Feminism
hoogland reads Lois’s character in an intriguing feminist context. She believes that Lois fails to fall in love completely with Gerald because she sees the futility of marriage around her:
By adopting their prescribed role in the social contract, Lois’s friends not only conform to but in effect reinforce the regimes of compulsory heterosexuality and phallogocentrism subtending it. Despite her need to be recognized, to “be in a pattern,” our heroine is incapable of such a wholehearted embrace of her assigned place within the established power/knowledge system. Sensing the aridity of marriages around her, Lois astutely discerns the limitations imposed on the individual spouses by the institution of heterosexuality itself. Wanting no part of that, she can alleviate her fear of being “locked out” by the elder generation by deriving a “feeling of mysteriousness and destination” from the thought she will “penetrate thirty years deeper ahead into Time than they could”. She cannot so easily afford to distance herself from her peers, however. Succeeding the now “lost” leading elders, Viola and Livvy are the others on which Lois depends for confirmation of her precarious sense of self. Her conscious reservation notwithstanding, she feels compelled to follow them in trying to be a “pleasant young person,” which, she has learned, entails being “attractive to a number of young men.” She therefore hesitatingly accepts Gerald Lesworth’s persistent attentions.
Lady Naylor insists that “these early marriages ruin careers, and engagements are nearly as bad.” She also believes that “There’s a future for girls nowadays outside marriage…Careers –.” Despite her intentions in dissuading Lois from marrying Gerald, there is a message of women's empowerment not to adhere to “the institution of heterosexuality,” if we use hoogland’s phrase cited above.
Read more about this topic: The Last September, Themes
Famous quotes containing the word feminism:
““I hate discussions of feminism that end up with who does the dishes,” she said. So do I. But at the end, there are always the damned dishes.”
—Marilyn French (b. 1929)
“... feminism is a political term and it must be recognized as such: it is political in women’s terms. What are these terms? Essentially it means making connections: between personal power and economic power, between domestic oppression and labor exploitation, between plants and chemicals, feelings and theories; it means making connections between our inside worlds and the outside world.”
—Anica Vesel Mander, U.S. author and feminist, and Anne Kent Rush (b. 1945)
“It’s important to remember that feminism is no longer a group of organizations or leaders. It’s the expectations that parents have for their daughters, and their sons, too. It’s the way we talk about and treat one another. It’s who makes the money and who makes the compromises and who makes the dinner. It’s a state of mind. It’s the way we live now.”
—Anna Quindlen (20th century)