Dear Books, Are You Female or Male?
Apparently couple days ago, I was scrolling one of my most social media (re: Twitter) and found something very interesting in Rain Chudori’s account.
For those of you who don’t know, Rain Chudori is an Indonesian writer and she has wrote couple amazing books such as Monsoon Tiger and Other Stories and Imaginary City. She also contributes in movie productions like Rocket Rain and Galih dan Ratna. I have met her couple times in different literature workshops, she is a very kind person, very humble and such an inspirations.
Okay, so here’s what I found:
source: https://twitter.com/rainchu/status/999515595652583424
Interesting, isn’t it? Coming from a woman in our literature world, she must find this very relevant. As a heavy book reader and literature lover myself, I can relate to couple things that are mentioned in the ‘bingo’. Many books that are written by men contained several points that are so bingo I could shout ‘bingo!’ as I am writing this.
Men writers (not all, but most of them) love women so much, at least in their writings. They love women so much they like to picture woman if not as this beautiful, almost perfect creature, physically and sexually tempting -- a very decent woman who is so soft and good-hearted with motherly nature she can take all the blame in the world for her and she usually crying at heart.
All in all, most of them write women as an object (consciously or unconsciously). This why around 1998, after the birth of Ayu Utami’s novel, Saman, Sastra Wangi comes as a new form in literary works, far from the shackles of male authors. Literary works that have been produced by male authors position women as objects and compartmentalize the existence of women in his work. Sastra Wangi positioned women as subjects in literary works that became the first step to end patriarchal values. Thus, Sastra Wangi is formulated as a breakthrough feminism ideology.
It doesn’t mean if a man or woman wants to write about a woman consciously and meaningfully, he has to write his work in Sastra Wangi. I personally think we all have choices. When it comes to art, it’s a very subjective and personal matters. Writers’ artwork are their words, their meanings and their imaginations. Sometimes we write about something unconsciously simply because that is our habitus.
However, the domination of male critics and male writers in the literary world makes it hard for the gender bias, prejudice and social construction to fade out. As an emerging writer myself (contextually; writing in my own laptop and never publish it to anyone), I find this issue very important, especially in the era of media convergence.
We cannot ignore the fact that perhaps the misogyny, gender-based trolling and racism that is happening in our social media can be caused by a bad literature experiences or simply a wrong path of book-choosing that leads some people to their way of thinking. (I mean, if I want to get to know someone better, I would go into their house and see the books in their bookcase. Jk.)
Quoting from Rain Chudori’s tweets about this notion:
“There should be no space for misogyny, however subtle and normalized it is, in our lives. I have seen and experienced first-hand the misogyny, sexism, and gender inequality in the local literary industry across generations. Through methods such as demeaning and patronizing behaviour, harassment in various forms, a pure disdain for our body of work, and preserving our position under the glass ceiling. There is still a large disparity between the amount of men and women who are published, whose works are recognized, who can become a canon figure in the literary landscape. Even with an extensive and impressive body of work, women writers are always dismissed as secondary, and prone to be labeled by male critics eg. Sastra Wangi. I talk about this a lot, and i'm sad and angry, and i do not want misogyny within this industry to grow, and hopefully, i can use the resources and privileges i have to create better conditions for women writers.”
Books are windows of the world, doors to another world. This I agree. Therefore, it is important to choose the right windows for us to see. We are just like Alice, confronted by many doors in The Room of Doors. At the end of the day, it is for us to choose.
