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Gendering the reader
680
Book Reviews
Thus, we are left to conclude that working-class mothers' nurturing, from Everingham's intersubjective perspective, is not emancipatory; middle-class mothers' nurturing, though, makes the 'critical standard.' However, not all suburban mothers reach the standard either. In a section on 'misunderstandings,'Everingham gives us three case study observations of suburban group mothers who did not quite fit the group's norms, unable to allow their children and themselves to be experienced as separate selves. Of Catherine, for example, Everingham observes "she did not appear to understand that a child's perspective requires a different standpoint. Unlike mothers who take the attitude of the child by moving backwards and forwards from the child to the adult perspective, Catherine has only one vantage point and expected Nick (her son) to understand this as an adult might" (p. 114). The paradox here, is that, just as Everingham argues that mothers actively and relationally interpret autonomy, she does not recognise her own active construction and interpretation of her observations. Ultimately her own account renders her in a subject-object relationship with, especially, workingclass mothers, as she herself interprets what children 'need.' (Moreover, curiously, given her feminist concerns, Everingham makes no distinction between nurturing and the relationally produced autonomy of male and female children.) Doubtless, Everingham would respond that, rather than descending into relativity, feminism needs some critical and emancipatory s t a n d a r d s - b u t don't we need to look again if these are resulting in the same judgmental and deficit model of working-class mothering produced by male psychologists and so on? I found this book both exciting and disappointing. The theoretical discussion and approach is a fascinating and much-needed feminist reworking of the concept of autonomy. The empirical outcome, however, lacks both reflexivity and any analysis of inequalities that might tell us 'why' as well as 'how.' That mothers are active interpreters and coordinators of their own and their children's autonomy is clear, but quite what this means in terms of strategies for social change is not. ROSALIND EDWARDS SOUTH BANKUNIVERSITY LONDON, UK
GENDERING THE READER, edited by Sara Mills, 260 pages. Harvester Wheatsheaf, London, 1994. Soft cover, Br£11.95.
Gendering the Reader lures the reader with its title of deceptive succinctness and certainty. With hopes raised high, the reader embarks on a quest for the methodological grail which will at last provide all the necessary tools for analysing the text-reader relationship currently under debate. Polarized by various traditional binary oppositions into text versus reader, textual analysis versus cultural studies empiricism, implied reader versus real reader, the major issue now at stake is that of working
out the 'neglected middle,' the 'mutual embeddedness' of apparent opposites; in other words, to problematize the simplistic oppositional dichotomy which structures, and thereby works to pre-empt, this debate. In this context, an important contribution of this volume is that of problematization itself, and in particular of drawing attention to the multifarious permutations, in terms of gender, class, age, race, local context, state of mind, etc. of the reader, which help to constitute the overly facile text-reader formulation. Nine contributors provide an interdisciplinary range of chapters on texts from a variety of media, from different historical periods, variously authored (female/male/feminist), variously targeted in terms of audience (high/popular culture) and grounded in a variety of feminist positions. The chapters divide into three parts approximating to three different but not mutually exclusive approaches: (I) ethnographic/empirical examination of reader reaction to a poem (Chapter 1), a television documentary (Chapter 2), and a pop song (Chapter 3); (If) linguistic analysis of the word-image link in advertising (Chapters 4 and 5); and (III) reception theory/reader response theory in relation to a painting (Chapter 6), a film (Chapter 7), and a short story (Chapter 8). Chapter 9 focusses on the high/popular literature distinction in the context of university courses on women's writing. Part I theorizes on the relation between productionled and consumption-led meaning, on the textual positioning of readership, and on empirical approaches. Part II uses linguistic theories, going beyond their confines to integrate gender, race, class, and sexual orientation into linguistic analysis. Part III examines a range of readership positions in relation to education, class, and pleasure, with particular attention to issues of resistance and appropriation. Despite some basic unifying concerns, and a fair amount of cross-referencingbetween chapters, the sheer heterogeneity of the nine contributions in terms of methodological approach, genre of text under scrutiny, and the particular feminist viewpoint from which each analysis is undertaken, is somewhat overwhelming. One result is that the volume does not lead the reader all the way to the methodological grail (as does, for example, Jackie Stacey's cinematic monograph on this debate, Star Gazing, 1994). Instead, it functions primarily as a map indicating a variety of possible future routes, depending on which combination of issues is chosen as a focus for a more prolonged, in-depth discussion. One fundamental issue which merits further thought, for instance, is that of the inevitable tension between the monolithic implied reader position of textual criticism and the endlessly multiple real reader positions of empirical reader research. Considered from another perspective, the heterogeneity and ultimate inconclusiveness of the volume in themselves serve to destabilize issues which have been deemed unproblematic. It is in reminding the reader of the complexities of the task, and in opening up the textreader debate to apparently limitless possibilities, that the ultimate strength of this volume in fact lies. MAGGIE GONSBERG UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX FALMER BRIGHTON, UK
