Women's Wit

What is it about Women’s Wit that separates it so completely from that of men’s, leaving an almost gulf of communication lost not only in the past, but also in the present?  As I was reading the assignment I found myself considering not just the topics being discussed but how those topics are still prevalent within this present time, perhaps even more so.  Perhaps we do not have sewing circles or meeting houses as emphasized within Frances Whitcher’s carefully crafted satirical sketches; and yet we can turn back the hour glass in order to understand and find common ground with Fanny Fern as she pours irony through her descriptive monologue and letters, giving life to everyday chores and relationships with partners and children.

As I sat and read Whitcher’s “Aunt Maguire Continues Her Account of the Sewing Society,” I could not help but reminded of two things, one of the present and one of the past.  The first that came to mind was how Hillary Clinton, herself, has used irony and humor throughout her campaign to emphasize various issues and to help alleviate stress.  She is not the only woman in the present that has been known to use similar such tactics as was found in the 19^th to help bring attention to women plight.  In today’s society the more prevalent names are Ellen DeGeneres, Tina Fey, Barbara Walters, The ladies of The View, The Talk, and The Real, a more modern day version of the 19^th century sewing circle as depicted by Whitcher in her short story.

Whitcher reminded me also of another character from the same time period with her description of Miss Samson Savage.  I was so caught up in this tale and shaking my head, laughing at her descriptions as I recalled there was a movie of a very similar lady from 1964 “The Unsinkable Molly Brown,” based upon Margaret Brown, who left her mountain home, and was uneducated but sought a wealthy husband and survived the sinking of the Titanic.  Whitcher describes Miss Savage in such a way I felt she was describing Molly “She was always a coarse, boisterous, high-tempered critter, and when her husband grow’d rich, she grow’d pompous and overbearin’.  She made up her mind she’d rule th roast, no matter what it cost—she’d be the first in Scrabble Hill.  She know’d she wa’n’t a lady by natur nor by eddication, but she thought mabby other folks would be fools enough to think she was if she made a great parade.  So she begun by dressin’ more, and givin bigger parties than any body else.” (Witcher 77)

It is lessons for today’s women to look back and realize the past may have lacked the technological advances we are gifted with in modern society, but the humor is still there… When Fanny Fern moralized “It isn’t every man who has a call to be a husband,” (Fern 48) how was she to know this was a lesson that would mark the sheaves of time itself for truer words ever to be written?  Ladies take heart and learn, never let the past fade far away…

Cite:

Walker, Nancy A., and Zita Dresner. Redressing the Balance: American Women's Literary Humor from Colonial times to the 1980s. Jackson: U of Mississippi, 1988. Print.