casaubon. Ibsen shows from the start that Jørgen can be simple and naïve, failing to get his aunt’s meaning, and we can quickly see the contrast between him and his new wife in the scene with Thea Elvsted: he notices nothing whereas Hedda quickly sees through her old friend’s little lies. 

Hedda Gabler Tesman however is not Emma Bovary, and definitely not Dorothea Brooke. Dorothea marries Mr Casaubon because of her naïve idealism and misjudgement of his character, Hedda has no delusion. Hedda shares with Emma ennui and contempt for her husband and her marriage, but unlike Emma, she is neither sentimental nor sensual. She doesn’t seem to like sex. 

In some ways, she is more like Undine Spragg in The Custom of the Country: both like money and luxury, both seem indifferent to sex, and both are manipulative. The main difference, I think, is that Edith Wharton’s character manipulates in order to gain money and social status, whereas Hedda manipulates in order to—what? 

2/ In The Wild Duck, Gregers interferes in Hjalmar’s life partly because of his ideals, and partly because he wants to get back at his own father. At the beginning, he gets all the skeletons out of the Ekdal family, to set Hjalmar’s marriage on a new foundation of truth, but he doesn’t stop there. He goes further, and in a way wants Hjalmar’s family to be worse off and little Hedwig not to get help, just so he can be proven right and his father wrong—like it’s all a contest, a game. 

Now let’s look at Hedda: 

“MRS ELVSTED There’s something behind all this, Hedda. 

HEDDA True; there is. I want, for once in my life, to have power over a human being’s fate.” 

(Act 2) 

Similarly, Hedda wants to interfere in people’s lives, and she does so only because she wants to have power over a human being’s fate. She wants to manipulate and corrupt and even ruin Ejlert Løvborg only because the idea that he has been reformed by the simple Thea offends her sensibilities. 

But why? 

3/ It is difficult to read Hedda Gabler, especially Act 3, without strong feeling of contempt and loathing for the titular character—she is despicable. Compared to other trapped wives in literature such as Anna Karenina, Emma Bovary, Effi Briest, Dorothea Brooke, etc., Hedda is not very sympathetic—I would even say that she hardly has any redeeming quality. Self-awareness, perhaps.  

I’ve seen from the start that she is cold and callous about small things such as Jørgen’s old slippers or his aunt’s hat, humiliating the old woman for no reason, but it’s in Act 3 where it becomes clear that Hedda is indifferent about everything, even in matters of life and death. Nothing moves her, nothing matters, and it is terrifying. Her irrational, inexplicable hatred, if it may be called hatred, gets to the peak at the end of Act 3. In a way, Hedda is reminiscent of Iago in her “motiveless malignity” (to use Coleridge’s words).

However, unlike Iago, Hedda also hates herself: she hates people and society and her marriage; she also hates herself for being a coward. As she says, she has accepted and walked into this marriage herself, which she despises. She can’t help feeling contempt for the Tesman family, who is socially beneath her. But she lacks the courage to walk out. 

Hedda hates Thea also because Thea has the courage to leave her husband, the courage she herself doesn’t have.  

4/ In a way, the characters in Hedda Gabler can be put into 2 groups: the good-natured, kind, “simple” Jørgen, Thea, Aunt Juliane, and even Ejlert belong together; in the other group with Hedda is Brack. Ibsen creates Hedda, and creates Brack, the judge and family friend, who is cold and ruthless and calculating in his own way—he sees through her and knows her fears, and near the end of the play, destroys her illusion, holds some power over her, and inadvertently pushes her to the inevitable. 

Ibsen ends Act 3 with such terror that one wonders how he keeps the dramatic tension afterwards, but he does. And see what he does in Act 4, especially the ending!  

5/ So far I have been vague. Those of you who haven’t read/seen the play and don’t want to know important plot details may want to stop here.  

A Doll’s House, Ghosts, and Hedda Gabler may be seen as connected, because A Doll’s House is about a woman who walks out and leaves her husband, Ghosts is about a woman who runs away then returns to her husband and suffers 19 years of misery and other consequences, and Hedda Gabler on the surface is about a woman who gets into a marriage she despises and has no courage to walk out. But they don’t have much in common: each play is a study of a different situation, a different kind of woman. 

I saw that some people called Hedda Gabler a feminist play, which I found laughable. Hedda is too cold, manipulative, and full of self-loathing to be a strong woman or a feminist figure. Hers is not simply the predicament of a woman strapped in an unhappy marriage and bound in a patriarchal society—it is a lot more complex, and to see the play in mere feminist terms is to reduce it, to strip it of complexity and ambiguity. It also fails to answer lots of questions about the play: why does Hedda hate that Ejlert is now reformed and has great potential for success? Why does she goad him back into drinking? If she wants to retain her hold and influence over him, offended that he has been tamed by Thea, why? Why does she give him a gun afterwards? Why does she destroy the manuscript? She has some illusion about a free and beautiful action, but why? 

The constraints of a patriarchal society alone cannot explain her actions. Hedda is not a victim. Hedda Gabler is fascinating because she is complex and her motivations are complex.  

Feminist criticism is often offensive as it reduces men and women to simple categories, and doesn’t see the individual. 

The Taming of the Shrew

1/ The Taming of the Shrew is an unusual play, in that it has a frame narrative (the Induction)—indeed there’s also a play within a play in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Love’s Labour’s Lost, and Hamlet, but in those cases, the play inside is only a small, secondary part of the plot whereas the play within The Taming of the Shrew is the main text. In fact, the Induction isn’t necessary as such, and he doesn’t return to the Sly plot at the end. 

So why does Shakespeare write it? There must be some meaning.  

2/ Everyone knows the premise: Bianca is a lovely girl and has 2 (and then 3 suitors) but her father Baptista has decided that she cannot get married till her elder sister Kate (Katherina)—the shrew—is wedded.  

In Love’s Labour’s Lost, everything is neat: the king loves the princess of France, Berowne loves Rosaline, Longaville loves Maria, and Dumaine loves Katharine. 

In The Taming of the Shrew, Bianca is wooed by Lucentio, Gremio, and Hortensio whilst Petruchio sets out to tame her sister Kate. Shakespeare complicates matters by making the suitors Hortensio pretend to be a music teacher named Litio and Lucentio a Latin teacher called Cambio to woo Bianca, whilst Lucentio’s servant Tranio impersonates him and gets a pedant to impersonate Lucentio’s father Vincentio. 

As though that’s not confusing enough, Petruchio has a servant named Grumio. 

We can see from the start that the men are assess: Baptista creates a rule to get the shrewish Kate out of the house and doesn’t care who marries her (as we can see in his reaction to Petruchio); the men agree with each other to get Petruchio to court Kate, like schoolboys challenge each other to win over a girl for fun*; Petruchio openly says that he means to marry for money; Baptista tells Gremio and Tranio (as Lucentio) to bid on his daughter Bianca and agrees to give her to the richer Lucentio, without regard for her feelings. 

3/ There’s lots of debate surrounding The Taming of the Shrew, and many people think it’s a misogynistic play about a strong-willed woman broken in a cruel manner—some even think it is proof of Shakespeare’s misogyny. 

