Female Buddy Literature

The following discussion of female "buddy" literature took place on WMST-L
in October 2006.  It focuses primarily on literature, while an earlier WMST-L
file, Women Buddy Films,  looks primarily at films.   For additional WMST-L files 
now available on the Web, see the WMST-L File Collection.

I'm drawing a blank! I can think of "Thelma and Louise" as an example of 
a female buddy film, but I can't think of novels that put two 
girls/women onto a journey together.....any suggestions (probably 20th 
century)?

thanks,
<jane.olmsted  AT  wku.edu>

Jane, what about Isabel Miller's PATIENCE AND SARAH?  Vicki


Vicki Kirsch, LICSW, Ph.D.

http://therapists.psychologytoday.com/40939

"The sacred is on the tip of the tongue."
Navajo poet Luci Tapahonso

Many popular culture novels have 2 or more often 3 women traveling
together through life.  Judith Kranz, Nora Roberts, Olivia
Goldsmith...husbands come and go but a girlfriend is there until the
funeral and sometimes beyond ...Fried Green Tomatoes, Beaches, Babette's
Feast...The Color Purple....
Marilyn Grotzky

not a novel, but As You Like it -- Celia and Rosalind escape to the
forest of arden together.
In bible -- book of ruth. ruth and naomi are wanderers together.

Katha Pollitt
katha.pollitt  AT  gmail.com

surely one needs to make a distinction between 'buddy' scenarios and 
ones where there is an explicitly lesbian sexual/love relationship.
the 'buddy' in the colour purple, shug, has a sexual/love relationship 
with celie.
the 'buddy' in fried green tomatoes, ruth, is the love of idgie's life.
they are lovers, not 'buddies'. 
there are undoubtedly scenarios in which two lesbians are 'buddies' 
rather than lovers, but these two are not examples of such.

b


-- 
***********************************************
Dr Bronwyn Winter
Senior Lecturer
Dept of French Studies 
School of Languages and Cultures
Mungo McCallum Building A17
University of Sydney  NSW 2006
Australia

email: bronwyn.winter  AT  arts.usyd.edu.au

***********************************************

That's a nice reminder -- In the Color Purple Sophia eventually gives a
large part of her life for the family and Nettie is always part of
Celie's life -- there can be more than one other woman in a woman's
life.  The Kathy Bates character becomes important in Idgie's life,
allowing her to relive the years with Ruth.  Of course, this too changes
the configuration from buddies for a journey or through an entire life.

Marilyn

hello marilyn et al

as you say, these scenarios don't really fit the 'buddy' image either:
sophia does give a lot to the family but she is not celie's 'buddy' as 
such.  nettie is celie's sister so different again.
re evelyn, she is never idgie's buddy even if there is a connection that 
happens.  i always saw it as being more about evelyn being empowered by 
idgie's story.  but perhaps this comes out more clearly in the book than 
the film that was made from it, i'd have to go back and look at both.

bronwyn
-- 
***********************************************
Dr Bronwyn Winter
Senior Lecturer
Dept of French Studies 
School of Languages and Cultures
Mungo McCallum Building A17
University of Sydney  NSW 2006
Australia

ph: (61-2) 9351 5643
fax: (61-2) 9351 4757
email: bronwyn.winter  AT  arts.usyd.edu.au

***********************************************

"Beaches" - book and film

Betty
_____________________________________

Betty J. Glass
Resource Analysis & Support Librarian
Getchell Library/322
University of Nevada, Reno
Reno, NV 89557-0044

glass  AT  unr.edu

Complications between female buddies: (a longish short story)

Alice Walker, ^+Advancing Luna^+& Ida B. Wells,^+ in Alice Walker, You Can't
Keep A Good Woman Down^+short stories, Harcourt Brace & Jovanovich, (1971),
1981

Toni Morrison, Sula

NOT FICTION:
Muriel Dimen. 2003.  Sexuality, Intimacy, Power.  Hillsdale, N.J.: The
Analytic Press.  