Book Reviews
Thus, we are left to conclude that working-class mothers' nurturing, from Everingham's intersubjective perspective, is not emancipatory; middle-class mothers' nurturing, though, makes the 'critical standard.' However, not all suburban mothers reach the standard either. In a section on 'misunderstandings,'Everingham gives us three case study observations of suburban group mothers who did not quite fit the group's norms, unable to allow their children and themselves to be experienced as separate selves. Of Catherine, for example, Everingham observes "she did not appear to understand that a child's perspective requires a different standpoint. Unlike mothers who take the attitude of the child by moving backwards and forwards from the child to the adult perspective, Catherine has only one vantage point and expected Nick (her son) to understand this as an adult might" (p. 114). The paradox here, is that, just as Everingham argues that mothers actively and relationally interpret autonomy, she does not recognise her own active construction and interpretation of her observations. Ultimately her own account renders her in a subject-object relationship with, especially, workingclass mothers, as she herself interprets what children 'need.' (Moreover, curiously, given her feminist concerns, Everingham makes no distinction between nurturing and the relationally produced autonomy of male and female children.) Doubtless, Everingham would respond that, rather than descending into relativity, feminism needs some critical and emancipatory s t a n d a r d s - b u t don't we need to look again if these are resulting in the same judgmental and deficit model of working-class mothering produced by male psychologists and so on? I found this book both exciting and disappointing. The theoretical discussion and approach is a fascinating and much-needed feminist reworking of the concept of autonomy. The empirical outcome, however, lacks both reflexivity and any analysis of inequalities that might tell us 'why' as well as 'how.' That mothers are active interpreters and coordinators of their own and their children's autonomy is clear, but quite what this means in terms of strategies for social change is not. ROSALIND EDWARDS SOUTH BANKUNIVERSITY LONDON, UK
GENDERING THE READER, edited by Sara Mills, 260 pages. Harvester Wheatsheaf, London, 1994. Soft cover, Br£11.95.
Gendering the Reader lures the reader with its title of deceptive succinctness and certainty. With hopes raised high, the reader embarks on a quest for the methodological grail which will at last provide all the necessary tools for analysing the text-reader relationship currently under debate. Polarized by various traditional binary oppositions into text versus reader, textual analysis versus cultural studies empiricism, implied reader versus real reader, the major issue now at stake is that of working
out the 'neglected middle,' the 'mutual embeddedness' of apparent opposites; in other words, to problematize the simplistic oppositional dichotomy which structures, and thereby works to pre-empt, this debate. In this context, an important contribution of this volume is that of problematization itself, and in particular of drawing attention to the multifarious permutations, in terms of gender, class, age, race, local context, state of mind, etc. of the reader, which help to constitute the overly facile text-reader formulation. Nine contributors provide an interdisciplinary range of chapters on texts from a variety of media, from different historical periods, variously authored (female/male/feminist), variously targeted in terms of audience (high/popular culture) and grounded in a variety of feminist positions. The chapters divide into three parts approximating to three different but not mutually exclusive approaches: (I) ethnographic/empirical examination of reader reaction to a poem (Chapter 1), a television documentary (Chapter 2), and a pop song (Chapter 3); (If) linguistic analysis of the word-image link in advertising (Chapters 4 and 5); and (III) reception theory/reader response theory in relation to a painting (Chapter 6), a film (Chapter 7), and a short story (Chapter 8). Chapter 9 focusses on the high/popular literature distinction in the context of university courses on women's writing. Part I theorizes on the relation between productionled and consumption-led meaning, on the textual positioning of readership, and on empirical approaches. Part II uses linguistic theories, going beyond their confines to integrate gender, race, class, and sexual orientation into linguistic analysis. Part III examines a range of readership positions in relation to education, class, and pleasure, with particular attention to issues of resistance and appropriation. Despite some basic unifying concerns, and a fair amount of cross-referencingbetween chapters, the sheer heterogeneity of the nine contributions in terms of methodological approach, genre of text under scrutiny, and the particular feminist viewpoint from which each analysis is undertaken, is somewhat overwhelming. One result is that the volume does not lead the reader all the way to the methodological grail (as does, for example, Jackie Stacey's cinematic monograph on this debate, Star Gazing, 1994). Instead, it functions primarily as a map indicating a variety of possible future routes, depending on which combination of issues is chosen as a focus for a more prolonged, in-depth discussion. One fundamental issue which merits further thought, for instance, is that of the inevitable tension between the monolithic implied reader position of textual criticism and the endlessly multiple real reader positions of empirical reader research. Considered from another perspective, the heterogeneity and ultimate inconclusiveness of the volume in themselves serve to destabilize issues which have been deemed unproblematic. It is in reminding the reader of the complexities of the task, and in opening up the textreader debate to apparently limitless possibilities, that the ultimate strength of this volume in fact lies. MAGGIE GONSBERG UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX FALMER BRIGHTON, UK