The World's Wife: Reviewing Feminist Literature in the Context of

Psychology
November 16, 2016

Carol Ann Duffy’s poetry collection ​The World’s Wife (1999)​ may well be the single most
accurate representation of modern women that we have to date. Her characters are
dominant and electrically bold, colourful and unforgivingly female. The collection acts as
an arena for previously voiceless females who have formerly been banished to a
subordinate role under the guise of men and denied their own story and their own voice.
Duffy’s characters reject all feminine gender norms: they have casual sex, reject
marriage, smoke, drink, swear, and rebel against society’s expectations. Naturally, I
loved it from start to finish. I now, with my psychology-student hat on, wonder what
made these stories so compelling. What can psychology teach me about the women of
Duffy’s poems?

Rudman, Moss-Racusin, Phelan and Nauts (2012) suggested that ​female dominance is
perceived negatively due to men’s attempts to reinforce a double standard of power and
agency.​ In simpler terms – ​men don’t like their dominant position to be challenged by a
woman. This is exactly what the women of ‘The World’s Wife’ do so well.​ They not only
challenge and subtly attempt to reverse gendered dynamics, instead they take power.
They align themselves with men and revel in this new found “masculinity”. ​The notion
that women can be wild, highly sexual and emotionally nonchalant is somewhat
revolutionary. Indeed, contemporary society continues to attempt to come to terms with
the notion of gender parallels and the prospect that females can too have
characteristics of men​. This relates to the wonderful quote by Roseanne Barr: “The
thing women have yet to learn is nobody gives you power. You just take it.”

Heilman, Wallen, Fuchs and Tamkins (2004) found that ​when women have been
successful in a male gender-typed job they are disliked more than their male
counterparts. ​The study supports the notion that ​gender stereotyping promotes bias in
the evaluation of women​ – regardless of competence and success. I would argue that
perhaps the most convincing aspect of Duffy’s characters is that they don’t all strive for
likeability. It would be easy to mimic a Sex and The City-esque parade of fabulous,
glamorous, powerful women who become equal and superior to men. Instead, Duffy
portrays one gritty, murderous, unlikeable symbol of womanhood. “The Devil’s Wife” –
supposedly from ​Myra Hindley’s ​point of view – shows a female character who is
devoted to ‘the devil’ and yet ultimately acts as his equal: “We’re the same, he said,
That’s it. I swooned in my soul”. This character aligns herself to her husband and enjoys
the power and agency that this allows her: “The Devil was evil, mad, but I was the
Devil’s wife which made me worse”. Indeed, it is the enjoyment of the transgression that
is so compelling to read and which poses so many questions for psychology. Research
has focused on how objectification and subordination affect women’s behaviour and
culture, however it is important to ask: what do women enjoy? What do women want?
As a partial answer to this, Smith (1999) concluded that women who identified as a
feminist showed higher identity self-esteem. Moreover, McRobbie (2004) states that
feminism allows women “relief to escape this censorious politics and freely enjoy that
which has been disapproved of”.

This notion that women enjoy subverting gender norms can be seen in my all-time
favourite poem “Mrs Faust”. The protagonist “went on my sweet way” without her
husband and she felt “not jealousy but chronic irritation” when he went to prostitutes.
The foundations of the Faust’s marriage are hedonism, success and bitterness; any
notions of love are dismissed. Mrs Faust subverts the stereotype of sweet, doting wife
and brands her husband a “clever, cunning, callous bastard’’ who ‘’didn’t have a soul to
sell’’. Rudman (1998) suggests that females are perceived more negatively when they
act in a way that is agentic and typically masculine. Indeed, a hallmark of ‘The Worlds
Wife is that in order to empower the female characters, they are aligned with their male
counterparts.

To conclude, The World’s Wife – and indeed, other feminist literature – can give
psychologists a real insight into the mechanisms of womanhood. ​Aligning oneself to
masculinity has proven to enable Duffy’s characters to fully reveal their personality and
desires​. Indeed, I believe that the relationship between literature and psychology is ever
present in current study. Authors and poets write in a context which is free from the
rigidity and constraints of psychological literature. They are, in a way, social and political
commentators. Therefore, I believe that it is up to us as psychologists to really make
sense of these observations – in an objective and scientific way.

References:

Heilman, M. E., Wallen, A. S., Fuchs, D., & Tamkins, M. M. (2004). Penalties for
success: reactions to women who succeed at male gender-typed tasks. Journal of
Applied Psychology, 89(3), 416.
McRobbie, A. (2004). Post-feminism and popular culture. Feminist media studies, 4(3),
255-264.
Rudman, L. A., Moss-Racusin, C. A., Phelan, J. E., & Nauts, S. (2012). Status
incongruity and backlash effects: Defending the gender hierarchy motivates prejudice
against female leaders. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(1), 165-179.
Smith, C. A. (1999). I enjoy being a girl: Collective self-esteem, feminism, and attitudes
toward women. Sex Roles, 40(3-4), 281-293.