The Women’s Room

"It’s the story of Myra, who is also unhappy in her marriage. Yes. She’s trying to adapt to her marriage in an American suburb. She has two children, and finally she and her husband divorce, and she moves away and starts to study. It’s the beginning of the 70s and the women’s movement is really active at the university she goes to. It’s a success story because it ends with Myra really happy and free. It expressed the experience of a huge crowd of women, and it let all the women who read it understand that they were neither alone nor crazy. No, it was happy. Even though we are divorced now, we are very happily divorced. I think there is a culture of silence within marriages and families that is really important to talk about. It’s why these books, and my novel as well, have meant such a lot to so many people. Women write to me thanking me for putting their feelings into words, and that’s what happened to me when I read Erica Jong and Marilyn French. You realise you’re not crazy. Someone is putting a puzzle together for you. “If you look at same sex couples, they are also often unbalanced in terms of power. It may not be to do with gender.” What I wonder about is this. It’s not realistic to suppose that women are going to live by themselves, or alone with their children, throughout the world. People do pair up, because in some ways things are easier that way. I wonder if all the problems women have within marriage are more to do with the difficulty of human relationships, and the fact that few human relationships are equal. If you look at same sex couples, they are also often unbalanced in terms of power. It may not be to do with gender. I don’t necessarily agree that it is easier to be in a pair. My experience, and that of my divorced friends, is that it is much easier now. We have ex-husbands who share the child-care equally, and my life after divorce is so much easier. I have the children one week and he has them the other week. So one week I can work, sleep and see my friends, and the next week I have energy for the children, I have longed for them and I think I am a better mother for it. No. We didn’t have a destructive relationship. We didn’t shout or anything, but they see that we are both happy and that is what matters to them. They have a better and more present mother and father now."