Girl's Fiction as a Path to Feminism
I had some difficulty deciding where this topic should go since it seemed to fit in several places. I had intended this page as a space for personal stories, but I firmly believe that these novels function as an initial "in" to feminist discourse for girls. Tamora Peirce has been an interest of mine for a while in connection to underground feminism. Peirce is an author of adolescent fiction who provides an entire series of novels that empower girls and puts feminist issues at the center of discourse without ever using the feminist label in the novels. Pierce’s texts are girl-centered fantasy novels with female heroines overcoming great adversity. Peirce’s empowered female heroines are perceived to be the source of her success as a writer. Pierce (an admittedly self-defined feminist) uses the Tortall universe to engage in a feminist discourse with younger audiences, but chooses to disidentify with the feminist label. While all her texts engage with feminism to some capacity, I wrote a paper for my gender theory class on the Song of the Lioness series, the Protector of the Small series, and the Trickster’s Choice series. As an introduction to major feminist issues, Pierce passes the “torch” of feminism to girls, allowing them to think critically about feminism in an unrestricted fantasy universe.
Peirce’s first published series, Song of the Lioness, is about Alanna. She is a noble girl that disguises herself as her twin brother Thom in order to realize her dream of becoming a knight. In this world, girls are denied the opportunity to defend the royal crown. Just as with early century’s conception of femininity, Pierce’s heroine, as a girl, is expected to fit the feminine ideal. While girl readers may not be able to relate to the difficulties of becoming a knight, they can understand the struggle of being a girl in a male-dominated field (such as sports in schools). Alanna is attempting to succeed in a male-dominated field where as a girl she is not taken seriously. Despite the fantasy context, girls can relate to Alanna’s struggles because they too face sexual discrimination in their lives.
To explore the inequity of male dominated environments, Pierce troubles gender through cross-dressing. Alanna’s cross-dressing enables a disruption of gendered expectations that maintain the unfair laws of the Tortall universe. The discovery of Alanna’s sex, while surprising to the older patriarchs, is not surprising to her male contemporaries. When asked if they knew the truth of Alanna’a sexuality, most of them replied that they did, but that her sex made no difference because she had proved herself. To the King, Alanna says “I hated lying to you…I wanted to tell; but I couldn’t. Would you have let me win my shield if I had told the truth?” (258). The King replies only with silence, proving that Alanna’s cross-dressing allows her to reach beyond gender restrictions in order to change social inequities. Alanna’s success changes the law to allow women to train as knights, her masquerade proving that she and other women are capable of completing the same tasks as men.
Alanna’s masquerade as a man occurs in primarily male dominated environments, providing her little access to other women. It may seem that with all male mentors and cross-dressing that Alanna is using the master’s tools to gain female agency. However, Alanna never fully acts the “male” role. Throughout the text, she consistently maintains her “womanhood” instead of becoming the “tomboy” that adheres to oppressive male standards of masculinity (168). This occurs through the discussion of menstruation and birth control. These are rare topics to discuss in adolescent fiction, yet Pierce persistently addresses these two issues within her texts. Alanna’s first experience with her period proves fearful:
Alanna awoke at dawn, ready for another session…She got out of bed- and gasped in horror to find her things and sheets smeared with blood…What was going on? She was bleeding, and she had to see a healer but who? She couldn’t trust the palace healers. They were men and the bleeding came from a secret place between her legs. (168)
However, despite her initial confusion, Alanna overcomes her fear and embarrassment after finding a female healer. By finding a female healer, the heroine is showing her understanding of the limits of the patriarchal environment. Alanna also attains a form of “magical” birthcontrol from the healer, so that she may have the “choice” to have or not have children (173). Pierce is addressing real world choices that are swept under the rug when discussing adolescent girls without ever using the feminist label. A girl may not discuss her concerns with menstruation and contraception with a mother or friend, but by encountering a space that introduces those same fears girls can take it away from the fantasy context and think about these concerns critically.
With her two later series, Protector of the Small and Daughter of the Lioness, Pierce tells the story of the female generations that follow Alanna. In the first series, Keladry of Mindelan is the first girl to follow Alanna’s example and able to do so legally without cross-dressing. The second series explores the adventures of Alanna’s daughter Aly. Forbidden by her parents to work as a spy, Aly attempts to leave home and is captured by pirates and sold into slavery. She uses her enslavement to begin her spy work. Both of these series function to address the unfulfilled issues presented in the first series. By resolving the conflicts of feminism across fictional generations, Pierce illustrates the feminist movement as a process that will always exist and must exist in various forms, working from the previous successes and failures of previous generations.
