Originally Posted by
Mantra
True, I don't think you can call Austen a straight-up feminist. That strikes me as a little anachronistic. I suppose Vindication of the Rights of Women was already out by the time Austen was writing, but I'm not aware of her interacting with those ideas, and it doesn't seem to appear in her work. And anyway, even though Wollstonecraft is incredibly awesome, she's more like proto-feminism, simply because feminism as an organized movement and philosophy was not really up and running at that point.
But still, it's totally insane for alt-right dudes to try and claim Austen. Her work is not about celebrating patriarchal social structures, or idealizing antiquated notions of feminine purity/submission, or anything else these fucking idiots love to fantasize about. The conflict of her stories often boils down to "individuals vs. their society," so it makes no fucking sense to view the depictions of early 1800s England in a nostalgic or positive light. Austen's all about showing how the lives of both men and women are constrained by social conventions, how personal happiness is at odds with the cultural demands and expectations of society. It's not some virtuous Edenic vision for the world. She shows the how women try to navigate within their depressing limitations. Her characters make do with the conditions they were born in to because it's all they have, and so they do what they can to carve out some happiness for themselves whenever possible. Women's dependence upon men is written about because that was the reality of the time period, not because Austen was trying to show how wonderful it is to live under a gendered hierarchy.
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