First of all, the forgetful readers who call Shakespeare a misogynist must be reminded that he also creates sharp-tongued, intelligent and/or strong-willed female characters such as Rosalind (As You Like It), Rosaline and the princess of France (Love’s Labour’s Lost), Juliet (Romeo and Juliet), Beatrice (Much Ado About Nothing), Emilia (Othello), Adriana (The Comedy of Errors), Cordelia (King Lear), and so on. Luckily there’s no “strong female character” trope in his days so there’s a great range of female characters (and characters in general) in his plays: Shakespeare also depicts traditional women, saintly women, simple-minded women, ambitious women, dangerous and merciless women, etc. 

In The Taming of the Screw, as we can see in the final scene, the widow isn’t soft and Bianca isn’t as submissive as she seems either.  

Secondly, the tender-hearted readers who think of Kate as just a strong-willed woman seem to forget that she verbally abuses everybody (not in jest), hits Hortensio (as the music teacher Litio) on the head, unprovoked; hits Petruchio the first time they meet; even ties up and hits her own sister Bianca and chases her. Is that acceptable behaviour? Kate is different from Beatrice or Adriana. She’s not just strong-willed and sharp-tongued, but stubborn, unreasonable, and violent. 

If we forget about gender, this is a play about a strong will that meets a stronger will. Before Petruchio, nobody wants Kate (even her own father wants to get rid of her). In a way, Petruchio and Kate are a match for each other, like Benedick and Beatrice are a perfect match—Petruchio of course is not Benedick, but neither is Kate Beatrice.

Petruchio says he wants to marry for money, but I don’t think that’s the only reason he marries Kate—there are plenty of other rich women that are easier to deal with, I think he’s in it for the sport. His method is cruel indeed, but in his defence, he tries to mould her into a more suitable partner and one can tell at the end that they’re likely to be happy together, whereas Bianca’s marriage is less certain. 

4/ Another question is: is Kate tamed at the end? How should we interpret her final speech?

Some critics think The Taming of the Shrew is a misogynistic play. I don’t think so. Some others think it’s a proto-feminist play, a satire on objectionable male behaviour. I don’t think so either. 

I think the play is a study of a strong will meeting a stronger will. There is attraction on both sides: for Petruchio, this is a challenge, a game; for Kate, he’s unlike anyone else, a difficult woman like her may find all other men boring and pathetic, and feel drawn to him. 

In the end, does she yield out of tiredness and frustration? Or does she play along, calling the sun the moon and an old man a maid? Does she really submit? Or does she put on a role? 

Shakespeare leaves it open enough that it can depend on the interpretation and approach of the director and the actors. The main point though, is that Petruchio’s method does not change Kate’s nature—she’s still sharp and confrontational, as we see in the conversation with the widow at the wedding; it only changes her behaviour, and her behaviour needs changing.  

5/ Here is Tony Tanner’s argument: 

“When [Petruchio] comes to his wedding in that grotesque tattered motley of hopelessly ill-matched and shoddy garments […], it is as if he is saying to her, in visible, material signs—this is how prepared you are for marriage, given your dire inner dishevelment. When he makes a messy parody of the wedding, with his loud rudeness, blows, and sop-throwing, he is saying—and this is the sort of respect you have for the solemn ceremonies of society. And when he throws the food, and pots, and clothes around, and behaves with incomprehensible contrariness, he is offering a representation, for her benefit, of the kind of domestic chaos which sustainedly ‘shrewish’ behaviour would bring to the household. […] Petruchio is educating and ‘taming’ Kate in, as he sees it, the only way in which she will learn.” (Introduction) 

And: 

“… it is possible to see Petruchio as curbing, rather than crushing, Kate; making her into a worthy companion instead of an all-over-the-place wild-cat, beating her head against every convention in sight (the possibility that her father has contributed to this by his manifest favouritism towards Bianca is clearly hinted). Seen this way, he is liberating her from a pointless, self-lashing, ‘beast-liness’—the Herculean labour.” (ibid.)  

Tony Tanner says there’s no getting around Kate’s final long speech about women’s obedience, but I note some irony there:

“KATE […] Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper, 

Thy head, thy sovereign—one that cares for thee, 

And for thy maintenance commits his body

To painful labor both by sea and land,

To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,

Whilst thou li’st warm at home, secure and safe…” 

(Act 5 scene 2) 

These lines she says to the widow, whom Hortensio marries for money—in other words, the widow’s the one providing “maintenance”. How ironic. 

6/ I’ve just seen the ACT production of The Taming of the Shrew from 1976**. It is hysterical. 

Petruchio (Marc Singer) is quick, dynamic, full of energy and magnetism, and—shall I say it—so hot. You can see that his energy matches Kate’s, his quick wit equals hers, he can impose his will on her, and they’re attracted to each other from the start. 

I probably wouldn’t enjoy another production as much as this one. 

*: This is something I saw in several high school movies. Have no idea if it happens in real life or not. 

**: Watch it here, with subtitles. 

Reading women (3)

See part 1, in which I wrote about my reading of female authors and the call to read more women. 

See part 2, in which I talked at length about Murasaki Shikibu, and also discussed Edith Wharton and Carson McCullers. 

1/ I suppose it’s time to look at the works by women that I’ve read this year (not counting the Jane Austen re-reads): 

- Edith Wharton: The House of Mirth, The Custom of the Country, The Age of Innocence. 

- Daphne du Maurier: My Cousin Rachel. 

- Kate Chopin: “At the ‘Cadian Ball”, “The Storm”, “Désirée’s Baby”. 

- Willa Cather: “Neighbour Rosicky”, “The Sculptor’s Funeral”. 

- Carson McCullers: The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. 

- Murasaki Shikibu: The Tale of Genji (trans. Royall Tyler), The Diary of Lady Murasaki (trans. Richard Bowring). 

- Sei Shonagon: The Pillow Book (trans. Meredith McKinney). 

- The daughter of Sugawara Takasue, also known as Lady Sarashina: Sarashina Nikki (retitled As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams, trans. Ivan Morris). 

- Virginia Woolf: The Moment and Other Essays, The Death of the Moth and Other Essays, On Being Ill.  

- Susan Sontag: Against Interpretation, Illness as Metaphor. 

- Joan Didion: Slouching Towards Bethlehem, The White Album, Vintage Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking. 

The majority of them are newly discovered writers, except for Daphne du Maurier, Kate Chopin, and Virginia Woolf. 

Last year I didn’t get a new favourite writer (are you shocked, Rebecca fans?), this year I’ve got 2: Murasaki Shikibu and Edith Wharton. With Carson McCullers and Joan Didion, I don’t use the word “favourite” (yet) but I do like them. 

See my blog post comparing Edith Wharton to Jane Austen, and my post comparing her to other writers, specifically George Eliot and Henry James. 

Murasaki Shikibu remains the greatest and most important writer I’ve discovered this year (and perhaps over the past 5 years)—I don’t expect her to lose “the title” any time soon. I know many readers object to ranking writers and naming someone as the best, saying literature is not a competitive sport, but I do think that Murasaki is the greatest Japanese writer. Apart from the ones mentioned above, this year I’ve read Natsume Soseki (most highly acclaimed writer of modern Japan), Yasunari Kawabata, and Junichiro Tanizaki—The Tale of Genji surpasses them all in terms of scope, depth, complexity, and vision. But the greatness of the novel is not limited to only Japanese literature, I place Murasaki next to literary geniuses such as Tolstoy, Jane Austen, Flaubert, etc. and she writes about death and its impact in a way that I don’t find elsewhere. 