Barrie Karp, Ph.D.
barriekarp  AT  earthlink.net
karpb  AT  newschool.edu
Faculty Member, New School since 1982
Faculty Member Eugene Lang College since 1988
Faculty Member School of Visual Arts (Humanities & Sciences Dept.) since
1982
Teaching in NYC area colleges since 1970

Jane,

Marilyn French wrote The Women's Room in 1977.  (A
feminist classic)  She has a new book out called In
the Name of Friendship.  Both of these may fit your
description.  My book discussion group (Barbara's Book
Chats) will be discussing her new book in January.

Barbara Conkle (Librarian -- Satellite Beach)
(formerly WKU)

The original request was for female "buddy" stories that involved a
journey , and these seem very rare.  A journey, a quest, is such a
basic theme in so much world literature (think Tolkien and all the
great stories/sagas that were forerunners), where, perforce, the
questers/journeyers are male.  Among those that at least include women
in the journey are L. Frank Baum's Oz books; in The Road to Oz the
central character is Dorothy.  Baum was a strong feminist, son-in-law
to Matilda Gage.  One location for women-journeying-together is late
20th century science fiction novels in which women are journeying
together through space and alternative worlds.

The list has since been responding with buddy stories that involve friendship 
(emotional journeys?!) between women , so that's what I'm contributing too.

One place where you find a lot of these is so-called young adult literature.  
 Evidently it's more "okay" to write novels   that center on friendship 
between girls than it is to highlight women's friendships.   The devaluation of 
women's friendships is a long story in patriarchy.   Two of my favorites:

1)   Nancy Garden. Annie on My Mind.   1982.   One of the first novels about 
two high school girls falling in love.   It's also a wonderful description of 
friendship.   It won an ALA Award for Best Book for Young Adults, and in 2002 
Garden received one of the Margaret A. Edwards career awards for her fine 
books.

2)   Cynthia Voigt.  Izzy, Willy-Nilly.  1986.   An account of a high school 
girl who loses a leg in a car accident and her coming to terms with this.    
Central in her development is Rosamunde,   a fine feisty 
character with real compassion,   who becomes a true friend.   No falling in 
love here, and Izzy develops other genuine friendships too.   That's what the 
book celebrates.   Voigt's Dicey's Song (1983) took a Newbery Medal, and she 
too received an MAE career award in 1995. 

Some of the listers have been distinguishing between buddy relationships and 
sexual relationships. I question this distinction.   I'm not convinced that 
friendship relationships are non-sexual -- and   plenty of sexual relationships, 
including ones that "feel" like love, die for lack of friendship.

Joan Griscom
griscomjl  AT  aol.com
Lexington, MA 

what about beloved?  amy denver + sethe
and 2 that i think have a journey, but am not entirely sure:
housekeeping & dessa rose
 
Michele Ren
mren2  AT  radford.edu

________________________________

Toni Morrison's SULA.

But, as Barbara Smith points out in her analysis of the book (and 
despite Morrison's assertion that there is no lesbianism in her 
book(s)), the novel is incredibly homoerotic. I believe Smith's essay 
can be found in
Elaine Showalter's FEMINIST CRITICISM anthology.

I would argue that one of the reasons it is so difficult to identify 
buddy stories is that the subgenre is actually inherently homoerotic 
(so too with male buddy films/novels).

In this context, a very interesting twist on this subgenre is Silas 
Howard and Harriet Dodge's BY HOOK OR BY CROOK: a buddy film with two 
butch dyke protagonists.

-- 
Kami Chisholm
Lecturer, Gender and Women's Studies
3416 Dwinelle
University of California, Berkeley
kchisholm  AT  berkeley.edu

