1999-English 2100
First Place (tie)
Freedom Writers
By Marty Belles
Would you risk seeking a better or different life in the uncertain world outside your familiar surroundings? Perhaps your situation provides enough comfort and security so that you would not be so inclined. But it would be reassuring to have that option if you ever wanted or had to change. This right to grow beyond their traditional role and have more choice is something that women have been struggling to achieve for the last few centuries. In male dominated societies, women were traditionally assigned domestic duties. They took care of the home and children for their husbands. In return, the men were to provide protection and material well being. Thus, women were supposed to have freedom from harm and want while giving up freedom to venture beyond their assigned role. This cozy arrangement was, however, rarely satisfactory. Freedom from harm was not assured, especially if the husband was abusive. Similarly, freedom from want could vanish if a husband died or was a poor provider. Therefore, women have fought for greater "freedom to," that is more control over their own lives and destiny. Examining a few examples of women's writing provides some insight into the complex connections between "freedom from" and "freedom to." Additionally, these writings provide some warnings about the fragility of freedom and challenge us to continue the process of social change toward increasing choice for everyone.
Both fiction and non-fiction are useful for exploring women's views on freedom. Fiction provides the emotional power of metaphor and imagery along with the liberty to explore possibilities and implications. Non-fiction anchors us to our familiar world and reminds us that the problems women face are real. From the fiction realm I have chosen to look at The Princess of Cleves, Madame de Lafayette's seventeenth century novel about the hard choices a young aristocratic woman must make, and The Handmaid's Tale, a dystopian nightmare future story by contemporary author Margaret Atwood. I also examine the non-fiction work, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, by Harriet Jacobs who shows us the brutal realities of life without freedom. And finally, I rely heavily on a non-fiction work by noted fiction author and critic Virginia Woolf, whose A Room of One's Own ties together common elements from all of these writings.
Since I will be making extensive use of the phrases "freedom from" and "freedom to" in this essay, I will give brief definitions that are taken from a college textbook on political science. "Freedom to is the absence of constraints on behavior. In this sense freedom is synonymous with liberty." Freedom from "suggests immunity from fear and want" and "often symbolizes the fight against exploitation and oppression" (Janda, Berry, and Goldman 10). The Constitution of the United States, for example, provides citizens with a freedom of speech and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. In many situations the two kinds of freedom are in opposition, where a gain in one results in the loss of the other. For instance, to secure women's freedom from a hostile work environment, it may be necessary to restrict men's freedom to display pin-up calendars. The conflict between the two aspects of freedom has played an important role in women's struggle for greater choice as shown in the writings of the women represented here.
Until recently women had few choices about what to do with their lives outside marriage to a man. This is the case even for women of high social standing and wealth in Madame de Lafayette's seventeenth century novel, The Princess of Cleves. After her husband dies, the Princess must decide whether or not to accept a proposal from another noble man, Duke de Nemours. She loves Nemours very much, but his past behavior suggests that he may not always remain faithful to her. So rather than risk being trapped in a loveless marriage, the Princess decides to withdraw from society and live in a convent. She has chosen freedom from misery and the "horrors of jealousy" (Lafayette 199), at the cost of never experiencing a close relationship with the man she loves. Today women have more options than a convent for the unmarried, but it is still hard to break away from the expectation that a woman's life is defined by her relationship to a man. As the Princess learned from her mother, her happiness would depend on "loving her husband and being loved by him" (Lafayette 12).
Actually, the Princess did not love her husband, and this is due to the marriage being arranged by her mother, Madame de Chartres. The Prince of Cleves was chosen for the Princess by Madame de Chartres on the basis of social standing and political alliances within the court of Henri II of France. The Princess agreed that the Prince was a worthy man, "but that she was not particularly attracted by his person" (Lafayette 24). It was Madame de Chartres, not the Princess, who accepted the marriage proposal from the Prince. "She felt no qualms; it never even occurred to her that she was perhaps giving her daughter to somebody whom she could not love" (Lafayette 24). Therefore, the Princess' lack of freedom to choose her own husband played a large part in her dilemma of being torn between duty to her husband and love for Nemours.
