The Graystockings

Dear Readers: 

Please note that this is a limited glance into the inner workings of a group that for the most part has chosen to remain secret. They do not have evil intentions, but they do have a mission which should become clearer as the characteristics of the group are revealed. We need to take this gradually, because, let’s face it, the group means well. It’s just that sometimes the means do not outweigh the end. 

It may be possible to intervene, if more radical elements take over, but we must proceed with caution. If we do not, this group, which has had an admirable purpose for centuries, might be placed in danger. The members might also resort to methods of defense that could have bad outcomes and then the society would be forced to retreat further into hiding.

We must always keep in mind that secrecy can be a very good thing, as long as the wrong people do not take control.

Oh, and don’t ask how we were granted access to this special organization. It would not be good to reveal that information, because it could endanger lives. We certainly don’t want that. We can consider ourselves part of the public watching a play. On this occasion, the public should remain silent and simply observe with care and caution. It is a privilege to have been allowed in. Very, very few people know about this place, and almost nobody knows this group exists.

N.B.: This drama does not have a title, but you are welcome to submit suggestions at the end.

Scene:

Desks, each with good lighting for reading. There are about a dozen, but they are not very large, although there are a lot of drawers. They are ancient and sturdy, probably made of the chestnut trees that were much more prevalent in Galicia in the past, before the plague of the eucalyptus trees.

Some shelving for books is within easy reach of the desks. There are things on the shelves, like stacks of papers in folders, books, and notebooks. Some of the books, which we can barely make out, look very old, because they are age-darkened and dusty.

It is not easy to see dust in this dim light, you might think, but the illumination actually is good for showing the little, dark puffs that arise when a hand reaches toward them, to open a volume, or even just to place a hand on a cover.

The people on the stage are clearly very reverent toward the material they are working with.

Present on stage:

Nine women, age not applicable (nine is the number of the Muses, coincidentally - except this is not at all a coincidence).

The women are not visibly very active, but they are busy and do not feel the need to speak until they have something important to say. They do, however, have a lot to think about and will speak out when it becomes necessary.

Appearance of the women:

Dressed primarily in black, but with good amounts of gray and white.

Some color notes are visible as well. Here there is a purple iris, embroidered on a scarf. There we catch a glimpse of a yellow bird, felted and sewn on a sleeve. Over to one side is a large button in the shape of a ship. There is also a brooch on a lapel. It resembles a tree, perhaps. 

There are many more examples. The colors may have some significance regarding the color or shape, but we are not privy to those details and this is not the time to ask.

The outfits are not disguises or costumes. Nevertheless, they must mean something, because the image they create for anyone watching is that of a group that knows what it is doing and has coordinated its actions carefully.

Explanation (provided by a source whose identity cannot be revealed):

These are the Graystockings. 

They are not the Bluestockings known as bas-bleus in France and as literatas in Iberia. To find out who the members of that important group were, you can read the many studies of literary women. Please be aware that critics and historians will present very different analyses of these ladies according to how they feel about what Nathaniel Hawthorne called ‘a damned mob of scribbling women’ in the 1860s. Hawthorne might not have been as bad as William Hazlitt with his very misogynistic comments about women who dared to write. (Anybody who would publish essays in a volume titled On the Pleasure of Hating is probably someone to avoid.)

The Hawthornes and Hazlitts of the world are part of the reason why there are secret repositories of knowledge and secret societies that promote that knowledge while remaining enough in the shadows so as not to become a target for those who would prefer their silence and choose to ridicule their work. This is very good defense, remaining a moving and, mostly invisible, target. 

When will people stop being so stupid?, we wonder. 

So stupid or so complacent?, we wonder again.

This group is quite unique because the members have an even bigger commitment to activism - social, political, cultural than the ground-breaking Bluestockings did. To their credit, the Blues were also concerned with women’s rights, suffrage, abolition, and other important things. It’s just that the Grays are a slightly more feisty group.

That can be a good thing.

In comparison with the Bluestockings, then, the Graystockings made social change a priority. They knew many changes could be brought about through literature. Most of the world is not fully aware of what literature can do, what its true power is. We can discuss that afterwards, if people are interested.

You may not have heard of them, because they are essentially a clandestine group, but they are a force to be reckoned with, believe me. However, the Grays as they sometimes call themselves, are not completely invisible. They couldn’t remain completely undetected and do what they do.

