Evolution of Women's Consciousness

"The drama of woman's development is very painful, for in each case the man seems to punish all growth," Anais Nin observes on p. 234. "So the woman intent on growth chooses a yielding, passive man who will not interfere with this growth, with her evolution. But in the end, his weakness destroys her." On p. 255, "I feel them seeking to speak through me, these women who have taken longer to speak than man because what stirred in them were states which are not articulate in the language of man but perhaps in the language of music if this music could be frozen in the air to catch the words it forms." It is perhaps because of her status as an outsider and a woman whose work is devalued that Anais Nin seems to gravitate toward "Negroes" and Harlem, with its jazz clubs and passionate commitment...