Gender roles in Watership Down

[Tima]

I was reading Wikipedia and stumbled on this chapter concerning Watership Down;
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watership_Down#Gender_roles

Since Wikipedia can be edited and this chapter will likely change in the future, I'll copy/paste here the text snippet that intrigued me (emphasis mine):

The 1993 Puffin Modern Classics edition of the novel contains an afterword by Nicholas Tucker, who wrote that stories such as Watership Down "now fit rather uneasily into the modern world of consideration of both sexes". He contrasted Hazel's sensitivity to Fiver with the "far more mechanical" attitude of the bucks towards does, who Tucker considers are portrayed as "little more than passive baby-factories".[16]

In "Male Chauvinist Rabbits," an essay originally published in the New York Times Book Review, Selma G. Lanes criticized Adams's treatment of gender. She observed that the first third of the story is a "celebration of male camaraderie, competence, bravery and loyalty as a scraggly bunch of yearling bucks ... arrive triumphant at a prospectively ideal spot", only to realize that they have no females for mating.[17] "Fully the last two-thirds of Adams's saga," Lanes argued, "is devoted to what one male reviewer has blithely labelled 'The Rape of the Sabine Rabbits,' a ruthless, single-minded and rather mean-spirited search for females – not because Watership Down's males miss their companionship or yearn for love, but rather to perpetuate the existing band."[17] For Adams, Lanes continued, the does are only "instruments of reproduction" to prevent the achievement of reaching Watership Down from "becoming a hollow victory."[17] As evidence, Lanes pointed to Hazel and Holly's assessment of the rescued Nuthanger does' value: "it came naturally ... to consider the two Nuthanger does simply as breeding stock for the warren."[18]

Lanes argued that this view of the female rabbits came from Adams himself rather than his source text, Ronald Lockley's The Private Life of the Rabbit. In Lockley's text, by contrast, the rabbit world is matriarchal, and new warrens are always initiated by dissatisfied, young females. Hence, Lanes concluded, Adams's novel is "marred by an attitude towards females that finds more confirmation in Hugh Hefner's Playboy than R. M. Lockley's The Private Life of the Rabbit."[19]

In similar vein, literary critic Jane Resh Thomas stated that Watership Down "draws upon ... an anti-feminist social tradition which, removed from the usual human context and imposed upon rabbits, is eerie in its clarity." Thomas did find much to admire about Watership Down, calling it a "splendid story". For her, its "anti-feminist bias ... damages the novel in only a minor way."[20] She later explained: "I wrote about Watership Down because I was angry and hurt when I read the book. ... I felt he [Adams] had treated me and my kind with a contempt I couldn't be silent about."[21]

Adams' 1996 sequel, Tales from Watership Down includes stories where the does play a more prominent role in the Watership Down warren. It has been suggested that this might have been an attempt to modernise the story, to make it less politically incorrect for the 1990s in which it was published.[22]

What thoughts do these comments evoke? What do you think about this stuff?

I have my own thoughts and I'll post a more intelligent comment on the issue once I'm not as tired as I am right now. For now, I just wanted to post a thread because this seemed like interesting discussion fodder to me.

[Azerane]

Ahh yes, I read about this recently, quite interesting. Firstly, I had obviously noticed that for the most part, the book is all male characters. However it never once bothered me. I liked the characters so much, who cares if they're all male? Maybe it would be nice to have a female rabbit leave Sandleford with them, but it seemed fair reasoning to me that the does would have had kits to look after, although at the same time, one can't expect every doe to have mated and be having kits, I'm sure there were some younger does as well.

I do see the point about the bucks simply seeing the does as a means to prevent the Watership warren from failing and as breeding stock. They never mention being lonely or it being for companionship, it is in that regard always about the breeding. Then again, Watership Down is not meant to be a romantic novel, their loyalty to each other and the rabbits they rescue from Efrafa is strong, but to have portrayed romantic feelings between some of the rabbits would have been a little strange in my opinion, it simply doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the story. Besides, didn't Adams' read RM Lockley's book in an attempt to make it as true to wild rabbit behaviours as possible. I'm sure wild rabbits don't go about wooing females into falling in love with them, they would fight and show off their strength.

I never thought about the lack of female characters, it never bothered me and it still doesn't bother me. For someone to be so offended by a novel about rabbits, and to dig that deep into it, to me just defies belief. It was a story he told to his children, his two young girls. It can't just be a good story, it has to be read and digested and interpreted in every possible way. When the original interpretation is simply just a good story about rabbits.

