{"id":149258,"date":"2020-11-23T13:01:03","date_gmt":"2020-11-23T18:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=149258"},"modified":"2020-11-23T14:31:49","modified_gmt":"2020-11-23T19:31:49","slug":"the-feminine-pillar-of-male-chauvinism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/11\/23\/the-feminine-pillar-of-male-chauvinism\/","title":{"rendered":"The Feminine Pillar of Male Chauvinism"},"content":{"rendered":"

In her column, Re-Covered, Lucy Scholes exhumes the out-of-print and forgotten books that shouldn\u2019t be. <\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

If the Australian writer and critic Thelma Forshaw is remembered for anything today, it\u2019s most likely the hatchet job that she gave Germaine Greer\u2019s The Female Eunuch<\/em> in 1972. Of the many reviews the book received, Forshaw\u2019s\u2014published in the Age<\/em>, a newspaper based in Greer\u2019s own hometown of Melbourne\u2014was by far the most disdainful: \u201cKing Kong is back. The exploits of the outsized gorilla may have been banned as too scary for kids, but who\u2019s to shield us cowering adults? To increase the terror, the creature now rampaging is a kind of female\u2014a female eunuch. It\u2019s Germ Greer, with a tiny male in her hairy paw (no depilatories) who has been storming round the world knocking over the Empire State Building, scrunching up Big Ben and is now bent on ripping the Sydney Harbour Bridge from its pylons and drinking up the Yarra.\u201d Understandably, Forshaw\u2019s slam piece caused quite a stir, and it was reprinted in a number of papers across the country, often alongside carefully chosen photographs of Greer looking suitably unkempt.<\/p>\n

Forshaw\u2019s summation of Greer\u2019s feminist manifest as \u201ca blood-curdling gorilla scream,\u201d full of \u201cover-the-back-fence grizzle,\u201d was, by and large, seen for what it was: \u201ca scurrilous personal attack masquerading as a book review,\u201d as one of the Age<\/em>\u2019s readers, J. Morton, wrote to the paper to complain. Forshaw became briefly notorious, and the following week the Age<\/em> ran an interview that allowed \u201cthis feminine pillar of male chauvinism\u201d\u2014as John Lewis jestingly described his colleague\u2014to explain herself:<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019m a housewife because I want to, I write because I want to, I love my husband who is a male, chauvinist pig and I love my two children\u2014and it all adds up for me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Trying to learn more about the woman behind the misogyny, I fell down an internet rabbit hole, but then I found myself intrigued by Forshaw\u2019s forthright, unrepentant voice.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019m a loner, I can\u2019t take the group performances at all. I\u2019d probably be an asset to the Women\u2019s Lib. Movement, I suppose, but I don\u2019t want to get caught up and be used just because I\u2019m articulate.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Had she not laid out her beliefs quite so clearly, one could be forgiven for pronouncing her unapologetic self-assuredness as downright feminist!<\/p>\n

