“Rubyfruit Jungle” Rita Mae Brown

I read this in 2009 as part of a class, but I first read this book in about 1994.

Part 1: Rita Mae Brown

Last night I reread parts of “Venus Envy.” I usually don’t take this book off of the shelf–my signed-and-numbered-advanced-reading copy of “Venus Envy” (numbered 144 of 200), my never-eat-or-drink-while-reading-it copy of “Venus Envy,” my-do-not-dog-ear-or-break-the-spine copy of “Venus Envy,” my never-annotate and for-God’s-sake-do-not-read-in-the-tub copy of “Venus Envy”–but last night I put on my white cotton gloves and read a few chapters. I used to keep an extra copy of “Venus Envy” around so that my beloved signed copy would never get smudged, but I decided that made me look obsessive. I can’t say that my beloved signed copy of “Venus Envy” is my most prized possession, but it does fall closely behind an heirloom 2-carat diamond ring and rivals a bundle of love letters from a high school boyfriend who died young.

The one thing that my beloved-signed-edition of “Venus Envy” lacks is a photo of Rita Mae herself. My go-ahead-and-annotate-the-heck-out-of-it-because-Rita-has-not-touched-it copy of “Rubyfruit Jungle” has my favorite photo of Rita Mae in it–the one where she is smiling for the camera and you can admire those great eyebrows–the photo that seems to say, “I would love to have you stop by the house sometime for a cup of tea and a chat.” I don’t like to look at the photo that she lent to Sneaky Pie Brown for that set of books, where she is sitting stiffly in a chair, avoiding the camera, holding Sneaky Pie and not smiling. That photo says, “If you’re reading this book, then you’re not the person I thought you were. You do not have the pedigree of someone I would like to have tea with.”

I have slowly come to the realization that Rita Mae would never choose me to be her friend. Although I can trace my lineage to our founding fathers and my mother is a Daughter of the American Revolution, our family is probably still not blue blood enough for Rita Mae’s taste. For one thing, even though my family is aware of our heritage, we don’t value it, and besides, our bloodlines do not lead back to the first families in Virginia. It seems that bloodlines are too important for Rita Mae. In an interview with Andrea Sachs for Time Magazine on Tuesday, Mar. 18, 2008 she said about her parents, “They were working people. Good blood lines, but working people.” My people were working people, too, but I am afraid that Rita Mae would be disappointed that we don’t cherish (or flaunt) our lineage the way she would expect us to. I just get the feeling that Rita Mae would not find me worthy of her company, but I won’t give up on the hope that we may someday share a cup of tea.

Part 2: Harry Chapin, Rita Mae Brown and we all have choices
There are two people that I use as role models, Harry Chapin and Rita Mae. I admire Harry because of his irreverence and humanitarianism. Harry was the first person who taught me that I didn’t have to follow all the rules, that I could objectively question the necessity of the rules and that I could make my own decisions about which rules to follow. In a brief brush with fame, I was lucky enough to spend time with Harry after a concert in 1980, just a little more than a year before he died. In that short time, he showed me that I had to think for myself instead of blindly follow rules. Through his humanitarian work to fight hunger, he taught me that a person could engage in a life of service outside of faith. He taught me that service is not something one does at Thanksgiving and Christmas, but something one does every day. I admire Harry’s life and work, and knowing him and about him has influenced me and has shaped much of what I do.

Rita Mae has had as much influence on my life as Harry. Harry is a role model for me as a person and for what my relationship should be with the rest of the world, but Rita Mae is a role model for me as a woman.

I once wrote an essay about how the gender roles in my life, and in the essay I thanked my parents for never telling me that I was a girl. They never told me that I should marry and become a housewife, they never told me that mathematics was only for men, and they never told me there was anything I couldn’t do. My mother did not teach me to cook or clean or wear makeup; she taught me how to build a resume, give a speech and create networks. My father taught me to love history and how to build things.

“Rubyfruit Jungle” was the first Rita Mae Brown book that I read, and it was where I first learned that they may be other women who think as I do. I’m not saying that I am homosexual, simply that not all women accept the traditional gender roles about marriage and career. It was that fact that struck me about Molly in this book, not her homosexuality. In “Rubyfruit Jungle,” everyone tries to tell Molly what she can or cannot, should or should not do based on her gender. Carrie tells her to be prettier and hang out with the right people (“If I ever catch you mixing with the wrong kind, I’m gonna wring your neck ”) Leroy told her that girls cannot own motorcycles. Dean Marne tells Molly that sex with another woman is unnatural. She is expected to wear makeup at her job at Sikes Publishing Company. Although she sometimes followed “the rules” to get by, especially in high school, throughout the book Molly does not understand why there are proscribed gender-specific behaviors. She wants to be her own person and not have to fit into some pre-defined category: “And for a future I didn’t want a split-level home with a station wagon, pastel refrigerator, and a houseful of blonde children evenly spaced through the years. I didn’t want to walk into the pages of McCall’s magazine and become the model housewife. I didn’t even want a husband or any man for that matter. I wanted to go my own way. That’s all I think I ever wanted, to go my own way and maybe find some love here and there. Love, but not the now and forever kind with chains around your vagina and a short circuit in our brain. I’d rather be alone.”

I agree with Molly. I don’t want any of the expected trappings of being a woman. It never sounded interested or challenging. I wanted to be with people who talked about ideas, read books and made plans. I wanted to build things and go places. I was not going to stay at home and be the one that supported someone who was out in the world doing things. I was not going to be the one that had to wait for things to happen. Although my parents did not specifically expect me to become the typical housewife, when I left home I found that everyone else wanted me to make myself into their own idea of a woman.

I was a shy timid girl, and before learning some lessons from Harry Chapin, I believed that I had to follow the rules and do everything that was expected of me. As a teenager, I never did anything without the protection of my family or friends. Both Rita Mae and Molly struck out for New York to start a new life after running into gender-role problems in college. I could never have done that and have trouble believing that an 18-year-old girl would have that gumption. When asked in an interview how she was able to do that, Rita Mae said, “I was too dumb to be scared. When I look back now, I wonder how I did it.” I have always wanted to be as brave as Rita Mae, even if the bravery was from naiveté, but it is too late for me to be like Molly now. I’ve missed my chance.

I missed my chance to be like Molly as a teenager, and I did not do much better as a young adult. I hadn’t read books like “Rubyfruit Jungle” yet, and the only female role models for me were the wives I knew, and my colleagues expected me to become a wife, and so I did. I had stepped into that world of McCall’s magazine and pastel refrigerators, and it frightened me. As much as I didn’t want it, I was unaware of an alternative. My husband had grown up in a much more traditional family than I had and expected me to cook, clean and have sex with him. He did not understand why I would want to study mathematics, he did not want me working with my male colleagues in the mathematics department, and he could not understand why I did not want children.

Frazier says to Carter in “Venus Envy,” “Screw everyone’s expectations of Frank Armstrong’s boy. Be your own man.” Both Harry Chapin and Rita Mae Brown have tried to teach me this lesson, that I have to choose for myself who I want to be and what I want to do, and I shouldn’t let other people govern who I will be.


Written 6 February 2009. More about this book can be found in "Giovanni's Room."