For the past month, every day at lunch I've gone down to the company cafeteria with a copy of "James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon" tucked under my arm. Today I finally finished the book. Is it embarrassing or stupid to say that I got a little teary-eyed at the end? She was a remarkable woman and an incredible writer: but more than that - my copy of the book is now bristling with post-it notes marking places where she writes (often with cold eloquence and often with a searching, bitter anger) about women and men, about being the alien "other", about sexuality, about the strange and often traitorous geography of the female body. Her attempts to define what it is to be a human being, to be a woman, are in many respects similar to mine, and I found it a sort of bittersweet relief to be able to read her words and think "yes, thank god, that's exactly how I feel".
Don't get me wrong, though - I am in no way comparing my writing skills to Tiptree's. I'm only saying that Alice Sheldon's constant questioning of what it was/is to be a "woman" has many parallels to my questioning. Because I spend a good deal of time wondering that, myself. Calling myself a woman or female is to me no different than putting a pair of fangs in my mouth and declaring that I'm a "vampire" - it's a costume, it's role-playing. Those words don't fully describe who and what I am. And I can't say why I think that way, why I look in the mirror and see "Other". I see someone "passing" as female. And the things I worry about and question and seek answers to are the things that are showing up in my writing more and more. This is a writing thing, in other words - not a confessional. Well, there's obviously a personal quest behind the writing, but that will stay off the blog. I guess what I'm trying to say in my own clumsy way is that it was gratifying to read about a woman who went through a similar process of self-evaluation and self-discovery (and un-discovery, if there is such a thing - because no one ever gets all the answers), and how that informed her writing, for better or worse. I know I'm alone, and I like being alone, but sometimes it's good to know that I'm not alone, that someone was there before me.
Don't get me wrong, though - I am in no way comparing my writing skills to Tiptree's. I'm only saying that Alice Sheldon's constant questioning of what it was/is to be a "woman" has many parallels to my questioning. Because I spend a good deal of time wondering that, myself. Calling myself a woman or female is to me no different than putting a pair of fangs in my mouth and declaring that I'm a "vampire" - it's a costume, it's role-playing. Those words don't fully describe who and what I am. And I can't say why I think that way, why I look in the mirror and see "Other". I see someone "passing" as female. And the things I worry about and question and seek answers to are the things that are showing up in my writing more and more. This is a writing thing, in other words - not a confessional. Well, there's obviously a personal quest behind the writing, but that will stay off the blog. I guess what I'm trying to say in my own clumsy way is that it was gratifying to read about a woman who went through a similar process of self-evaluation and self-discovery (and un-discovery, if there is such a thing - because no one ever gets all the answers), and how that informed her writing, for better or worse. I know I'm alone, and I like being alone, but sometimes it's good to know that I'm not alone, that someone was there before me.
Labels: Tiptree