This blog post is perhaps another excuse of mine to praise and promote The Tale of Genji, as I do every once in a while, but it is neglected, it is overlooked, it is not often read and consequently almost never mentioned among the greatest novels of all time (as it should) and therefore not much read. The length is intimidating perhaps, and the distance in time might cause hesitation, but why read 20-30 other books, which would appear small in comparison, if you can spend that time reading a novel that has lasted a millennium, a novel that has lasted while almost everything else has faded into oblivion? 

I myself am glad I have read The Tale of Genji, and I hold Murasaki Shikibu close to my heart. 

2/ As I read modern essayists such as Susan Sontag and Joan Didion, both of whom have a strong persona on the page, I can’t help thinking of Sei Shonagon. A lot of The Pillow Book is gossip and she writes about all sorts of things, but Sei Shonagon speaks across 1000 years because of her overwhelming personality. 

3/ I’ve now read Sontag and Didion, 2 of the most iconic American essayists, always listed among the best. 

So far I’ve written a blog post about both of them, and one about Vintage Didion and Didion’s writings about politics. 

I do like Joan Didion and, as written before, she makes me rethink essay-writing. I also get a bit “protective” of her in possibly a strange way—perhaps there is something in what people say about Didion and young women (am I young?). If you have a look at The Year of Magical Thinking on the hellscape called goodreads, most of the negative reviews reek of bitterness and resentment and seem to hate her for being rich and privileged, as though being rich and privileged means that someone didn’t experience deep sorrows and wouldn’t deserve sympathy, or they complain about her name-dropping famous people and mentioning (expensive) trips, as though she should feel bad for being friends with important people in the media or in Hollywood, considering that she works in both. The trips they took, the food they ate, the places they went to… are mentioned in the memoir because they’re part of her life, part of the memories of her husband. The negative reviews also say that the book is “depressing, self-pitying, and whiney”, but what do these readers expect, picking up a book about the author’s husband’s sudden death while their daughter’s in ICU? 

Having said that, I was a bit underwhelmed by The Year of Magical Thinking. It is very good, and insightful, and very moving, I didn’t mind that it’s fragmentary, but I was underwhelmed perhaps because of the immense praises I read before reading the book. That probably says more about me than about the book itself. 

I don’t quite share lots of women’s worship of Joan Didion either (is it partly because I’m not American?). The writers I worship (or come closest to worshipping) are Jane Austen and Murasaki Shikibu (and the artist in Tolstoy—I still have troubles with some of his ideas). 

4/ Where does the myth come from, that women can’t write men? These novelists I’ve read create vividly alive male characters: Murasaki Shikibu (Genji, To no Chujo, Kaoru, Niou, Suzaku, Yugiri, Kashiwagi…), Edith Wharton (Simon Rosedale, Gus Trenor, Lawrence Selden, Ralph Marvell, Elmer Moffatt, Peter Van Degen, Newland Archer…), Carson McCullers (Dr Copeland, Jake Blount…), etc. Even Daphne du Maurier, who is generally read more for mood and atmosphere and mystery than for psychological insight, portrays very well the character of Philip, who presents himself as inexperienced and naïve but who is actually controlling, paranoid, and manipulative. 

There are some female writers that can’t write men just as there are some male writers that can’t write women, but there are plenty of female writers that write men well and vice versa. Jane Austen and George Eliot too are excellent at writing male characters. 

The most fascinating and remarkable one here is Murasaki Shikibu, as The Tale of Genji was a striking masterpiece built upon a very slight foundation. She might not go as far as Tolstoy or Flaubert in exploring human consciousness, understandably, but the major characters in The Tale of Genji are still complex, memorable, and fully alive, and we follow them over the course of a lifetime and watch them change over time. Murasaki Shikibu also works with hundreds of characters who are all distinct. Then in the Uji chapters (45-54), she focuses on a much narrower group of characters and delves even deeper into their minds. 

5/ You might ask, why did I decide to read more books by women this year? 

Because I wanted to. 

Generally speaking, I don’t necessarily prefer or feel closer to female writers than male writers, I don’t share lots of feminists’ obsession with gender (and hostility towards “dead white men”), and I don’t look at literature through the lens of feminism. I also think that complaints about numbers and percentages are often foolish—of course there are more great writers that are men, throughout history women didn’t get the same education and the same opportunities, women didn’t get the same respect. 

I wanted to read more books by women because I was, and am, interested in the female perspective. The phrase doesn’t mean that women all think the same—all the female writers I have read are very different, in style, in approach, in ideas. But men and women are different, because of biology and evolution as well as social factors (though of course good writers can write across gender), and I do notice that female writers generally have more sympathy (and pity) for female characters, even the frivolous, selfish, and mercenary ones, than male writers do. 

I embarked on this personal project hoping to discover great books by female writers, which I did. The most interesting part is that it helped me discover the Heian period, which seems to be unique in the history of literature in the way that women were at the time seen as inferior and therefore barred from writing Chinese and writing history/ non-fiction, it just so happened that over time women became instrumental in developing vernacular Japanese and developing Japan’s literature—Japan’s greatest literary work was written by a woman. 

That being said, The Tale of Genji should be read not just because it’s an important book by a woman, but because it’s a great book. It’s one of the greatest novels I’ve ever read.

Vintage Didion: Didion on politics and the press

I’m currently reading The Year of Magical Thinking, after finishing Vintage Didion. You perhaps have now noticed that I’m on a Joan Didion marathon. 

Taking a break from social media means having more time for reading (which does make me ask myself, why the hell did I spend time arguing with morons on fb or going through stupid tweets instead of reading good books and enjoying the company of intelligent, interesting people?). I’m enjoying Joan Didion’s company. 

Vintage Didion includes 3 essays from After Henry, 3 chapters from Miami, an excerpt from Salvador, an essay from Political Fictions, and a separate essay called “Fixed Opinions, or the Hinge of History”. They’re all good but I especially like the one from After Henry about Central Park Five, “Clinton Agonistes” from Political Fictions, and “Fixed Opinions, or the Hinge of History”. 

What I find interesting in these essays is that Joan Didion, through her eyes as an essayist, journalist, and novelist, examines the narratives created by politicians and by the press. In the essay about Central Park Five for instance, which according to wikipedia was the first mainstream media to suggest that they were wrongfully convicted, she examines the 2 contrasting narratives by mainstream news on one side, and by black-owned newspapers and black activists on the other; she also writes about the kind of story that gets attention and becomes big, the kind of news that gets ignored, the kind of language used by journalists and by politicians, and so on. In the essay about Bill Clinton, she contrasts the year 1998 with 1992, and writes about how the press (or rather, a handful of prominent journalists) shapes the news and promotes a scandal. In the last one, she writes about the mood in America after 9/11 and the language, the narrative in the news. 

I don’t fully know Didion’s political views, but she is perceptive and sceptical and critical, and she writes well about the way the press frames a story or an event. I should get hold of Political Fictions. Reading Didion’s essays, I can’t help wondering what she thinks about what’s happening today, though many of her observations all the way from the 60s are still true today, and in many cases, worse now.   