“We know exactly what we’re doing.”

“We have good survival tactics. Our mothers taught us well, you might say.”

“We can be right in somebody’s line of sight and be invisible because you can never judge us by our appearance, just as you can never judge a book written by a woman by its cover.”

It wasn’t a particularly original comment, but it was meant to encourage the group members.

The Graystockings really do carry out essential work for the cultural community, but they always keep a low profile. They know there’s a target on their backs, even in this day and age.

Tonight the Graystockings are editing the history of their secret society, from the earliest known sources down to the present. They constantly want everyone to review their group’s history. The reason for this somewhat mundane exercise is that it helps to weed out the aspirants to membership who might not have the strength needed, the commitment to their very worthy cause. 

The review and editing can’t be done in a single sitting, of course, but in stages. Year after year, century after century. Stages that never end, one hopes.

Note: 

We have already pointed out that these are not the Bluestockings, but this is also not the the Skull and Bones Society populated by men at Yale and other fancy institutions, mostly politicians whose names need not be mentioned because they did not do a lot of good in the world. The Graystockings have loftier goals, as we shall see. They want nothing to do with the Skull and Bones types, whose methods of group control are sketchy, at best.

Founders:

Feminist critics specializing in Rosalía de Castro’s writing and life had much to do with the formation of the Graystockings. Rosalía was the writer responsible for kicking off the resurgence of Galician in literary form. Not a small accomplishment. What is not widely known is that many of these critics were the contemporaries of this writer, but they were unknown. They had no way of getting their ideas in print. After all, they were first starting their work around 1856. The few men who agreed with them were completely clandestine and for the most part masqueraded as women. (Unfortunately, most of the men had lost their courage and dropped out.)

Rosalía was not allowed to be seen as revolutionary, pro-women, or things like that which were not appropriate for the little regional writer. Roses were red and violets were blue, and that was that. Thanks to groups like the Grays, this was no longer allowed to happen. It had taken a long time to achieve the recognition Rosalía had deserved.

Purpose of the Graystockings:

The group’s goals were at last recorded instead of remaining only in oral form. They were simple enough.

1. To protect and promote the writing of Rosalía de Castro.

2. To support and promote writing by other women. 

3. To continue the investigation of the history of women and literature.

(The first two goals might mean staging public events, which is why the Graystockings always strove for a balance between clandestine and public operations. The third could be carried out in a more secret fashion.)

Rules of the Society:

1. Be an active participant.

2. Be creative, bring new ideas.

3. Continue to seek ways to take the lesson of Rosalía to everyone. 

Meeting times: 

First Friday of every month. Usually sessions started at about 7 P.M.

On occasion, an extraordinary gathering could be called.

Sustainability (financial support, updated to current year):

Bake sales

Yard sales

Craft or medieval fairs

Donation jars at a number of venues

In the past, like in the nineteenth century, some of these types of fundraising were not known to the members. The simplest system still was to set up some items (usually handmade) for sale on a blanket in an open path, with the hope that the authorities wouldn’t chase the vendor away. Begging for alms at the doors to the Catedral was also not condoned by the group, but holding a mini market event by the fountain in Toural Square or under the arches that were by the Praza de Cervantes was fine. Nobody ever asked the vendors who they were. Nobody noticed them, really. Clandestine, yet in full view. Or, completely visible, but nobody saw or heard them.

Exactly like Rosalía and her work, like many other women. Like children, too. Be seen and not heard. Be dutiful, or whatever you want to call it.

***

Following the editing session, there are two discussion topics. 

The first topic is a review of each event held by the group during the past year. None of these is linked publicly to the Grays, for safety reasons.

The events that are discussed are divided into two parts. Rexina presents the first one, which is those activities that have been held exclusively within the Graystocking membership. (More on this later.) Ildara reports on the artivism (art + activism) events the society had sponsored. These activities are summarized. There are many ways in which women’s writing, and Rosalía’s, had been promoted publicly over the previous twelve months. To start with, there is the use of social media. There are also pop-up conferences, mysteriously organized and advertised, not linked to the university or any public association. 

There have been so many efforts this past year that the second topic takes two hours to discuss to the satisfaction of the Graystockings who are present, all nine of them.

Now it is time to end the meeting. It seems that, just as the group is preparing to stand, someone has brought up another item for consideration. This item is the sticky matter of the proposal by some to go public with the Women’s Archive. The group is split. Some say it’s a desperate yet needed move toward opening the eyes of the public. Some are vehemently opposed to taking the risk. 

