Glass ceilings, glass cages

A post on my DW reading list (dwircle? droll?) reminded me of recessional's amazing meta on Éowyn (and there's excellent discussion in the comments).

When I was about 10, reading LOTR for the first time, I loved Éowyn. I thought she was brilliant. She had an appeal to a girl, a young woman, who saw in Éowyn's fictional existence mirrors of her own, from being expected to perform a certain way (to be ladylike and proper, and infractions of gender norms by being outspoken are punishable, whether outright or through ostracism) to being expected to subsume your personality, your self to keep other people (typically males) happy.

I didn't know that at the time, of course. I liked her, she was awesome, and she got to kill the Witch-King *and* marry Faramir. I didn't recognize that I was in the same glass cage Éowyn was until I ran into it myself. I'm still running into it today.

While there are essays on how Tolkien failed with Éowyn (I disagree that "we" feminists on principle agree with her thesis, because I sure as shit don't, though I can see her point), there's textual evidence that Tolkien got it.

(Blatant c&p from comments at recessional's)
Éomer and Gandalf are talking.

"Care and dread she had, and shared with me, in the days of Wormtongue and the king's bewitchment; and she tended the king in growing fear. But that did not bring her to this pass!"

"My friend," said Gandalf, "you had horses, and deeds of arms, and the free fields; but she, born in the body of a maid, had a spirit and courage at least the match of yours. Yet she was doomed to wait upon an old man, whom she loved as a father, and watch him falling into a mean dishonoured dotage; and her part seemed to her more ignoble than that of the staff he leaned on.

"Think you that Wormtongue had poison only for Théoden's ears? Dotard! What is the house of Eorl but a thatched barn where brigands drink in the reek, and their brats roll on the floor among their dogs? Have you not heard those words before? Saruman spoke them, the teacher of Wormtongue. Though I do not doubt that Wormtongue at home wrapped their meaning in terms more cunning. My lord, if your sister's love for you, and her will still bent to her duty, had not restrained her lips, you might have heard such things as these escape them. But who knows what she spoke to the darkness, alone, in the bitter watches of the night, when all her life seemed shrinking, and the walls of her bower closing in about her, a hutch to trammel some wild thing in?"

Then Éomer was silent, and looked on his sister, as if pondering anew all the days of their past life together.

These are not words that could be written by someone who doesn't understand what glass cages do to the people trapped in them.

These are the words of a man who understands the death of a thousand papercuts.

Gross.

Via geekfeminism_feed, a review of Retribution Falls, a book filled with creepy misogyny.

An excerpt from the review (by a man, allow me to point out):

Trinica Dracken was the daughter of a wealthy industrialist for whom Frey worked. When they were both in their late teens, they fell in love. Trinica was a lovely sweet girl with long hair who wore white dresses, Frey was much as he is now. Eventually, the relationship had gone wrong. Here is Frey's description of it:

In the early months he'd believed they'd be together forever. He told himself he'd found a woman for the rest of his life. He couldn't conceive of meeting someone more wonderful than she was, and he wasn't tempted to try.

But it was one thing to daydream such notions, and quite another to be faced with putting them into practice. When she began to talk of engagement, with a straightforwardness he'd previously found charming, he began to idolize her a little less. His patience became less. No longer could he endlessly indulge her flights of fancy. His smile became fixed as she played her girlish games with him. Her jokes all seemed to go on too long. He found himself wishing she'd just be sensible

Okay, leaving aside for the moment that Frey's analysis of what went wrong with his relationship boils down to “the bitch wouldn't keep her mouth shut” note that here his dissatisfaction with Trinica stems simultaneously from (a) the fact that he starts to see that she isn't the perfect fantasy figure he thought she was (he “idolizes her less” which in sane-person world is a good thing in a relationship) and (b) the fact that she still displays many qualities of the fantasy figure he wants her to be (her “girlish games” and her “flights of fancy”). You've got to feel sorry for the girl, because I seriously don't know how she was supposed to please this arrant cocksucker.

[I would like to point out that 'cocksucker' is an insult based in misogyny, and I do not endorse its use.]

These depictions of casual misogyny in texts are reflective of casual misogyny in society at large. These are the thousand papercuts. I can't just ignore them or laugh them off, and anyone who is against discrimination of any sort ought not to, either.

We must shed light on them. That's the first step in changing attitudes: expose casual, everyday misogyny (and racism and ableism and homophobia and cissexism and ...) for what it is. If we ignore it, it won't just go away.