{"id":44418,"date":"2019-08-23T09:24:15","date_gmt":"2019-08-23T13:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?p=44418"},"modified":"2019-08-23T09:24:15","modified_gmt":"2019-08-23T13:24:15","slug":"stepping-heavenward-extremely-intimate-friendships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2019\/08\/stepping-heavenward-extremely-intimate-friendships.html","title":{"rendered":"Stepping Heavenward: Extremely Intimate Friendships"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Stepping Heavenward, chapter I, part 4<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The year is still 1831, and Katy is still sixteen.<\/p>\n

May 12.- The weather is getting perfectly delicious. I am sitting with my window open, and my bird is singing with all his heart. I wish I was as gay as he is.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This really frames this section well.<\/p>\n

I have been thinking lately that it was about time to begin on some of those pieces of self-denial I resolved on upon my birthday. I could not think\u00a0of anything great enough for a long time. At last an idea popped into my head. Half the girls at school envy me because Amelia is so fond of me, and Jane Underhill, in particular, is just crazy to get intimate with her. But I have kept Amelia all to myself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019ve been trying to think of a parallel in another piece of literature from this general time period. We don\u2019t see friendships of this sort in Little Women<\/em> because the sisters seem to spend most of their time with each other\u2014instead, we see close friendships between<\/em> the sisters. I can\u2019t recall anything quite of this sort of thing in\u00a0Little House on the Prairie,<\/em> either, perhaps because they were always moving. But I don\u2019t remember this in\u00a0Elsie Dinsmore<\/em> or\u00a0The\u00a0Little Colonel, <\/i>either,\u00a0two books set in the South at around this time or slightly later. There is\u00a0Anne of Green Gables,<\/em>\u00a0though, with Anne\u2019s \u201cbosom\u201d friendship with Diana.<\/p>\n

Of course, the concept of having a \u201cbest\u201d friend is still present today, and teenage girls today do have \u201cfriend drama\u201d\u2014or whatever we want to call it\u2014which is what this turns into. Still, there\u2019s something about the language here that\u2019s different.<\/p>\n

To-day I said to her, Amelia, Jane Underhill admires you above all things. I have a good mind to let you be as intimate with her as you are with me. It will be a great piece of self-denial, but I think it is my duty. She is a stranger, and nobody seems to like her much.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou dear thing, you!\u201d cried Amelia, kissing me. \u201cI liked Jane Underhill the moment I saw her. She has such a sweet face and such pleasant manners. But you are so jealous that I never dared to show how I liked her. Don\u2019t be vexed, dearie; if you are jealous it is your only fault!\u201d<\/p>\n

She then rushed off, and I saw her kiss that girl exactly as she kisses me!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Note the terminology in this section: Katy tells her friend Amelia that their classmate Jane Underhill \u201cadmires you above all things,\u201d and gives Amelia permission to \u201cbe as intimate with her as you are with me.\u201d After \u201ckissing\u201d Katy, Amelia runs off and to \u201ckiss\u201d Jane the same way, making Katy jealous. Katy would probably only use language like this today if she were in fact \u201cas gay as\u201d the bird singing outside of her window. Apart from this section, though we\u2019re never given any suggestion that Katy same-sex attractions. So what\u2019s going on?<\/p>\n

I find myself extremely curious about the evolution of language over time, and about female friendships and intimacy in the 1800s. I know there were women who had romantic or sexual relationships with other women\u2014even living with them\u2014largely without being detected. The presence of this sort of language has to have helped. Indeed, one book on lesbianism in the nineteenth century is titled\u00a0Intimate Friends: Women Who Loved Women, 1778-1928<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s set the language aside for the moment and look at what actually happened here. Amelia describes this incident as an attempt to practice self-denial. This is an odd sort of self denial. If Jane Underhill is lonely and doesn\u2019t have any friends\u2014as it sounds like is the case\u2014why doesn\u2019t Katy take Jane under her wing, or bring Jane into her and Ameilia\u2019s friend group? And why does Amelia need Katy\u2019s permission to go talk to Jane? Is this how it is in public high school today, and I just missed it because I was homeschooled? Or is this something more specific to the time period, along the lines of Anne\u2019s \u201cbosom\u201d friendship with Diana?<\/p>\n

Either way, Katy is upset. She was trying to do a good thing, but it sounds like she didn\u2019t really<\/em> want Amelia to take her up on it\u2014and now she\u2019s hurt and jealous. Katy genuinely doesn\u2019t sound like that nice of a person, but remember\u2014we\u2019re meant to think that her problem is that she doesn\u2019t like to pray<\/em>.<\/p>\n

One of the biggest differences between Stepping Heavenward\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Little Women\u00a0<\/em>is that Katy\u2019s faults are framed as spiritual ones while the March girls\u2019 faults, while still framed as things they need to do battle against, are framed more mundanely. We\u2019ll see this next week, when we\u2019ll have time to do a direct comparison.<\/p>\n

Of all of the girls in Little Women,\u00a0<\/em>Amy is the one who reads as most similar to Katy, which its funny, because Amy is twelve and Katy is sixteen. Amy wants to be popular at school, and yes, there is drama. But what is cute at 12\u2014her older sisters find the scrapes she get herself in funny\u2014is not as attractive at 16.<\/p>\n

