Gender, crosswriting, and objectification — an on-record Wallace datum

echoes

Early text: "Some of the fiction I try to write is in feminine voice, and I consider myself sensitive to the technical/political problems involved in “crosswriting,”"; "the feminization of skepticism"; "the same complex & scary blend of Hellenic & Evian misogyny—Helen essentially guilty as object & Eve guilty as subject, temptress."; the charge that Markson "cannot, finally, himself help but objectify her". [the long gender section] [e-text]
IJ echo: The wallace-misogyny / silenced-feminine cruxes — the critical question of how Wallace writes (and objectifies, or silences) women (Avril, Joelle, Kate Gompert). Here Wallace is on record, in 1990, thinking explicitly about male authorship of female voices, objectification, and two archetypes of "female" guilt — a documentary datum for both sides of the misogyny debate: evidence of his self-conscious attention to the problem, and a specimen of the very "guys apparently must organize & process fey mystery" framing critics indict.
Weight: shared-preoccupation (documentary; cuts both ways)