I\u2019m really a funny lady, a funny, bawdy lady. Read my book of short stories\u2014An Affair of Clowns<\/em>\u2014you\u2019ll see what I mean.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I decided to do as she suggested and read her stories, so I tracked down a secondhand copy of An Affair of Clowns<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Published in 1967, five years before the damning review, it\u2019s a slim volume; twenty-two \u201cshort stories and sketches\u201d in less than two hundred pages. \u201cI\u2019ve always been fascinated by people, to the point, sometimes, of being paralysed with fascination,\u201d Forshaw told the pioneering oral historian Hazel de Berg in an interview conducted in 1969. \u201cI can\u2019t see scenery, I can\u2019t see interiors, I can\u2019t see where I am if there\u2019s a person with me. I\u2019m only aware of that person, almost entirely. And, I think this is the basis of my writing.\u201d And indeed, all other detail is incidental; from setting to storyline. Plot is entirely by the by, and in this Forshaw\u2019s work reminded me of the working-class Jewish American writer Bette Howland, whose own stories\u2014which bring to life her fellow Chicagoans and were written mostly in the seventies and early eighties\u2014have recently been republished to notable critical acclaim. But where Howland deals in grittiness, Forshaw was attracted to gaudiness. There\u2019s something showy, almost carnivalesque about her characters, though they\u2019re always eminently believable. The book is separated into three sections: \u201cSome Customs of My Clan\u201d consists of pieces about a working-class Irish Catholic family, as narrated by the young daughter, an aspiring writer; \u201cThe Melting Pot\u201d takes a slightly broader view, encompassing Sydney\u2019s midcentury, working-class international milieu; and finally, \u201cOutsiders\u201d then draws the collection to a close with a selection of stories about people living on various margins. Each individual is far too idiosyncratic to be termed archetypal, but An Affair of Clowns <\/em>is a charismatic portrait of the mid-twentieth-century, urban, white Australian working class. \u201cThelma Forshaw sees human beings with a penetrating and unsentimental eye,\u201d reads the blurb on the book\u2019s dust jacket, \u201cyet with profound sympathy, and with an irresistible humour that is never superficial, but deeply rooted in life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of the pieces in \u201cSome Customs of My Clan\u201d are little more than vignettes, but others are more substantial. Take the searing portrait of the narrator\u2019s parents\u2019 troubled marriage in \u201cThe Widow,\u201d in which Forshaw\u2019s father\u2014who died only a week after her eleventh birthday\u2014looms especially large: \u201cHellenic body. Gladiatorial mind. Vital, violent, sudden. A wife-beater. A mountain swooping to leather his child.\u201d In another story, \u201cRom: Bride of Christ,\u201d the narrator bumps into an old classmate from her Catholic school days, who tells her that one of their ex-teachers wishes to read the stories that the narrator had recently published in a magazine. This embarrasses the narrator, and she hopes her friend hasn\u2019t passed them on as requested. \u201cThey were about Real Life,\u201d she worries, \u201cnot fit reading for nuns.\u201d This in itself, no doubt, was Forshaw writing from firsthand experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do write almost straight from life,\u201d she told de Berg. Earlier in the same interview, when describing her childhood, Forshaw confirms the particulars of \u201cThe Widow\u201d: \u201cBoth parents drank, and the atmosphere was violent a lot of the time.\u201d Love and violence often go hand in hand in this family; aggression, it sometimes seems, is almost a form of affection, and family members\u2014described en masse in \u201cThe Wowser\u201d as \u201ca small flock of black sheep\u201d\u2014are drawn together for one of three reasons: to drink, to gamble, or to gossip. Even a Mother\u2019s Day trip to the cemetery to pay tribute to the narrator\u2019s dead grandmother is an opportunity to nurse both hangovers and stories of family scandal.<\/p>\n

