Jane Anger was an English author of the sixteenth century and the first woman to publish a full-length defence of her sex in English. The title of her defense, Jane Anger Her Protection For Women was published in 1589. In the late sixteenth century, it was rare for women to write and publish on secular, or non-religious themes. It was also rare for women to argue against male supremacy.
Title page, Jane Anger her Protection for Women. London, 1589.
Life and career
Scholars know virtually nothing about Jane Anger's life. Jane Anger is known only as the writer of the pamphlet, Jane Anger Her Protection for Women (1589). There was more than one Jane Anger living in England at the time, however, none of them have been identified as the writer of the pamphlet."[1] According to Moira Ferguson, the history of surnames for this period suggest that her surname was probably derived from the Anglicized French "Anjou".[2] Anne Prescott argues that," presumably, the Jo. Anger, whose poem on the author appears at the end of the volume, was a relative or spouse.[3] Others have suggested that "Jane Anger" was the pseudonym of a male writer. Other evidence suggests that Jane Anger may be a real woman, not a "ventriloquising man," and her work breaks free from gender limitations.[4] In The Crooked Rib, Francis Lee Utley argues that the anonymous poem, "ye are to yong to bring me in: An old lover to a young gentlewoman" might have provoked Anger's sharp defense."[5]
Work
The pamphlet defends women and makes serious claims regarding female’s authorship. For the first time, her text brought a distinctive new voice to English writing, which emphasized the voice of female anger. By developing this innovation, she "transformed the idea of masculine models of composition to invent a female writing style to suite to her enterprise."[6] Some modern commentators argue that, "Anger deliberately reworks her opponent’s misogynist ideas to establish a direct feminine perspective that goes beyond the querelle frameworks."[7] Since Jane Anger was the first major female polemicist in English, there is no doubt that Anger shows the interest and value in the creation of feminist consciousness, because in the Middle Ages, the feminist polemic was a favourite topic for academic disputation. Jane Anger's pamphlet, Her Protection of Women, (1589) was a response to the male-authored text of Thomas Orwin, Book His Surfeit in Love. Pamela Joseph Benson argues that, "the Protection remains undifferentiated from other interventions in the querelle because it relies largely on the traditional issue of sexual behaviour to evaluate woman’s moral nature."[8] Anger's arguments are a compilation of allusions, sayings, and some examples that match to those in the Book his Surfeit. She exposes the mono-gendered basis of the Surfeiter's "objective" or "natural" assertions. Anger's text responds to the male-dominated rhetoric of the female gender, passionately defends and attacks the male writes' complaint stating that he is "surfeit", or "sick with sensual indulgence of women."[9] Through defending her intervention in the debate, she constantly touches the reader's awareness that women were not confident enough to express their own opinions or "masculine" emotions. Her pamphlet opens with a critique of masculine rhetorical practices, especially paying an attention to their overemphasis on "manner" over "matter." She immediately targets a contradiction between the high value male writers, who place women as a stimulus to their creativity and the decline of women. She touches the notion of the mythmaking that accompanies men's claims to inspiration: "If they may one encroach so far into our presence as they may but see the lining of our outermost garment, they straight think that Apollo honours them."[10] She describes the details of how men's ignorance of women allow them to misread women's behaviours, particularly, in regard to sex, she writes: "If we will not suffer them to smell on our smocks, they will snatch at our petticoats; but if our honest natures cannot away with that uncivil kind of jesting, then we are coy. Yet if w bear with their rudeness and be somewhat modestly familiar with them, they will straight make matter of nothing, blazing abroad that they have surfeited with love, and …telling the manner how."[11] Jane Anger describes her work as "that which my chooloricke vaine hath rashly set downe…it was ANGER that did write it."[12] The first "epistle" is devoted to Gentlewomen making an apology for a female's choleric directness. In the second "epistle" she blames "railing" male speech: Fie on the falshoode of men, whose minds goe off a madding, & whose tongues can not so soone be wagging, but straight they fal a railing...shall not Anger stretch the vaines of her braines, the stringes of her fingers, and the listes of her modestie, to answere theire Surfeitings: Yes truly.[13] Then, using the Surfeiter's own vein, she uses the comic potential in the discourse, which enables her readers to laugh at her, as well as at the Surfeiter. Thus, "it confirms the misogynist reading of women who speak out as shrewish."[14] She uses a female speech as comically baffling and witty in its echoes of logical and scholastic discourse:
Cover of 'Protection for Women' by Jane Anger in a modern English translation, published 2019.
