I was moved by her feelings about August. I haven't seen nor read the text at hand. Partly I don't feel invited into issues which don't fit my demographic. Unless it has something to do with me. If someone has some particular reason for me. The feeling is kind of a certain type of man has been such a drag on our collective spirits and it's best to give them as much room as possible as this type of man has already created enough trouble/harm.
Hearing about him I feel less unrepresented. I have grown up mainly with women. There were boys in my neighborhood that I grew to love. Home life though was my sisters and mom. My mom married a second time after her and dads divorce.
Dad was escorted out of the house some time around Christmas 1995, not long after. The guy mom brought in was strange and not very talkative. I never grew a concrete concept of him. He seemed like an almost nonperson. With some vague characteristics that mostly dimmed down the energy of the house.
I feel like I've got some stigma because (I read this too, somewhere, about Sartre) that I prefer the company of women. Not in the pimplike sense where women only serve to create a kind of persona on the arm of the man they're on. A kind of photo shoot allure. Though because they feel deeply. And I've always felt deeply things. I also read in a book about alien abduction called THE BELIEVER about the life of John Mack who investigated as a psychiatrist/psychologist the phenomenon of people who attested to being abducted. One of his lady patients said that she was on a ship with men and it was much harder for them to withstand the strangeness of being studied and prodded because women were much more used to being powerless. That really hit me big.
Other than that I think one of the biggest things is you have to be gay in order to have a lot of female friends which in certain communities is very hard. When I was in middle school and had fallen in love a couple of times, the guys would always accuse me of being pussy whipped and it's another of those instances wherein people have a lot of anger & violence & disgust hidden in their syllables that I don't know what is meant besides "someone is freaked out and I'm highlighting their freakedoutness because of a behavior I'm exhibiting that makes an uncomfortableness out of them".
It is hard to exist sometimes in that ever shifting ambiguous space between men/women/men. With lots of 12 step work and reading and a little writing when my body can manage it, I've been able to accept my version of freedom that is giving birth to itself through me. With help from folks like you, Mary. Thanks for the new piece!
Thanks for sharing this Mary, I thought it was fascinating. I grew up near Holmes County in Ohio which has a large Amish/Mennonite population. We co-exisisted yet I lived outside their sphere - I have always appreciated insights into the lives they led. I was of their world but not in it.
I haven't read Toews' book, I don't think I ever recovered from reading her All My Puny Sorrows almost a decade ago but I'm working my way there. Thanks for posting this.
Feb 24, 2023·edited Feb 24, 2023Liked by Mary Gaitskill
Thank you, Jennifer, for sharing your perspective. As someone who grew up fundamentalist Baptist, I understand first-hand how stories of religious communities can often get flattened into vague generalities, so I appreciate you taking the time to help us understand.
"The mere act of being 'women talking' and thinking aloud is revolutionary in their circumstances."
I loved this piece so much it was brilliant.
Here's another stand out line-
"And, as an artistic vision, while it may be uncomfortable, I don’t think it is irresponsible to suggest the impossible if the world of the book and movie supports the somewhat fantastic or unlikely outcome."
What a wealth of information Jennifer Sear’s provides! So much insight. Right now I’m only part way through reading some of her links. Now I am intrigued to see the film sooner rather than later.
I’d somehow missed that Polley only referenced the book and not given the location and setting of the very real events behind the novel and her film. As a matter of fact (pun intended), that really bugs me. But now I’m curious to see if the bigger message she apparently wanted to convey, comes across.
So much to think about. I’m thinking how differently I might have presented some of my thoughts in previous posts if I’d known more about the context of the actual events and had a better emic knowledge and understanding of the Bolivian community.
Usually I just tap out my comments on my phone -- impressions. This post and it’s links bring forth so many wonderings and things I wish I’d known before, that I feel compelled to make notes. In the meantime though, a big THANK YOU for this post. It has me contemplating the importance of truth-telling (or not) in the context of films and books based on actual events.
Thank you Jennifer for this thought provoking, remarkable article.
I just viewed this movie yesterday and commented to my friends," Where will they go? How will they get there and don't they need to go north, not south?!? How will they manage?However, I realize these who, what, when, where and how questions are beyond the scope of the movie. I couldn't help but wonder, how often women who need to leave any abusive situation, whether singly or collectively return to an abusive partner/situation. One could see this movie as a parallel for the stricken individual as well.