One of the most mesmerizing and intricately drawn characters here is Aunty Dee, a cleaning lady who\u2019s the subject of some of the best writing in the book. \u201cLike most women of her occupation, she basks in the material glory of her employers,\u201d Forshaw writes in \u201cThe Ladies\u2019 Parlour Clique,\u201d one of the shortest pieces in the book. At less than three pages, it\u2019s little more than a tableaux really, a snapshot of life in the bar where her aunt spends her hard-earned cash each afternoon.<\/p>\n

Forshaw admits to de Berg that she borrows from those around her \u201cperhaps more undisguisedly than most writers,\u201d and that it got her into trouble. This passage from \u201cThe Wowser\u201d prompted the son of the aunt upon whom Aunty Dee was based to threaten to sue Forshaw for libel:<\/p>\n

Aunty Dee was a true criminal type, who corrupted at a touch. She was the evil genius of her clan, the witch doctor who presided over orgy and wake, broken marriage and psychopathic child. She loved the young as the rake loves a virgin. Now and again she arranged for me, just turned seventeen, to meet the wealthy or influential men whose flats she serviced. But they always went away quietly after treating me to a paternal lunch, daunted, I think by the passionate purity I wore like an amulet. A purity not of innocence, but formidable with witnessed knowledge. I shall always believe that Aunty Dee tried to launch me as a courtesan\u2014with an eye to a percentage, naturally.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We find similar stings in the tail throughout the collection; Forshaw doesn\u2019t mince her words. Paragraphs of intrusive commentary like this one, ruminative but pithy, are dotted throughout the book. Although they ostensibly interrupt the narrative, the reader swiftly learns that they\u2019re actually the jewels in the collection. Forshaw intuitively understands what makes people tick. In \u201cThe Pawn,\u201d for example, she ponders the many suitors who turned up to flirt with her newly widowed mother. \u201cI suspect now that much of her charm lay in her knack of winkling out a man\u2019s secret sorrow and, no matter how petty the grievance, making him feel he bore the burdens of a King Lear. She was a dab hand at giving a man stature<\/em>.\u201d To describe Forshaw\u2019s tone as loving would go too far, but there is a tenderness in the way she depicts her demonic, riotous, scandal-mongering family; the accompanying wry wink and shoulder shrug always implicit.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had a hell of a life,\u201d Forshaw told Lewis when defending her attack on Greer, \u201cbut I\u2019m still free, I\u2019m buoyant\u2014that\u2019s why I don\u2019t go in for all this whingeing.\u201d The stories in An Affair of Clowns <\/em>echo this. Forshaw dips her toe into life\u2019s darker corners\u2014whether it\u2019s the violence of her parents\u2019 marriage, or the alienation and loneliness felt by immigrants\u2014but it\u2019s not a depressing collection and she doesn\u2019t seem to believe in victimhood, either. As she promised, her humor wins out in the end. I\u2019m not the only one who thought so. \u201cListen, Forshaw,\u201d wrote her friend, the prize-winning writer Thea Astley, in 1963, \u201cI read your letters and they are literally flashing opal mines of wit. You are seriously one of the funniest, no, THE funniest woman I have ever met.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Forshaw\u2019s life wasn\u2019t all fun and games. The cockiness she expressed in the Age <\/em>fell away when she told de Berg about the \u201cdivided loyalty\u201d she felt \u201cbetween caring for my children to the fullest extent and the claims of writing\u201d that \u00a0\u201cdogged\u201d her. Her conclusion is not an especially liberating one (though undoubtably it owes much to both the era and the environment in which she came of age)\u2014\u201cI think that no woman can achieve true greatness because of this conflict. If she has children, she hasn\u2019t got a hope.\u201d In reality, the situation, it seems, was not anywhere near as cut and dry as she implies in the\u00a0Age<\/em>. \u201cPerhaps I want too much,\u201d she tells de Berg, \u201cI want to be better than, perhaps, I\u2019m capable of being.\u201d<\/p>\n

