Throughout time, women have been overlooked and left out of history, their stories and positions marginalized and deemed irrelevant. Women face a continuous struggle in language to get from "i" to "I", a position that they have been born into, assigned to from the day they entered this world. In Deborah Cameron's essay "Feminist Models of Language (II): Semiology, Postmodernism and the Debate on the 'Gendered Subject', Cameron writes of an example of gender labels while relaying a story from a woman who had just given birth and her experience at the hospital nursery where her infant was, the labels on the newborns cribs read either 'I'm a boy' or 'It's a girl'. Of this she writes:
Obviously none of these infants was yet capable of speech. But on the day they were born, the culture hailed them differently: boys were hailed as active 'speaking subjects', unproblematically 'I': girls were not. This is the order which, as they grow older, these children will be forced to enter, (Cameron, 161).
From the moment of birth, males and females are labeled so differently to suggest that a male's voice is more of his own, more dominant and convincing than a females. There is an issue with women's voices not being heard clearly, especially in the past; but can we really attempt to understand this problem by studying the works of white, middle class, educated women such as Lyn Hejinian and Susan Howe? These women are only speaking from one viewpoint, both of them coming from similar backgrounds. When they attempt to speak for all women, like Howe does while re-writing history in Pierce- Arrow, does this de-value the original work? Can we use what they are trying to do with their poetry and extend it to a broader demographic? Is it possible to use their poetry to instigate change? In a way I think that it does de-value their work, these two poets are both coming from the same background with their opinions on how to make big social changes without necessarily being qualified to speak for all women. These poets though are, at the same time, sending a message worth listening to and worth discussing further in order to determine their validity and use for more than one group of women, and for society as a whole. I will explore further these women's work as well as their quest to get women speaking from "i" to "I".
Deborah Cameron discusses possible remedies for this situation and delves into arguments made by and for feminists. Cameron suggests that "perhaps we can change the structures of subjectivity by changing the language through which subjectivity is constructed," (Cameron, 164). Cameron discusses at length different views of Psychoanalysts, one of them being the Lacanian theories, according to Lacan, "the symbolic order is patriarchal; inserting oneself into culture means submitting to patriarchy," Cameron states: "The reason for this remains mysterious. The theory deals with sexual differentiation, but not satisfactorily with power and inequality, with the superimposition of dominance on difference. This might lead us to wonder how useful it is as a feminist linguistic theory," (Cameron, 169). Not all feminists agree with Lacan and have developed some reworkings of his ideas, while discussing feminist reworkings, Cameron has this to say, "perhaps the most important characteristic of these feminist reworkings is their concern- again, reminiscent of radical feminist theory, that women should not simply accept Lacan's dictum, but should try to find a 'feminine' language in which to encode and validate what symbolic language excludes or marginalizes," (Cameron, 169). Cameron also discusses theories of Luce Irigary; a one time student of Lacan's but she was expelled after a publication of a book criticizing Lacan's theories. "Irigaray insists that women have a (different) language of their own; or more exactly, that they would have, were this language not suppressed and denied existence within the patriarchal system," (Cameron, 170). This is a very interesting concept here, that women would have their own language, but it is not possible because of our patriarchal society. From an interview with Couze Venn, there seems to be some agreement about this argument, saying that language is mainly constructed by men; that language is not universal and does in fact exclude women, for how could a language maintained by men really accurately portray women and women's experiences? In her experimental work, Irigaray finds:
Women are less likely than men to make themselves the subject of discourse, either spoken or written. The clearest example of this is that men, asked to write a sentence, much more often begin it with the pronoun je (I). Also, both men and women frequently address their discourse to a hypothetical or generic male interlocutor (something Irigaray links with the fact that in French generics are masculine, and –even more restrictively than in English- third person plural pronouns as well as singular must be gendered), (Cameron, 173).
Irigaray concludes "that it is difficult to speak 'as a woman'. Women efface themselves in discourse by representing themselves obliquely, not as 'I' or even 'she', but in generic terms which conflate 'human' and 'masculine'," (Cameron, 172). Cameron's essay brings up many good arguments amongst feminists and feminist writers, many seem to be searching for a female language, or if not a language of women, than at least a language that does not exclude women. One author that takes on the task of writing in a way that is inclusive to all genders is Lyn Hejinian.
In Julian Spahr's essay, "Resignifying Autobiography: Lyn Hejinian's "My Life", she brings up the notion that definitions of the "individual" have grown to include previously excluded class, gender, and race positions. "Recent feminist discourse, for example has rigorously questioned what has been excluded from the word 'self' in the creation of the autobiographical canon," (Spahr, 139). While discussing Lyn Hejinian's My Life, Spahr claims that gender is not absolute, Hejinian claims that when she writes, she is androgynous; and I think that is evident in her work in My Life. In a recent discussion of My Life, both men and women talked of how they could relate to what she was writing about, she does not write overtly as a woman, in the sense that it is not only women that can understand her work, or are able to relate to her writing. It is not only the gender of the writer that can affect how a piece is interpreted, but the gender of the reader as well, when Hejinian writes, her intentions seem to be to write in such a way that no matter what gender the reader is, he or she will be able to find pieces of themselves in her writing. Terry Threadgold has this to say, "even a gendered reader remains subject to the text's materiality, a materiality which exerts a resistance not only to the intentions of the author but also to the readings and uses it may be put to by readers," (Threadgold, 88). In writing My Life Hejinian attempts to break down boundaries of "I", making it more relatable and representative of different positions. In her strategy for doing so she implements the idea of the reader actively taking part in the autobiography, moving swiftly from "I" to "we", strategically including the reader to join her as part of the autobiography. Spahr also gives examples of Hejinian's use of the neuter pronoun in My Life for example, "'the postman became a mailman and now it is a carrier" (89) and also "The musician has a spouse and it attends' (90)," (Spahr 145). In these examples Hejinian is omitting genders, man or woman could be the "it". Hejinian does this also with her use of "one": "'In the sentence, 'one climbs five worn wood stairs and turns left to the scarred open door, then crosses a hall and two feet of linoleum to the four foot formica counter with two sacks f groceries in seven steps, 'I am the one'," (Spahr 146). Again here by using the neuter pronoun, Hejinian is broadening the meaning of "I", it could be any gender, "one" could be anybody. In doing so Hejinian is changing boundaries of the meaning of "I" for readers, including any gender, race or class to participate in her story, there is no exclusion of any type of person. In My Life, Hejinian writes of a woman entering the garden's of other people to pinch off flowers, Spahr writes that "the woman stepping into others' gardens to pinch off cuttings is analogous to readers stepping into the text to break off pieces to take away into their own lives,"(Spahr, 149). Hejinian is breaking down borders with her experimental poetry, there are many authors who use their initials or non-gendered pen names to try to hide their gender for fear that their works will not be accepted by all genders; Hejinian is making a point of writing from the position of all genders, or no gender, to try and solve these socially taboo ideals. Hejinian is trying to make it easier for women to write as "I" with confidence and assertion. Another author who uses poetry, amongst other genres, to take on the issue of women speaking "I" is Susan Howe.
