From my bookshelf: Black milk

Women of genius are rare. Thus, when we, driven by some mystic love, wish to enter upon some anti-natural path, when we give all our thoughts to some work which estranges us from the humanity nearest us, we have to struggle against women. The mother wants the love of her child above all things, even if it should make an imbecile of him. The mistress also wishes to possess her lover, and would find it quite natural to sacrifice the rarest genius in the world for an hour of love. The struggle almost always is unequal, for women have the good side of it: it is in the name of life and nature that they try to bring us back.

I found these words in a biography of Marie Curie. They were from a dairy entry of Pierre Curie and supposedly the reason he decided not to marry--he was of the opinion that marriage would be a distraction from his work. Ironically enough, he later found Marie, who was undoubtedly a woman of genius, and she like him, was deeply attached to her work. She was the living contradiction to his statement. Still, his words haunted and plagued me. Even in his times, where the norm was for women to be primarily caregivers, I found the statement unfair. Needless to say, I personally do not relate to it at all. I do not begrudge my husband his work, and definitely do not wish that he would spend all his time with me.

As a woman, I wondered about the other side of the story. What would it be like for a woman who wanted a career of her own? How stifling would society have been? How much of a struggle did she have to go through?

Months later, I unexpectedly found answers in Elif Shafak's Black Milk. Black Milk, among other things, narrates the author's personal experience of postpartum depression. On a second parallel thread, the book has accounts of eminent women authors who dealt with the struggle of having a career and a family, which I found extremely informative and fascinating. Here's an interesting paragraph on how a talented woman writer would have probably fared in Shakespeare's times:

In A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf makes the claim that it would have been impossible for a woman, any woman, to write the plays of Shakespeare during his age. To clarify her point she brings up an imaginary woman whom she introduces as Shakespeare’s sister. She names her Judith. Let’s assume for a moment that this Judith was as passionate about theater as Shakespeare was, and just as gifted. What would have been her fate? Could she have dedicated her life to developing her talent like

Shakespeare had done? Not even a chance, says Woolf. The answer is no because a different set of rules holds for men than for women. Judith can be as talented as she likes, as fond of art and literature as

she likes, but her path as a writer will be strewn with obstacles, small and large. She will have a hard time finding wiggle room in the “sociable-wife,meticulous-housewife, faithful-mother” box she is expected to fit into. More important, between her womanly tasks and motherly roles, she will

not be able to find the time to write. Her whole day will pass with household chores, cooking, ironing, taking care of the children, shopping for groceries, tending to her familial responsibilities . . . and before she knows it, she will become a Sieve Woman, all the time in the world leaking through the holes in her life. In those rare moments when she finds herself alone, she will give in to exhaustion or frustration. How will she write? When will she write?

Moving slightly forward in time, we have women writers who wrote under a male pseudonym just to receive an impartial, unbiased treatment of their work. On one of the most famous of such, George Eliot, Elif writes: 

It is not for naught that another well-known writer, perhaps the greatest novelist of the Victorian period, chose a male pseudonym—determined, smart, persevering Mary Ann Evans, otherwise known as George Eliot. Britain in the 1800s did have its share of female writers—only, most of them wrote about romance, love and heartache: topics deemed suitable for womankind. As for George Eliot, she openly disliked all such books. She wanted to write on an equal footing with male novelists. She wanted to write “like a man,” not “like a woman.”

One evening at a party, Lewes read aloud a spellbinding story by Eliot and asked his guests to guess what kind of a person the author was. All of them came to the conclusion that the story was written by a man—a Cambridge man, well educated, a clergyman married with children. (Similar reactions were received when Eliot’s stories were sent to other writers. Only Charles Dickens thought the author had to be a woman. Only he got it right.) I love to imagine this scene: in a high-ceilinged apartment, a dozen or so guests sitting comfortably on cushioned sofas and armchairs, sipping their drinks, eyeing one another furtively as they listen to a story by an unknown author, their eyes rapt in the flames in the fireplace, their minds miles away as they try to guess the gender of the writer, and fail.

Another story that caught my attention: As the author of The Great Gatsby, Scott Fitzgerald is a household name. But, tell me, how many of us have heard of Zelda Fitzgerald, his wife, who was also a great writer? Excerpting again:

In the years that followed, Scott Fitzgerald became increasingly famous, swiftly climbing up the glass staircase of the literary pantheon. Strikingly, the characters he wrote about and the themes he tackled were often inspired by Zelda. Some of his characters spoke just like Zelda. Did he “steal” ideas

from his wife? Did he pilfer parts of her writing? From time to time Zelda would mockingly talk about how entries in the diaries she kept at home would end up in her husband’s novels—sometimes entire paragraphs. In a review she wrote of The Beautiful and Damned for the New York Tribune,

she made this insinuation public: “It seems to me that on one page I recognized a portion of an old diary of mine which mysteriously disappeared shortly after my marriage, and also scraps of letters which, though considerably edited, sound to me vaguely familiar. In fact, Mr.Fitzgerald—I believe that is how he spells his name—seems to believe that plagiarism begins at home.”

