Having now become both a writer and wife, I find myself envying the titanic male writers, those unthinking 'mid-century misogynists' (insert almost any big name here). I don't envy them for any personal reason or anything much to do with their work/travel/gun-toting/sexual antics, etc — or maybe I do. What I most envy are their conditions of production. So many of these men benefited from a social arrangement defying both the moral and the physical laws of the universe in which the unpaid, invisible work of a woman creates the time and — neat, warmed and cushion-plumped — space for their work.
We know that a male writer's time to write was traditionally created for him by liberating him from the need to shop, cook, clean up after himself or anyone else, deal with mundane correspondence, entertain, arrange travel or holidays, care for his own children (except as a 'helper' who is thanked, as if it were not his job, or not his children) and so on. Time is valuable, because it is finite. So, as with all other finite commodities, there is an economy of time. Time can be traded, bargained for, snuck and stolen… Access to time, as to any other valuable good, is gendered. One person's time to work is created by another person's work in time: the more time he has to work, the more she is working to make it for him.
Wifedom: Mrs Orwell's Invisible Life (2023)
Use the link below to visit the website of Australian writer ANNA FUNDER:
You might also enjoy:
The Write Advice 164: CATHERINE JINKS
The Write Advice 109: CLAIRE MESSUD
The Write Advice 092: ELENA FERRANTE
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