I'm from an isolated, mountainous county in PA that's home to Amish, Old Order Mennonites, more moderate Mennonites (though not liberal) and a dwindling population of Church of the Brethren, the 3d, seldom mentioned "plain" church established by Swiss and German immigrants to PA in the 1700s. Here, people are direct descendants of early "plain" settlers who crossed from the "settled" part of PA to what was, at that time, the western frontier.
These groups all have serious problems with mental health issues, substance abuse, domestic violence, sexual assault, the sexual abuse of children... the list goes on. Many, like sexual abuse, have been occurring in the same families for many generations.
The local plain communities aren't nearly as walled off as the Old Colony Mennonite settlements, either, though they're extremely patriarchal and work is gendered to an extent that's hard for us outsiders to imagine.
I have no ties to any of these groups, yet I've heard things from some women who were raised in pretty strict Mennonite homes - they've left, for all the reasons above snd more. They haven't been abused, afaik, and yet, the environments in which they grew up were so conducive to such things that they no longer wanted to be part of their churches.
We don't have a lot of resources for the residents of this county per physical and mental health, and that's true of contiguous counties. They all have relatively large numbers of plain church people. Also, given our relative isolation, the plain communities here just aren't nearly as well-educated on any of these topics, compared to their relatives in the southeastern part of the state. This has had tragic consequences, including periodic outbreaks of polio and deaths from it, in the recent past.
I think Sarah Polley's choice to blur the identity of the characters in Women Talking, per them being Old Colony Mennonites, was a grave mistake. Can you imagine what would have happened if the directors of Doubt and Spotlight had tried to untether those plots and characters from the Roman Catholic Church? Similarly, the fact that Toews' book is about the *women* talking to and with one another is vital - bringing in more male characters would have destroyed the very things that Toews' novel is about. Locally, the women of the plain churches have very little agency - I can't even begin to imagine how much worse it is for the women and girls in Old Colony settlements.
To close, I'm very glad that the OP linked to Toews' article in Granta. No doubt the film is causing a firestorm among plain church folk here, though not in public. It's great to have some perspective on why that is.
Thank you for giving more dimension to the conversation with this very fine commentary by your friend.
wowie-zowie Mary & co.
I was moved by her feelings about August. I haven't seen nor read the text at hand. Partly I don't feel invited into issues which don't fit my demographic. Unless it has something to do with me. If someone has some particular reason for me. The feeling is kind of a certain type of man has been such a drag on our collective spirits and it's best to give them as much room as possible as this type of man has already created enough trouble/harm.
Hearing about him I feel less unrepresented. I have grown up mainly with women. There were boys in my neighborhood that I grew to love. Home life though was my sisters and mom. My mom married a second time after her and dads divorce.
Dad was escorted out of the house some time around Christmas 1995, not long after. The guy mom brought in was strange and not very talkative. I never grew a concrete concept of him. He seemed like an almost nonperson. With some vague characteristics that mostly dimmed down the energy of the house.
I feel like I've got some stigma because (I read this too, somewhere, about Sartre) that I prefer the company of women. Not in the pimplike sense where women only serve to create a kind of persona on the arm of the man they're on. A kind of photo shoot allure. Though because they feel deeply. And I've always felt deeply things. I also read in a book about alien abduction called THE BELIEVER about the life of John Mack who investigated as a psychiatrist/psychologist the phenomenon of people who attested to being abducted. One of his lady patients said that she was on a ship with men and it was much harder for them to withstand the strangeness of being studied and prodded because women were much more used to being powerless. That really hit me big.
Other than that I think one of the biggest things is you have to be gay in order to have a lot of female friends which in certain communities is very hard. When I was in middle school and had fallen in love a couple of times, the guys would always accuse me of being pussy whipped and it's another of those instances wherein people have a lot of anger & violence & disgust hidden in their syllables that I don't know what is meant besides "someone is freaked out and I'm highlighting their freakedoutness because of a behavior I'm exhibiting that makes an uncomfortableness out of them".
It is hard to exist sometimes in that ever shifting ambiguous space between men/women/men. With lots of 12 step work and reading and a little writing when my body can manage it, I've been able to accept my version of freedom that is giving birth to itself through me. With help from folks like you, Mary. Thanks for the new piece!