In Susan Howe's Pierce-Arrow, she is re-writing history to include the story and view of women previously left out, or edited by men. She uses different genres, including history and poetry to tell the story of Charles Sanders Pierce, a brilliant meteorologist, overshadowed by his personal life. Howe writes of Juliette, Pierce's second wife, and the mysterious background from which she came, including speculated rumors of her past. Howe devotes much of Pierce-Arrow to Juliette and the trouble that her past brought to her and Pierce. Howe follows Juliette's life into her elderly years, after the loss of her husband, describing her many struggles up to her death. In Schultz's essay "The Stutter in the Text", she has this to say about Pierce-Arrow "For Susan Howe, history is at once impasse and possibility. Insofar as history has excluded and silenced women, it is impasse; once these exclusions are noted, history becomes possibility." "[Howe's] work less involves the writing of a new history than the foregrounding of what is missing from original texts. She is less historian than editor and reviser," (141). Schultz goes on to discuss women's role in history, and how generally women have been either excluded from, or edited out by men. Adding "Women, whose power is here figured as 'voice,' lose power when their words are translated, edited, into print, which is a mechanism to control 'possession','' (Schultz, 149). As a young girl Howe herself knew of the disadvantages of women, being excluded from libraries, having to wait outside as her father went in to this forbidden place, Howe saw libraries and the knowledge that they provided as a wild space, foreign and bitterly out of reach. This experience probably led her to wonder what else gender has denied women, where else women have been left out, forgotten. This no doubt provoked her need to fill in the gaps of women's lives left out by men. In "The Stutter in the Text" Schultz describes how Susan Howe relates herself to Mary Rowlandson, who was captured by Indians and during her captivity grew to understand and relate to the Indians unlike other white settlers who saw Indians as only brutal savages. Upon her release Rowlandson wrote an autobiography about her time spent with the Indians, her book was heavily persuaded by how the male editors thought she should depict the Indians and her time spent with them, and did not accurately portray her experience or feelings. Howe feels that women's voices and experiences have been altered by men throughout history, and for that reason are rarely accurately depicted. In a way Howe does not so much re-write history, but dismantles and falsifies the old history, as a way of questioning what was real, she is changing history through the language she uses. In this case though, we have to question the validity of Howe and whether or not she is qualified to "fill in the blanks" when it comes to the disappearance or lack of women's experience in history. Howe comes from a certain background that is not necessarily representative of all women; she does not have much in common with Juliette Pierce but none the less inserts her biased opinions and presents them as facts. This is an example of how this could be de-valuing, by adding in the history she feels is appropriate, she may inadvertently be leaving out relevant, factual history. The question remaining being, should Howe's bias' eclipse her intentions of trying to reveal this pattern in history of women's voices being stifled, and trying to gain back the pieces of lost history? I think that if we acknowledge that what Howe is writing is not all factual, that she used some fiction, we can appreciate that what she is trying to point out to us and that what she is trying to do with her writing is more important, and worth our time.
Both of these poets have tried to create social change using their writings, and scholars such as Cameron and others used relay why and how it is possible for them to do so. I believe that language can make powerful statements and can also help to work towards social change. Even though Hejinian and Howe come from similar backgrounds, both white females, middle class and educated, they are opening up the doors for anybody to do what they have done. They are not the only ones that can re-write the history of a woman's life or create a text open to all genders, they have shown through these texts that powerful statements can be made and it is necessary to take what they are giving us through their writings and use it to make changes.
Cameron, Deborah. "Feminist Models of Language (II): Semiology, Postmodernism and the Debate on the 'Gendered Subject.'"Feminism & Linguistic Theory. 2nd ed. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992. 158-86.
Retallack, Joan. "Easy as Wager." The Poethical Wager. Berkeley: U of California P, 2003. 1-19.
Schultz, Susan M. "The Stutter in teh Tet: Editing and Historical Authority in the Work of Susan Howe." A Poetics of Impasse in Modern and Contemporary American Poetry. Tuscaloosa: W of Alabama P, 2005. 141-158.
Spahr, Juliana. "Resignifying Autobiography: Lyn Hejinian's My Life." American Literature, 1996. 139-159.
Threadgold, Terry. "Rewriting Linguistic Poetics: The Trace of the Corporeal." Feminist Poetics, Performances, Histories. London: Routledge, 1997. 85-109.
