Mina Loy: Between Feminism and Futurism – Sarah Sterling

Mina Loy, today scarcely known for her poetry, was an avant-gardist writer and painter that shaped the literary modernist world in the first half of the twentieth century. While she crossed paths with many different groups, ideologies and causes during her lifetime, Loy refused clear identification. Loy cannot be fixed upon one identity since she wore »mask upon mask« (Conover LLB xiv) and often wrote in »dialectical opposition« (Galvin 53) to the beliefs of those she surrounded herself with. Born in England as Mina Gertrude Löwy, Loy spent the least amount of her lifetime in the country of her birth, settling instead for Germany, Italy, Mexico, France, and finally the United States (Burstein). Before Loy engaged with literature and writing, she studied art in Paris, was a member of the Paris Salon d’Automne and exhibited at multiple art galleries across Europe. As her biographer Carolyn Burke points out, Loy was mildly successful with her painting, her art mostly being judged as a good example for feminine aesthetics (94, 97).

In her poetry, which Loy started writing in 1913, she was perceived by her contemporaries as a radical: She polarised the literary public across Europe and in the United States since she »broke every rule on the page« (Conover LLB xv). Most striking about Loy’s poetry is her way with words – be it her use of pseudonyms or complex vocabulary:

Adding to her unusual and complex choice of words, Loy also went against traditions of poetry, dismissing established structures »in order to affirm newness as an expression of the modern« and overall rejecting simplistic modes of representation (Scuriatti, Mina Loy’s Critical Modernism 6). Not relying on literary tradition, Loy includes experimental metre and free verse instead of strict traditional metre, rhyme or syntax. She made up her own grammar and used improvised punctuation. The topics Loy discussed were just as provocative as her literary form: She »presented sex with the expediency of an invoice« and created »satirical portraits of her former lovers, or songs of disillusions about sex, childbirth, or romance« (Conover LLB xiv- xv). With this kind of poetry, Loy’s work was considered to be ›not feminine‹ and provoked a lot of polarising interest. But not only did Loy’s writing stir up the accepted norms for female writers, her whole avant-garde lifestyle evoked interest: her »eccentric clothing, entanglement with the futurists and the unconventional romantic relationships« (Scuriatti, Negotiating boundaries 72). Her way of living contrasted with the expected behaviour for women in the twentieth century, making her be seen as the prototypical ›new woman‹ of the early twentieth century (Scuriatti, Mina Loy’s Critical Modernism 15).

Those who are familiar with Loy’s work are often unaware that she did not only write poetry but also produced narrative texts, as well as criticism and cultural commentary (Crangle SE XII). This essay will evaluate her position between futurism and feminism, focusing mostly on her essayistic text Feminist Manifesto while incorporating themes of her poetry that mirror her observations and declarations in this manifesto. The poems and essays discussed are taken mostly from Roger Conover’s second edition of Loy’s work. As a writer and editor Conover recovered many of Loy’s lost and unpublished texts and made them accessible to the public in his two editions The Last Lunar Baedeker (1982) and The Lost Lunar Baedeker (1996). A collection of Loy’s short stories and essays have been published by the literary studies professor Sara Crangle with the support of Roger Conover in 2011. The opus of Loy engages with questions of gender imbalance, male egocentrism and the illusion of romantic relationships. Her literary subjects are often unstable and unsure in their identities, and Loy’s writing reflects this »quest for identity or a stable position of female selfhood« (BM 132). Her writings on female identity often deal with restrictions as well as outbursts from expected female categories. Loy permanently constructs and deconstructs what it means to be a woman, and her illustrations of female identity vary from complete negation to exaggeration. Although Loy was quintessentially a modernist, she is now »increasingly perceived as a writer whose skepticism and indeterminacy anticipate postmodern aesthetics« (Crangle SE XI). This becomes obvious when evaluating her relationship with the futurist movement and how it influenced her writing: Between 1907 and 1916, Mina Loy lived in Florence with her husband Stephen Haweis and her two daughters. She had come to Italy with Haweis, unable to proceed with a divorce at this point in her life due to her husband’s refusal. During these years, Loy got in contact with the Italian futurists and soon became influenced and motivated by their way of thought (BM 104, 137).