Thanks for sharing this Mary, I thought it was fascinating. I grew up near Holmes County in Ohio which has a large Amish/Mennonite population. We co-exisisted yet I lived outside their sphere - I have always appreciated insights into the lives they led. I was of their world but not in it.
I haven't read Toews' book, I don't think I ever recovered from reading her All My Puny Sorrows almost a decade ago but I'm working my way there. Thanks for posting this.
Thank you, Jennifer, for sharing your perspective. As someone who grew up fundamentalist Baptist, I understand first-hand how stories of religious communities can often get flattened into vague generalities, so I appreciate you taking the time to help us understand.
"The mere act of being 'women talking' and thinking aloud is revolutionary in their circumstances."
I loved this piece so much it was brilliant.
Here's another stand out line-
"And, as an artistic vision, while it may be uncomfortable, I don’t think it is irresponsible to suggest the impossible if the world of the book and movie supports the somewhat fantastic or unlikely outcome."
So good. Thanks for sharing!
What a wealth of information Jennifer Sear’s provides! So much insight. Right now I’m only part way through reading some of her links. Now I am intrigued to see the film sooner rather than later.
I’d somehow missed that Polley only referenced the book and not given the location and setting of the very real events behind the novel and her film. As a matter of fact (pun intended), that really bugs me. But now I’m curious to see if the bigger message she apparently wanted to convey, comes across.
So much to think about. I’m thinking how differently I might have presented some of my thoughts in previous posts if I’d known more about the context of the actual events and had a better emic knowledge and understanding of the Bolivian community.
Usually I just tap out my comments on my phone -- impressions. This post and it’s links bring forth so many wonderings and things I wish I’d known before, that I feel compelled to make notes. In the meantime though, a big THANK YOU for this post. It has me contemplating the importance of truth-telling (or not) in the context of films and books based on actual events.
Thank you for writing this and sharing it with us.
Thank you, Jennifer (and Mary)!
Thank you Jennifer for this thought provoking, remarkable article.
I just viewed this movie yesterday and commented to my friends," Where will they go? How will they get there and don't they need to go north, not south?!? How will they manage?However, I realize these who, what, when, where and how questions are beyond the scope of the movie. I couldn't help but wonder, how often women who need to leave any abusive situation, whether singly or collectively return to an abusive partner/situation. One could see this movie as a parallel for the stricken individual as well.
I'm from an isolated, mountainous county in PA that's home to Amish, Old Order Mennonites, more moderate Mennonites (though not liberal) and a dwindling population of Church of the Brethren, the 3d, seldom mentioned "plain" church established by Swiss and German immigrants to PA in the 1700s. Here, people are direct descendants of early "plain" settlers who crossed from the "settled" part of PA to what was, at that time, the western frontier.
These groups all have serious problems with mental health issues, substance abuse, domestic violence, sexual assault, the sexual abuse of children... the list goes on. Many, like sexual abuse, have been occurring in the same families for many generations.
The local plain communities aren't nearly as walled off as the Old Colony Mennonite settlements, either, though they're extremely patriarchal and work is gendered to an extent that's hard for us outsiders to imagine.
I have no ties to any of these groups, yet I've heard things from some women who were raised in pretty strict Mennonite homes - they've left, for all the reasons above snd more. They haven't been abused, afaik, and yet, the environments in which they grew up were so conducive to such things that they no longer wanted to be part of their churches.
We don't have a lot of resources for the residents of this county per physical and mental health, and that's true of contiguous counties. They all have relatively large numbers of plain church people. Also, given our relative isolation, the plain communities here just aren't nearly as well-educated on any of these topics, compared to their relatives in the southeastern part of the state. This has had tragic consequences, including periodic outbreaks of polio and deaths from it, in the recent past.
I think Sarah Polley's choice to blur the identity of the characters in Women Talking, per them being Old Colony Mennonites, was a grave mistake. Can you imagine what would have happened if the directors of Doubt and Spotlight had tried to untether those plots and characters from the Roman Catholic Church? Similarly, the fact that Toews' book is about the *women* talking to and with one another is vital - bringing in more male characters would have destroyed the very things that Toews' novel is about. Locally, the women of the plain churches have very little agency - I can't even begin to imagine how much worse it is for the women and girls in Old Colony settlements.
To close, I'm very glad that the OP linked to Toews' article in Granta. No doubt the film is causing a firestorm among plain church folk here, though not in public. It's great to have some perspective on why that is.