It's funny (odd or uncanny) to have emergence of dissent about what can be
a female buddy story and what is a journey, and to contemplate the
exclusions alluded to or suggested.  Does it have to parallel "male" buddy
literature?  (Where the initial post put "buddy" in quotes, the discussion
has moved to buddy).  In the Alice Walker story I mentioned in my earlier
post, the two women, Luna (white) and the narrator (Black), are "buddies"
in summer 1964 down south in the Civil Rights Movement, then "buddies"
again sharing an apartment on the Lower East Side in NYC, etc., and the
idea of "buddies" is troubled and examined, and appropriately
contextualized, whereas in some of the posts it seems that some want the
term to mean only something fixed, only something "positive," only like
classic "male" buddy literature.  The story goes on to trouble, engage and
ponder the Black woman narrator and her Black male artist activist
"buddies," for they are also on a journey together.  And the author and the
narrator are also on an imaginary but very real journey with Ida B. Wells. 
It's interesting to hear from one of the posts that there's more children's
female buddy literature, but perhaps it just seems that way in part or is
only partially true, and that adult female buddy literature would be
contextualized, troubled, and complex.

[Alice Walker, "Advancing Luna-- & Ida B. Wells," in Alice Walker, You Can't
Keep A Good Woman Down^+short stories, Harcourt Brace & Jovanovich, (1971),
1981]

In SULA also, which I suggested in my earlier post, Nel and Sula are
friends since childhood and have all kinds of history together from then
on, certainly to be considered a journey.

I'm not generalizing about other works, but there surely is an erotic layer
in both works mentioned above.

I just saw a film "Old Joy" at Film Forum in NYC (by a Kelly Reichardt
(female filmmaker)) about "buddies" too--both "male"--but I think it's
worth knowing about & also worth seeing because it presents deep questions
about friendship.  And yes it is gendered, but it transcends that too. 
http://www.filmforum.org/films/oldjoy.html 
www.kino.com 

Another great educational film, inspiring and political) (not a female
buddy story) is, also a film by Freida Lee Mock, filmmaker (who also made
"Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision," a documentary about playwright Tony
Kushner, "Wrestling with Angels."  www.tonykushnerthemovie.com 

Barrie Karp, Ph.D.
barriekarp  AT  earthlink.net
karpb  AT  newschool.edu
Faculty Member, New School since 1982
Faculty Member Eugene Lang College since 1988
Faculty Member School of Visual Arts (Humanities & Sciences Dept.) since
1982
Teaching in NYC area colleges since 1970Barrie

"Women Without Men: A Novel of Modern Iran" 1994, Parsipur (a "road
trip" tale beyond U.S. borders).  

Ann Virtu Snyder 
Instructor, Women'sStudies 
Clark College MS #14 
1800 E. McLoughlin Blvd.  
Vancouver, WA 98663-3598 
asnyder  AT  clark.edu

The film "Boys on the Side" would be useful.
 
Cheryl 
 
 
 
Dr Cheryl Stobie
English Studies
School of Literary Studies, Media, and Creative Arts
University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg
Private Bag X01, Scottsville, 3209
South Africa

--On Monday, October 16, 2006 12:57 PM +0200 Cheryl Stobie <StobieC AT UKZN.AC.ZA> wrote:

> The film "Boys on the Side" would be useful.

I think Jane asked specifically for literature rather than films. 
People looking for female buddy films may want to consult a WMST-L 
file made from a discussion on the list in 1993: "Women Buddy Films,." 
The URL is http://www.umbc.edu/wmst/buddy_films.html .

	Joan

	Joan Korenman, WMST-L's Official Nag
	jskor AT umbc.edu
  http://www.umbc.edu/wmst/wmst-l_index.html

Flaming Iguanas by Erika Lopez (1997)--illustrated novel (kind of 
rides the boundary between novel and graphic novel), motorcycle road 
trip, smart and funny and, according to my friends who teach it, very 
teach-able.

Peace,
Jeannie
-- 
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
Jeannie Ludlow, Ph.D.		jludlow  AT  bgnet.bgsu.edu
Undergraduate Advisor
Women's Studies
228 East Hall
Bowling Green State U
Bowling Green OH 43403

Just a quick note to say thanks to all who suggested works that employ a 
female "buddy" motif, or something like it, and a journey. You brought 
up a number of good points. If you want to see the compiled comments, 
I've copy/pasted them below (though I left out the authors as I was 
trying to get the list ready for a student--hope that's okay). It might 
be helpful for any of you casting about for reading ideas.

jane.olmsted  AT  wku.edu

----

Isabel Miller's PATIENCE AND SARAH?

