In his article “‘A Strong and Sweet Female Race’: Cultural Discourse and Gender in Whitman’s Leaves of Grass,” Christopher Beach explores the complex way that women are treated in the poetry of Whitman. Though Beach does not believe that Whitman writes women in a progressive and radical way, neither does he believe that Whitman wrote women in a way that was only informed by misogyny and the socially conservative views of women of his time. According to Beach, Whitman was influenced partly by his society’s common view of women and also partly by his own democratic and inclusive leanings, so that his treatment of women in his writing is a complex blend with tones of moral righteousness as well as egalitarianism. Beach contextualizes his discussion about women in Whitman by first emphasizing that Whitman’s true interest and loyalty lies with men: his poems explore “the lives and bodies” of men with an intimacy and enthusiasm that does not extend to his depiction of women. In fact, his depiction of women typically falls into two categories: treating them as man’s equal or categorizing them as passive recipients of men’s desires. One one hand, Whitman did “reflect typical social attitudes about gender” in his writing, which can be seen, for example, in the fact that Whitman often focuses intently on procreation when he speaks of women. Beach argues that this focus falls in line with the social, medical, and religious concerns of the time. However, Whitman often also “promotes a sexual equality” in his poetry that cannot be found in the work of his contemporaries and peers, who as a whole tended to objectify and desexualize women so as to completely strip their agency and humanity. There are places where Whitman seems to do this– “A Woman Waits for Me” depicts a woman as primarily Whitman’s receptacle, but then a few lines previously, builds a picture of a strong, healthy, sexual woman who Whitman idealizes. Whitman’s attention to a woman’s strength and vitality is more humanizing than the way many of his peers depicted women.
Beach then attends to the questions of why Whitman wrote so much about women when he was what we now call a “fundamentally homoerotic poet.” Beach presents evidence from Whitman’s journalism that he did in fact care for the “physical and social well-being” of women, though he was not sexually interested in them. Beach offers a close reading of a section of “Leaves of Grass” that finds a woman watching young men bathe from afar, feeling sexually intrigued, and who eventually goes to join the men in bathing, though she keeps her distance from them. The reading demonstrates how layered Whitman’s treatment of women is throughout his work. Multiple readings of the section praise Whitman’s attempt at exploring female sexuality, even if it is not “fully articulated.” Beach argues that in not allowing the woman full participation in the scene, Whitman is actually commenting on a woman’s lesser status with a “male socio-sexual network.” In fact, this woman’s role as a Victorian “woman of leisure,” while it is a critique of the repressive nature of men, is at the same time a critique of the bourgeois American woman. Whitman believed
Victorian “leisure women,” who Whitman strongly criticized
that the ideal woman did not lounge and bathe; she worked and mothered the next line of strong, healthy Americans. In other words, he is sympathetic to the woman’s plight, but critical of her role in American society.
Whitman’s poetry is also often threaded with veins of moral righteousness about how women should be and act. For example, when he writes about prostitutes, his tone is ultimately condemning, though it is clear that he is attempting to paint a more diverse picture of America. This morality reflects both the prevailing ideologies of the time as well as Whitman’s own ideas for how people in America should look, act, and be. Beach closes by emphasizing that Whitman’s poetry did not simply just uphold socially-enforced binary ideas of gender like any of his contemporaries. Though his attempt to write in the voice of women was not successful, the thought and care for women and women’s lives that is apparent in his writing surpasses that of other writers of his time.
This is a thorough examination of Whitman’s treatment of women that does not champion Whitman as any type of feminist nor condemn him as a misogynist. One of Beach’s main points is that Whitman was still a man of his time, regardless of how timeless an author he is regarded as. Therefore, much of his writing about women reflects common attitudes about women that we today would label sexist or misogynist. I personally found the way he wrote about women in “A Woman Waits for Me,” which carries a strong theme of women as passive receptacles, unsettling at best. However, his writing of women also demonstrates his desire to write ALL of America. He does at least attempt to represent women as more complex than just wife, mother, sex object, and in fact, accomplishes astute criticism of society’s treatment of women in his poetic treatment of them–whether pourposefully or ironically. We have talked about “cancel culture” in this class, and the idea of cancelling Whitman due to his ideas that seem to us, many years later, ignorant. Reading this article helped me to better understand the nuance that should be considered when debating on cancelling an artist entirely. It isn’t and shouldn’t, be as simple as plucking a line or two from a poem out of context as reason to remove a writer from the oeuvre.
Beach, Christopher. “‘A Strong and Sweet Female Race’: Cultural Discourse and Gender in Whitman’s Leave of Grass.” American Transcendental Quarterly, vol. 9, no. 4, Dec. 1995, pp. 283–98. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=1995020753&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
Your closing statement is what resonated with me the most from your commentary on the Gender Critique of Whitman. Although you do raise quite a few points that lead me in the direction of doubting Whitman’s capacity for understanding the intellectual and sexual being of the female in American culture, your closing line along with the statements you made about “cancel culture” give me hoe for the reception of Whitman in these feminist-uprising times. I agree with you when you say we must not pluck certain phrases from an Artist’s work in order to decide their moral righteousness. I do believe that people are made up of a wide range of thoughts and opinions and that these will come forward in their writing, if they are a writer like Whitman. Understanding the humanist view of Whitman is, perhaps, the most productive way of looking at his works as a whole, because if you read just the poems that cast him as a misogynistic dumby we miss the educational and historical importance of the ways women manifest in his work.
I was really interested in the statements made about Whitman’s views concerning the “ideal” woman. The whole idea that Whitman “…is sympathetic to the women’s plight, but critical to her role in American society…” makes me think of the ways in which Whitman uses people as tools in his poems. He seems to use people to show us how we can improve ourselves, to show us our own worth, or to show us what we don’t need. In this case, it seems as though Whitman still believed that an American woman’s function was to raise children, who would as you said, become the next line of Americans. That kind of thinking isn’t necessarily sexist to me but it does show how Whitman used people as a means to make a point and also how he seemed to believe that people have a certain function within society. By placing women in that role, it does seem to be bit sexist and it also places a whole group of people in a certain section/space. I really liked the line where you spoke of how Whitman represented women in a different way through his poetry. Although I believe he used certain people as tools, it is true that Whitman spoke and wrote about women in a different way. It shows how he was a product of his time, but it also shows that he was questioning those roles and functions.
Great overview of this article here–you offer a very clear sense of Beach’s argument, and I like how you connect it to conversations we’ve had in class about “cancel” culture. I also like both of the key ideas here–Rae’s emphasis on the mixture of sympathy and criticism that Beach notes, and Joseph’s extension of that argument to note the ways in which Whitman can seem to use others–women, blacks, Native Americans–to make general points that are sometimes torn between being progressive and regressive. We see that tension in the readings for this week on Whitman and Native Americans as well.