Remember, they say, how many books were burned during the Inquisition? 

Remember, too, as the manners manuals that had been produced as guidelines for dutiful girls and women. (If you don’t believe how many, go look it up on the internet. It is really appalling.)

“What do we do about Pilar the librarian?”

“Yes, what? She was having coffee with Lavinia Rivers the other day. They spent a long time together.”

“She can’t do that.”

To reveal or not to reveal? That was the question, and survival depended on finding the correct response. The Graystockings supported complete secrecy. After all, there were centuries of knowledge at stake here, far too much to throw away with a split-second decision. (Which was why the decision had been under debate for generations.)

It was beliefs like these that lead the Graystockings to occasionally choose force in order to protect their mission. Violence is certainly not condoned and was only permitted as a last resort, in self-defense. So far the forceful response has only occurred twice, but one needed to be prepared. This recent threat to the very foundation of the hidden chamber, of the knowledge space, is one of the worst yet. The world is not yet ready to accept such a space and surely would destroy it. Stay the course, do not reveal this place and its contents to the general public.

This was why they have begun watching Pilar and the women of the custodial force who supported going public. They already know the librarian, although she is a good woman with extraordinary intelligence, has been adamant about needed changes, about bringing in more voices to resolve the issues being discussed. Going public would put a target on their backs, but it can also attract supporters. It would be a big risk, yes, but it might be necessary.

The Graystockings have also been watching assiduously to see if anybody unauthorized so much as stood and looked at the door. 

Another tack has been to monitor conversations in public places like bars and cafes where writers and professors gather, to see if anyone mentions a ‘secret library’ in Santiago. (Nobody ever has, though.) Naturally not every public place in the city can be watched, but several are known to be where certain people gather frequently, at more or less the same time. These are the tertulias and are important sources of information in Santiago. Half a dozen bars and the same number of cafés are enough to keep a finger on the cultural pulse, so to say.

For the next meeting of the Graystockings, a different locale would need to be chosen. They plan to hold an emergency gathering to discuss the next phase of the resistence. The first maneuvers of tailing and eavesdropping had produced nothing useful, nothing that could serve as ammunition against Pilar and her allies. The Grays might very well have to employ threats, real and perceived, to get the ‘pro-public’ faction to back off, for a very long time. The point now is to plan the meeting so they can decide what resistance is required.

They Graystockings are aware that some threats can have serious consequences, but if it turned out to be necessary, so be it.

“We don’t want to actually kill anybody, do we?”

“What do you think we need to do?”

“I will do anything it takes. This is too important.”

“Does the end really justify those means?”

There are many more questions, bandied back and forth, rapid-fire.

The Graystockings have discovered one useful bit of information: that the American researcher is going to be invited to participate in the revelation of the secret collection. This is a real red flag for some members - we can’t stress that enough. Dr. Rivers could blow things wide open if she went and published an article on the secret library. Even if she had no idea about the existence of the Grays, it would still be a fatal blow.

“I say stop her, block her from joining, no matter what Pilar says.”

“I agree.”

“I don’t know. We need more information about her.”

Dr. Lavinia Rivers has already been the object of two attempts to unnerve her as far as walking the streets of old Santiago, but the watchers also know she has attributed them to pure coincidence. She agree that the outsider needs to stop nosing around in the things that have surfaced in the remodeling of the little bar named A Tertulia. She needs to stop now. Those things that turned up in that little box - little but seemingly increasing in size and contents - are not meant for everybody’s eyes. The collectors would have a field day with heretofore unpublished works and the significance they held. 

This was all about how connected the transatlantic communities had been. What those transatlantic groups had been doing was a topic for another discussion, and had often been studied by the group, so it didn’t detain them now.

Nobody has realized how strong or developed those connections had been for so long, however, and many Graystockings want things to remain secret.

Dany is one of the most adamant about protecting what they had. Dany has managed to work her way into Lavinia’s social group, although she has deliberately remained on the fringe where she can observe and survey the participants better. One can learn a lot by listening to conversations, and Dany knows she was right to tell the other Graystockings what she had heard the researcher from an American university say.

Dany may be the cause of unneeded violence, but we have to wait to see how the urgent meeting goes. 

We don’t know how this play ends yet.