• Home
  • About
  • Start Here
  • Resources
  • Contact
Kate Rae Davis header

Lit Wives

  • Books / Literature
  • Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill – A Literary Wives Reflection

    Posted on October 2, 2017October 1, 2017
    Dept of Speculation by Jenny Offill - a Literary Wives reflection

    What does it mean to be a wife? How does the role of wife impact a woman’s identity? These are the core questions we address in a project called Literary Wives. We read novels with an eye on what they have to add to our understanding of what it means to be a wife and a woman. This month’s pick: Dept. of Speculation by Jenny […]

    Read More
    6 Comments
  • Books / Literature
  • On Beauty by Zadie Smith – A Literary Wives Reflection

    Posted on August 1, 2017July 26, 2017
    Zadie Smith's "On Beauty", marriage, and sex

    What does it mean to be a wife? How does the role of wife impact a woman’s identity? These are the core questions we address in a project called Literary Wives. We read novels with an eye on what they have to add to our understanding of what it means to be a wife and a woman. This month’s pick: On Beauty by Zadie […]

    Read More
    7 Comments
  • Books / Literature
  • The Awakening by Kate Chopin (A Literary Wives Reflection)

    Posted on June 5, 2017June 4, 2017
    What does Kate Chopin's "The Awakening" reveal about wifehood and selfhood?

    What does it mean to be a wife? How does the role of wife impact a woman’s identity? These are the core questions we address in a project called Literary Wives. We read novels with an eye on what they have to add to our understanding of what it means to be a wife and a woman. Our most recent pick: The […]

    Read More
    9 Comments
  • Books / Literature
  • Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler (Literary Wives)

    Posted on April 4, 2017April 3, 2017
    Book review of Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald, and what the novel says about wifehood

    A book review of Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald, by Therese Anne Fowler, and what the novel adds to an understanding of being a wife.

    Read More
    7 Comments
  • Books / Literature
  • Unbearable Expectations in “American Housewife”

    Posted on October 4, 2016October 4, 2016
    Review of Helen Ellis's American Housewife - read on KateRaeDavis.com

    Review and reflections on Helen Ellis’s short story collection “American Housewife” and what it reveals about expectations of women in USAmerica today.

    Read More
    6 Comments
  • Books / Literature
  • Marriage and Identity in “How to Be a Good Wife”

    Posted on August 2, 2016August 1, 2016
    Review of Chapman's " How to be a Good Wife " and reflections on what it reveals about marriage and identity - read on KateRaeDavis.com

    Review of Emma Chapman’s “How to Be a Good Wife” and reflections on what the novel says about marriage and identity for all of us.

    Read More
    13 Comments

    Subscribe

    For posts delivered to your inbox once a week:

    I’m Kate Davis

    About Kate Rae Davis I live in Seattle with my husband, dog, and stacks of books. I love well-told stories of all sorts, and I believe they have a lot to teach us about what it means to be human and to be in relationship with the Master Storyteller (one of many titles for the divine force often referred to as God). Read more...

    Follow Lit Theo

    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Tumblr
    • Instagram

    Follow On Facebook

    Follow On Facebook

    Tumblr

    • A decade ago, during a conversation that was supposed to be about a book I had written on politics, the British man interviewing me insisted that instead of talking about the products of my mind, we should talk about the fruit of my loins, or the lack thereof. Onstage, he hounded me about why I didn’t have children. No answer I gave could satisfy him. His position seemed to be that I must have children, that it was incomprehensible that I did not, and so we had to talk about why I didn’t, rather than about the books I did have.

      As it happens, there are many reasons why I don’t have children: I am very good at birth control; though I love children and adore aunthood, I also love solitude; I was raised by unhappy, unkind people, and I wanted neither to replicate their form of parenting nor to create human beings who might feel about me the way that I felt about my begetters; I really wanted to write books, which as I’ve done it is a fairly consuming vocation. I’m not dogmatic about not having kids. I might have had them under other circumstances and been fine — as I am now.

      But just because the question can be answered doesn’t mean that I ought to answer it, or that it ought to be asked. The interviewer’s question was indecent, because it presumed that women should have children, and that a woman’s reproductive activities were naturally public business. More fundamentally, the question assumed that there was only one proper way for a woman to live.

      Rebecca Solnit’s Harper’s essay on the meaning of a woman’s life is a work of irrepressible genius. 

      Complement it with celebrated writers on the choice not to have children, then revisit Solnit on finding yourself by getting lost. 

      (via explore-blog)

      YES.

      03/21/18

    Categories

    Archives

    • 2017
      • October 2017
      • August 2017
      • June 2017
      • April 2017
    • 2016
      • November 2016
      • October 2016
      • September 2016
      • August 2016
      • July 2016
      • June 2016
      • May 2016
      • April 2016
      • March 2016
      • February 2016
      • January 2016
    • 2015
      • December 2015
      • November 2015
      • October 2015
      • September 2015
      • August 2015
      • July 2015
      • June 2015
      • May 2015
      • February 2015
      • January 2015
    • 2014
      • December 2014
      • November 2014
      • September 2014
      • August 2014
      • July 2014
      • May 2014
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Tumblr
    • Instagram
    Activello Theme by Colorlib Powered by WordPress