Permission

The best book I’ve read this year is Wifedom by Anna Funder.

This literary treasure serves an enormous blow to the patriarchy by revealing what a bastard George Orwell was. As Funder shows, the man who coined the term ‘doublethink’ somehow managed to overlook his place in the patriarchy, expecting the women in his life to subjugate themselves to him so that he may pursue his career.

His wife, Eileen O’Shaughnessy, was a powerhouse of intellect and creativity. As the book progresses, Funder uncovers the extent to which O’Shaughnessy contributed to and supported Orwell’s work. She typed and edited drafts of his books such as Homage to Catalonia, an account of his experience in the Spanish War, and the famous Animal Farm.

All the while holding down jobs of her own.

During the Second World War, Eileen worked in the Censorship Department of the Ministry of Information in London – a role that Funder posits is the basis of Orwell’s 1984.

For me, the most powerful part of Funder’s work is her evisceration of Homage to Catalonia, which she demonstrates to be an extensive exercise in gaslighting. Orwell largely leaves Eileen out of the account of their time fighting the fascist regime in Spain. Referring to her only as ‘my wife’, he neglects to explain that she was running the British Independent Labour Party’s (ILP) office in Barcelona, playing a pivotal role in the rebellion. She supported the troops and ran the supply, communications and banking operations for the whole organisation – including working on the ILP’s English-language newspaper and radio program.

Funder writes:

Reverse-engineering the book’s chronology felt like untangling a cobweb. Reconstructing cause and event from the point of view of an invisible person showed me how the disappearing trick is done. Once you recognise the techniques, the patri-magic doesn’t work and you can see her, right there – at the heart of the action.

Funder reflects on how Eileen must have felt as she typed the manuscript that obscured her role in the conflict. During the war, Eileen went to enormous lengths to save the manuscript of Homage to Catalonia, including throughout a dangerous raid on her hotel room. What a woman. What a wife.

In both large and subtle ways, Wifedom has changed my life. It has articulated the very frustration and resentment I have been feeling for years about the vast amounts of unpaid work I do around the home. But beyond that, it has opened a door to a world I didn’t know existed: the one where I don’t have to ask for permission.

I’m not going to spoil Wifedom’s story for you in case you haven’t read it. All I will say is that the diminishing of Eileen showed me how bad life can get when you give your power away, constantly, without even realising it.

No longer, I say. No longer will I hand my power to others – especially blokes – by seeking permission to be my very self. I hereby take permission to speak, permission to act and permission to be. I will do, eat, spend, work, read and sleep as I see fit. I will look after my health. And I will say no to all those things that tax me. I will go to bed early whenever I want to. Yay.

This life is mine.

Thanks, Anna Funder, for opening that door for me. Beyond that open door is a beautiful garden, one where I get to be me, fully, as I practice saying no, building my power gradually.

I write this blog in the aftermath of the US election. As I mentioned in my previous blog, women face a terrifying future. The threat was there before the election but I wholeheartedly believed Kamala Harris would smash the ultimate glass ceiling and take a radical step toward the end of the patriarchy. It was not to be.

So I dance in the garden beyond the open door before someone closes it on me.

I don’t mean to be a doomsayer. And I acknowledge that I live in Australia, where the flow-on effects from Trump’s election might take a while to trickle through. Nevertheless, there’s a current of misogyny on its way. I think women everywhere need to prepare for a different kind of fate beyond 20 January 2025.

While I’m celebrating the freedom that comes from no longer asking permission, the US election result extended the permission that men have had for centuries. As Maureen Dowd wrote in the New York Times this week, that permission extends to sexual misconduct, followed by lies and victim blaming.

Of Trump’s recent cabinet picks, Dowd writes:

In putting forward three men accused of sexual misconduct, Trump is conveying that men like himself are the perpetual victims of lies, so [accusations of misconduct] should not be disqualifying.

Alas, the patriarchy remains, despite all our efforts, over all these years.

If only more men would read Wifedom. I want every man I know to read it, and to pause and reflect on how women have remained invisible in the tides of history. And then I want them to speak up against the constant diminishing of women in their everyday.

If you haven’t read it, please do. It’s a cracking read: the perfect mix of entertainment and political insight. There intrigue was so powerful at times that I couldn’t put it down.

If you have read it, I’d love to know if it opened any doors for you.