When Strong Women Defer To Their Men

A Radical Women Book Club Discussion

Wasn’t Martha’s relationship with Hemingway fascinating?

Why would a talented journalist/writer/human like Gellhorn dive into a relationship with Hemingway when she clearly didn’t find him that attractive—at least at the beginning? Was it all about his already illustrious name or was there something deeper at play?

Later—in wartime London when she was working solo—"she told Hemingway that she profited from the glory and power of his name and that the people she met liked her because he had chosen her. She felt herself to be regarded as an oddity, the ‘very ordinary wife of a very extraordinary man’”.

As women, how often have we demurred to the men in our lives in these kinds of situations? What do you think about their power imbalance—and how it changed as Martha’s reputation and influence grew? Was there a mutual envy—he of her journalism chops, she of his novelist reputation—or was it mostly one-sided?

Was her tiptoeing around his massive ego (and temper) purely a product of their time—or is it still built into how we are socialized as women, especially young women? What role—if any, since she refused to speak of him—did her short marriage to Hemingway play in the successful, outspoken woman she became?

Discuss!

Rochelle