"lipstick, nylons and invitations"

P

Princess Frances

Active member
I've just read another statement that using girl-ied up things as symbols of Susan's materialism is sexist. Using feminine markers for a female character isn't sexist. Nor is a girl saying she likes pretty dresses... yet that sort of statement is being removed in reprints of many old children's books.
 
Thank you, Frances, for supplying some common sense. The pop-culture insistence that EVERY female has to be an indestructible kung-fu goddess has gotten really, really old.
 
The book was written in the 50s and those things attributed to Susan were symbols of femininity. We can't simply use today's morality to determine if something was sexist back then. However, as has been noted on this site before, it wasn't Susan's interests in the feminine aspects that was her problem, it was her obsession in those things to the detriment of her spiritual life and her academics.

MrBob
 
what I find rather ironic about this topic is that early feminists might well have applauded Lewis' supposed criticism of such symbols of femininity. They would have regarded lipsticks and nylons as instruments of patriarchal oppression.

The problem is that on this issue Lewis just can't win. No matter how he wrote his female characters people would still accuse him of sexism.
 
I remember being offended when reading the Narnia books about Lewis's attitude towards people who are overweight since I am one of those people. But, someone reminded me that when Lewis wrote the books people thought differently.

I agree that it isn't sexist.
 
Hmm...I made a post for this but it disappeared I guess. :p

As others have stated when C.S. Lewis wrote the books people lived and thought differently. I remember when I was sort of offended at the way people who are overweight were interpreted, thinking as an overweight person I wouldn't be worthy of Narnia. But, I think back then people who were overweight were considered very selfish, during a time when a lot of people didn't have enough money for food or barely had enough money for anything food related so I think lots of people were skinny and the overweight people had more money than they knew what to do with so they used it to make themselves fat among other things.

History isn't my strong point so if I'm wrong I do apologize.
 
I've always thought that this particular phrase was in direct reference to Susan. Had it been a male character that was the one targeted it may have been other things that could symbolically represent materialistic partying behavior.
 
One aspect that is usually ignored in all the endless analyses of that infamous phrase is exactly who is saying those words. It's not Lewis himself but a character he created, Jill Pole. If we are to believe the timeline Jill would have been about fourteen or fifteen here, not quite old enough for lipstick and nylons but not very far off it. Lewis's psychology is spot on here. A girl like Jill, of her age and background and in that time period would have thought Susan's behaviour very silly. There would probably be a strong element of fear underlying that reaction, knowing that before too long she would have been expected to enter the same social world that Susan was so absorbed in.
 
Also ignored is the contrasting ideas between the roughly teenaged Jill saying Susan was a bit too "keen on being grown-up" compared with the elderly Polly wishing Susan would grow up. While the younger Jill saw Susan's actions as wanting to be older than she should be, the more experienced Polly saw her as being immature. "{Susan} wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she'll waste the rest of her life trying to stay that age." (TLB p. 169).

It was actually Polly who said Susan's actions were silly, but both Polly and Jill disapproved of Susan's actions as either being too old for her age or too young for her age, based on their respective experience. Basically, as I said above both saw Susan as being too obsessed in the wrong things. Lipstick and nylons being sexualizing herself to attract boys and invitations as a way to put herself in those social situations. They weren't criticizing those aspects, just the obsession that Susan put into effect at the expense of everything else that mattered.

MrBob
 
What makes you think he didn't? It shouldn't be assumed that because some women today take issue with that particular quote that has always been the case. As far as I can tell this controversy is actually of fairly recent origin. The Last Battle was written before feminism gave up trying to convince women make up and fashion were instruments of patriarchal oppression as a bad job, and instead rehabilitated them as symbols of feminine empowerment. The criticism of Susan for placing social success and superficial glamour over every other aspect of life, especially academic achievement, was actually cutting edge feminism for its time. Lewis can hardly be blamed for not being in tune with the direction feminist thought would take half a century after his death
 
I have a couple of thoughts, and please don't feel ganged up on, Princess Frances. I was writing this earlier in the day, and forgot until after I saw Hermit of Archenland post his response.

1) How do we know that he didn't run the dialog passed some real women? Not that I am 100% sure that he did, but it is possible that he had through correspondence with Joy Davidman prior to their marriage.
2) A lot of thoughts that women and men might have had at that time are probably very different to the thoughts they would have had about those same things today.
 
With deference to her royal heiness, the Princess Frances, does she (or anyone else here) have any issues with the characterizations of Lucy, Susan, Polly, Jill, or Aravis in any of their books outside of TLB? Do you feel any of their dialogue was out of place? Should the respectable Mr Lewis have collaborated with other females in his life when writing those main female characters?

What of other authors? Rowling was a female author who wrote a series of books through the voice of a 11-17-year-old boy. Many authors have written books in the voice of characters opposite their own sex, notably the classic Anna Karenina by Tolstoy.

Characters can be extremely personal extensions of the author and only they can understand that character's personality. People in real life are so varied and different that the reader can understand that this character is just different.

MrBob
 
Understand there, Frances. Since I do not focus on adult literature, I haven't noticed that. Lewis definitely did not overly girlify or sexualize his female characters. In fact, his female characters were far more tomboyish, especially considering the time he wrote them. If there was one criticism I had with Lewis, it was making characters act younger than they were. A few times, one of the girl characters will stomp her feet in frustration, which seemed to be behaviour too young for them.

MrBob
 
Thank you Copperfox! That was clear, thoughtful and hopeful. SPOILER ALERT! If you have not read Last Battle yet hold off on watching this video!
 
That was very succinct and I 100% agree with everything there. I had never thought about the parallels between Susan and Lewis before.
 
I sometimes wonder if the people making these accusations of sexism against Lewis on the strength of Jill's words have really thought through what they are implying. Jill said 'she's interested in nothing nowadays except lipstick and nylons and invitations.' Now if we are going to ignore the 'nothing except' qualification and take this as expressing Lewis's condemnation of lipstick and nylons in all circumstances, we should also take it as expressing a condemnation of invitations in all circumstances.

Even if we interpret 'invitations' as meaning to social occasions such as parties the implications are absurd. We would have to assume that Lucy, for example, would never accept an invitation to a birthday or Christmas party. She would never have accepted an invitation to a dance, even one hosted by a church. Neither the Professor nor Polly would ever have made or accepted invitations to dinner parties with adult friends or colleagues. And if we take 'invitations' literally we would have to conclude none of the Friends of Narnia would have accepted invitations even to religious occasions such as weddings and baptisms. In fact the Friends of Narnia would not even exist as a social group because none of them could invite the others to meetings!
 
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