Slavery is the ultimate denial of both "freedom from" and "freedom to." Slaves have little freedom to do anything except what their masters wish, while not being free from the resulting abuse, degradation, and suffering. This state is vividly described by Harriet Jacobs who provides a unique woman's perspective of the slavery experience in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. She recounts how many slave women had mixed feelings about having children. The slave felt the normal love, joy, and attachment to her child as do most mothers, but knowing the suffering that slavery causes, she often felt it might be better if her child did not survive being born. Jacobs described one poor black woman who "had but the one child, whose eyes she saw closing in death, while she thanked God for taking her away from the greater bitterness of life" (Jacobs 24). This mother was free from witnessing her child's suffering or enduring the anguish of having the child sold to another owner, but she lost her parental joy. In this situation there is no counterbalancing "freedom to" mitigating the mother's loss. The death of the slave child only denies the slave owner freedom to exploit and abuse that one individual. With this and similar tragic scenes, Jacobs makes a strong case that "Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women" (Jacobs 119). Jacobs and her children eventually escape the South and gain their freedom from slavery, but they then notice some other barriers to their "freedom to." They are subject to racial discrimination in the form of being denied accommodations and privileges available to white people. Jacobs also notices on a trip to England how women workers are paid less than men (Jacobs 276). Freedom from slavery has resulted in the freedom to observe other injustices.
Sometimes a good way to get people to notice a problem is to exaggerate it to an extreme. This is the strategy used by Margaret Atwood in The Handmaid's Tale which exposes many of the limitations women experience. This novel is set in the future where a group of extreme moralists establish a repressive regime in the United States that strictly regulates women in order to alleviate a fertility crisis. Women capable of conceiving are forced to have sex with the ruling male elite and become surrogate mothers for the infertile wives. These women, known as Handmaids, are not allowed to read, socialize, or have names of their own, and they are required to wear a distinctive uniform that restricts their vision. By severely restricting their "freedom to" and suppressing their identities, the regime is attempting to turn these women into impersonal baby machines valued only for the reproductive functions of their bodies. And the rulers claim that they are doing these women a big favor by relieving them of the burden of being responsible for their lives. One of the authorities notes that the Handmaids should be thankful that they have been "given freedom from" (Atwood 33), and goes on to say that the previous society was dying "of too much choice" (Atwood 34).
Even some of the ruling elite in A Handmaid's Tale are inconvenienced by their own revolution. Serena Joy, wife of the Commander Fred, was a celebrity prior to the revolution. She used to sing gospel music on TV and make speeches about how women should stay in the home. After the takeover, she is not pleased with living the life she advocated. "She has become speechless. She stays in her home, but it doesn't seem to agree with her. How furious she must be, now that she's been taken at her word" (Atwood 61). Commander Fred, because of his position and power manages to keep some of the "freedom to" that is denied women and most other men. He and other officers indulge in illicit affairs at a secret club under the justification that "Nature demands variety, for men" (Atwood 308). However, their actions are officially illegal, and they must be careful not to run afoul of the zealous secret police that enforce the rigid codes of behavior. It is ironic that those who denied choice to women also reduced their own "freedom to."
Atwood's novel helps draw attention to similar aspects of modern society. The authorities very much resemble today's radical right who have similar views on abortion, family values, and the use of religious scripture to justify limiting the role of women. Those with such extreme views are few, but they draw support from more moderate people who are attracted to the promise of a simple, secure life. This security, however, requires us to live by their script and give up our freedom to choose. Atwood's story brings this tradeoff between security and freedom into sharp focus and challenges us to think about the implications of extreme political views. Women today have more "freedom to" than in the past, but, like the Handmaids, they still have problems of not being seen and heard as individuals, being thought of as objects, and being scolded by males for not feeling gratitude for what they have. And Atwood reminds us that in a crisis, real or fabricated, the support for any "freedom to" may evaporate in the scramble for security.