This was in recess. I went to my desk and made\u00a0believe I was studying. Pretty soon Amelia came back.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is a sweet girl,\u201d she said, \u201cand only to think! She writes poetry! Just hear this! It is a little poem addressed to me. Isn\u2019t it nice of her?\u201d<\/p>\n

I pretended not to hear her. I was as full of all sorts of horrid feelings as I could hold. It enraged me to think that Amelia, after all her professions of love to me, should snatch at the first chance of getting a new friend. Then I was mortified because I was enraged, and I could have torn myself to pieces for being such a fool as to let Amelia see how silly I was.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The terminology here is utterly fascinating.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what to make of you, Katy,\u201d she said, putting her arms round me. \u201cHave I done anything to vex you? Come, let us make up and be friends, whatever it is. I will read you these sweet verses; I am sure you will like them.\u201d<\/p>\n

She read them in her clear, pleasant voice.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can you have the vanity to read such stuff?\u201d I cried.<\/p>\n

Amelia colored a little.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have said and written much more flattering things to me,\u201d she replied. \u201cPerhaps it has turned my head, and made me too ready to believe what other people say.\u201d She folded the paper, and put it into her pocket.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

All of this has left Katy deep in a spat with her best friend and extremely out of sorts in general.<\/p>\n

We walked home together, after school, as usual, but neither of us spoke a word. And now here I sit, unhappy enough. All my resolutions fail. But I did not think Amelia would take me at my word, and rush after that stuck-up, smirking piece.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Compared to the other works I have reviewed, this book feels more genuine and real. Katy has gone from thinking very little of Jane Underhill one way or another to describing her as a \u201cstuck-up, smirking piece,\u201d for seemingly no reason. What did Jane do that suddenly revealed her as \u201cstuck-up\u201d or \u201csmirking\u201d? Nothing. But she didn\u2019t have to. This sudden mean-spirited description of Jane, born out of emotion and not out of reality, is very, very human\u2014and all too familiar.<\/p>\n

Even knowing how human this reaction is, though, I\u2019m having a hard time feeling very sorry for Katy, which is probably the point. Katy is vain and selfish. She is not particularly likable, because she still needs the sanctification that comes from God, through his son Jesus. As long as she focuses on herself and her own pleasure, and not on God and his love for her, she will remain unlikeable.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0Little Women,\u00a0<\/i>both Meg and Amy experience a love for fine things, and are jealous of those who have what they do not. Amy desires to be admired and liked, and sometimes makes missteps on this path that send her sisters into gales of laughter. But neither Meg nor Amy come across as unlikable in the way Katy does. And in both cases, their foibles are treated as things they will be able to overcome with maturity and wisdom as they grow, and not as spiritual shortcomings.<\/p>\n

Katy, though, is thoroughly out of patience.<\/p>\n

May 20.- I seem to have got back into all my bad ways again. Mother is quite out of patience with me. I have not prayed for a long time. It does not do any good.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oh\u2014and Amelia still isn\u2019t talking to her. There is an element of this that is simply what we call \u201cteenage drama\u201d today. Katy is on the outs with her best friend. Of course<\/em> she\u2019s upset. This is something we can understand. But it strikes me that teenage girls of the time were given a vocabulary\u2014and permission to engage in a depth of friendship\u2014that is different from what teenage girls are given today.<\/p>\n

I have taken only one graduate class on sexuality and gender, and that single class left me vividly aware only of how much I don\u2019t know. If anyone has articles or books that would shed light on this chapter and this time period, I\u2019m all ears!<\/p>\n

I have a <\/b>Patreon<\/b><\/a>! Please support my writing!\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have taken only one graduate class on sexuality and gender, and that single class left me vividly aware only of how much I don’t know. If anyone has articles or books that would shed light on this chapter and this time period, I’m all ears!\u00a0<\/p>\n

Click through to read more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":44634,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[923],"class_list":["post-44418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-stepping-heavenward"],"yoast_head":"\nStepping Heavenward: Extremely Intimate Friendships<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I have taken only one graduate class on sexuality and gender, and that single class left me vividly aware only of how much I don't know.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2019\/08\/stepping-heavenward-extremely-intimate-friendships.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Stepping Heavenward: Extremely Intimate Friendships\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I have taken only one graduate class on sexuality and gender, and that single class left me vividly aware only of how much I don't know.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2019\/08\/stepping-heavenward-extremely-intimate-friendships.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Love, Joy, Feminism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-08-23T13:24:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/166\/2019\/08\/girlfriends-2213259_1920.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"532\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Libby Anne\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Libby Anne\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"8 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2019\/08\/stepping-heavenward-extremely-intimate-friendships.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2019\/08\/stepping-heavenward-extremely-intimate-friendships.html\",\"name\":\"Stepping Heavenward: Extremely Intimate Friendships\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-08-23T13:24:15+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-08-23T13:24:15+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2\"},\"description\":\"I have taken only one graduate class on sexuality and gender, and that single class left me vividly aware only of how much I don't know.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2019\/08\/stepping-heavenward-extremely-intimate-friendships.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2019\/08\/stepping-heavenward-extremely-intimate-friendships.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2019\/08\/stepping-heavenward-extremely-intimate-friendships.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Stepping Heavenward: Extremely Intimate Friendships\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/\",\"name\":\"Love, Joy, Feminism\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2\",\"name\":\"Libby Anne\",\"description\":\"Libby Anne grew up in a large evangelical homeschool family highly involved in the Christian Right. 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