Kathy Kennedy
English 343
Dr. Jones
April 22, 2001
Cowgirls, Thumbs, and Feminism
Surprisingly, in spite of being a male from the 1970s, Tom Robbins has written a novel, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, supporting feminism. This is a term that most of us are familiar with; yet, what is feminism? The Routledge Critical Dictionary of Feminism and Postfeminism defines "feminist purpose" for us as "an active desire to change women's position in society" (Brown, Meginis, and Bardari, 231). In order to discuss feminism in terms of Robbin's novel, we need to know what feminist theory means when applied to literature. According to Jonathon Culler, a professor of English and comparative literature at Cornell University and author of Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction, feminist theory is based on "women writers and the representation of women's experience" (124). Naturally, Robbins does not fit the first category of being a woman author since he is male. Nevertheless, his novel Even Cowgirls Get the Blues fits within Culler's description of feminist novels that "champion the identity of women [and] demand rights for women" (123-124). Robbins does this through the development of his female characters and the plot.
Robbins produces a strong female character named Sissy Hankshaw whose beauty is marred by enormous, somewhat useless thumbs. In order to become independent, Sissy leaves the repressive atmosphere in her southern home by participating in the male-dominated phenomenon of hitchhiking as embodied by Jack Kerouac in On the Road. Sissy herself says in reference to her hitchhiking, "I'm the best there is, ever was or ever will be" (53) and develops a national reputation as a hitchhiker. She even competes with and befriends the likes of Jack Kerouac. In Cowgirls, Sissy refutes the premise of Tom Grimm, the author of Hitchhikers' Handbook, who "doubt[s] whether most girls could safely hitchhike long distances alone" (Robbins 53). Instead, Sissy seems to epitomize Jeffrey Perso's muses about his own hitchhiking adventures in his article, The Lost Highway. "You were adventurous, but you were careful. Because whether it was intended or not, hitchhiking helped create character, and after you had some experience, hitchhiking helped you test what you had become. You learned courage and stamina, […] how to handle difficult scary situations, [and] you faced down danger" (4). Robbins certainly enlarged Sissy's character from the shy young girl who started hitchhiking into a confident woman who knew how to handle herself on the road. He has written a representative for all women who follows her "active desire to change" her "position in society"–the goal of feminism.
Robbins makes a second point for feminist discussion of this novel through the juxtaposition of Sissy's thumbs and her model beauty. In Cowgirls, the Countess described Sissy's attractiveness. "She ha[d] the eyes of a poetess, the nose of an aristocrat, the chin of a noblewoman and the mouth of a suck artist in a Tijuana pony show" (66). Robbins described her as having "an ideal figure for modeling, she was blond and creamy, [and] her demeanor was regal" (66). Yet, Sissy's thumbs were described as "wads of meat […]; those bananas, those sausages, those nightsticks, those pinkish pods, those turds of flesh" (35). Robbins makes this point about society's artificial views of what beauty is by consciously developing a character who fits those guidelines, yet with absurdly huge thumbs. In essence, it is as if Robbins is "thumbing his nose" at society's restrictions on beauty.
The essay "Beauty, Sexuality, and Identity: The Social Control of Women" posits that "socially constructed, narrow definitions of beauty and, thereby, sexuality are used as mechanisms to maintain social, political, and economic control by those who benefit from traditional patriarchal structures" (Brown, Meginis, and Bardari, 237). Sissy fit the traditional view of beauty described by patriarchal society marred by only one thing: her thumbs. She could only be an acceptable modeling representative for the Countess's business if her thumbs were hidden during her modeling assignments. Thumbs hidden, she fit the "narrow definitions of beauty."
Robbins has written a novel about one woman's hunt to find personal identity outside the narrow limits society places on beauty and self-image. This puts Robbins' novel within the class of feminist literature because Sissy defines her self-image from her "hitchhiking thumbs" and the places they take her. Modeling is only a means to an end: it gives her enough money to support herself, but it is not her identity. Sissy saw her thumbs "as an invitation, a privilege audaciously and impolitely granted, perfumed with danger and surprise, offering her greater freedom of movement, inviting her to live life at some 'other' level" (50). This was contradictory to what society saw her thumbs bringing to her identity. According to society, she should either hide them or become a freak in a carnival.
A further plot line developed by Robbins is the social change the Rubber Rose Ranch women enact for themselves. The literary criticism of Mark Siegel says, "That although these women come from many walks of life, they share a need to invent or reinvent viable self-images and satisfying roles for themselves. The all-woman ranch provides that opportunity, because it is relatively free from male-oppression, particularly from role-restrictions that are implied by the mere presence of males" (64: 371). Cowgirls certainly fits Culler's definition of feminist writing as these women characters carve out their identities and unconventional roles as cowgirls, heretofore that being mostly a male-dominated role except for the likes of Dale Evans–the cowgirls' heroine. Cowgirls allows women like Bonanza Jellybean to develop their dream to do more than as she says "housewifery, desk-jobbing, or motherhood" (149) in this male-free environment. Robbins has written a role for women in this novel that is strong and distant from those traditional roles that Jellybean describes. By actively demanding equal rights for women to be cowgirls, their " position in society" is forever changed, further advancing this novel as feminist literature.