A locked room, like freedom, can take on different meanings, depending on the point of view. When used as a means of forced confinement, a locked room denies "freedom to." However, a locked room can also be a source of "freedom from" distress, for instance, the garret Harriet Jacobs used to hide from her slavemaster (Jacobs 173). Virginia Woolf, in A Room of One's Own, uses the refuge aspect of a room in both a literal and symbolic sense to describe the conditions women will require to become great writers. In the literal sense, Woolf's room is an actual place that provides freedom from interruptions and enables the mind to concentrate, think, and write. Early women writers had to endure working in a "common sitting-room" where "she was always interrupted" (Woolf 66). Symbolically, the room represents "the power to think for oneself (Woolf 106). This is the freedom to be independent and develop "the courage to write exactly what we think" (Woolf 113). Thus, in this case, one "freedom from" enhances another "freedom to."
A room of one's own could also represent the confining limitations that women were subject to, and Woolf uses this sense to note how women have been denied independence and choice. A woman who attempted to resist the tradition of having a marriage partner chosen for her was likely to be "locked up, beaten and flung about the room" (Woolf 43). Freedom from this attitude that women are objects to be controlled and traded for favors, like Atwood's idle women who are "objects not in use" (Atwood 89) will be vital in bringing about conditions conducive to independence and self expression.
Ironically, Woolf herself was confined to a room as part of a treatment for mental illness. Her biographer, Quentin Bell, describes her "incarceration at 'Burley,' Cambridge Park, Twickenham, a kind of polite madhouse for female lunatics" where "she would be kept in bed in a darkened room, wholesome foods would be pressed upon her and she would be excluded from all social enjoyments of London" (Bell 164). In other words, she was locked up and force fed. Woolf voluntarily accepted this restriction on her "freedom to" because her doctor had convinced her that the alternative could be "madness" (Bell 164).
Woolf also writes about another requirement for aspiring women writers, that of being able to earn enough money to provide for a comfortable living. The essence of her argument is that poor women spend too much time and energy just surviving to be able to think independently and write. Even modern middle class women can fall into this bind. Many of them spend all their time managing a household while being dependent for money on their husband's earnings. When a marriage breaks up, a woman can find herself without an income and without any means of earning one. That is why an income and the "wits" to earn it are so important to the independence and intellectual development of women (Woolf 66). A woman's ability to provide for her own well being is both a freedom from want and a freedom to pursue any opportunities open to her.
For a long time laws have limited women's "freedom to." It is only in the last few hundred years those laws have been changed to allow women to vote and own property. Woolf notes that for many centuries the law held that any money acquired by a woman became property of her husband (Woolf 23). Today women do have the right to own property and earn money of their own, and they are entering the workforce in increasing numbers. However, they usually receive lower pay than men do. Women find it difficult to break into the high paying technical and managerial professions that are dominated by men. In theory, women have the "freedom to" choose almost any career. In reality what they need is "freedom from" social customs and discrimination that hinder them from being valued the same as men. A text on U.S. government explains that current law requires the same pay rate for men and women performing the same work, and some women's rights advocates want the same requirement for work that has "comparable worth" (Janda, Berry, and Goldman 577-578). However, some employers see those laws as an infringement on their "freedom to." Political scientists have noted that finding a balance between freedom from inequality and freedom to decide what employees should be paid is one of the modern problems faced by democratic societies (Janda, Berry, and Goldman 19). Overall, the current political climate appears to be favorable to women and possibly our democracy is robust enough to avoid a collapse into an aggressively intolerant totalitarian state of the type that Atwood described.
