The Ellen Jamesians: a hostile feminist movement
In The World According to Garp, Irving’s allows us to see the two extremes of feminism. The more positive form of feminism is represented by Garp’s mother, Jenny Fields, who doesn’t even consider herself a feminist. The more hostile feminist extreme is expressed by the Ellen Jamesians, a group of women who have purposely had their tongues removed in a protest against the rape of an 11-year-old girl Ellen James. This group views women as victims and men as violators and it is through the Ellen Jamesians that Irving seeks to contrast this view with Jenny Fields. This essay describes the Ellen Jamesian Society and their interpretation of feminism, as well as how said interpretation has tarnished their relationships with Ellen James and Garp.
The Ellen Jamesians do not see feminism as a movement advocating equal rights for women but rather as a battle between the sexes. In their eyes, all men are enemies and everything bad that happens to women happens simply because they are women, and not men. The Ellen Jamesian feminist movement is a revolution against men. It’s about switching the roles and putting women on top. They do not strive for gender equality but rather for female superiority and the ridding of men, instead of a society where men and women work together for women’s rights. By completely isolating themselves from men, however, and praising such radical ideas about a male-free society, the Ellen Jamesians actually scare away people who might have supported them had they proclaimed a more humane feminist vision. As a result, they not only cut themselves from the men, but they also cut themselves from anyone who doesn’t completely share their values. In this way, they, essentially, see everything in black and white. The extreme feminism represented by the Ellen Jamesians is also more violent than the other feminist views presented by Irving. This violence is seen on several accounts, most notably in the assassination of Garp. What’s more, the Ellen Jamesians never really provide a feminist philosophy; the only thing that technically makes them feminists is that they hate men. At the end of the book, we see their popularity decrease to a point where no one even knows who they are anymore: “Ellen Jamesians were not much admired- they never have been, and their radicalism (now) seemed growingly obsolete and pathetic” (534). This emphasizes what little to no influence the Ellen Jamesians had on women’s rights since they did not manage to affect any real social change.
