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re: momma

i went on about mothers and their sons or daughters
(separation of identity) and peter said:

Really?  What is this based on?  I assume you mean
something a bit deeper
than the fact that girls and their mothers are both
female ...

-->actually that's really it (at least at the
developmental stage i was thinking of).  i'm pretty
sure this is elaine showalter's and/or gail shehe's
work--it was an idea i heard in a discussion (for one
of my women's lit classes) way, way back so it's
fuzzy.  i never wrote about it so i don't remember
complete chunks at this point.

little boys are discovering that "we have different
parts" and therefore free to de-part.  little girls
aren't discovering that and don't de-part that easily
or frequently.

it makes sense from what i see with tense
mother-daughter relationships.  it also makes sense
with the way identity-understanding seems to differ in
men and women (in terms of timing at least).  a young
man is off in the world, often, discovering it and
himself.  we see a tradition of women preoccupying
themselves with others and home (which, i'm sure, is
connected to a lot more than just not differentiating
themselves "properly" from their mothers), a step that
comes usually before moving out into the world.  their
male counterparts are in a faster progression outward
that juxtaposes them to their world (and all of its
variety) thus teaching them about both.  

some women never get there.  for women writers, a lot
of their writing is like some bildungsroman secondhand
or twice removed or _something_.  it's like spain was
to europe.  and then its child, the americas, was like
a colony of a colony.  does that make sense at all?

i don't have the notes from the class where we
discussed that theory so i'm sorry i can't help more
than that :-(  does this sound vaguely familiar to
anyone else???? :-)

-j. marie

=====
All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful. -Flannery O'Connor

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