For example, in “On Morality” (Slouching Towards Bethlehem), she writes about the disturbing frequency with which the word “morality” appears everywhere, and she ends it with:  

“It is all right only so long as we recognize that the end may or may not be expedient, may or may not be a good idea, but in any case has nothing to do with ‘morality’. Because when we start deceiving ourselves into thinking not that we want something or need something, not that it is a pragmatic necessity for us to have it, but that it is a moral imperative that we have it, then is when we join the fashionable madmen, and then is when the thin whine of hysteria is heard in the land, and then is when we are in bad trouble. And I suspect we are already there.” 

This is from 1965—it is still true, and it is worse. People still assign moral burdens to everything, and also talk about being on the right or wrong side of history. People still act moral and “inflict their conscience” on others, and also talk about compassion and kindness and tolerance—the kind of kindness and tolerance that involves silencing and de-platforming anyone that they see as intolerant and bigoted.  

In “The Women’s Movement” (The White Album), she voices her criticism of the feminist movement in the 70s and mocks the feminists for portraying women as mere victims. 

“That many women are victims of condescension and exploitation and sex-role stereotyping was scarcely news, but neither was it news that other women are not: nobody forces women to buy the package.

[…] Just as one had gotten the unintended but inescapable suggestion, when told about the ‘terror and revulsion’ experienced by women in the vicinity of construction sites, of creatures too ‘tender’ for the abrasiveness of daily life, too fragile for the streets, so now one was getting, in the later literature of the movement, the impression of women too ‘sensitive’ for the difficulties of adult life, women unequipped for reality and grasping at the moment as a rationale for denying that reality.” 

The essay was controversial apparently but she wasn’t wrong, and what she wrote still applies now—it’s not that there’s no discrimination against women, but many feminists concentrate their energy on non-issues (such as manspreading for example) instead of real problems, and it doesn’t help anyone to see women always as victims and men always as (potential) perpetrators or abusers. In the #MeToo movement, I can think of a few cases that are a bad date or a regretful relationship that get equated with sexual assault, as though women had no agency. Again, I’m not saying that there is no misogyny, no discrimination against women (there is), and Didion clearly knows it too, but it doesn’t help to infantilise women. 

The thing is that she also mocks the creation of Women as a class, but the essay is from 1972—I wonder what she thinks about the current attacks on biological sex and the concept of womanhood. 

Reading Didion’s essays, I can just replace names in my head and her observations about certain groups of people like politicians, journalists, activists, etc. apply well for today’s equivalents. Depressingly so. Like (some) activists or political leaders not caring whether something happened because it had happened many times to others, for example. Or the press picking a story over others and framing it in a certain way. 

Interestingly, in the essay about Clinton, Didion notes: 

“The Lewinsky story had in fact first broken not in the traditional media but on the Internet […], posting on the Drudge Report.” 

She quotes James O’Shea of the Chicago Tribune: 

“The days when you can decide not to print a story because it’s not well enough sourced are long gone.” 

That was 1998. Think about now. 

The pity is that she writes about Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush (and I think she has written about Barack Obama) but not Donald Trump. I’d like to know what she thinks about Trump, and the current political trends.

Cuộc tranh luận về trans và vấn đề mâu thuẫn giá trị

Lời tựa: Gần đây tôi có viết 2 bài cho báo Trẻ về vấn đề trans nhưng không được đăng, có lẽ không phù hợp với báo Trẻ. Đây là một vấn đề tương đối mới, có lẽ người Việt không quan tâm nhiều, đặc biệt người lớn tuổi. Tuy nhiên đây là một trong những vấn đề gây tranh cãi nhiều nhất ở các nước dân chủ phương Tây hiện nay, và có thể ảnh hưởng trực tiếp đến quyền lợi của người Việt ở các nước này, dù quan tâm hay không, và các gia đình có thể có mâu thuẫn do khác biệt thế hệ.

Vì thế tôi đưa lên blog 2 bài đã viết về chủ đề này.

Vấn đề trans và mâu thuẫn giá trị

Trong bài viết trước về Reddit, tôi đã viết sơ về cuộc tranh luận về người transgender, thường gọi tắt là trans (người chuyển giới đã qua hay chưa qua phẫu thuật). Đây là một trong những vấn đề phức tạp và gây tranh cãi nhất hiện nay ở các nước phương Tây.

Trước tiên, một trong các điểm quan trọng của gender ideology (ý thức hệ giới tính), giống (sex) và giới tính (gender) là hai khái niệm tách biệt—sex là sinh học, là male hay female, còn gender là xã hội, là man hay woman hay non-binary (phi nhị phân, tức là không phải nam không phải nữ, không theo nhị phân giới tính).

Thế những ý chính của cuộc tranh luận về trans là gì?

Self-ID

Trước đây khái niệm trans mang nghĩa transsexual, và chủ yếu dùng cho người đã qua phẫu thuật chuyển giới. Sau này khái niệm trans mở rộng, trở thành transgender, và bao gồm tất cả những người cảm thấy giới tính (gender) không khớp với giống (sex) của mình sinh ra, dù chưa dùng hormone và chưa qua phẫu thuật, và cũng bao gồm những người không có ý định phẫu thuật.

Đi xa hơn, phong trào trans muốn có luật công nhận self-ID, tức mỗi người có quyền tự xác định (identify) giới tính và phải được luật pháp công nhận, và người khác không có quyền gọi giới tính sai (misgender) người khác.

Riêng ở Anh, luật pháp không công nhận self-ID, và vừa qua BBC đưa tin vài thay đổi về Gender Recognition Act (Đạo luật công nhận giới tính), sẽ bỏ ý định dưới thời thủ tướng Theresa May cho phép người dân đổi giới tính trên giấy khai sinh dù không có chẩn đoán y tế, và cũng sẽ có những biện pháp bảo vệ không gian an toàn cho phụ nữ¹.

Không gian của phụ nữ (women’s spaces)

Mọi quốc gia trên thế giới đều có sex segregation vì lý do an toàn và riêng tư—tách biệt không gian dựa theo giống/ giới tính, chẳng hạn như nhà vệ sinh công cộng, phòng thay đồ/ thử đồ, nhà tù, shelter (nơi nương thân cho nạn nhân bạo hành gia đình hoặc bạo lực tình dục), v.v…

Một mặt, các nhà hoạt động cho quyền lợi trans (trans rights activists, thường gọi tắt là TRA) nói rằng, không cho trans women vào không gian của phụ nữ là phân biệt đối xử với người chuyển giới và không công nhận trans women cũng là women.

Mặt khác, có nên chấp nhận trans women trong không gian của phụ nữ không, đặc biệt những nơi như shelter hoặc nhà tù?

Một mặt, trans women có quyền được tôn trọng, chỉ muốn mình được công nhận cũng là phụ nữ, và không nên bị phân biệt đối xử, nhưng còn vấn đề an toàn với phụ nữ, đặc biệt phụ nữ bị chấn thương tâm lý, và trong tình trạng dễ bị tổn thương? Hoặc chấp nhận trans women là một chuyện, chẳng hạn như Sheffield Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre², nhưng có nên chấp nhận bất kỳ ai xác định mình là nữ, theo self-ID không? Làm thế nào để tránh những kẻ nguy hiểm, muốn lợi dụng chính sách self-ID để tấn công phụ nữ?

Trang web nữ quyền Feminist Current đưa tin, ở Anh luật pháp hoàn toàn không công nhận self-ID, nhưng khắp nước Anh vẫn có nhiều nơi áp dụng chính sách self-ID³.