I do not intend to say Scott plagiarized from Zelda. That may or may not have been so. However, the more I read, the more convinced I was that her lack of fame was not due to a lack of talent.

Finally, of the more recent, critically acclaimed Sylvia Plath, she writes: 

That was the stage in her life when she desired to be many things at the same time, and excel equally in each. A mother, a housewife, a writer, a poet . . . She wanted everything to happen immediately and flawlessly. Perhaps she was also in love with her creations. She stubbornly retained the belief that she could be an ideal mother and an excellent poet: the perfect Poet-Mother. It was not an easy combination, especially in the climate of the 1950s, when everyone thought a woman had to make an either-or choice. She refused to choose. Nevertheless, her effort to become “superwoman” wore Sylvia Plath down. Before long she noticed that she was pushing herself too hard. When she made it to one place, she discovered she had skipped over another; when she fixed one thing, something else was falling apart. Slowly but surely, she realized she could not be perfect.

As she ran out of steam, unable to meet the extremely high demands she had placed on herself, Plath decided that she would rather die than live in the way it had been prescribed for her by others. The creative person with unbridled passion that she was, she wanted everything or nothing at all. . . .

It was a cold morning, February 11, 1963, one that reeked of tedium and induced a sense of isolation. After checking on her two children in their beds, and leaving milk and bread on their bedside table, she closed their door and sealed the cracks. She went into the kitchen, turned on the oven’s gas and took a dozen sleeping pills, swallowing them one by one. Then she stuck her head in the oven, and as the gas licked at her face, she fell into eternal sleep. She was only thirty years old.

Sylvia's story is one that never fails to move me. As someone who aspires for perfection in many aspects of life, I can relate to her thoughts with frightening clarity.

Things have improved in the recent decades, I used to think. Women now have maids and nannies and several other domestic workers to help them. After a few years, I realized the privilege and class inherent in such an argument. It is not solving the problem, but merely shifting it to another section of society. Elif touches upon that too:

But then there is the other side of the coin. In her thought-provoking “Notes to a Young(er) Writer,” Sandra Cisneros tackles head-on the question of class, and women writers and poets having “a maid of their own.” “I wonder if Emily Dickinson’s Irish housekeeper wrote poetry or if she ever had the secret desire to study and be anything besides a housekeeper,” Cisneros writes. “Maybe Emily Dickinson’s Irish housekeeper had to sacrifice her life so that Emily could live hers locked upstairs in the corner bedroom writing her 1,775 poems.” As much as the literary world avoids talking about such mundane things, money and social class are still privileges that empower some more than others.

You, my Reader, might be wondering why I'm bringing up such archaic women and their stories. The answer, unfortunately, is that these stories are highly relevant even to the present day. Women are now allowed to have a career in most parts of the world, but their share in the household chores still remains unchanged for most. This has led to the evolution of two extreme stereotypes, as Elif explains. The first is that of the all-sacrificing woman, who considers her roles as a wife and a mother sanctimonious, and will readily give up much of her life, including her career to raise a family. On the other extreme, we have the modern superwoman, who manages to be the epitome of perfection at everything she does--be it her career, parenting or household chores. Mind you, I have nothing against people who willingly fall into either stereotype. However, the reality is that this classification sets up unrealistic expectations for women, and excludes a vast majority of women who fit neither.

As an example, we have millions of Sylvias in this world, who are extremely talented, and struggle to be that superwoman because that is held up as a standard to us. We  spend enormous amounts of time berating ourselves and feeling guilty over not meeting that impossible standard. We hesitate to ask for help, because we think it is a sign of our incompetence. This lockdown, perhaps, is the most recent example to that fact. Several women, even the ones who formerly had help, are now handling the lion's share of the chores along with their jobs. But my question: Why must we be walking versions of perfection? What is wrong with equitable distribution of all duties, including motherhood? Why must we be superwoman at all? The answer, in my opinion is not in doing it all, but in teaching the ones around us to share our responsibilities. We might not reach perfection, but we will certainly reach happiness, and I deem the latter more important.

P.S: This book taught me valuable lessons that I will never forget, and it was a fascinating read. After reading this, I promised myself this: No matter what, I would neither try to be a Sieve Woman, nor a Superwoman.

Note: This piece contains many excerpts, and credits rest with original authors.