Any little thing that people can take offence in, they will.

[Blackavar]

Jun 22, 2011 10:48:23 GMT 9.5 Azerane said:

Any little thing that people can take offence in, they will.

I agree with this and most of your statement 100%. But that's not just because I am male and wish to defend myself. It's more a case of me understanding the concerns about the gender imbalance in the book, but also realising that it should be considered nothing more that a curious observation.

Not everything needs to be considered an offence, and what Selma G. Lanes wrote was simply bitter, angry and over-dramatic ramblings. A total and utter distraction from a wonderful story, and a cry for attention for the soul purpose of stepping up on the soap box and claiming ones' self as a victim of great injustice, when really they chose to put themselves in the firing line.

"marred by an attitude towards females that finds more confirmation in Hugh Hefner's Playboy than R. M. Lockley's The Private Life of the Rabbit."

...a bit over-dramatic and uncalled for in my opinion. Her entire review was extremely non-constructive a sought to pick out all the bad points that quite frankly were never at the forefront of people's minds when they chose to read and enjoy the book. Granted, they are indeed interesting issues (as I too have thought about it), but I would consider them far from anything set out to intentionally offend female readers, and glorify the attitudes of the owner of the world's largest pornographic magazine.

A friend of mine from University (a female, and advocate of gender rights) once made an interesting point. She said "To assume there is an undertone to every statement is to assume everybody is a nasty person deep down. I think is a greater crime, because if we are advocating tolerance and equality, yet we constantly seek the ability consider ourselves the victims of discrimination (regardless of intent), then we will never stop feeling victimised."

Lets explore this by taking a look at Jane's quote:

"I felt he [Adams] had treated me and my kind with a contempt I couldn't be silent about."

In general, her review was far more favourable, and she did say it only marred the experience in a minor way. But "me and my kind"? What she has done is chosen to consider herself and her feelings as the authority when speaking on behalf of all females. The soul purpose of this is to assume the prime position of the victim of a great injustice, when in reality her opinion is really just her own. I always find it very hypocritical when one tries to advocate their right to a voice, and then proceed to assume they are speaking on behalf of everybody.

I don't think it was Adam's intention, nor did it even cross his mind to write the female characters simply as "instruments of reproduction", nor would it have been any representation of his stance on the matter in real life. I think he simply sought after a dilemma for which his characters must encounter during the course of his story, and this was the most practical outcome given his understanding of the culture of rabbits. He may have been brought up with relatively sexist views by today's standards, but it's hardly fair to thrust a modern values on a book that was created in a time of dated ones.

That's just my opinion, and I hope I did not offend.

[Azerane]

Jun 22, 2011 12:25:12 GMT 9.5 Blackavar said:

but also realising that it should be considered nothing more that a curious observation.

I very much agree with your opinions on the issue Blackavar, it is a curious observation. It reminds me of whenever we would study books at school, we had to read into them and make sure we got the meaning out of them. But who's to say that the author was actually writing with the intent to convey that meaning, maybe it was accidental. It's like putting words into someone else's mouth. And your friend is right, we would always be feeling victimised if we were always on the lookout for things that could possibly offend us.

"me and my kind"? What she has done is chosen to consider herself and her feelings as the authority when speaking on behalf of all females. The soul purpose of this is to assume the prime position of the victim of a great injustice, when in reality her opinion is really just her own. I always find it very hypocritical when one tries to advocate their right to a voice, and then proceed to assume they are speaking on behalf of everybody.

Another case of putting words into other people's mouths. Speaking on behalf of people who she believes will feel the same way that she does. To say and expect that, is simply blind. Did she ask "her kind" if she could speak on behalf of them. What exactly is her "kind" anyway? All women, or all feminists? Or simply anyone who is offended easily?

I think he simply sought after a dilemma for which his characters must encounter during the course of his story, and this was the most practical outcome given his understanding of the culture of rabbits.

Couldn't have said it better myself. What would the story be if they'd had females from the very beginning. They never would have had to go to Efrafa, Hazel would have never been shot trying to get the rabbits out of the barn, and they certainly wouldn't have had any need of a bird like Keehar, a much less interesting story if you ask me. If all the characters that had left Sandleford had been female, I can't see them sending rabbits away to a hostile warren to fight to get some males out. In any case, all I'm trying to say is, the involvement of only male characters certainly makes for a more interesting plot and story. I love it just the way it is.