Riêng ở Anh, một trong những trường hợp gây chú ý là Karen White, một trans woman trong nhà tù nữ và tấn công tình dục vài phụ nữ ngay trong tù⁴.

Thể thao cho phụ nữ

Một chủ đề gây tranh cãi nhiều là trans women tham gia thể thao của phụ nữ. Chẳng hạn, BBC hay Wall Street Journal đưa ra tranh luận và lập luận của cả hai phía⁵.

Một mặt, nếu không cho trans women cùng thi đấu thể thao với phụ nữ, đó là phân biệt đối xử, không công nhận trans women là women. Và nếu không cho, trans women phải làm gì? Không được tham gia thể thao? Chỉ tham gia thể thao với người chuyển giới, vốn là thiểu số trên thế giới? Hay tham gia thể thao với nam giới? Nhưng còn tác động của hormone lên cơ thể?

Nhưng ngược lại, có công bằng với phụ nữ không nếu cùng thi đấu với trans women, đặc biệt trong những môn cần sức mạnh? Những người phản đối nói, dù ai đó đã qua phẫu thuật nhưng đã qua dậy thì không thể thay đổi thực tế là cơ thể có khung xương lớn hơn, mật độ xương (bone density) và khối lượng cơ bắp (muscle mass) cao hơn, và mạnh hơn cơ thể nữ giới. Mâu thuẫn ở đây là giữa quyền lợi người chuyển giới và sự công bằng với nữ giới.

Trẻ em

Quan trọng hơn là phải làm gì với trẻ em: bao nhiêu tuổi thì nên biết về vấn đề giới tính và chuyển giới? Bao nhiêu tuổi thì được quyết định chuyển giới? Cha mẹ cần làm gì khi con mình tự nhận là trans?

Những người ủng hộ phong trào trans nói, trans cũng như đồng tính—cha mẹ cần chấp nhận và ủng hộ con cái, đổi từ ngữ xưng hô, chấp nhận tên mới, cho con cái ăn mặc theo giới tính mới… Các tổ chức ủng hộ trans như Mermaids và Pink News thường nhắc tới tỷ lệ tự sát trong cộng đồng trans để cho thấy người trans không nên bị xa lánh hay từ bỏ⁶, mà cần sự hỗ trợ từ gia đình.

Những người phản đối cho rằng, ủng hộ trans và ủng hộ đồng tính là hai vấn đề khác nhau dù cùng là LGBT—đồng tính không ảnh hưởng trực tiếp đến cơ thể, nhưng chuyển giới sẽ dẫn tới những quyết định không thể rút lại như phẫu thuật, dùng hormone hoặc puberty blocker (thuốc chặn dậy thì). Người ủng hộ nói, trẻ vị thành niên không qua phẫu thuật, có thể chặn dậy thì để có vài năm suy nghĩ, và với những đứa trẻ bị rối loạn định dạng giới (gender dysphoria), nhìn cơ thể dậy thì và phát triển theo giới tính mình không muốn có thể gây trầm cảm và dẫn tới tự sát. Phe phản đối lại nói, không ai biết hiệu ứng lâu dài, puberty blocker có thể ảnh hưởng phát triển trí não.

Gần đây một phụ nữ tên Keira Bell tuyên bố kiện NHS (National Health Service—dịch vụ y tế quốc gia của Anh) vì lẽ ra phải được bảo là suy nghĩ thêm để quyết định. Keira Bell lúc nhỏ xác định mình là nam, và sau khoảng 3 lần gặp ở Tavistock Centre ở London, được nhận puberty blocker khi 15 tuổi. 8 năm sau, và sau khi qua phẫu thuật, Keira Bell nhận ra đây là quyết định sai lầm và trở thành detrans (chuyển giới ngược lại)⁷.

Đây chỉ là một trong nhiều trường hợp người detrans lên tiếng kể câu chuyện của mình, sau khi nhà văn J. K. Rowling nói về vấn đề trans và đẩy nó lên thành một cuộc tranh luận toàn quốc (thậm chí quốc tế).

Nhà báo Abigail Shrier ra một cuốn sách gọi là Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters và cũng xuất hiện trên chương trình của Joe Rogan⁸, nói về tỷ lệ tăng đột ngột cao của trẻ vị thành niên nữ xác định mình là trans. Đó là do xã hội chấp nhận trans hơn, hay là ảnh hưởng và áp lực trang lứa (peer pressure)? Bao nhiêu trong số đó thật sự muốn trở thành nam, và bao nhiêu chỉ lầm tưởng vì là tomboy, lesbian, hoặc trầm cảm do vấn đề tâm lý khác?  

Nói tóm lại, vấn đề trans ở các nước phương Tây một lần nữa lại là mâu thuẫn giá trị—một mặt là quyền lợi của người chuyển giới, đặc biệt trans women, và một mặt là quyền trẻ em và phụ nữ. Đâu là cân bằng? Làm thế nào để không ai bị phân biệt đối xử, nhưng mọi người đều được bảo vệ an toàn?

¹: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53101071

²: https://twitter.com/srasac/status/1282663698935549952

³: https://www.feministcurrent.com/2019/12/10/reforms-to-the-gender-recognition-act-have-been-postponed-but-self-id-is-being-rolled-out-across-the-uk-nonetheless/

⁴: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/oct/11/transgender-prisoner-who-sexually-assaulted-inmates-jailed-for-life

⁵: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/46453958

https://www.wsj.com/articles/should-trans-women-compete-in-women-s-sports-11573602744

⁶: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2019/09/10/world-suicide-prevention-day-mermaids-trans-kids-gender-recognition-act/

⁷: https://news.sky.com/story/i-should-have-been-told-to-wait-woman-treated-with-hormone-blockers-to-reassign-gender-as-a-teenager-takes-nhs-to-court-12031191

⁸: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MYb0rBDYvs

__________________________________________

Trans và nữ quyền

Trong hai bài trước, tôi đã viết về Reddit và trans, trans và mâu thuẫn giá trị. Tại sao đây là vấn đề đáng chú ý? Vì đây là vấn đề phức tạp, có xung đột quyền lợi giữa nhiều nhóm khác nhau, và trong vài khía cạnh, một số chính sách bảo vệ trans (transgender, người chuyển giới đã qua hay chưa qua phẫu thuật) ảnh hưởng đến quyền lợi của trẻ em và phụ nữ.

Tại sao nhiều nhà hoạt động nữ quyền (feminists) cảm thấy phong trào trans, theo nghĩa nào đó, là một cuộc tấn công lên quyền lợi phụ nữ?

Không gian của phái nữ

Như đã viết trong bài trước, có rất nhiều tranh cãi về chuyện có nên chấp nhận trans women vào khu vực của riêng phụ nữ không, như nhà vệ sinh công cộng, phòng thay đồ, nhà tù, shelter (nơi nương thân cho nạn nhân bạo hành gia đình hoặc bạo lực tình dục), v.v…

Cách đây không lâu, Sheffield Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre ở Anh gây chỉ trích trên Twitter khi quảng cáo tìm nhân viên là bất kỳ ai xác định mình là phụ nữ, sau đó phải rút xuống. Tuy nhiên, trung tâm này vẫn nhận nạn nhân tấn công tình dục là trans women¹.

