2017 Tribute to Jane Austen

200 years later Jane Austen celebrated

Please click on link above to see the you tube video on the unveiling of her statue in Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK. (Not my video but it's a sweet watch)

Jane Austen may have died 200 years ago, but the famous novelist is still hugely popular in England, Pakistan and to some extent in India where her works are a required read for some college exams. In 2002, after a BBC poll, the British public voted her No. 70 on a list of "100 Most Famous Britons of All Time." The popularity of her work is evident in the many film and TV adaptations of Emma, Mansfield Park, Pride and Prejudice, and Sense and Sensibility, as well as the TV series and film Clueless, which was based on Emma.

On July 18, 2017 the 200th anniversary of her death the author's statue was unveiled at the marketplace in Basingstoke near her birthplace in Steventon, England. The Bank of England announced on July 19, 2017 that Austen’s portrait will appear on the new 10 pound note from Sept. 14, the bicentennial of the author’s death. A limited supply of 2 pound coins designed by The Royal Mint are already in circulation. (It's a plot to eventually get rid of the Churchill five pound note.)

Many people (critics, writers, fans, students) have argued about her being a role model for feminism and feminist thinkers. Or not. That is not the question dear Horatio. It casts no light on the real issues in the basket, on the plate, to argue about feminism as embodied in Jane Austen or her works. People argue vigorously and either side in the extreme make her out to be a feminist icon or a middle class, middle aged doyen of hackneyed opinions without a brain or care in the world. This is just evading responsibility for thinking clearly. I protest. The idea is to oppose one sex being dominant over the other. Oppose thin and fat thinking. Oppose misogynistic thought and language patterns. Oppose the chains that bind women who grow up in a patriarchal society.

Edited Excerpt From Chapter 10 of Emma by Jane Austen

 

"Dear me! - It is so odd to hear a woman talk so." says Harriet at one point in the above conversation. This must not be the case with us. We want a rational and meaningful discussion of women's rights that leads to positive changes. We are struggling to sort out the facts on murky issues about disenfranchisement of women, rights of indigenous people in some areas of the country, right to education and fair allocation of resources in family and nation. In Jane Austen's time, as in our time in this nation, there were many who would dispute that men and women could and should be equal in rights or opportunities.

The issue of women's rights has made great strides and existed for some decades in many parts of the world, especially in more industrialized countries of the world. However there is still work to be done to level out the playing field for women (by men and women) even in some of the richer, more technologically advanced nations for reproductive rights, paid maternity leave, under representation of women in political rights, etc.

Lizzy Bennet: I came to enquire here after my sister. D'arcy: On foot? Lizzy: As you see

 Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice

So is Jane Austen a feminist? Her subject matter is about courtship and marriages, research and scrutiny of available bachelors, maneuvering to meet them, parental wishes and interference, management to turn flirtations into solid marriage offers with good financial settlements- sounds a bit like corporate strategy! Some people have a hard time grasping that the concept of radical feminism is pretty much dead. I don't know if radical feminism has a place in India.

Few of the women in India who prance around on film and stage wearing revealing clothes are feminists or true artistes. Perish forbid!  Sadly too many youth here are led to believe this sort of behaviour is a letting up of social dictates, of the oppression the country is labouring under, so they think that this sort of behaviour is good and to be valued.
Consider the present day social dilemmas in our own time and milieu; the inequality between rich and poor, rural and urban, educated and uneducated- it isn't about feminism alone. Let us rage against stereotypes, against impropriety, against servitude and oppression. Let us be feminine, but not be a slave of media, forsaking our highest emotions for baser ones and let us not follow the dictates of social expectations for gender identity.

Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennet in 1995 A&E version of Pride & Prejudice

 If you consider that Jane Austen was a woman in the Georgian and Regency periods and if you analyze her novels, she is certainly looking for equality and helping her heroines find it in the context of the times. Again I say we should not deflect attention from the issue of women holding rational views and managing their own affairs, of men and women co-existing with equal rights, respect and opportunities, by pouting and asking if is this dearly departed author was a feminist?

Jane Austen was a master of witty domestic comedies who used irony for hidden social commentary. Her characters did not openly fight for women's rights. They lived constricted lives but were not ignorant or uninformed. They had a sense of disenfranchisement. The women and men thought about social class, the women questioned marriage and did not adhere strictly to what society expected of them.

Is gender equality possible? Being equal does not mean being the same. We need to remould our outdated thinking; we don't need to remould the world to fit either gender, (and others) we have to coexist equitably. It's not about a woman fitting into a masculine world. Hey, it's our world!