Brautigan is unable to see a woman as an equal therefore he simultaneously puts her on a pedestal and puts her in her place. For instance in his poem "Horse Child Breakfast" he turns the woman into parts and calls undue attention her legs, face, hair, and ass. He says that "what you are doing to me,/I want done forever, " (9-10). The woman in this poem is for Brautigan only of value because of how she looks and what she is doing to the man. She is not of value for her ideas she has become an idea and further a dehumanized one for he compares her to a horse. Does this mean that in his San Francisco women are objects? How do we as women feel when compared to a horse? Could a woman get away with writing a similar poem about a man?
In "The Shenevertakesherwatchoff Poem," one of a number of poems that are dedicated to Marcia. Brautigan again objectifies women. He writes "it's natural/that I should think of you as the correct time," but how is it natural to see a person as anything other than a person? (2-3). He again divides the woman up into parts her "long blonde hair...pulse-lightning breasts...rose-meow smile" (4-6). While these images may be somewhat lovely they are at the same time disturbing. Meow for instance makes one think of a cat. Does Brautigan see women as animals incapable of thought? Yet, while this poem dehumanizes Marcia it also puts her on a pedestal, time is something we are all subject to and Greeks deified it. Is the Beat vision of San Francisco devoid of intelligent women? Must it subjugate all women to the status of animals?
In "Discovery" Brautigan takes his misogyny one step further, he colonializes it. He writes "the petals of the vagina unfold/like Christopher Columbus/taking off his shoes," (1-3). Since America is often described as being conquered by explorers this turns women into something to be conquered. Again the woman is dehumanized she is turned into an object for man's sexual pleasure. Yet Brautigan raises this image to a pedestal when he asks "Is there anything more beautiful/than the bow of a ship/touching a new world?" (4-6). Obviously he has an idealized image of the sex act and yet women seem to be relegated to the status of objects in his writing. Why is this? Perhaps it is because that the idealized image of a woman, usually unobtainable one has been a standard trope in love poetry. Can you see how earlier writings may have influenced Brautigan's image of women.
Even the desexualized woman is helpless in Brautigan's poems. For instance in "Widow's Lament" the woman is unable to chop her own firewood. Instead she sits around thinking "It's not quite cold enough/to go borrow some firewood/from the neighbors" (1-3). Why is she such a passive person? Why can't she chop her own wood? And if she is physically unable to, why does she not have the gumption to approach the neighbors? Will she freeze to death before she is actually capable of asking? Is she so lacking in dignity without her husband that she must freeze? Why does she have no worth of her own?
Brautigan's poetry even contributes to the unrealistic demands that women make on themselves to be thin in today's society. In "The First Winter Snow" he writes that "twenty/extra pounds hang like a lumpy/tapestry on your perfect mammal nature," (2-5). This perpetuates the unrealistic standard of beauty that is held up by the media. Twenty pounds is not enough to make someone obese only chubby berating a woman for gaining a few extra pounds undermines her confidence and because many people use food for comfort causes her to eat more and gain more weight. Furthermore, he pits women against each other when he writes "Aphrodite snubs her nose at you/and tells stories behind your back," (7-8). Unfortunately women are often portrayed in the media as being in competition with one another. It is rare that women help each other or truly care for each other in the media's portrayal of them. How can we as writers today change this? Are shows like Sex and the City, or Charmed doing anything to defeat this stereotype?
But perhaps the most insidiously misogynistic of the poems that we read by Brautigan is the title poem of this collection of his poetry "The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster." The poem reads "When you take your pill/it's like a mine disaster./I think of all the people lost inside of you." (1-3). This poem which likens women using birth control methods to commiting murder is extremely pro-life. To make women feel like choosing not to have children makes them murderers when it is not even clear they would have gotten pregnant or even had sex is abominable. This poem which compares a woman's action to protect herself against unwanted pregnancy shows that Brautigan sees women as baby machines. In this poem a woman is only a vessel for all the men she can bring into the world. There is nothing beautiful or ideal about this image. It shows a woman who chooses not to have children as a graveyard. Is this the only thing women can do that is worth anything to Brautigan? Can you see this poem being appropriated and used by pro-lifers in an ad campaign? For a poet who was part of such a liberal movement to portray women this way is disturbing. When do we get to be seen as equals? When do we get to have a voice?