Ở Canada, Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter, shelter lâu đời nhất ở Vancouver cho nạn nhân bị cưỡng hiếp, trong năm 2019 bị vandalise với các dòng chữ “TERFS go home you are not welcome” and “Kill TERFs”² (TERF là trans-exclusionary radical feminist, thời kỳ đầu là từ trung lập, sau này trở thành từ xúc phạm) do chỉ nhận phụ nữ, không nhận phụ nữ chuyển giới. Năm 2020, Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter bị cắt kinh phí³. 

Sex và gender, và vấn đề sức khỏe

Một trong những ý chính của gender ideology (ý thức hệ giới tính) là, giống (sex: male/ female) là sinh học, còn giới tính (gender: man/ woman) là xã hội, và hai khái niệm là tách biệt.

Tuy nhiên, trong vài năm gần đây các nhà hoạt động quyền lợi trans (trans rights activists—TRA) đi theo hướng khác, bảo biological sex không có thật, hoặc bảo sex không chỉ tách ra làm hai thành male và female mà là một spectrum, trong đó intersex (người liên giới tính) ở đâu đó ở giữa⁴.

Pink News, một trong những trang web lớn nhất cho cộng đồng trans, nói câu “only females get cervical cancer” (chỉ có nữ giới mới bị ung thư cổ tử cung) là “disgustingly transphobic lie” (một câu nói dối phân biệt người chuyển giới đáng tởm). Tuy nhiên, Pink News chưa bao giờ tấn công tổ chức Prostate Cancer UK vì gọi ung thư tuyến tiền liệt là bệnh của đàn ông và dùng hashtag #MenWeAreWithYou.

Như đã viết trong bài về Reddit, các subreddits về vấn đề sức khỏe phụ nữ đều bị tấn công, rút xuống, hoặc đưa cho TRA quản lý và bị kiểm soát ngôn ngữ, như r/PCOS cho người bị polycystic ovary syndrome (buồng trứng đa nang), r/endo cho người bị endometriosis (lạc nội mạc tử cung), hoặc r/pregnancy cho phụ nữ mang thai. Trong khi đó những subreddits như r/ErectileDysfunction, r/circumcision, r/Phimosis, r/ProstateCancer, r/TesticularCancer… có thể nói đó là vấn đề sức khỏe của đàn ông mà không bị TRA tấn công—không bị gọi là transphobic.

Quyền lợi dựa theo sex (sex-based rights)

Luật pháp cho những quyền lợi dựa theo sex, nhưng tại sao các tổ chức khắp nơi lại xem gender quan trọng hơn sex?

Trong tháng 7 vừa qua, Action Aid UK, một tổ chức từ thiện cho quyền lợi từ thiện, định nghĩa woman là bất kỳ tự xác định (self-identify) là woman, và không có cái gọi là một cơ thể male hay female⁵. Tuyên bố này gây chỉ trích dữ dội trên Twitter, đặc biệt từ feminists—làm sao có thể nói không có cái gọi là female body trong khi sự đàn áp với phụ nữ trong lịch sử và khắp thế giới có liên quan trực tiếp đến các đặc điểm sinh học và sinh sản của nữ giới? Làm sao có thể nói không có cái gọi là female body trong khi công việc của Action Aid UK tập trung vào những vấn đề như kinh nguyệt, thai và phá thai, tục ép hôn, hủ tục cắt âm vật, v.v…?

Những vấn đề này là vấn đề của giống (sex) chứ không phải vấn đề giới tính (gender).

Sau phản ứng mạnh mẽ trên Twitter, Action Aid UK bảo tuyên bố đó không phải là chính sách, nhưng không nói rõ quan điểm và chính sách thật sự là gì, mà bảo phải xem xét lại các nhóm liên quan⁶.  

Trang Feminist Current có bài viết của Raquel Rosario Sánchez, một phụ nữ gốc Dominican, cho rằng gender identity ideology là một dạng feminism của người có privilege⁷, coi trọng gender identity (bản dạng giới) của dân phương Tây hơn thực tế phân biệt giới tính ở các nước nghèo, các nước đang phát triển—những nơi phụ nữ thật sự bị đàn áp vì là female, và sự đàn áp liên quan trực tiếp tới đặc điểm sinh học và sinh sản của phụ nữ⁸.

Như Sánchez nói, một nước dân chủ phương Tây có thể có bài báo của một người sinh ra là nam, nói chì kẻ mắt xác định phái nữ của mình (“How My Eyeliner Defines My Womanhood”)⁹. Nhưng ở các nước có vấn đề phân biệt giới tính trầm trọng, một bé gái không thể cứ tuyên bố mình là nam để thoát những vấn đề như bị cắt âm vật hay cưỡng hôn—khái niệm gender không thể thay đổi thực tế là phụ nữ và bé gái khắp thế giới vì phân biệt vì sex, vì cơ thể female.

Khái niệm woman

Một trong những ý quan trọng của những người phản đối gender ideology là, thế nào là woman, nếu ai cũng có thể tự xác định mình là phái nữ? Thế nào là woman, nếu trans women là women?

Trên Quillette, Helen Joyce có một bài viết phân tích, những người theo phong trào trans đều không thể định nghĩa thế nào là woman—hoặc là nói lòng vòng “phụ nữ là một người cảm thấy mình là phụ nữ”, hoặc là định nghĩa bằng stereotypes, như phụ nữ là người tuân thủ các chuẩn mực của nữ tính (femininity) như đa cảm, dễ bị tổn thương, quan tâm tới ngoại hình, v.v…¹⁰ Cái thứ nhất là ngụy biện, cái thứ hai khác nào đi ngược lại với nỗ lực của feminists hàng chục năm qua để xóa bỏ gender stereotypes?

Nếu một người sinh ra với cơ thể nam, không qua phẫu thuật cũng chẳng dùng hormone, nhưng tự nhận mình là trans woman và bảo phái nữ của mình được xác định bằng chì kẻ mắt, vậy thế nào là woman?

Khái niệm lesbian

Ngoài khái niệm woman, khái niệm lesbian (đồng tính nữ) cũng bị cướp và bóp méo. Quan điểm của TRA là “lesbians can have penises” (đồng tính nữ có thể có dương vật), và tất cả những lesbians không muốn hẹn hò hoặc có quan hệ tình dục với trans women đều bị gọi là transphobic, TERF, hoặc “vagina fetishists” (đám tôn sùng âm đạo).

Một trang web về quyền lesbian gom lại một loạt screenshots những câu TRA tấn công, chửi bới lesbians (không phải trans), thậm chí dọa cưỡng hiếp¹¹. Không phải không có lý do mà có phong trào Get the L out, ý nói tách chữ L (cho lesbian) ra khỏi LQBT+, vì cảm thấy lesbians bị lấn áp trong cộng đồng LGBT+ và mất quyền lợi.

Bản thân nhà văn J. K. Rowling, khi lên tiếng về vấn đề trans và quyền lợi phụ nữ, cũng bị nhục mạ và dọa đánh.

Bạo lực

Sự tấn công phụ nữ không chỉ dừng ở lời nói. Năm 2018, trans woman Tara Wolf hành hung một phụ nữ 60 tuổi và đập bể camera giá £120, nhưng chỉ bị phạt và trả phí tổng cộng £430¹².

Kết luận

Phong trào trans có phải là một cuộc tấn công có chủ đích lên phụ nữ không, hay đây chỉ là vấn đề mâu thuẫn giá trị? Trên thực tế, quyền lợi phụ nữ vẫn bị ảnh hưởng nhất, và Rowling đã phơi ra mặt trái của phong trào trans.