[Tima]

Finally found some time to type :)

Anyway, I find the comments in the OP intriguing but I don't really subscribe to them. Yes, the main cast are males while all the females are pretty much merely a McGuffin. Yes, the story is about male camaraderie. But in the end, that's all right. A story can be about a parent-child-relationship, or about love between a man and a woman, or about the power of friendship. This story happens to be about male camaraderie. From what I hear, Richard Adams went through the second world war and the rabbits in the book are based on the people he met, knew and befriended during the war. War is about suffering and violence, but male camaraderie is an element of it as well. Men in the frontlines encounter such gruesome side of human beings and they experience things that no outsider can ever truly understand. These men have a special bond between them. Back then there weren't really women in the army, and the war that Adams knew was a "men's thing".

It's generally speaking good advice to "write what you know"; write about something that's personal and familiar to you and something you understand intimately. Adams wrote about the men he met in the war and the sense of struggling through obstacles together with them.

Of course I've always noticed the parts in the books where it's stated that rabbits are very blunt creatures and Hazel could simply bully a stubborn Fiver into submission, or how Holly asked about the reproduction abilities of Clover for instance. But I've accepted these things as animals acting like animals, and in fact, I'm fond of the book for this very reason. The book goes into the head of a small, timid prey animal; an animal that has a short life to live and thus sees the world in a very alien way when compared to the way us humans think. Animals don't care about morality or equality, they just live their lives without worrying about anything else than survival. They try not to be killed until they've passed their genes on to the next generation. They don't have concepts of romance or love the same way as humans so. The relationship between Strawberry and Nildro-Hain is the only time I remember rabbits in the book having somewhat human-like love/romance, but the rabbits in that warren lived a very quirky life after all.

The only possible problem I see in a patriarchal Watership Down warren is if Lockley's book indeed portrays rabbits as matriarchal creatures, as one of those snippets stated. In such case it would mean that the gender bias of the warren would in fact come from Adams, rather than from the actual behaviour of rabbits as depicted in Adams' reference material. I haven't read Lockley's book though so I can't comment. And I still feel there are such things as creative license and the fact that the animals were based on Adams' wartime buddies.

I have been watching this recent feminist/anti-discrimination movement that's been going on, and it frustrates me. They have some pretty good points, but then they state some complete brainfarts. I find it interesting to ponder how different genders are used in fiction, but a lot of people are just really uncompromising and temperamental about this stuff. In the end, I have trouble feeling sympathy for feminists who are more concerned about the use of females in fiction, when they could focus their concern into more concrete problems (such as the high danger of social exclusion amongst immigrant women).

So yeah, basically I'm totally okay with the use of female characters in Watership Down. Though I do wonder how the book would fare if it were written today. Mostly the problem would probably be certain parts where the behaviour of rabbits is compared to how primitive or indigenous peoples would react in similar situations. Those comments always made me think "ooh, if this were written today, there'd probably be a hell to pay".

It's also interesting to compare the tone of the first book to the sequel. The second book does have a more "modern" air to it, what with it featuring some more proactive female characters, and Hyzenthlay becoming a co-Chief Rabbit. If Adams truly has heard over the years a lot of criticism about the gender roles in the first book, it would explain why the tone in the second book feels different like that.

[Azerane]

Jun 24, 2011 19:42:45 GMT 9.5 Tima said:

Anyway, I find the comments in the OP intriguing but I don't really subscribe to them. Yes, the main cast are males while all the females are pretty much merely a McGuffin. Yes, the story is about male camaraderie. But in the end, that's all right. A story can be about a parent-child-relationship, or about love between a man and a woman, or about the power of friendship. This story happens to be about male camaraderie.

You couldn't have put it more simply or in my opinion correctly. So many books and not to mention movies are so balanced in trying to portray action, love, friendship etc that it ends up just being another movie, there's not one central theme. However Watership Down does have this, and you are right, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it being male camaraderie.

I haven't read Lockley's book though so I can't comment. And I still feel there are such things as creative license and the fact that the animals were based on Adams' wartime buddies.

I wish I had read Lockley's. When I was still at Uni, I was in the library one day in the animal section and they actually had a copy of Lockley's. I have no idea why I didn't borrow it and read it. I wish I had. I guess I could always go into the library to read it, but I wouldn't be able to borrow it now as I'm no longer a student. I imagine it would be an interesting read though and would make some nice comparitive material for Adams' depictions of the rabbits, in particular, their gender roles.