Many popular culture novels have 2 or more often 3 women traveling 
together through life. Judith Kranz, Nora Roberts, Olivia
Goldsmith...husbands come and go but a girlfriend is there until the
funeral and sometimes beyond ...Fried Green Tomatoes, Beaches, Babette's 
Feast...The Color Purple....

---
not a novel, but As You Like it -- Celia and Rosalind escape to the
forest of arden together. In bible -- book of ruth. ruth and naomi are 
wanderers together.

---
surely one needs to make a distinction between 'buddy' scenarios and 
ones where there is an explicitly lesbian sexual/love relationship. the 
'buddy' in the colour purple, shug, has a sexual/love relationship with 
celie. the 'buddy' in fried green tomatoes, ruth, is the love of idgie's 
life. they are lovers, not 'buddies'. there are undoubtedly scenarios in 
which two lesbians are 'buddies' rather than lovers, but these two are 
not examples of such.
---
That's a nice reminder -- In the Color Purple Sophia eventually gives a 
large part of her life for the family and Nettie is always part of 
Celie's life -- there can be more than one other woman in a woman's 
life. The Kathy Bates character becomes important in Idgie's life, 
allowing her to relive the years with Ruth. Of course, this too changes 
the configuration from buddies for a journey or through an entire life.

---
as you say, these scenarios don't really fit the 'buddy' image either:
sophia does give a lot to the family but she is not celie's 'buddy' as 
such. nettie is celie's sister so different again. re evelyn, she is 
never idgie's buddy even if there is a connection that happens. i always 
saw it as being more about evelyn being empowered by idgie's story. but 
perhaps this comes out more clearly in the book than the film that was 
made from it, i'd have to go back and look at both.

---
"Beaches" - book and film

---
Complications between female buddies: (a longish short story)

^+ Alice Walker, ^+Advancing Luna^+& Ida B. Wells,^+ in Alice Walker, You 
Can't Keep A Good Woman Down^+short stories, Harcourt Brace & Jovanovich, 
(1971),1981

^+ Toni Morrison, Sula

^+ NOT FICTION: Muriel Dimen. 2003. Sexuality, Intimacy, Power. 
Hillsdale, N.J.: The Analytic Press.
---
Marilyn French wrote The Women's Room in 1977. (A
feminist classic) She has a new book out called In
the Name of Friendship. Both of these may fit your
description. My book discussion group (Barbara's Book
Chats) will be discussing her new book in January.

---
The original request was for female "buddy" stories that involved a 
journey ,
and these seem very rare. A journey, a quest, is such a basic theme in so
much world literature (think Tolkien and all the great stories/sagas 
that were
forerunners), where, perforce, the questers/journeyers are male. Among 
those
that at least include women in the journey are L. Frank Baum's Oz books; in
The Road to Oz the central character is Dorothy. Baum was a strong
feminist, son-in-law to Matilda Gage. One location for 
women-journeying-together is
late 20th century science fiction novels in which women are journeying
together through space and alternative worlds.

The list has since been responding with buddy stories that involve 
friendship
(emotional journeys?!) between women , so that's what I'm contributing too.

One place where you find a lot of these is so-called young adult 
literature.
Evidently it's more "okay" to write novels that center on friendship
between girls than it is to highlight women's friendships. The 
devaluation of
women's friendships is a long story in patriarchy. Two of my favorites:

1) Nancy Garden. Annie on My Mind. 1982. One of the first novels about
two high school girls falling in love. It's also a wonderful description of
friendship. It won an ALA Award for Best Book for Young Adults, and in 2002
Garden received one of the Margaret A. Edwards career awards for her fine
books.

2) Cynthia Voigt. Izzy, Willy-Nilly. 1986. An account of a high school 
girl who loses a leg in a car accident and her coming to terms with 
this. Central in her development is Rosamunde, a fine feisty character 
with real compassion, who becomes a true friend. No falling in love 
here, and Izzy develops other genuine friendships too. That's what the 
book celebrates. Voigt's Dicey's Song (1983) took a Newbery Medal, and 
she too received an MAE career award in 1995.

