“You’re a real woman now; you’re making babies.” Homeownership, body-ownership, in Jane Austen’s Persuasion/now

“You’re a real woman now; you’re making babies,” a 74-year-old male/know-it-all from whom I purchased my house called after me as I walked away from him on my driveway. Last week, he had “stopped by” to my next-door neighbor’s driveway to point at my house and talk about how much better it was when he inhabited it. “Do you remember this guy?” my neighbor, who typically ignores me and only talks to my husband, asked. No–oh, yeah. Since I have a one-year-old, he first asked where my husband was and why I would leave my child alone in the house while I went on a walk (I did not do that). This was 1) disgusting/disturbing and 2) perfect timing, as I responded to a student’s question re: Austen’s Persuasion and Austen’s stance on feminism and child-rearing in that excellent novel.

CLEARLY, we are not so far removed from 1815 as it might appear on the surface to some–though how anyone would think that hasn’t watched the new Borat (cathartic/highly recommend).

In Persuasion, of course, Anne Elliot would not have inherited her father’s house, and her male cousin was the heir. Do I think that Austen, who never had babies, thought “only real women make babies”? No. Do I think she saw “mothering” and mother-type qualities as exclusive to mothers? Also a big no. In fact, Persuasion and Austen’s own biography display modern-day feminist other-mothering (see: Patricia Hill Collins). Her and Anne’s “spinster” selves display “womanhood”–as does Admiral Croft in a way, traits that are stereotypically for “women” (homemaking, attention to the domestic sphere) whereas Sir Walter has qualities that are displayed as negative and traditionally are seen as feminine–such as his obsession with mirrors and with looks. Again, the outside and the inside world as shown in this novel continues to astound (me)–and help me to think through my own close encounters of the sexist kind.