Another issue that affects "freedom to" is how social customs limit women. These unofficial rules are often harder to change than laws. Until recently it was rare for women to be doctors, lawyers, or scientists. Early women pioneers in these fields demonstrated that it could be done, and they inspired others to follow. One example is Aphra Behn who Woolf credits with being the first woman to show that she could make a living with her writing (Woolf 64). This visibility of women exercising their freedom to develop beyond a traditional domestic role was what Atwood's absolute government was trying to suppress in order to control the lives of women. The Handmaids were forbidden to read, and the government tried to destroy information from the past, such as women's magazines that "suggested an endless series of possibilities" (Atwood 201). Controlling access to the "recent history that offends them" was designed to eliminate the visibility of women in a variety of different roles, and thus discourage women from resisting their designated duties as servants and baby machines (Atwood 41). Atwood's story takes place soon after establishment of the new regime, and because the first group of Handmaids remember their former freedoms, they are difficult to control. The goal of the authorities is to revise history so that succeeding generations of Handmaids will not long for a life with greater choice. In an analysis of The Handmaid's Tale, literary critic Lois Feuer explains that "To forget a past of choices is to be enchained in the present" (Feuer 85). Thus, visibility, the evidence that success is possible, is also an important part of encouraging women to fight for and make use of their "freedom to."
Just as society will have to make some difficult choices in balancing "freedom from" and "freedom to," so too will individual women have to decide if exercising their new freedoms is worth the risk. Woolf addresses the subject of risk for newly liberated women, not by listing possible dangers, but by acknowledging that some new hazards may appear "when womanhood has ceased to be a protected occupation" (Woolf 40). Additionally, the finite time and energy available to individual women may require decisions about what to give up in pursuing a newly available "freedom to." Economics professor Jennifer Roback Morse feels that the "having it all" slogan is inappropriate for the feminist movement because women have to deal with work, marriage, and family tradeoffs just as men do (Morse 567). Morse prefers "Live a Balanced Life" as a more realistic goal that recognizes practical limitations (Morse 568-569). Freedom from past limitations and traditional roles will require facing new decisions and uncertainties. However, most women will surely relish the knowledge that they have the freedom to make such decisions, even if they choose to stay with a traditional role.
Like the Freedom Riders of the early civil rights movement in the United States, the Freedom Writers discussed in this essay have provided a pioneering example to women's struggle for greater choice and control of their own lives. They have made us aware of the "freedom to" imbalance, given us a glimpse of the life diminishing effects of reduced choice, and, perhaps, inspired a desire to help correct the problem. Those already inspired continue to work through our political process to remove some of the most obvious barriers to women's freedom. Now it is up to the rest of us as humans, citizens, and neighbors to find ways of eliminating the social customs and attitudes that deny women the freedom to develop to their full potential.
References
Atwood, Margaret The Handmaid's Tale. New York: Ballantine Books, 1985.
"Behn, Aphra." The New American Desk Encyclopedia. New York: Signet, 1984.
Bell, Quentin. Virginia Woolf: A Biography Vol. 1. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972.
Feuer, Lois. "The Calculus of Love and Nightmare: The Handmaid's Tale and the Dystopian Tradition" Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction. 38.2 (1997): 83-95.
Jacobs, Harriet Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. New York: Oxford UP, 1988.
Janda, Kenneth, Jeffery M. Berry, and Jerry Goldman. The Challenge of Democracy: Government in America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1995.
Lafayette, Madame de. The Princess of Cleves. Trans. Nancy Mitford. New York: New Directions, 1951.
Morse, Jennifer Roback. "Beyond 'Having It All.' " Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.
18.2 (1995): 565-74. United States. Commission on the Bicentennial of the United States Constitution. The Constitution of the United States. 14th (HMS Rose/Bill of Rights Tour) Edition. Washington D.C., 1991.
Woolf, Virginia A Room of One's Own. San Diego, New York, London: Harcourt, 1929.
(Marty Belles --I was born in Ft. Wayne, Indiana on September 4, 1952, and I grew up in California and Oklahoma. I moved to Savannah in 1985 to take a job at Gulfstream Aerospace, and I continue to work there as a Manufacturing Engineer. My studies at Armstrong began in 1992 and I graduated December 1998 with a Bachelors Degree in Computer Science.)