Futurist Influence

Objecting to the supposed slowness and immobility of tradition, the Italian futurists strived for aggressive movement and unapologetic speed at the beginning of the twentieth century. The futurists were a »group of cultural revolutionaries said to worship change« with the urge to defy and destroy European artistic tradition. They deemed this destruction necessary in order to move forward and to not limit themselves as artists in a constantly modernising society (BM 151). The futurists saw it as indispensable to keep up with the tempo of innovation: Speed is assessed as desirable in sharp contrast to inactivity or languishment.² This transfers to the understanding of art and artistic employment, where the so-called »dynamic sensation« was most important. Art was envisioned as a public happening. Futuristic thinking and rhetoric inspired many different forms of art, including fine arts, literature and music all over Europe (BM 151–153). Filippo Tommaso Marinetti is claimed to be the founder and leader of the futurist movement in Italy. In 1909, he published the first futurist manifesto – a form that would become the preferred form of written expression for the futurists (179).

Loy got in contact with Marinetti and indulged in a love affair with the Italian artist, poet and activist. While she was attracted to his »revolutionary creative energy«, she also struggled with his »all-consuming ego and misogyny« (Prescott, Poetic Salvage 22-23). Mina Loy’s biographer argues that Loy did not bother to take Marinetti’s ideas seriously, instead having a good time teasing him. For instance, in his misogynist novel Marfarka Marinetti expressed his lament that procreation needed woman at all (Kelly 143). The protagonist fantasises about the possibility to join man and machine, circumventing reproduction and claiming procreation as a strictly masculine sphere. Loy ridiculed Marinetti for his desire to bear his own son (BM 154), incorporating this theme ironically in her own writing: »You will go to war, as of now I am out of your life […] Woman woman has nothing to do with war–and yet there might have been something for me to do, […] I might have had your son, but Marfarka forbade it« (SE 76-77). In sharp contrast to this, Loy’s poem Parturition, written in 1915, reclaims the female bodily experience by »recasting it as creative and explosive potential rather than […] a machine in a production line« (Kelly 143). Loy states: »I am the centre / Of a circle of pain / Exceeding its boundaries in every direction« (LLB 4). Loy’s Parturition thus foils Marinetti’s misogynistic view on female reproduction by intertwining the transformations of a female body while giving birth with the ability of the female mind to »span worlds and time« (Prescott, Moths and Mothers 198).³ The baby itself only appears as a »touch of infinitesimal motion« (LLB 4) against the woman’s thigh. »[H]ard, clinical, scientific, [and] visceral« vocabulary is used to describe this experience of childbearing (Prescott, Moths and Mothers 198):

This use of scientific vocabulary, usually associated with masculinity at the time, to describe a female experience in a society where childbirth was not talked about, makes this poem unique and modernist in its approach (Prescott, Moths and Mothers 198). The speaker opens »intimate bodily spaces« (Kelly 141) while also referencing life cycles such as birth, death, decay and regeneration.⁴ By intertwining birth and death, the poem declares that everything is a part of a »cycle of decomposition, fertilization, and renewal« (142). In a moment of realisation, the woman then recognises her new identity as a mother:

The speaker obtains the identity of mother (Mother I am) and spiritually connects with the endless cycle of maternity and motherhood. The woman, as an individual, connects to the general concept of reproduction (Kelly 142) when »[i]mpressions of a cat / With blind kittens« rise from her subconscious (LLB 7). She then finds identification with the image: »I am that cat« (7). Through this, the individual experience of becoming a mother is embedded in the larger imagery of life. The reclaiming and reevaluation of childbirth as a creative act of agency marks this female experience as important for Loy’s literary concept of female identity. What Loy also proclaims in her Feminist Manifesto – which will be discussed later – is illustrated on a personal and individual level in Parturition: that every woman has the right to maternity, which could re-establish women’s creative potential.

With the beginning of the Great War, the misogyny of the Italian futurists got infused with pro- war rhetoric. In his second manifesto of futurism, Marinetti expresses his disdain for women along with his longing for joining the war:

Marinetti disdained women and the concept of love that was attributed to them. He portrays his disregard for everything feminine, favouring a violent death over being loved by a woman. Loy’s short story Pazzarella, which was published posthumously, mirrors this intertwinement of futurist hatred of women with war euphoria: The male protagonist Geronimo, who is further characterised as a futurist author, also uses military metaphors to describe his relationship with the young woman Pazzarella. Geronimo describes Pazzarella’s first letter as a »hysterical explosion« (SE 76) and when he learns of her sexual liaison with another man, he asks himself »whether it was my war or his I must henceforth wage upon her. Was he not my brother in arms?« (SE 71). The war between the genders blends with experiences of the Great War, a typical futurist trope.