With the Protector of the Small series, Pierce addresses the criticism and concerns of using cross-dressing as a tool for autonomy in the first Alanna series. Masquerade as a source of empowerment is problematic because intentional gender bending as a method to disrupt hetero gendered norms perpetuates the construction of gender and sex. By operating under the assumption that acting defiantly breaks down gendered norms of oppression, it perpetuates the sexed norms by supporting an “appearance” that is attached to sex/gender. An understanding of how we participate in heteronormaty is essential, but I would argue that this mere understanding could disrupt the system. For example, unlike Alanna, Keladry must compete to be a knight with all those around her being aware that is a girl. Keladry understands that dressing in “masculine” attire will allow her to blend in and gain acceptance faster, however she chooses to do the complete opposite:
She [Keladry] had always preferred breeches for wear at home, unless they had to don kimonos for an event at the emperor’s court. These days however, Kel wore dresses whenever possible. She was not about to let pages forget that there was a girl in their midst. Gowns at supper were just one way to remind them. (90)
Instead of acting and dressing entirely masculine or feminine, Keladry blurs gender, enabling fluid changes to and from different gender norms, and disrupting gender through organic amalgamations of the masculine and the feminine. This illustrates the process that will and must occur in the feminist movement. As a second wave feminist, Alanna is able to gain access and mobility through the act of cross-dressing. However, once the laws change because of Alanna’s actions, cross-dressing can no longer be a tool of change. Keladry inherits the tools from Alanna, but must recreate them and make them her own as a third wave feminist.
Keladry also becomes the example of the “next step.” Now that girls have access to become knights, what is next? Keladry does not simply enter the field to be accepted by her male peers immediately. On the contrary, her trials become almost more difficult then Alanna’s when the majority of the community is rooting for her failure. Keladry, for example, constantly fears how she is compared to the boys and whether the leaders of the knight school will find an excuse to kick her out. Even though pages are expected to fight, Keladry still wonders if she can follow in that example: “If I get in fights, won’t Lord Wyldon use that as an excuse to be rid of me” (103). Pierce shows that feminism will not simply fix things, but that each step in ending sexual discrimination is difficult.
The Daughter of the Lioness series, some of Pierce’s most recent texts, address the conflict of feminism changing across generations. While Alanna is progressive in her text for wanting to be a knight, when it comes to her daughter Aly she is not as open minded:
[Aly tells Alanna] “As it happens, there is work I like, work I’m good at. And it’s as important as warrior’s work… I would like to serve the realm as a field agent. With the war making a hash of things, I bet I could make my way into Scanra” …Alanna set down her knife so hard that it clacked as it struck her plate. “Absolutely not,” she snapped. (19)
Alanna’s inability to cope with her daughters hope to break new barriers by traveling to “dangerous” lands explores how each generation of feminism changes. This could easily be an example of second wave feminism coping with the rising third wave feminism. This generational gap, even with such a progressive mother like Alanna, allows girls to explore how we differ from our mothers. While we learn from the generations that precede us, there may always be room for changes and an acknowledgement of that generational gap.
This last series also enables an acceptance of the other beyond the discussion of gender. In the Alanna and Keladry series, there is a great dislike of creatures referred to as the “immortals.” The immortals are magical creatures that have some human characteristics, but are feared because of their differences. For example, in the second text of the series Keladry describes how disgusted she is by centaurs and describes them as monsters. However, in the later series, when Alanna’s daughter is kidnapped and taken abroad as a slave, she creates friendships and romantic relationships with various immortals. This series actually ends with Aly’s marriage with Nawat, an immortal boy that can change into the shape of a raven. This replication of a pseudo interracial marriage makes Alanna very uncomfortable initially, but after time she comes to accept their union. The latest series then, like the earlier texts, addresses contemporary issues of feminism, in this case multicultural feminism.
During an interview with middle school girls from New Moon (a girl run publication) magazine, Pierce was asked what the sources of inspiration for her texts were. She replied “[a]lmost anything. With the Circle of Magic books [another Pierce series], I got the idea from watching my stepmom and sister sitting there with balls of yarn…” (2). Pierce goes on to say later that much of her inspiration comes from real life. Pierce is not merely creating an un-relatable fantasy world, but a space in which girls can deal with the very real issue of discrimination. However, Pierce does not limit this girl space to her books. Pierce is involved with talking to girls through New Moon magazine and has an online blog where her readers may discuss her texts. Pierce provides books that engage with critical girl issues and with it provides a digital environment in which girls may speak to each other and speak to her.
These three series are just an example of what Pierce’s texts cover. Other Pierce series have covered elements from the right to vote to ecofeminism. Pierce’s girl centered fantasy novels provide interactive empowering literature for girls that encourage political consciousness without distancing parents or girls by using polarizing rhetoric. In writing girl-centered feminist inspired novels that disidentify with the label, Pierce enacts underground feminism and opens the initial door to women’s rights politics for girls.
