8 was this confluence of all of these people who didn’t realize what feminism actually was. So I think a lot of what happened on Nov. Like: “Oh, a woman has a job, oh, well she’s a feminist.” And it’s deeper than that, it’s richer than that, and we don’t talk about that a lot. But some people stop at the gateway, and just say “Oh, I’m a feminist,” and just decide feminism is anything related to women. I think they are a great gateway to feminism. We’ve even seen major celebrities embracing feminism and talking about it, which I also think is incredible. Feminism has become more popular, which I think is fantastic. ROXANE GAY: We’ve seen a lot of it lately, in the past two or three years. You said: “This election revealed the difference between performative feminism and real feminism.” Can you talk a little more about what you meant by that? last night, and someone asked a question about this election and feminism. Oftentimes people look away, because it’s uncomfortable, because it’s difficult.ĮLIZABETH FLOCK: You did a reading in D.C. There’s definitely … a point being made, about when a woman dares to expose herself. So I thought: What if a woman rose out of the sand when lightning hit? What would her life be like? What if this amazing happened? And then I wrote the story.ĮLIZABETH FLOCK: But at the end of that story, I do think you sort of consciously make that point, when you say the stone thrower doesn’t want “to have to see too much” of the glass woman, or love her too carefully … I learned that glass is made in nature when lightning hits sand. ROXANE GAY: In this case I was just thinking: “What would you be like if you were made out of glass?” Because glass is stronger than people assume. It hinges on a metaphor about a woman made of glass.
And thinking about what information to give the reader when, and why.ĮLIZABETH FLOCK: On the other hand, the short story “Requiem for a Glass Heart” feels not at all of that TV world. In this story in particular I was thinking very specifically about a narrative arc. There is a reason TV can be compelling, season after season, and it’s because there’s a narrative arc. I wanted the pieces to build, so that you get this really satisfying payoff at the end. ROXANE GAY: For the short story “How,” I thought about it in episodes. I thought using titles in the story would help shape the reader’s perception of what was about to happen, and be a nice placeholder for what was about to happen in that episode. And then I thought about how all too often, we see women dead, and the dead female body is the centerpiece of TV shows like “Criminal Minds,” “SVU,” “Law & Order.” I watch all these shows, of course, so I feel complicit in that.ĮLIZABETH FLOCK: You imbibe a lot of culture, a lot of TV, how does that influence your writing?
And “frigid women,” because whenever a woman doesn’t put out when a man wants her to, she’s frigid. “Crazy women”: women are often considered crazy when they call a man after they go on a date. Oftentimes what’s termed crazy by a man is: “Don’t crowd me, let me make all the moves.” I definitely think we have to challenge that. ROXANE GAY: I think there are a lot of labels that women get. It felt like a good way to play with preconceptions.ĮLIZABETH FLOCK: In the book you also identify women by different labels: “loose women,” “frigid women,” “crazy women,” “dead girls” … What was the thinking behind those categories? I thought: Let’s celebrate our difficulties and our humanity.
I wanted to celebrate women that might be labeled differently-whether or not they really are-who have no agency when they are labeled in that way. So I wanted to turn it into a positive rather than a negative. ROXANE GAY: Oftentimes the phrase “difficult women” or “difficult woman” is a slander. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.ĮLIZABETH FLOCK: I wanted to start off by asking you about the title “Difficult Women.” In the inscription in the front of the book, you write: “For difficult women, who should be celebrated for their very nature.” Can you talk about what you meant by that? The second sentence of “Difficult Women” is “I was in a mood.” The last is “You will hear me.” Ahead of the Women’s March on Washington, the author perhaps best known for a collection of essays called “Bad Feminist” sat down with PBS NewsHour to talk about how women are labeled, divisions in feminism today, and why the phrase “difficult women” resonates so strongly after the election. Roxane Gay, feminist, essayist, novelist, comic book writer, keen observer of pop culture and lover of tiny baby elephants, is out with a new collection of short stories, called “Difficult Women.” The collection follows the lives of more than 20 women-from an engineer to a stripper to a woman made of glass-across the country, from Upper Michigan to a Florida subdivision.