Nhờ vậy, nhiều phụ nữ, ít nhất ở Anh, đã bắt đầu lên tiếng.

¹: https://twitter.com/srasac/status/1282663698935549952

²: https://globalnews.ca/news/5824446/vancouver-rape-relief-womens-shelter-graffiti/

³: https://www.feministcurrent.com/2019/03/20/discontinuation-of-grant-to-vancouver-rape-relief-shows-trans-activism-is-an-attack-on-women/

⁴:  https://www.nature.com/news/sex-redefined-1.16943

⁵: https://twitter.com/SVPhillimore/status/1283391395303231489

⁶: https://twitter.com/BellaTricks40/status/1285979694010114048

⁷: Privilege dịch là đặc quyền, nhưng ở đây ý nói những người quen sống sướng và có nhiều quyền, ở phương Tây.  

⁸: https://www.feministcurrent.com/2017/07/26/white-feminism-thing-gender-identity-ideology-epitomizes/

⁹: https://www.bustle.com/p/how-eyeliner-defines-my-womanhood-54595?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=owned&utm_campaign=feminismbustle

¹⁰: https://quillette.com/2020/06/20/she-who-must-not-be-named/

¹¹: https://lesbian-rights-nz.org/shame-receipts/

¹²: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/transgender-activist-tara-wolf-fined-150-for-assaulting-exclusionary-radical-feminist-in-hyde-park-a3813856.html

Reading women

1/ As I said earlier, I intended to read more women this year.    
My favourite writers who are female have been, for a few years, Jane Austen and Emily Bronte. Recently I’ve added Edith Wharton. 
In the past, there were a few other female writers I liked a lot, such as Toni Morrison, Sylvia Plath, Isabel Allende, etc. but overtime, their works no longer have the same impact (though I intend to reread, or read more of, Toni Morrison, and see what happens). 
At the moment, my favourite writers are Jane Austen, Lev Tolstoy, Herman Melville, Gustave Flaubert, Vladimir Nabokov, Edith Wharton, and Emily Bronte. 

2/ I’ve just realised something interesting.  
My favourite period for literature is the 19th century. When it comes to Russian literature, I’ve read a large part of Tolstoy’s fictional works (except Resurrection, which I didn’t finish, the plays, and some short stories), and some of Dostoyevsky, Chekhov, Turgenev, Gogol, Leskov, Lermontov, but not a single work by a female writer. 
When it comes to 19th century British literature, however, I’ve realised that my reading of women is not bad at all: I’ve read Jane Austen’s 6 novels plus Lady Susan and the unfinished The Watsons and Sanditon, 3 George Eliot novels (Adam Bede, Middlemarch, Daniel Deronda, not to mention about 1/3 of The Mill on the Floss), 6 out of 7 Bronte novels (Charlotte’s Jane Eyre, Shirley, and Villette, Emily’s Wuthering Heights, Anne’s Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall), Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South, and probably some other works I can’t think of at the moment. 
In fact, I seem to know the women better than the men—I’ve only read a few Dickens books, a few Wilkie Collins books, a few Stevenson books, etc. and none by Thackeray, Trollope, or Hardy. 
This hasn’t been a conscious desire to read more women, but a combination of interest in classic works (especially Frankenstein and Middlemarch), assigned reading (such as Shirley and Daniel Deronda), and a tendency to read more works by the same author (especially if I like the author).   
Now that I’ve written it down, I realise the holes in my knowledge of Victorian literature—I should actually read more Dickens, and check out Hardy, Trollope, and Thackeray. 

3/ Does this mean that British literature has more great/ celebrated female writers than others, at least in the 19th century? 

4/ I do think people should read widely and diversify their reading. 
However, as I’ve said many times before, I have problems with much of the talk about literature and diversity. 
- The most important thing, when we’re talking about literature, is quality—literary merit, genius, greatness. The other day, I saw someone complain about James Wood’s list of great literary works (in some book) that only a small percentage were by women. People say the same thing when attacking the Western canon.  
I mean, forget about contemporary literature, think about the history of literature and see how many women were writing, and how many women were at the top. There is no doubt that in history, women were seen as inferior and didn’t get the same opportunities as men, and didn’t have “a room of their own” (to use Woolf’s phrase), but that’s exactly why most classic works were written by men.
The only way to have a much higher percentage of books by women on such lists is to include contemporary or more recent works, which haven’t been tested by time, or to replace great works by men with less good works by women just to have more women, which is an anti-artistic, philistine approach.
- People should read widely, but should also read deeply. To me personally, I place much more emphasis on reading deeply, which is why I read slowly, read multiple books by the same author, reread books, and never rush to read a certain number of books per year. 
- I wonder if the people who attack the Western canon and say that books by dead white male authors are irrelevant to people of colour realise that by the same (asinine) logic, books by writers of colour are irrelevant to white people.
- I have noticed that a lot of people who loudly push for diversity in reading don’t seem to realise that other countries exist—they read books by non-white writers in Western countries or non-white writers who write in English, ignoring foreign/ translated books.   
Some others don’t seem to realise that other countries have classics—they mostly read contemporary literature, which includes translated literature, but not translated classics, and also rarely read English classics outside school, which suggests that they dislike the Western canon more because they don’t enjoy classics. 
- There is nothing wrong with reading mainly classics. Some people, including me, prefer to focus on works that have stood the test of time. 
See some of my blog posts on related subjects: 
A call for humility in approaching classic literature. 
The idea of relevance and relatableness in the arts. 
A riff on “dead white men”. 
Long novels and the Stockholm syndrome theory. 
I should repeat: I do think people should read widely, and diversify their reading. This is also a note to myself. 

5/ This is embarrassing, because I’ve read so little, but if I have to compile a list of classic novels by women that I think everyone should read, here it is:
- Jane Austen: Mansfield Park, Emma, Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice. 
- Edith Wharton: The House of Mirth, The Age of Innocence. 
- George Eliot: Middlemarch, Daniel Deronda. 
- Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre. 
- Emily Bronte: Wuthering Heights. 
- Anne Bronte: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. 
- Mary Shelley: Frankenstein.
These are the books I recommend, not only to those who are interested in reading books by women, but to anyone who is serious about literature.