During her sexual liaison with Marinetti, Mina developed romantic feelings for his futurist opponent Giovanni Papini. Like other futurists, Papini also expressed his antifeminist thoughts, comparing women to animals and reducing them to their sexual organs (BM 161f-162, 166). Papini confessed that he had been in love with Mina but had fallen out of love when he learned about her sexual affair with Marinetti and felt betrayed. Regardless of this conflict, they became sexually intimate. However, this incident was not fulfilling for Loy and Papini condemned her infidelity (181). This difficult affair led Mina to disparage love, seeing sexual intercourse merely as a »collision of bodies« and love as mechanical interaction. During this period in her life, these thoughts find expression in her poem Human Cylinders (182):

This poem furthermore mirrors Loy’s skepticism and »anxiety about the effects of technology and industrialization on human life« (Scuriatti, Mina Loy’s Critical Modernism 6). Here, she clearly goes against the futuristic excitement for machines and modernity when using the industrial language and metaphor to express her sexual miseries of two people who are no more than automatons. Such biographical reference is typical for Loy’s writing. Her treatment of real persons and events are mostly quite apparent to an informed reader, since she had the tendency to »conceal while also revealing the name« (BM 190) of her lovers as well as her own. When dealing with male avant-gardists, Loy’s portraiture often turned into satire (201). An example of this satirising of real-life love affairs is the long poem The Effectual Marriage or The Insipid Narrative of Gina and Miovanni⁵ in which Mina expressed her imaginations about her union with Papini. Loy switched the initial letters of herself to become ›Gina‹ and of Giovanni Papini to become ›Miovanni‹. The poem portrays the married domestic life of these two within traditional »socio-economic organization of space« (Scuriatti, Negotiating Boundaries 73):

These themes of »domesticity, faithful love, and docile femininity« (Scuriatti, Negotiating Boundaries 77) are then satirised and exposed as products of an economic and patriarchal system when Ginas identity as a woman becomes unstable:

Gina cannot only exist as being a female, for Miovanni’s fantasy she has to be more than that. What exactly she is more remains unclear, as is typical for Loy’s writing about female identity. In dichotomous contrast to the stability represented by Miovanni, Gina is characterised as fluctuating. Her identity is depicted as »illogical, inconsistent […] and insubstantial« (Harris 35). Her composition is described with the contradictory term »changeant consistency«, changeant being a word used for describing fabric that shines in multiple colours through visual illusion. She is furthermore »intangible«, not clearly defined, and this indeterminacy is marked as »unexpected« (LLB 38), overall emphasising her mysterious and unclear identification. In The Effectual Marriage Loy undermines tradition and the designated societal gender roles. Through contrasting the elaborate use of syntax and diction with the simplicity of Gina’s domestic sphere,⁶ Loy conveys a sense of »knowingness« (Harris 37) of the actual ineffectiveness of this patriarchal and confined relationship.

While futurism’s biggest credo was the urge to destroy and defy tradition, this defiance did not include instruments for the subversion of traditional women’s roles. While futurist interests such as speed and technology were located in the terrain of men, women were relegated to a status of static continuance (Kelly 137). Marinetti thought that even with the right to vote, the »average woman would continue to exist within the ›closed circle‹ of femininity, ›as a mother, as a wife, and as a lover‹« (qtd. in BM 178-179). Futurists such as Marinetti saw the only possible identification for women in being a mother, wife or lover – identities that are created in relation to a man. Through contact with these misogynistic ideas of male dynamism and female stasis, Loy understood »the threat posed to a modern woman by immobility« (Kelly 137). It provided her with a substantial foundation for her own arguments on the ›woman question‹, to participate in the ›sex wars‹ with her writing. Still, Loy’s early writing in the Florentine years is starkly influenced by futurist thought and form. A good example for the ways in which Loy combined her influences from futurism with her stance as a woman can also be seen in her Feminist Manifesto, using feminist rhetoric and thought ahead of her time.