Forshaw is astonishingly candid throughout this entire interview, even when detailing her flaws. She knows, for example, that a critic should be \u201cdispassionate, and judge a work purely on what it sets out to do,\u201d but, she admits, she finds this impossible. Instead, she explains, she finds herself reacting to a book \u201cas if it was a person,\u201d becoming \u201cmadly involved with the author and what he\u2019s doing and his personality [\u2026] Sometimes I\u2019m very angry, and sometimes I\u2019m amused, sometimes I\u2019m contemptuous, and I think I get this emotion into my reviews.\u201d This, of course, is exactly what happened with Greer\u2019s book. Perhaps feminism came too late for Forshaw\u2014she was sixteen years older than Greer, thus forty-nine years old when The Female Eunuch <\/em>was published, and had been a wife and mother for the past twenty-four years, which was half of her life. She knew what she\u2019d given up in making the choices she had, but her ambition was still there. \u201cI don\u2019t want to be mediocre; I don\u2019t want to be just another writer. I want to be one of the best, and I don\u2019t think you can be if your heart is elsewhere,\u201d she told de Berg. But though she lived for another two and a half decades\u2014she died at age seventy-two in 1995\u2014An Affair of Clowns<\/em> was the only book Forshaw published.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Read earlier installments of Re-Covered here<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Lucy Scholes is a critic who lives in London. She writes for the\u00a0<\/em>NYR Daily,<\/em>\u00a0The Financial Times,<\/em>\u00a0The New York Times Book Review,\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>Literary Hub, among other publications.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thelma Forshaw is perhaps best remembered for her hatchet-job review of Germaine Greer, but her acerbic humor led to an excellent book of stories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1670,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46439],"tags":[67827],"class_list":["post-149258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-re-covered","tag-featured"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Feminine Pillar of Male Chauvinism by Lucy Scholes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u201cI don\u2019t want to be mediocre; I don\u2019t want to be just another writer. I want to be one of the best, and I don\u2019t think you can be if your heart is elsewhere.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/11\/23\/the-feminine-pillar-of-male-chauvinism\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Feminine Pillar of Male Chauvinism by Lucy Scholes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"November 23, 2020 \u2013 Thelma Forshaw is perhaps best remembered for her hatchet-job review of Germaine Greer, but her acerbic humor led to an excellent book of stories.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/11\/23\/the-feminine-pillar-of-male-chauvinism\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-11-23T18:01:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-11-23T19:31:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/img_0295-1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"480\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Lucy Scholes\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Lucy Scholes\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"10 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/11\/23\/the-feminine-pillar-of-male-chauvinism\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/11\/23\/the-feminine-pillar-of-male-chauvinism\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Lucy Scholes\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/f7d002776d4d7c0fdb6961eddb06dabc\"},\"headline\":\"The Feminine Pillar of Male Chauvinism\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-11-23T18:01:03+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-11-23T19:31:49+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/11\/23\/the-feminine-pillar-of-male-chauvinism\/\"},\"wordCount\":2026,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/11\/23\/the-feminine-pillar-of-male-chauvinism\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/img_0295-1.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Featured\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Re-Covered\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/11\/23\/the-feminine-pillar-of-male-chauvinism\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/11\/23\/the-feminine-pillar-of-male-chauvinism\/\",\"name\":\"The Feminine Pillar of Male Chauvinism by Lucy Scholes\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/11\/23\/the-feminine-pillar-of-male-chauvinism\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/11\/23\/the-feminine-pillar-of-male-chauvinism\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/img_0295-1.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-11-23T18:01:03+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-11-23T19:31:49+00:00\",\"description\":\"\u201cI don\u2019t want to be mediocre; I don\u2019t want to be just another writer. I want to be one of the best, and I don\u2019t think you can be if your heart is elsewhere.\u201d\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/11\/23\/the-feminine-pillar-of-male-chauvinism\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/11\/23\/the-feminine-pillar-of-male-chauvinism\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/11\/23\/the-feminine-pillar-of-male-chauvinism\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/img_0295-1.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/img_0295-1.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/11\/23\/the-feminine-pillar-of-male-chauvinism\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Feminine Pillar of Male Chauvinism\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/f7d002776d4d7c0fdb6961eddb06dabc\",\"name\":\"Lucy Scholes\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8fcb3b549485201ecf60f90fa5811784c042b8229af2de0c3d0ae1842eac9eff?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8fcb3b549485201ecf60f90fa5811784c042b8229af2de0c3d0ae1842eac9eff?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Lucy Scholes\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/lscholes\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Feminine Pillar of Male Chauvinism by Lucy Scholes","description":"\u201cI don\u2019t want to be mediocre; I don\u2019t want to be just another writer. I want to be one of the best, and I don\u2019t think you can be if your heart is elsewhere.\u201d","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/11\/23\/the-feminine-pillar-of-male-chauvinism\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Feminine Pillar of Male Chauvinism by Lucy Scholes","og_description":"November 23, 2020 \u2013 Thelma Forshaw is perhaps best remembered for her hatchet-job review of Germaine Greer, but her acerbic humor led to an excellent book of stories.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/11\/23\/the-feminine-pillar-of-male-chauvinism\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2020-11-23T18:01:03+00:00","article_modified_time":"2020-11-23T19:31:49+00:00","og_image":[{"width":640,"height":480,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/img_0295-1.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Lucy Scholes","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Lucy Scholes","Est. reading time":"10 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/11\/23\/the-feminine-pillar-of-male-chauvinism\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/11\/23\/the-feminine-pillar-of-male-chauvinism\/"},"author":{"name":"Lucy Scholes","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/f7d002776d4d7c0fdb6961eddb06dabc"},"headline":"The Feminine Pillar of Male Chauvinism","datePublished":"2020-11-23T18:01:03+00:00","dateModified":"2020-11-23T19:31:49+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/11\/23\/the-feminine-pillar-of-male-chauvinism\/"},"wordCount":2026,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/11\/23\/the-feminine-pillar-of-male-chauvinism\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/img_0295-1.jpg","keywords":["Featured"],"articleSection":["Re-Covered"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/11\/23\/the-feminine-pillar-of-male-chauvinism\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/11\/23\/the-feminine-pillar-of-male-chauvinism\/","name":"The Feminine Pillar of Male Chauvinism by Lucy Scholes","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/11\/23\/the-feminine-pillar-of-male-chauvinism\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/11\/23\/the-feminine-pillar-of-male-chauvinism\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/img_0295-1.jpg","datePublished":"2020-11-23T18:01:03+00:00","dateModified":"2020-11-23T19:31:49+00:00","description":"\u201cI don\u2019t want to be mediocre; I don\u2019t want to be just another writer. I want to be one of the best, and I don\u2019t think you can be if your heart is elsewhere.\u201d","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/11\/23\/the-feminine-pillar-of-male-chauvinism\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/11\/23\/the-feminine-pillar-of-male-chauvinism\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/11\/23\/the-feminine-pillar-of-male-chauvinism\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/img_0295-1.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/img_0295-1.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/11\/23\/the-feminine-pillar-of-male-chauvinism\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Feminine Pillar of Male Chauvinism"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/f7d002776d4d7c0fdb6961eddb06dabc","name":"Lucy Scholes","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8fcb3b549485201ecf60f90fa5811784c042b8229af2de0c3d0ae1842eac9eff?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8fcb3b549485201ecf60f90fa5811784c042b8229af2de0c3d0ae1842eac9eff?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Lucy Scholes"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/lscholes\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1670"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149258"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":149276,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149258\/revisions\/149276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}