Robbins' depiction of the ranch women extending their friendships and sexuality by the practice of lesbianism in a positive way promotes feminist social freedom. Robbins breaks the barriers of "society's hostility towards queer relationships [that] writer[s] have had to be deliberately evasive [about] in their representation of them" (Bihan 137). Robbins very directly addresses this issue as the character of Sissy involves herself in a sexual relationship with Bonanza Jellybean that is presented by Robbins as natural and positive.
Laura S. Brown's essay, "Dangerousness, Impotence, Silence, and Invisibility: Heterosexism in the Construction of Women's Sexuality," describes lesbian relationships as "a way of expressing female strength and the ability and willingness to sexually and emotionally nurture another woman" (285). Bonanza describes these relationships amongst the women of the Rubber Rose. "At least half the cowgirls on the ranch have been in each other's pants by now. […] It's just a nice, natural thing to do. Girls are so close and soft. Why did it take me all these years to learn that it's okay to roll around with 'em" (181)? This illustrates the supportive sexual relationships between the women on the Rubber Rose Ranch.
Brown describes "the lesbian femme" as "not portraying passivity or defining her beauty in terms relevant to men, but instead for the power inherent in openness and vulnerability, and for the aesthetics of the rounded, full female body with its smells and hair and curves intact" (285). Robbins makes this point in the novel as he contrasts the women of the ranch reveling in their natural odors and the Countess's vision of women as needing tons of deodorizing sprays and douches to be acceptable citizens of society.
Despite the strong arguments presented here for Cowgirls' strength as a feminist novel, there is also some reason to explore the other side of this issue. Certainly, the language Robbins' uses to describe women in this novel can be derogatory at times. For example, he describes Jellybean in what I, as a woman, consider an offensive way. He uses words and phrases such as "titties," or "honey thighs when she walked," or breasts [that] bounced like dinner rolls that had gotten loaded on helium" (145). This supports patriarchal views of women that represent them as "meat" rather than feminist views of women as more than their visual attributes. Secondly, Sissy's dependence on the Chink takes away some of the identity that she worked so hard for. Their relationship turns her into more of a sexual object willing to please him at any cost. Lastly, the ending of the novel turns Sissy into a babymaking machine. She seems to lose some of her independence; while, at the same time, she is also representative of the strength of women as she begins a new tribe of big-thumbed people. The main plots in this novel still seem to support strong women characters willing to step outside of traditional roles and "champion the identity of women" (Culler 122).
If we go back to Culler's definition of feminist theory, we can see that Robbins has presented us with a novel that is definitely about women's experience and identity. He describes the life search of Sissy Hankshaw for identity in unconventional ways as she defies society's image for her of what is "normal." This novel "demands rights for women" as depicted by the rebellion that takes place on the Rubber Rose Ranch. Frederick Karl in Contemporary Literary Criticism describes the "ranch and its affairs" as "feed[ing] directly into the feminist movement, which ideologically underlies the novel." He says, "the Rubber Rose Ranch provides a feminist society, presented without condescension, with all the right arguments and activities" (64: 378-379). Siegel says, "Cowgirls posits the abandonment of outworn mainstream social roles that are destructive in their rigidity. American men and women must seek new roles based […] [on] feminine receptivity rather than the more masculine will to dominate" (64: 373). Strangely enough or not, considering that he is a man, Tom Robbins has written a novel that fits within the guidelines for feminist discourse that Culler describes and within the definition of feminist purpose as defined by the Routledge Dictionary. He has written a story that rejects traditional values of beauty for women, that supports sexual relationships between women, and that defines women in search of their human rights outside the boundaries of traditional identities determined by a patriarchal society.
Works Cited
Bihan, Jill. "Feminism and Literature." The Routledge Critical Dictionary: Feminism and
Postfeminism. Ed. Sarah Gamble. New York: Routledge, 1999.
Culler, Jonathan Culler. Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford
University Press: 1997.
Karl, Frederick R. Critique of Tom Robbins. Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed.
Roger Matuz. 233 vols. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1990.
Perso, Jeffrey. "The Lost Highway." MetroActive Travel Online. 1 May 1997. 9 April
2001. http://www.metroactive.com/papers/cruz/05.01.97/hitchhike-9718.html.
Robbins, Tom. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. New York: Bantam, 1976.
Siegel, Mark. Critique of Tom Robbins. Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed.
Roger Matuz. 233 vols. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1990.
Travis, Cheryl Brown, Kayce L. Meginnis, and Kristin M. Bardari. "Beauty, Sexuality,
and Identity: The Social Control of Women." Sexuality, Society, and Feminism.
Ed. Cheryl Brown Travis and Jacquelyn W. White. Washington: American
Psychological Association, 2000.