Feminist Manifesto — Negation of Self

Loy’s interest in gender equality resulted from her own observations and refusals made in both her middle-class origins as well as in the bohemian and avant-garde circles she later frequented (Scuriatti, Negotiating Boundaries 71). She expressed her thoughts of feminism in a futuristic form, a manifesto, which was her »opponents’ weapon of choice« (BM 179). Loy’s Feminist Manifesto was written in 1914 but only published posthumously in 1982 in the collection The Last Lunar Baedeker. Roger Conover calls it »one of the most radical polemics ever written on feminism« (xiv). Loy’s Feminist Manifesto can be contextualised within the misogynistic provocations made by the futurists as well as in the context of first-wave feminism during which Loy wrote this text. In the context of futurism, Loy’s manifesto can be read as a reply to Valentine de Saint Point’s futurist and anti-feminist Manifesto of the Futurist Woman (1912), in which Saint Point pressed for more masculine women (Scuriatti, Negotiating Boundaries 71). Concerning first-wave feminism, Loy was concerned with the efforts and demands made by her contemporaries. She judged the approach by the suffragists as insufficient and not systematic enough: »Too concerned with legislated inequalities, they [first-wave feminists] were fighting for changes within a system that would remain inherently male-centric, whether or not women were given the right to vote« (Claveria 2). In reaction to both the feminist and futurist discourse of her time, Loy felt compelled to write an »absolute resystemization of the feminist question«, criticising the current feminist movement as inadequate (BM 179):

For Loy, the claim that women are now equal to men was still an illusion. No amount of disavowal of gender stereotypes or the individual will could »wish away the political, social, and biological components that accrue to gendered subjectivity« (Lyon 386). Instead, she states that men and women are enemies, having a mutual relationship of »parasite« and his or her »exploited« counterpart (LLB 154). Against Marinetti’s declaration of women’s »parasitical sentimentality«, the exploitation can go in both directions for Loy (Lyon 398). The only »point at which the interests of the sexes merge« is their »sexual embrace« (LLB 154). Rejecting reformism and change within the system, Loy demands more radical action, an »absolute demolition« (153) of »the [patriarchal] system« (Claveria 2). This differentiated Loy from her first-wave feminist contemporaries, making her analysis of the situation and demands more radical. The text has an awareness that this task will be difficult, and that personal sacrifices are necessary to realise equality »beyond the legislative scope« (2). With this aim, Loy’s feminism seeks the possibility for women to »emerge as autonomous modern subjects« (Harris 17):

Not only through the form (a manifesto) but also through the mediated content, Loy brings into practice what futurism praised. She applies the principles of denial of tradition and aggressive movement to the woman question when she demands the total demolition of gender norms and rules. The female protagonist in Pazzarella serves as a »cautionary tale« (Crangle SE XVI) of what happens if a woman tries and fails at achieving this absolute demolition. The woman, Pazzarella, is named and defined through her male lover: »Being a creator, I realized I can create woman. I decided to ‘create’ Pazzarella« (SE 96). When Pazzarella dies a metaphorical death, Geronimo seizes his chance in defining her a second time before she could form her own subjectivity. Through this, Pazzarella symbolises the kind of woman that Loy criticises in her manifesto: an undefined woman that clings to the desire to be unconditionally loved by a man. According to Loy’s manifesto, in order to »obtain results«, the »first & greatest sacrifice« women have to make is of their virtue (LLB 154). With virtue, which is put into parentheses marking her doubts regarding this word, Loy means the moralising restrictions regarding female sexuality. Especially the »fictitious value« (154) Loy attributes to female virtue and virginity is in need to be destroyed. She radically demands an »unconditional surgical destruction of virginity through-out the female population at puberty« (155). This call for a surgical destruction should be read and understood in a metaphorical way, in the sense of deconstruction of virginity as a concept, in order to »negate that bodies and sex are essentially given« (Scuriatti, Negotiating Boundaries 79). Loy deals with the concept of virginity and its impact on women in her poem Virgins Plus Curtains Minus Dots. Here, Loy portrays the situation of young unmarried women (virgins) lacking dowries and awaiting their next step in life (marriage). Even though the female identity established in the poem is largely shown as restricted, it also offers possibilities for breaking out, granting the virgins more agency: »[B]ehind curtains«, the virgins throb and they »might scratch« (LLB 22) at the door, trying to dissolve the barrier that these »boundary areas« (Scuriatti, Negotiating Boundaries 73), where inside and outside world meet, represent. Similarly, the female protagonist of Pazzarella questions her fictitious value in connection to her identification: »I weighed in advance my possible coquetries, dignities, the fictitious value I could assume, the pretentious gestures I could make in the luckless position of being–what am I?« (SE 83)

In connection with the concept of virginity that Loy wants abolished, she challenges a »collective resistance to the idea of marriage as a bargain made« (BM 179), pointing out the economic purpose of marriage in her Feminist Manifesto. Parallel to this, the young unnamed female protagonists in Loy’s Virgins experience that their virginity is their »most sought-after good« (Scuriatti, Negotiating Boundaries 78). The poem furthermore shows how this economical construct of marriage and virginity is concealed through a romantic narrative (80):

