Questioning a Feminist approach to Hurston

I was gone last week and could not access a computer to post my rather opinionated view on this--the rather automatic application of a feminist lens to Their Eyes Were Watching God. I found myself nodding assent ato many of the points which Michael and Taryn made, but overall, I have a hard time scrutinizing the narrative as a whole as a "woman's' story. Yes, Janie is a woman. The novel opens with us being told "so the beginning of this was a woman." Beyond that, gender ceases to be an issue with me (and I wrote my paper this week defending that stance.) There is an androgynous sort of power in Janie. She wrests her identity from what she is given in life. She is supple, curious, filled with wonderment. She is also tough, stubborn, sassy, and determined.Never do I see her as a victim.True, men abuse her, but I see her dishing it back. Never do I see her survival and self-identification as linked to gender. She is simply a SURVIVOR and one who continues to see her horizon as a "great fish net" and who uses verbs like "pull" and "drape" to define her continued presence within it "meshes" (not its chains.) I was so bold as to assert that if a gaggle of feminists came to offer their united support and advise re Teacake she would say the same thing to them that she did to her front porch detractors..."People like dem wastes up too much time puttin' they mouf on things they don't know nothin' about. Now they got to look into me loving Tea Cake and see whether it was done right or not! The don't know if life is a mess of corn-meal dumplings, and if love is a bed-quilt." With a personality such as hers, the character of Janie is fiercely real--female or male.

Ruth