Some of the listers have been distinguishing between buddy relationships 
and sexual relationships. I question this distinction. I'm not convinced 
that friendship relationships are non-sexual --and plenty of sexual 
relationships, including ones that "feel" like love, die for lack of 
friendship.

---
what about beloved? amy denver + seethe and 2 that i think have a 
journey, but am not entirely sure: housekeeping & dessa rose

---
Toni Morrison's SULA.

But, as Barbara Smith points out in her analysis of the book (and 
despite Morrison's assertion that there is no lesbianism in her 
book(s)), the novel is incredibly homoerotic. I believe Smith's essay 
can be found in Elaine Showalter's FEMINIST CRITICISM anthology.

I would argue that one of the reasons it is so difficult to identify 
buddy stories is that the subgenre is actually inherently homoerotic (so 
too with male buddy films/novels).

In this context, a very interesting twist on this subgenre is Silas 
Howard and Harriet Dodge's BY HOOK OR BY CROOK: a buddy film with two 
butch dyke protagonists.

---
It's funny (odd or uncanny) to have emergence of dissent about what can 
be a female buddy story and what is a journey, and to contemplate the 
exclusions alluded to or suggested. Does it have to parallel "male" 
buddy literature? (Where the initial post put "buddy" in quotes, the 
discussion has moved to buddy). In the Alice Walker story I mentioned in 
my earlier post, the two women, Luna (white) and the narrator (Black), 
are "buddies" in summer 1964 down south in the Civil Rights Movement, 
then "buddies" again sharing an apartment on the Lower East Side in NYC, 
etc., and the idea of "buddies" is troubled and examined, and 
appropriately contextualized, whereas in some of the posts it seems that 
some want the term to mean only something fixed, only something 
"positive," only like classic "male" buddy literature. The story goes on 
to trouble, engage and ponder the Black woman narrator and her Black 
male artist activist "buddies," for they are also on a journey together. 
And the author and the narrator are also on an imaginary but very real 
journey with Ida B. Wells. It's interesting to hear from one of the 
posts that there's more children's female buddy literature, but perhaps 
it just seems that way in part or is only partially true, and that adult 
female buddy literature would be contextualized, troubled, and complex.

[Alice Walker,"+Advancing Luna--& Ida B. Wells," in Alice Walker, You 
Can't Keep A Good Woman Down^+short stories, Harcourt Brace & Jovanovich, 
(1971), 1981]

In SULA also, which I suggested in my earlier post, Nel and Sula are
friends since childhood and have all kinds of history together from then 
on, certainly to be considered a journey.

I'm not generalizing about other works, but there surely is an erotic 
layer in both works mentioned above.

I just saw a film "Old Joy" at Film Forum in NYC (by a Kelly Reichardt
(female filmmaker)) about "buddies" too--both "male"--but I think it's 
worth knowing about & also worth seeing because it presents deep 
questions about friendship. And yes it is gendered, but it transcends 
that too. http://www.filmforum.org/films/oldjoy.html
www.kino.com

Another great educational film, inspiring and political) (not a female 
buddy story) is, also a film by Freida Lee Mock, filmmaker (who also 
made "Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision," a documentary about playwright 
TonyKushner, "Wrestling with Angels." www.tonykushnerthemovie.com

---
"Women Without Men: A Novel of Modern Iran" 1994, Parsipur (a "road 
trip" tale beyond U.S. borders).

---
The film "Boys on the Side" would be useful.

---
Flaming Iguanas by Erika Lopez (1997)--illustrated novel (kind of rides 
the boundary between novel and graphic novel), motorcycle road trip, 
smart and funny and, according to my friends who teach it, very teach-able.

I'm not sure if this was mentioned already, but
"Leaving Normal" with Meg Tilly and Christine Lahti
fits the bill.  It's been years since I've seen it,
but I remember it as being much more hopeful than
Thelma and Louise.