Feminist Lens - Responding and Reflecting (HF)

The society in which Huckleberry Finn is based is founded on a number of attitudes which we would consider problematic today, such as racism, classism, and most relevantly, sexism. While we have come quite a long way since the 1850’s by actually recognizing and speaking up about these attitudes, they still exist very strongly in our own society almost a century and a half after the fact. While at face value, Mark Twain’s writing can be mistaken for validating a lot of evil that occurred in his time. However, the text could also be interpreted as a fairly progressive statement on a number of issues, if analyzed with a trained eye. 

One of these issues, specifically, is the general attitude towards feminine roles. The absence of any important or impactful female roles exhibits the male dominance which existed in 1850’s society, despite how the few women who are described in the text are just as qualified -if not moreso- to have a leading role in said society as any man. Twain touches on this issue mostly through the character Judith Loftus, in which her alleged female-specific ability to recognize and teach the gender binary as seen in chapter 11 proves that women are intelligent, have incredible attention to detail, and that while they aware of their position in society, they know exactly how to fool a man as to perhaps get the best of their unequal stature. 

Today, women in our society have a lot more opportunities than how they did in Mark Twain’s time: between being able to vote, have a job, be in positions of power, and so on, it is clear that we have come a long way. However, we are still facing a lot of discrimination today just through people’s individual conservative and sexist points of view. Besides the older generations, the main offenders include those who title themselves as ‘Meninists’, who are usually young male individuals who believe that the movement for equality between the genders is allegedly “oppressing men.” These misogynistic attitudes that exists in our current society sound similarly to how they did in the context of the book, although now with less strength from laws and such no longer exist to help support their views. 

Mark Twain’s commentary on the female position in society serves as a nearly timeless reminder that gender discrimination is a very real problem that exists, and needs to be destroyed. While of course I am glad that the statement is included in such a respected piece of literature, (depending on where it’s banned), it almost saddens me that it is still relevant a whole 130 years after it was initially composed.