Give me leave like a scoller to prove our wisdom more excellent then theirs, hough I never knew what sophistry ment. There is no wisdom but it comes by grace, this is a principles & Contra principium non est disputandum: but grace was first given to a woman, because to our lady: which premises conclude that women are wise. Now Primus est optimum, & therefore, women are wiser then men. That we are more witty which comes by nature, it connot better be proved, then that by our answers, men are often driven to Non plus.[15]
Importantly, Anger repeatedly points out that men continue to misinterpret women because male writers "assume" that women are not capable of entering the male sphere of the printed word to challenge them: "their slanderous tongues are so short, that the time wherein they have lavished out their words freely hath been so long, and they know we cannot catch hold of them to pull them out, and they think we will not write to reprove their lying lips."[16] Anger tries to answer some general male charges against the looseness of women's moral, arguing that men's own "filthy lust" causes them to "invent" an idea of women's lascivious nature. Above all, as the counter argument to the Surfeiter's account that women seduce men only to make the men's lives miserable, Anger proposes her own story. According to Anger's view of courtship: that men prey on women, "If we clothe ourselves in sackcloth, and truss up our hair in dishclouts, Venerians will nevertheless pursue their pastime. If we hide our breasts, it must be with leather, for no cloth can keep their long nails out off our bosoms."[17] Anger's way of caricaturing the Surfeiter allowed her to produce an imaginative and unique piece of writing. At the end of her pamphlet, though Anger blames the Surfeiter for his views, she admits the fact that she had the pleasure using his style. Anger's work is full of misogynist materials, which were circulating in popular prose romances of her time, including some of Greene's and John Lyly's works. Scholars have their own interpretations whether she should be called "feminist," "protofeminist," or "prowoman," but her work definitely opened up a new possibility for women writers of the sixteenth century.[18]
A sample from Jane Anger's Her Protection for Women
Fie on the falsehood of men, whose minds go oft a –madding and whose tongues cannot so soon be wagging but straight they fall a-railing. Was there ever any so abused, so slandered, so railed upon, or so wickedly handled undeservedly, as are we women? Will the gods permit it, the goddesses stay their punishing judgements, and we ourselves not pursue their undoings for such devilish practices? O Paul's steeple and Charing Cross![19]
Historical context
There was a lack of formal educational institutions for girls during the early modern times, but it did not prevent some early modern women from acquiring their reading and writing skills. Laura Knoppers suggests that informal education for girls took place in multiple spaces and ways. The early women writers used three handwriting styles: italic, secretary, and mixed. The writing process was linked with the reading of the books. Because many books were expensive, some women personally copied them and made their own writing in the margins of a book. Throughout the early modern period, many women tend to choose manuscript writings and circulation for their diaries, travelling journals, recipe books, religious and personal devotional writing, and miscellanies. Knoppers argues that miscellanies writings include women's authorship and response to texts.[20] Some early feminist studies suggest that women's writing process began in the home, because in the early modern period, their homes were considered to be a place of work and business. Importantly, Knoppers argues that, "architectural spaces within the household as well as such places as the royal courts, churches and law courts generated and shaped women’s writing."[21] In the early modern period, most of the educational spaces for girls were found within the household, which helped women to be engaged in writing about cookery, carving, and needlework. Many women writers' voice openly show their support for gender and class hierarchies. A gender issue was a primary motive for women's writing, which included politics, religion, class, ethnicity, and practical affairs. As Jane Anger, many women writers wrote to defend themselves and their reputations through legal contexts and various domestic forms of life-writing.[22] The reasons for their writing were various, many women writers wrote for themselves, on behalf of and to their family members, or simply for devotional purposes. Despite the fact that education was not available for early modern women, they were able to find multiple ways of writing and of circulating their work.
Related Research Articles
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects (1792), written by British philosopher and women's rights advocate Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797), is one of the earliest works of feminist philosophy. In it, Wollstonecraft responds to those educational and political theorists of the eighteenth century who did not believe women should receive a rational education. She argues that women ought to have an education commensurate with their position in society, claiming that women are essential to the nation because they educate its children and because they could be "companions" to their husbands, rather than mere wives. Instead of viewing women as ornaments to society or property to be traded in marriage, Wollstonecraft maintains that they are human beings deserving of the same fundamental rights as men.
