When comparing literature written by men with that written by women, Virginia Woolf famously states in A Room of One’s Own, "this is an important book, the critics assume, because it deals with war. This is an insignificant book because it deals with feelings of women in a drawing room."
More than 80 years on, little has changed from Woolf’s sentiment – critics of domestic themes in women’s literature still exist and what is considered “important” remains subjective. Perhaps if writers placed more emphasis on the tactical motivations behind domestic acts and not just the physicality of them, then critics would have less to complain about.
The Domestic Debate
Female representations of the home and domestic experiences within literature are indicative of a uniquely female consciousness. The domestic space is one that women in particular spend a lot of time in so it is no wonder that women should choose to write about these unique experiences in their fiction. Men have done it as well (readers need look no further than Gaston Flaubert, Raymond Carver or Nick Hornby for evidence of this) but they are rarely called to task for it. So why are women denigrated for writing about those experiences which contribute to defining their sense of self?
The debate over whether domestic themes should or should not be incorporated into women’s literature is generated by men and women equally so can’t be brushed off as a gender bias. The main focus of the debate seems to revolve around what themes are deemed “important” in literature.
Perhaps the real argument should be less about whether domestic themes are important and more about whether those themes portrayed in women’s literature have been delivered in such a way that the domestic is not domesticated and that they add value to the understanding of the lived experience of women.
One way to deliver on this is to encourage fiction writers to explore the political doctrine that exists within the domestic space. In other words, when drawing on the physicality of domestic acts in their work, writers should also draw on the motivations, influences and controls which direct those acts.
The Domestic Space as a Political Space
The domestic space is a contested one. French philosopher Michel de Certeau, argued that the home is a site where small, intimate campaigns are fought. Often these campaigns arise because of the differential power relations that exist between men and women. And while the importance of the domestic space – usually considered a feminine space – is maligned by some, Doreen Massey, a social geographer from the UK, believes that it provides a valuable site in which gendered relationships can be studied. She also maintains that if a domestic situation arises where one sex dictates the existence and function of another then the home’s occupants are faced with a political doctrine.
The mechanisms of power which operate in a home can provide fertile ground for fiction writers. Take, for example, the preparation and consumption of food, just one element of the domestic which can be politicized. A kitchen is usually thought of as the warm room of the home, a place where food is cooked with love and care and people receive it with thanks and gratitude. It is a place where the traditions and rituals surrounding food are created or passed on, where they are modified or adapted to accommodate blended families or cultures.
But the kitchen can also be a war room, a place where food can be a catalyst for domestic violence or where it is used to seek attention or to impose feelings of guilt. Food is a powerful token which can just as easily represent fear, control or retribution as it can love or kindness.
Generally, wars are considered in global or regional terms, bitter and bloody campaigns fought within political, cultural or religious contexts. But the home can also be a dangerous space, a domestic battlefield in which the personal lives of women are politicized due to their experiences within the home. As Australian academic Tony Fry says, “While every war is not a world war, every war is a war of worlds.” With this in mind, the daydreams, actions and motivations of women as a consequence of their domestic experiences are worthy of a fiction writer’s imagination.
Grand Themes Played Out in the Home
Any serious evaluation of women’s literature will reveal that female writers explore a great variety of domestic themes, and many are not simply dull accounts of motherhood, marital problems or small family dramas. Instead, they provide a framework of realism around which the writer demonstrates how the personal lives of women intersect with political issues.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel Half of a Yellow Sun is equally concerned with war as it is with childlessness and infidelity. Monica Ali’s Brick Lane examines race and ethnicity alongside domestic duty. Helen Garner’s A Spare Room is a story of tough love, friendship and loss, grand themes examined with precision in the domestic setting of the home.
If domestic experiences are silenced in women’s literature then the lived experience of women is also silenced, despite the fact that the domestic space is where the identities of many women are forged.
The political can and should be interconnected with the domestic, and provided those domestic experiences are explored in original and interesting ways, then the representation of a woman’s domestic life need not be parochial or dull nor should it be maligned by critics as unimportant.
Sources
- De Certeau, M. (1984). The practice of everyday life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Fry, T. (2009). From war to warring. In B. Highmore (Ed.), The design culture reader. London: Routledge.
- Massey, D. (1994). Space, place and gender. Cambridge: Polity Press.
- Woolf, V. (2009). A room of one’s own. Melbourne: Penguin Books.
Sally Piper - Sally Piper is a published writer whose fiction and non-fiction has appeared in Australia and the UK.
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