Jane Austen’s views on relationships and marriages, according to Mansfield Park

I’m going to start by saying that, because of my upbringing, I have a rather strong dislike of people, especially women, who make stupid decisions in relationships. I’m talking about women who run after men, let men treat them like shit, and throw away self-respect (Emma Bovary), women who marry a bad boy with the naïve belief that they can change him (Helen Lawrence Huntingdon), women who accept a man who treats other women like trash but think that they are special—an exception, women who let a man cheat on them or beat them but still believe in his promises and stay in the relationship, women who know a guy is a douchebag but keep going back to him, and so on and so forth. 
(To the moralists who want to tell me to sympathise and stop victim-blaming: can you honestly say that there’s never a moment that a friend comes to you for relationship advice and you think she’s goddamn stupid and must get out of the relationship?) 
Anyway. I’m not going to reduce Jane Austen’s wonderful works to self-help books, she’s a great, fantastic writer. But at the same time, apart from her genius, Jane Austen is so close to my heart because we share the same ideas about balance, and virtues, and we also share similar views on relationships. 
So what are Jane Austen’s views on relationships and marriages, according to Mansfield Park?  
1/ Compatibility is important.  
This is something that is in every single Jane Austen novel. Compatibility doesn’t mean that your personalities have to be the same, nor that you always have to like the same things. Compatibility means you share the same world view and values. 
Edmund Bertram and Mary Crawford are incompatible because their world view, habits, and values are different: Mary likes London life and excitement, likes wealth and distinction, can’t accept Edmund becoming a clergyman and tries to change his mind, can’t handle quiet and solitude, and gets bored and restless easily, whilst Edmund is the opposite. She also doesn’t have the delicacy that he values—she speaks disrespectfully of her uncles to strangers (before becoming close to Edmund and Fanny), makes sweeping generalisations about the Navy and the clergy, and doesn’t care about anyone. 
A reader may think Mary is more fun than Fanny, but that’s a personal response and beside the point—Fanny and Edmund have a lot more in common. 
Apart from love and compatibility, Jane Austen shows in her 6 novels, over and over again, that respect, honesty, and understanding are also important for a relationship and marriage. 

2/ Disapproving of men who play with women’s feelings. 
Jane Austen always shows a distrust of charming men who lack openness and always know the right thing to say, but it’s in Mansfield Park that her view is the clearest—she disapproves of men who play with women’s feelings. 

““I cannot think well of a man who sports with any woman's feelings; and there may often be a great deal more suffered than a stander-by can judge of.”” (Ch.36) 

That comes from Fanny, but it’s obvious in Mansfield Park that the author thinks the same. 
As written in an earlier blog post, Henry plays with Maria’s and Julia’s feelings, makes them fall in love with him for fun, and goes back and forth between the 2 sisters. During the trip to Sotherton, Henry sits with Julia at the front of the carriage, making Maria jealous, then goes off with Maria, leaving Julia behind and abandoning Mr Rushworth, then sits with Julia again on the way back, ignoring Maria. During the play, he cleverly steers himself and Maria into the right parts, making Julia feel slighted, then he flirts with Maria the entire time, in front of Mr Rushworth, without any intention of making her break off the engagement.  
Some readers innocently think Fanny should end up with Henry, or would, if he perseveres. To think so is to misunderstand Jane Austen. Fanny might, convincingly, find Henry charming, and acknowledge some other good qualities, but she says she would never accept him because she has seen enough, and judged him to be a selfish, thoughtless man who likes playing with women’s feelings. He might love her like he never felt about any other woman before, but she is right to distrust it, and read it as a sign of vanity. 

“A little difficulty to be overcome was no evil to Henry Crawford. He rather derived spirits from it. He had been apt to gain hearts too easily. His situation was new and animating.” (Ch.33) 

Again, I don’t doubt that Henry has feelings for Fanny, but the fact that she doesn’t like him back attracts him even more.  
In the end, Fanny’s right for distrusting and refusing Henry. 
(Now I suppose you can guess my thoughts on Rochester—honestly, Jane Austen’s much wiser than Charlotte Bronte).

3/ Against the idea that a woman can or should try to change a man. 
Through Fanny, Jane Austen expresses her view that a woman shouldn’t accept a bad guy and expect to reform him—that’s a naïve, idealistic thought, it never works (look at Anne Bronte’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall). Not only so—let’s look at this conversation between Fanny and Edmund: 

““I am persuaded that he does not think, as he ought, on serious subjects.”
“[…] Crawford's feelings, I am ready to acknowledge, have hitherto been too much his guides. Happily, those feelings have generally been good. You will supply the rest; and a most fortunate man he is to attach himself to such a creature—to a woman who, firm as a rock in her own principles, has a gentleness of character so well adapted to recommend them. He has chosen his partner, indeed, with rare felicity. He will make you happy, Fanny; I know he will make you happy; but you will make him everything.”
“I would not engage in such a charge,” cried Fanny, in a shrinking accent; “in such an office of high responsibility!”” (Ch.35) 

Here, Jane Austen also goes against the 19th century idea that women are morally superior and should try to tame and manage their husbands.  

4/ A woman has the right to say no, and doesn’t have to provide reason. 
When Edmund tells Fanny that Henry’s sisters, Mary and Mrs Grant, are disappointed and not happy that she rejects Henry, this is the response: 

““I should have thought,” said Fanny, after a pause of recollection and exertion, “that every woman must have felt the possibility of a man's not being approved, not being loved by some one of her sex at least, let him be ever so generally agreeable. Let him have all the perfections in the world, I think it ought not to be set down as certain that a man must be acceptable to every woman he may happen to like himself. […] How, then, was I to be—to be in love with him the moment he said he was with me? How was I to have an attachment at his service, as soon as it was asked for? His sisters should consider me as well as him. […] And, and—we think very differently of the nature of women, if they can imagine a woman so very soon capable of returning an affection as this seems to imply.”” (Ch.35) 

That is such an important passage that I’m surprised I’ve read dozens of essays about Mansfield Park and nobody ever talks about it. A woman has the perfect right to say no, and doesn’t have to justify herself for not loving a man who says he loves her.   

5/ Against the idea that if a woman says no, a man should persevere till she says yes. 
Henry declares his feelings to Fanny, she has no interest, but he doesn’t leave her alone. 

“The gentleman was not so easily satisfied. He had all the disposition to persevere that Sir Thomas could wish him. He had vanity, which strongly inclined him in the first place to think she did love him, though she might not know it herself; and which, secondly, when constrained at last to admit that she did know her own present feelings, convinced him that he should be able in time to make those feelings what he wished.
He was in love, very much in love; and it was a love which, operating on an active, sanguine spirit, of more warmth than delicacy, made her affection appear of greater consequence because it was withheld, and determined him to have the glory, as well as the felicity, of forcing her to love him.
[…] Must it not follow of course, that, when he was understood, he should succeed? He believed it fully. Love such as his, in a man like himself, must with perseverance secure a return, and at no great distance; and he had so much delight in the idea of obliging her to love him in a very short time, that her not loving him now was scarcely regretted.” (Ch.33) 

Just like Mr Collins thinks Elizabeth Bennet rejects him because she doesn’t know her own feelings, Henry doesn’t end it after getting rejected, but keeps coming back and trying to persuade her, even speaks to Sir Thomas, and doesn’t leave her alone. It’s not only him but everyone in the book, especially Sir Thomas, thinks that he only has to persevere and she will yield. Different people try to convince and put pressure on Fanny, from Sir Thomas to Mary Crawford. 
It’s the same today—many men can’t accept a no from a woman, and think that if they just keep asking, at some point the woman will say yes.  
Some people may argue that Mr Darcy proposes twice in Pride and Prejudice and Robert Martin does the same in Emma, but in each case, there’s a gap between the 2 proposals, and many things happen in that time. There’s a difference between trying again after some time, not giving up after a rejection, and harassing a woman till she says yes, which is what Henry tries to do. Henry keeps coming back and talking about it, helps William get promoted to keep score and make Fanny accept him, and tries to make everyone else put pressure on her.  
It is clear that Jane Austen strongly objects to the idea that if a woman says no, a man should persevere till she says yes. 
In short, by using the marriage plot over and over again, Jane Austen keeps exploring different kinds of relationships and stressing the important elements for a happy marriage. Mansfield Park is the novel that encapsulates the best her views on relationships and marriages.