FeminAustenism: Jane's Message

I Already Forgot This One

I recently watched some Jane Austen movies: Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park and Emma.  Set in England's landed gentry society in the early 1800's, her stories reflect her real life a little bit, and embellish her real life a lot.

I Hate Every Girl In This One

Her heroines are fictionalized versions of herself, the smartest female around and also the most beautiful.  From the first person narrative, we learn about life for women in her time- and how frustratingly dependent on men they must be.  But these are not the works of a rebel with a cause, these are romance fantasy novels at heart.

In real life, Jane Austen grew up with one sister and a bunch of brothers.  She was close to her father and he taught her to be smart like a man (in a time when women were not really smart).  Jane Austin never married or had any children; she lived with her sister, also a spinster, and they both wrote harlequin-esque novellas until they died.  Gee, I wonder how many cats they had!

Jane Austen was not a radical feminist.  She was uniquely intelligent for her day, clearly a hopeless romantic, and based on her tales, obviously never experienced romance!  

In Love With Her Cousin

Jane Austen did not hate men, in fact she saw women as selfish, spoiled brats who ruined everything for the men who worked so hard to take care of them.  In her stories I hated them as much as she did.  Mind you, this is landed gentry of England in like the 1820's, they had servants who cooked and cleaned and changed babies, so they didn't even have basic Mom knowledge!  They knew the Bible, and some history, and how to play piano and sing, and how to play cards.....  spoiled brats!

I hate 4 of the 6 girls in this movie

To adjust for inflation, and bring this "brand" of feminism up-to-date, I would agree that too often women leave the "business" of the world up to the men, while expecting to have some kind of say in matters in the same breath.  Jane Austen would remind them that knowledge is power, and we shouldn't let the men have all of it.