Misandry is the hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against men or boys.
Radical feminism is a perspective within feminism that calls for a radical re-ordering of society in which male supremacy is eliminated in all social and economic contexts, while recognizing that women's experiences are also affected by other social divisions such as in race, class, and sexual orientation. The ideology and movement emerged in the 1960s.
This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1589.
SCUM Manifesto is a radical feminist manifesto by Valerie Solanas, published in 1967. It argues that men have ruined the world, and that it is up to women to fix it. To achieve this goal, it suggests the formation of SCUM, an organization dedicated to overthrowing society and eliminating the male sex. The SCUM Manifesto has been described as a satire or parody, especially due to its parallels with Freud's theory of femininity, though this has been disputed, even by Solanas herself.
Christina Marie Hoff Sommers is an American author and philosopher. Specializing in ethics, she is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Sommers is known for her critique of contemporary feminism. Her work includes the books Who Stole Feminism? (1994) and The War Against Boys (2000). She also hosts a video blog called The Factual Feminist.
Elaine Showalter is an American literary critic, feminist, and writer on cultural and social issues. She influenced feminist literary criticism in the United States academia, developing the concept and practice of gynocritics, a term describing the study of "women as writers".
Gabrielle Suchon was a French moral philosopher who participated in debates about the social, political and religious condition of women in the early modern era. Her most prominent works are the Traité de la morale et de la politique and Du célibat volontaire.
Three Guineas is a book-length essay by Virginia Woolf, published in June 1938.
A Vindication of the Rights of Men, in a Letter to the Right Honourable Edmund Burke; Occasioned by His Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) is a political pamphlet, written by the 18th-century British writer and women's rights advocate Mary Wollstonecraft, which attacks aristocracy and advocates republicanism. Wollstonecraft's was the first response in a pamphlet war sparked by the publication of Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), a defense of constitutional monarchy, aristocracy, and the Church of England.
Protofeminism is a concept that anticipates modern feminism in eras when the feminist concept as such was still unknown. This refers particularly to times before the 20th century, although the precise usage is disputed, as 18th-century feminism and 19th-century feminism are often subsumed into "feminism". The usefulness of the term protofeminist has been questioned by some modern scholars, as has the term postfeminist.
Since the 19th century, men have taken part in significant cultural and political responses to feminism within each "wave" of the movement. This includes seeking to establish equal opportunities for women in a range of social relations, generally done through a "strategic leveraging" of male privilege. Feminist men have also argued alongside writers like bell hooks, however, that men's liberation from the socio-cultural constraints of sexism and gender roles is a necessary part of feminist activism and scholarship.
Julie Bindel is an English radical feminist writer. She is also co-founder of the law reform group Justice for Women, which has aimed to help women who have been prosecuted for assaulting or killing violent male partners.
Andrea Rita Dworkin was an American radical feminist writer and activist best known for her analysis of pornography. Her feminist writings, beginning in 1974, span 30 years. They are found in a dozen solo works: nine books of non-fiction, two novels, and a collection of short stories. Another three volumes were co-written or co-edited with US constitutional law professor and feminist activist Catharine A. MacKinnon.
Womyn-born womyn (WBW) is a term developed during second-wave feminism to designate women who were assigned female at birth, were raised as girls, and identify as women. The policy is noted for exclusion of trans women. Third-wave feminism and fourth-wave feminism have generally done away with the idea of WBW.
Zoe Fairbairns is a British feminist writer who has authored novels, short stories, radio plays and political pamphlets.
Mitsu Tanaka was a Japanese feminist and writer, who became well known as a radical activist during the early 1970s.
Feminist views on sexuality widely vary. Many feminists, particularly radical feminists, are highly critical of what they see as sexual objectification and sexual exploitation in the media and society. Radical feminists are often opposed to the sex industry, including opposition to prostitution and pornography. Other feminists define themselves as sex-positive feminists and believe that a wide variety of expressions of female sexuality can be empowering to women when they are freely chosen. Some feminists support efforts to reform the sex industry to become less sexist, such as the feminist pornography movement.
