My Years With Proust - Day 541

   "What did you think of the Trocadero, you little gadabout?"

   "I'm jolly glad I came away from it to go out with you.  Architecturally it's pretty measly, isn't it?  It's by Davioud, I believe."

   "But how learned my little Albertine is becoming!  It is indeed by Davioud, but I'd forgotten."

   "While you're asleep I read your books, you old lazybones."

   "I saw, little one, you're changing so fast and becoming so intelligent" (this was true, but even had it not been true I was not sorry that she should have the satisfaction, failing others, of saying to herself that at least the time she spent in my house was not being entirely wasted) "that I don't mind telling you things which would generally be regarded as false but which correspond to a truth that I'm searching for.  You know what is meant by impressionism?"

   "Of course!"

Marcel Proust, The Captive, pp. 164-165

This is an interesting little passage, which I did not include solely to annoy my readers with a more feminist philosophical leaning (at least not entirely).  Actually, I'm thinking about having my students read this section later this year in my Heroines & Heroes class, when we discuss feminist literary criticism, for just that reason (and also because I love to have my students read Proust).  Everything about this exchange expressed Marcel's desire to infantilize Albertine. Consider these statements:

"What did you think of the Trocadero, you little gadabout?"

"But how learned my little Albertine is become!"

"I saw, little one, you're changing so fast and becoming so intelligent . . "

"You know what is meant by impressionism?"

This is far more than a century-old French version of mansplaining, although every woman in the world today would recognize the condescension. When asked for relationship advice, and I find the request laughable although it is presented fairly routinely (I'm assuming mainly because of my impressive vintage), I always propose that one of the most obvious acts to avoid is to, consciously or unconsciously, turn your partner into someone you abhor (or at least wouldn't fuck on a bet).  A fairly common, and relatively harmless, example is the women who dress their husbands out of the L.L. Bean catalog and drag them off to Lowe's for home improvement projects and then begin to loath them for being the insipid, suburban vestigial males they in fact created. The far more insidious version, both in early 20th century France and the early 21st century U.S., made far more dangerous because of societal gender-based power dynamics, are the men who, much like Marcel in the example above, infantilize the women in their personal and professional worlds.