It's a Chick Thing

“Can a woman read as a woman after being conditioned, generally, to read as a man?"
Now, I read this and instead of being intrigued, my initial reaction was to tune the rest of the essay out. Maybe that is why I got the impression I did.
"Reading As A Woman: Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart And Feminist Criticism" by Linda Strong-Leek proposes the question, "What does it mean to read as a woman?" She goes further, commenting on "Culler's answer," which Strong-Leek believes "is brief and relatively problematic." Culler's answer is: "'to read as a woman is to avoid reading as a man, to identify the specific defenses and distortions of male readings and provide correctives'."
This reminds me of a quote from Simone de Beauvoir's "The Second Sex" - "[T]he whole of feminine history has been man-made. Just as in America there is no Negro problem, but rather a white problem; just as anti-Semitism is not a Jewish problem, it is our problem; so the woman problem has always been a man problem." This made sense to me the first time I read it, but it is very constricted. I understand what this chick is saying, but could something like slavery be that simple? Most of these feminist texts seem to accept the idea that women are also at fault. There is also the general problem of the "/" that we discussed in class - these separations, classifications and "problems" can be applied to anything. I think this is also the problem I have with feminist readings of texts.
Doesn’t it tend specifically on the text itself?
Things Fall Apart was initially written as a response to colonialist representations of Africa and Africans in literature. Just like with a Marxist reading, what happens is either feminist readings are made on a text blatantly concerning feminism, or on a text that would appear to have little or no direct relevance to feminism. And, although sometimes this makes interesting reading, it bothers me. Sometimes it is just a reflection on society, say, as the way women were treated in the setting of Things Fall Apart. It doesn’t seem to me that Things Fall Apart is a feminist text. But, Strong-Leek has gripes: “most readings of the novel do not address the brutal beating Ekwefi receives at the hands of Okonkwo: ‘Who killed this banana tree?’ He asked. A hush fell over the compound immediately . . . Without further argument Okonkwo gave her a sound beating and left her and her only daughter weeping.’ The novel continues with a brief discussion of this continued abuse later when Okonkwo threatens Ekwefi with a gun after hearing her murmur under her breath. Yet, the next day, the New Yam Festival continues without a public outcry for this battered woman.” Doesn’t sound like an ideal situation, certainly something can be said about the treatment of women, but does that warrant writing an entire essay from a feminist point of view? Hey, I don't want to judge, but if that were the case, every single stinkin’ novel, short story, movie is a subject of feminism, Marxism, um, mechanism, prism, and whatever other “ism”. Not completely worth it in my book.
Just kidding about the whole “chick” thing.