Taiwan has a complex history of feminist and women's rights movements with periods of progressiveness where feminism and strong female icons flourished and periods of strict authoritarianism where equality and individual rights were devalued. Thanks in part to the work of generations of feminists, Taiwan is nowadays one of the most gender-equal countries in Asia, consistently ranking higher than its East Asian neighbors in international indices on gender equality.
The Prisoner of Sex is a book by Norman Mailer, originally published in 1971 in Harper's Magazine. He wrote the book in reaction to developments in women's liberation and technology. Written in the third person, it defends his writing against feminist writer Kate Millett.
References
↑ Randall Martin, Women Writers in Renaissance England: An Annotated Anthology (Great Britain: Pearson Education Ltd, 1997), 81.
↑ Martin, Women Writers in Renaissance England: An Annotated Anthology, 80.
↑ Moira Furguson, "Jane Anger," in First Feminists: British Women Writers 1578-1799 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985, 58.
↑ Lynne A. Magnusson, "Dictionary of Literary Biography: Jane Anger (flourished 1589)," Sixteenth-Century British Nondramatic Writers (1994):3, accessed on 3 December 2014.
↑ Magnusson, "Dictionary of Literary Biography: Jane Anger (flourished 1589),"4.
↑ Joy Ritchie and Kate Ronald, "Jane Anger: From Jane Anger Her Protection for Women…(1589)," in Available Means: An Anthology of Women’s Rhetoric(s) (Pennsylvania: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001), 50-60
↑ Martin, Women Writers in Renaissance England, 80.
↑ Joy Ritchie and Kate Ronald, "Jane Anger: From Jane Anger Her Protection for Women…(1589)," 50.
↑ Jane Anger, Her Protection for Women To Defend Them Against the Scandalous Reportes Of a Late Surfeiting Lover, and All Other Like Venerians that Complaine so To Bee Overcloyed with Women’s Kindness. London: Printed by Richard Jones and Thomas Orwin, 1589.
↑ Jane Anger, Her Protection for Women To Defend Them Against the Scandalous Reportes Of a Late Surfeiting Lover, and All Other Like Venerians that Complaine so To Bee Overcloyed with Women’s Kindness. London: Printed by Richard Jones and Thomas Orwin, 1589.
↑ Anna Bayman, "Female Voices in Early Seventeenth Century Pamphlet Literature," Women and Writing, c.1340-c.1650: The Domestication of Print Culture (2010) 196-210, accessed on 3 December 2014.
↑ Laura Lunger Knoppers, "Introduction: Critical Framework and Issues," in The Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Women’s Writing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 11.
↑ Knoppers, "Introduction: Critical Framework and Issues," 12.
↑ Knoppers, "Introduction: Critical Framework and Issues," 14.
General references
Anger, Jane (1589). Her Protection For Women To Defend Them Against The Scandalous Reportes of a Late Surfeiting Lover, and All Other Like Venerians that Complaine so to be Overcloyed With Women's Kidness. London: Richard Jones and Thomas Orwin.
Furguson, Moira (1985). First Feminists: British Women Writers 1578-1799. Bloomngdale: Indiana University Press. pp.58–73.
Magnusson, Lynne A (1994). Dictionary of Literary Biography: Jane Anger (flourished 1589). Sixteenth-Century British Nondramatic Writers.
Knoppers, Laura (2009). The Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Women's Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Randall, Martin (1997). Women Writers in Renaissance England: An Annotated Anthology. Britain: Pearson Education Ltd.
Utley, Francis Lee (1944). The Crooked Rib. An Analytical Index to the Argument about Women in English and Scots Literature to the End of the Year 1568. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University.
Ritchie, Joy; Ronald, Kate (2001). "Jane Anger" From Jane Anger Her Protection for Women…(1589). In Available Means: An Anthology of Women's Rhetoric(s). Pennsylvania: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Prescott, Anne Lake (14 April 2007). Anger, Jane (fl. 1588). Oxford: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Further reading
Anger, Jane; Cullen, Patrick; O'Malley, Susan Gushee; Travitsky, Betty S. (1997). Defences of women: Jane Anger, Rachel Speght, Ester Sowernam and Constantia Munda. Aldershot: Scolar Press. ISBN1859280951.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
Literatureportal 
