“Marrying the Hangman” by Margaret Atwood
In her poem “Marrying the Hangman,” Margaret Atwood narrates the true story of Jean Cololère and Françoise Laurent. Held in adjacent jail cells during the 18th century, Cololère is imprisoned for dueling and Laurent for theft. In this time in Canada, the only way for men to escape the death penalty was “by becoming the hangman,” and women “by marrying the hangman.” Though Cololère is not sentenced to death, Laurent still convinces him to become the hangman and marry her, saving her from execution.
In this poem, Atwood highlights the similarities between Laurent’s imprisonment and her subsequent marriage to emphasize how both ultimately restrict female autonomy. Atwood writes that though the hangman “is not such a bad fellow,” “he does not wipe up what he accidentally spills.” This scene—the hangman creating messes and neglecting to clean them—serves as an example of the theme of female partners taking on a majority of household labor in relationships. In her article “’Women’s Work?’ Women Partners of Transgender Men Doing Housework and Emotion Work,” researcher Carla Pfeffer finds that although trans men have “increasingly liberal gender-role attitudes,” their female partners still “perform the bulk of house-hold labor” (167). One partner, Lilia, declares that she always cleans up after her partner as a way to “try and take care of him” (173). Thus, both Lilia and Laurent are in arrangements where typical household chores disproportionately fall under their responsibility because they are women. Atwood continues that to Cololère, Laurent represents “nipple, arms, lips, wine, belly, hair, bread, thighs,” and that she kept her “promise” to provide these things when they married. This list centers on female body parts, invoking a sense of sexualization for readers, which we learn that Laurent plays into and satisfies later on. This connects to Kirsty Liddiard’s research in “The work of disabled identities in intimate relationships.” Liddiard finds that disabled women perform a disproportionate amount of “sex work,” in which they continually manage “theirs and their partners’ sexual desires and activities” (122). For one subject, Jenny, this means constantly putting herself “out to give him that pleasure,” no matter the personal cost (122). Likewise, Atwood implies that Laurent performs sex work (keeping her “promise”) in order to maintain her relationship, similar to many other female partners universally.
At the poem’s end, Atwood proposes the impactful question: “What did [Laurent] say when she discovered that she left one locked room for another?” By comparing Laurent’s marriage to her jail cell (“locked room”), Atwood highlights the restrictions that women endure in relationships. This relates to Pfeffer’s findings: women perform extensive emotion work in relationships no matter the “personal and interpersonal stress and strain” it causes them (174). One subject, Gail, reveals that in caring for her trans partner, she often feels “really disconnected from the outside world” (177). Thus, for many women, marriage often becomes another “locked room.”
“What I Learned From My Mother” by Julia Kasdorf
In “What I Learned From My Mother,” poet Julia Kasdorf details the lessons she learned from her mother, which all revolve around stereotypical gender roles.
Through the course of this poem, Kasdorf emphasizes that gender is learned rather than innate. Kasdorf begins almost every sentence with “I learned […],” following with a feminine activity (making bouquets, prepping fruit salad, etc.). The anaphora of “I learned” affirms that none of these “feminine” behaviors are intrinsic to the speaker; rather, she acquired them from her mother. This reflects Carla Pfeffer’s findings in “’Women’s Work?’” Pfeffer observes that even in non-cisgendered relationships, partners still follow typical gender roles. For instance, one female partner, Robyn, describes her supportive actions as “one of the female roles [she takes]” on as a partner (174). Pfeffer concludes that this process of “becoming a man or woman is an ongoing, iterative, interactional social process” (169). This “taking on” of roles in a relationship reflects how gender is socially conditioned, similar to how the speaker “learns” gender from her mother. In addition to emphasizing the learned nature of gender, Kasdorf also speaks to the extensive emotion work that society expects from women.
Many of the activities that the speaker learns from her mother revolve around soothing the emotions of those around her. For instance, she learns to “offer sympathy” to the grieving, “to ease awful pains […] like an angel,” and to “offer healing.” The speaker even declares that she creates “from another’s suffering [her] own usefulness.” These assertions highlight the great lengths that the speaker goes to in order to manage the emotions of those around her, actions which comply with traditional gender roles. This agrees with Pfeffer’s findings on emotion work. Pfeffer defines emotion work as the “active management of [one’s] own and others’ emotions” within the “private sector of home” (168), and she finds that female partners perform the bulk of emotion work in relationships due to gender roles (174). Female partners are expected to serve as “islands of support” for their significant others (176). Likewise, the speaker in this poem learns to perform extensive emotion work by continually comforting those around her, and she learns to prioritize this emotion work to the point where she finds her own value in it. This falls in line with gendered expectations for women to perform a majority of emotion work in relationships.