Du Maurier hated lesbians, yet she had constant affairs with women. Du Maurier was a British author. She wrote great books like The Birds. She has told people ( Barber, 1993) in the past that she loved women more than men. She wasn’t a feminist, she fully believed (p.1) that women were the inferior sex. She just didn't see herself as a woman (p.1). Du Marurier would have mixed feelings about the LGBTQ+ epidemic.
Du Marurie's attitude to being a woman was hopelessly confused. She was the middle child out of three girls ( Barber, 1993, p.1). She has explained (p.1) to others that growing up her mother was cold and distant and her father was an actor who had multiple affairs. She was raised by a governess, which usually entails on how to become a perfect housewife(p.1). As a child, she didn't just long to be a boy; she thought she was a boy who had somehow got into the wrong body(p.1).
Throughout her life, she liked to wear what was considered men's clothing, when she herself had daughters she even made them dress as boys (p.1). According to her daughters (p.1), she didn't even allow them to play “girl games.” It was this boy who was the writer: hence perhaps the often harsh treatment of women in her novels (p.1). This might have been the start of her misogynistic views (p.1).
Not only did Du Maurier seem to be misogynist, she also showed great contempt to lesbians despite having had affairs with women. She has said multiple times (Barber, 1993, p.1), “She openly admitted her contempt towards lesbians: 'By God and by Christ if anyone should call that sort of love by that unattractive word that begins with 'L', I'd tear their guts out.'. She wrote to Ellen Doubleday: 'It's people like me who have careers who really have bitched up the old relationship between men and women. Women ought to be soft and gentle and dependent. Disembodied spirits like myself are all wrong.'” Of course, despite her views she never gave a thought to giving up writing. Despite actively writing love-letters (p.1) to her publisher's wife, Ellen Doubleday and while having a physical affair with Gertrude Lawrence.
Literary analysis speculates that Du Maurier’s father did not help with her identity. For example, “Du Maurier’s father, actor -manager, Gerald du Maurier, may have contributed to her questioning her gender identity, as well. He often regarded Daphne and her two sisters as being born the “wrong” sex as he longed for a son in their severely patriarchal society” (Hernandez, 2024, p.2-3). Du Maurier’s father even wrote her a confusing poem (p.3):
My very slender one
So brave of heart, but delicate of will,
So careful not to wound, never kill,
My tender one-
Who seems to live in Kingdoms all her own
In realms of joy
Where heroes young and old
In climates hot and cold
Do deeds of daring and much fame
And she knows she could do the same
If only she’d been born a boy.
And sometimes in the silence of the night
I wake and think perhaps my darling’s right
And that she should have been,
And, if I’d had my way,
She would have been a boy.
My very slender one
So feminine and fair, so fresh and sweet,
So full of fun and womanly deceit.
My tender one
Who seems to dream her life away alone.
A dainty girl
But always well attired
And loves to be admired
Wherever she may be, and wants
To be the being who enchants
Because she was born a girl.
And sometimes in the turmoil of the day
I pause, and think my darling may
Be one of those who will
For good or ill
Remain a girl forever and be still
A Girl.
While Daphne Du Maurier was homophobic and misogynist, if she were to live in this modern timeline, she might not have been that bad. She would have been surrounded by others who were openly free of social norms. So, she might have loved the community based on the fact that there are others who felt the same, or she could have hated it based on how she hated the term lesbian. She could have internalized homophobia, transphobia, and misogyny so severe that she's in a forever hurtful and hateful and cruel spiral sending her into a deep dark depression. We can't know everything that was going on in her head, but she would have been more in this era than in the one she's in.
References
Barber, Lynn. (1993, March 14). Daphne’s dilemma: Daphne du Maurier had affairs with women,. The Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books-daphne-s-dilemma-daphne-du-maurier-had-affairs-with-women-but-she-despised-lesbians-being-a-writer-was-a-way-of-being-the-man-she-wanted-to-be-as-a-new-biography-reveals-1497675.html
Hernandez, Danielle. (October 24, 2024,) Daphne du maurier: A psychoanalytical review of an author’s sexuality | pdf | bisexuality | homosexuality. (n.d.). Scribd. from https://www.scribd.com/document/263916530/Daphne-du-Maurier-A-Psychoanalytical-Review-of-an-Author-s-Sexuality
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