Angela Carter, Remembered

**Az Butterfield**
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**21 years after the death of Angela Carter, are women any closer to arriving at the sexual equality she set in motion?**

Let’s face it, feminism isn’t sexy. For the ‘general public’ (whoever they are, anyway) feminism isn’t an issue that gets pulses racing or hears pounding: on the spectrum of socio-cultural issues it’s no same-sex marriage or global recession – it’s not even on par with climate change and no-one likes those kill-joys.

It would seem that, despite sexual equality still being a battle far from won, many people who initially championed the progression of women’s rights have lost interest and see the admittedly enormous steps women have taken out of subservience as being quite far enough, thank you very much.

Well, they aren’t. Sorry to be the bearer of disillusionment, but the media have fooled you, your parents have lied to you and the abundance of disingenuous girl power anthems have hoodwinked you, my friend. Women haven’t achieved equal footing with men and, given the rate at which we’re losing interest in feminism, are less likely to do so than Chris Brown is to become a genuinely likable human being. I could sit here and list all the ways in which women are deferential to men (and believe me, if I didn’t have to stick to 600 words, I would) but a simple survey of reality and reason will tell you that the mere fact that sociologists consider women to be a minority group – despite making up the majority of the world’s population – is a terrifying statement about the current state of feminism.

Angela Carter made feminism sexy. Writing predominantly in the ’60s and ‘70s, Carter was part of the sexual revolution that swept through the western world; her feminist critique of global culture was not only radical and stylish but persuasive and compelling. When people think of feminists in 2013 they think of ageing, braless hippies who loathe men almost as much as they loathe de-odorant – Carter was, by all accounts, ‘cool’. She set to work dispelling the myths that held sexual repression together and with her keen eccentricity and obvious intelligence and wit.

By combining surrealism and social commentary, she showed her readership what it was to be a sexualised woman, and that female sexuality wasn’t revolting, perverted or ludicrous. She told people that as much as male sexuality dominated the typical literary imagination, it was okay to be a woman with a sex drive. Carter was a feminist without being a bore: she informed without lecturing and changed without patronising. She never misguidedly hinted at female dominance or imagined women as perfect creatures – with her realistic grasp of humanity and female sexuality, she made bold statements about men’s perceptions of woman that began to become accepted as a social norm.

But little has changed since then. Women’s progress seems to have ground firmly to a halt with the end of martial rape in 1991 and we have to question, what in the last 21 years has really changed for women? Women still earn up to 22% less than their male counterparts, one in five women in the UK will still fall victim to sexual assault and in popular culture women are still readily labeled ‘bitches’, ‘hoes’ and ‘whores’.

Without someone like Carter to hold an unflattering mirror up to society, it’s hard to conceive of change to such sexual inequality.

It’s useless to wish the dead back to life, so perhaps you might view this article as a call to arms for new feminist writers, for young women and men with Carter’s razor-edged tongue and laser-like perception of society’s discrimination, who can begin again to dissect and disassemble society’s misappropriations. I think, ultimately, until feminism positively re-permeates the cultural subconscious, our backward motion away from sexual equality will only worsen. And what would Carter have to say about that?

### Phoebe Demeger – _Nights at the Circus_

Carter’s _Nights at the Circus_ is one of the few novels I have ever judged by its cover, and I’m so glad I did: who could resist the sight of a beautiful, corseted circus performer sporting an outstanding pair of, er, wings?

This fantastical tale follows the enigmatic showgirl Fevvers on a tour through Europe with journalist Jack Walser in tow, who is as desperate as the reader to find out the truth about the stories surrounding her. Carter’s characteristically bawdy yet tender imagination positively shines from the pages: the relationship between shy girl Mignon and the tiger-taming Princess is beautifully realised, while a tender passage set in a woman’s prison took my breath away. Truly a Night you will never forget.

### Samantha Hopps – _The Magic Toyshop_

In the dark grasps of her misogynistic brute of an uncle, Melanie must come to terms with the unforeseen death of her parents in a freak plane crash and somehow fit into the “normal” gender role she is expected to undertake in her new life. As Melanie slots into this female stereotype she becomes more and more detached from the world around her and is almost entirely passive in the relationships which come to form between her and the characters around her: a dumb Aunt Margaret; the cheeky and lascivious Finn and his quiet brother Francie.

One of Carter’s first novels, _The Magic Toyshop_ is a story rife with subtle metaphors and allusions and heralds the standard of feminist literature that Angela Carter has since written.

### Nicole Davis – _The Tiger’s Bride_ (from _The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories_)

A re-visioning of _Beauty and the Beast_ wherein the objectification of women becomes a central theme, Carter’s short story is at once disturbing and provocative and yet imaginatively realised.

_The Tiger’s Bride_ tells the story of a young heroine sold to a Beast after her father loses a bet in a game of cards. Despite their initial incompatibilities, the girl and the Beast learn to accept one another on equal terms. Using symbols such as a soubrette doll, Carter refutes notions of female stereotypes embodying vanity and perfection; whilst the girl’s transformation into a beautiful tigress represents the fierceness that lies beneath all women.

Carter is a master of seductive and intensely vivid storytelling; her prose oozing with an audacious erotic atmosphere, which unlike _50 Shades_ subverts rather than perpetuates ideas of the submissive young girl. Bravo.