What does Anno Domini (AD), Virginia Woolf and modern society have in common? Read on to find out.
Stereotyping; the bane of our existence
By now, we all see the stark reality that only a portion of us is represented in literature. And from that portion, only a portion is represented authentically. As a teacher of Language and Literature, it’s my job to encourage young people to connect with novels, relate their experiences, be literarily validated. But a recent visit to the hairdresser reminded me that while we acknowledge many things as a modern human race, our stereotypical protagonists, antagonists, and plots continue to be the oblivious underbelly of our storytelling.
At a squint, we may be taken by the new wave of culturally diverse and gender inclusive novels on the market. And indeed, authors who come from these minority groups have represented themselves well. However, groups that produce few authors still rely on us to represent them, and hope they recognise themselves when our books are published. In every story I’ve read, my hairdresser is depicted as a refugee. Not a love interest. Not an entrepreneur. Not the protagonist. And yet she fell in love here. She built a successful business. She persists to fit in to a foreign culture. We’re taking a hair on the head of a complete life and calling it inclusivity.
Virginia Woolf Agrees
English novelist, Virginia Woolf, in her classic essay ‘A Room of One’s Own’ alludes to this issue. She sheds light on the dangers of writing while carrying the world view as a monkey on our back. She talks of women writers whose novels reflect 20th century inequality, not by directly advocating for fairness but indirectly, with intense, suppressed resentment. She talks of male writers who accentuate the women of the time as bold, independent, rash, at a time when only men could openly have these traits. Today’s advocating novelists do this very thing. To stand up for the minority, they hyper advocate, portraying but a strand of the true story. Therefore, the authenticity of the person/culture/group is not captured.
What would Jesus do?
To authentically represent the diverse members of our human race, world views must be ignored so writers in society, the country, the globe can celebrate the spirit of a person and stop riding the coattails of other people’s opinions. The evidence that our world view is wrong is in the great book Itself. The Bible contains example after example of society’s outcasts of the time: leapers, prostitutes, the elderly, the disabled, the poor, the widowed, the minority, being favoured by Jesus. Doesn’t this tell us that we’re wrong to be impressed by the bells and whistles of a person? Doesn’t this tell us that we’re missing the fundamental detail of each other? Doesn’t this tell us to stop listening to one another and readjust our own lens?
We owe it to our mis/unrepresented brothers and sisters to think in a ‘room of …(our) own’, to determine with our own evidence, to recognise other’s assumptions, and discern between society’s checkered views and our own, well researched, prayed on, thought through, respectfully discussed, closely analysed, view of the truth.
Such a timely word, Louise. Thank you for sharing. 🤗
Thank you fir the feedback, dear Wendy x
Wonderful message!
Thank you, Twinky.
Yes, this is a timely and thought-provoking article. I was particularly struck by the sentence, “We’re taking a hair on the head of a complete life and calling it inclusivity.”
An admonition to me to stop and think, “Am I writing lives like that?” And if so, what can I do about it?
There are some voices claiming that we cannot write diverse characters unless we are one of them. I think to represent the truth of our society – which is nowhere monocultural today – we must have all kinds of characters. But we must not “call a hair a whole life.”
Julia, I totally agree. I check myself often for assumptions i may have picked up from media, news or conversation along the way; easy to do. The ‘hair on the head’ sentence is a play with something Woolf said in her essay; reading it at a time when i was contemplating this topic is God’s work. Thank you for your lovely response.