In her manifesto, Loy concludes that, for women, marriage would only offer »ridiculously ample« (LLB 155) advantages. In modern times, she argues, women can and should accept luxuries from men without having to give anything or trading their virginity for it. Women should indulge in free love and sexuality outside of marriage. Realising »that there is nothing impure in sex–except the mental attitude to it« (156), Loy asks women to decline »society’s moralization of sex« (Claveria 2). According to Loy, every woman should have a right to sexual experiences as well as motherhood (BM 179). Women who could not secure a marriage are ultimately »prohibited from any but surreptitious re-action to Life-Stimuli–& entirely debarred maternity. Every woman has a right to maternity« (LLB 155), and executing this right would consequently »return women their creative powers« (Scuriatti, Negotiating Boundarie, 78). Loy’s right to maternity, however, does not extend to every woman, only to what she calls the »superior woman« (LLB 155). She brings forth one of the »nastiest components of the birth control movement«, the eugenic argument that certain ›non-superior‹ members of a population should not propagate (Lyon 387).

Loy furthermore expresses the thought that a woman is seen as the Other and that this constitutes her as the object »through which the man situates himself in the world« (Claveria 3).⁷ Loy states accordingly:

The value of men reflects on his subjectivity, while women’s value is arbitrary and can only be ›achieved‹ through marriage in which the man is superior and responsible for his wife. Aligning with the »subject-object dynamic« (Claveria 3) between the genders, female identity is polarised into two archetypes which relate to the male: mistress and mother (LLB 154). Further female identification possibilities lie between »Parasitism, & Prostitution––or – Negation« (154). The favourable option presented in the Feminist Manifesto is negation of normative femininity, for instance by destroying the desire to be loved by a man (155-156). Loy criticises women for defining themselves in relation to men building a »relative impersonality« (153) and men, conforming to being protective of this relational »female element« (153). So she pleads: »Leave off looking to men to find out what you are not ––seek within yourselves to find out what you are« (154). Women should find an identity which allows them to »realise concrete values in themselves« (Harris 17).

Loy’s Feminist Manifesto is a radical text on feminism that shows how female identity is constructed in relation to men and how gender equality requires a full deconstruction of identity archetypes. In stark contrast to the demands made by first-wave feminists, such as the right to vote, Loy radically questioned the gendered identity of women altogether. This makes her Feminist Manifesto appear more in line with thoughts provoked by second wave feminists to a modern reader. Construction of female identity as mother or mistress is unmasked as being based on the subject-object relationship between the genders. A woman is defined (and defines herself accordingly) and finds value by chance if she restricts herself to the constructed, available identities. Changes within this system through granting more rights or professional opportunities are judged as not extensive enough. Instead, a deconstruction through negation of female identity archetypes is demanded.

Summarising Thoughts

»The secret of woman is that she does not yet exist« (SE 96) concludes the male protagonist in Loy’s short story Pazzarella. How should a woman instead define herself, or should she negate her identity entirely? How can women be freed from patriarchal structures? For Simone de Beauvoir, there is no essential truth to be found in the question of what a woman constitutes (323). In pure subjectivity the human is nothing, meaning that there is no essence that precedes the human existence. Ergo, there is no female truth to be found, neither in constructed stereotypes nor in nature. Looking into Loy’s assessment of ›the woman question‹, one can see a similar undefinedness and struggle for clear identification in her female figures. Influenced by the drastic demand for movement and urge to defy traditions made by the futurists, Loy proclaimed absolute demolition in her Feminist Manifesto. Stating that reforms are not sufficient enough, she demands a total de(con)struction of the patriarchal system, thereby criticising marriage as well as the concept of virginity and the longing of women to be loved and valued by a man. In this, Loy went against the futurists’ anti-feminist thinking, calling for women to free themselves from any fictitious values while using the futurists’ form of expression. Loy also called for a right to maternity independent from marriage and illustrated the creative potential of a parturient woman in her poem Parturition. Placing the woman at the centre of the universe, she created worlds and life with her mind and body. Maternity and the identity as a mother become spiritually and intellectually re-evaluated against the futurist dream of male reproduction connected to technological progress. As Mina Loy deploys the archetypes of female myths (virgins, lover/mistress, wife and mother) with possibilities of outbreak, constructions of female identity become unstable. If one turns to the female figure of Pazzarella hoping to find a truth, one is disillusioned. Loy’s portraiture of female identity correlates heavily with the male conception of ›woman‹, varying between ironic depictions, real implications and the prospect of a deconstructed, negated female identity that in itself cannot be grasped. Herein lies the deconstructive narrative and potential proclaimed by Loy: the negation of female identity as a whole.