Feminist Fables - Suniti Namjoshi

The oft-quoted quip that the lesbian has "no natural allies" in our society is closer to the truth than its humorous tone would suggest. The implied recognition that straight girls and gay guys get on is a massive generalisation but surely truer than the opposite scenario.

Traditionally the only relationship between lesbians and straight men has been a voyeuristic one, and one that rarely involves any actual lesbians. It's just another nonsensical fetish.

Also, only a dribbling idiot would contest the fact that society is set up strongly in favour of male over female and straight over gay. So gay women don't need to develop a sense of victimhood, it's there whether they like it or not. How many famous lesbians can you name? The fact is that homosexuality is still pretty much a taboo in our society, outside of the easily-identifiable exaggerated form that middle England can swallow.

Gayness is all well and good as long as it remains firmly in its own camp. Part of the true nature of homophobia is the anxiety brought about by not being able to tell the difference between straight and gay: the fear of an open border.

There's also the often firmly-held belief among men that lesbians are man-haters by definition. How dare they eschew what we have to offer? I mean, men are awesome, aren't they?

Anyway I begin with all this kerfuffle because my first reaction to Namjoshi's 'Feminist Fables' (1981) was to be taken aback at how specifically lesbian-based most of these fables are. Lesbianism and feminism are by no means synonymous, after all: although one can imagine there's a great deal of crossover.

My reflexes, apparently, still don't stretch to the basic understanding that everything I write is at least as informed by and dominated by my own sexuality (or lack thereof depending on the phase of the moon). I look forward to the point where such considerations are second nature.

I would yet insist that - unlike the very greatest of authors - Namjoshi does at times allow her message to overshadow her method: her content to smother her style.

But this is not always the case, and for such a focused and driven collection I think we can excuse some of the simpler and less evocative stories in light of the many successful, rich and complex amalgams of myth and polemic. Because Suniti Namjoshi really plays with two particular meanings of 'myth' in these fables, destroying one by embracing the other.

To give a general idea of the content while completely omitting the style, here are a few of my favourite plot lines:


* A lion attacks mouse, planning to eat it. The mouse persuades the lion to spare it in return for a favour in the future. The mouse comes across the lion trapped in net. The lion expects the mouse to chew through net and free it. The mouse decides not eating the lion is favour enough.

* Bluebeard leaves his new wife a set of keys and forbids her entry to just one of the rooms in his castle. She thinks he's entitled to a room of his own and thus obeys him. Enraged that his plan to entrap her has failed, he slays her anyway.

* Two knights battle over an abducted maiden. Her rescuer defeats her captor but finds she has already been raped. He grieves bitterly for his loss.

* A whale must spend her whole life eating plankton to survive. But she always wanted to sing. She decides to sing a little each day and eat plankton the rest of the time. She gets to sing pretty well by the time she's starved to death.


Though the average length of a fable in this book is less than a page, many are too complex to be distilled like this. The language throughout is as simple and child-friendly as the themes are complex and sophisticated - like all good fables.

There are enough people in the world who would have no interest on principle in reading a collection of (very) short stories that combine ancient world fables with (comparatively) modern feminism. For the rest of us, there is much to explore in Suniti Namjoshi's 'Feminist Fables'.

And they do not disappoint.