Gendered Glissandos

Chapter 7 explores how worldwide women writers have adopted new approaches to feminist concerns. They find inspiration in their own heterogeneity, their diverse backgrounds and proclivities, as well as their familiarity with the experiences of many others to create literary compositions that weigh questions of undeniable importance to women, ranging from professional fulfillment to sexual harassment. Gendered requirements for women in various countries and cultures are evoked in literary compositions that portray the complexity of choices that women who have come to France from elsewhere often face on a regular basis. These authors explore in vivid terms the pressures to conform that so many women experience in this country, regardless of their origin, with a special focus on the seemingly inflexible expectation that women will become mothers. They also delve into conceptions of femininity in a variety of contexts, and extol malleable, multiple, even musical models of behavior that transcend gender-based stereotypes. While they give voice to a wide range of viewpoints in their texts, in my interviews they exhibit an almost unanimous reluctance to accept the label “feminist,” due in large part to the pejorative connotations the term took acquired in many circles in France in the years following the women’s movements of the 1970s. Just as their spoken comments reveal judicious reconsiderations of the term, their written work hints that it isn’t wise to dismiss it altogether; they urge instead the creation of expressions that promote women’s human rights in ways that vary according to context.