Let me begin this review by professing my support for Jessica Valenti's overarching purpose in The Purity Myth: to expose the trope of sexual purity aLet me begin this review by professing my support for Jessica Valenti's overarching purpose in The Purity Myth: to expose the trope of sexual purity as deeply entrenched in American culture and to demonstrate the harmfulness of this trope on young American women. I agree with her assessment of the state and nature of "purity" (indeed, race theorists and sexuality theorists have long since questioned the value of the concept of purity), and I applaud her commitment to the social, psychological, sexual, and ethical flourishing of young women.
It disappoints me to be disappointed in this book. The Purity Myth is best suited to affirm the beliefs of someone already in agreement with Valenti's main points and is unlikely to have much effect on someone who is either on the fence or who might require sound arguments, solid reasoning, and logical coherence to appreciate the efforts made in this book.
Valenti's prose sparkles in her blog writing. She is witty and humorous. Though in this book it is unclear precisely what point her humor is meant to make. Is it meant to make palatable an insidious social problem that, without humor, might be ignored because of its crushing ubiquity? Perhaps. Her pot shots at previous boyfriends, her droll tales of her own sexual experiences, and her unsubtle eye-rolling when discussing other people's research all have the effect of obscuring and dulling her otherwise sharp observations and assessments.
Worse, when Valenti discusses the research done on young women's sexual habits, she unproblematically scoffs at those who report that women who engage in sexual activities at younger ages report higher incidence of depression. Perhaps she criticizes these studies because they don't differentiate between women who were molested or assaulted at young ages (who might be expected to report depression); women who consented to sexual activities believing that the 'magic' of sex would solve their other insecurities and uncertainties (who might also be expected to report depression); and healthy, happy, well-adjusted women who freely consented to sex with a reasonable expectation of what sex is and what sex is not (who might not be expected to report depression). Unfortunately Valenti doesn't make this clear, and she runs the risk of implying that reports of depression linked to early sexual activity are fabrications of the pro-purity faction, which effectually undermines women's reports of depression and makes women who do report depression related to their sexual experiences into the dupes of the pro-purity movement. Further, had she discussed this research in greater depth, she could have convincingly argued that the authors she critiques help to support one of her own points: women report depression not because of sex itself, but because of past sexual trauma or the accumulated moral meanings sex has taken on in our purity-obsessed culture.
One of the reviewers of this book delighted in Valenti's "wit" and "sass," which helped to convince the reviewer that feminism isn't boring. One of her best-stated, most concise points appears in a footnote: "a young woman's decision to have sex, or not, shouldn't impact how she's seen as a moral actor." If such strong statements as this one were not swaddled in pages of "sass," this would be a book that could support future academic endeavors as well as popular movements and conversations in order to undermine the myth of purity. As it stands, The Purity Myth is a comfortable affirmation for feminists who already know that feminism is not boring.
Stop me if you've heard this story before: A beautiful, young, over-achieving student from a poor family feels out of place at her fancy East Coast coStop me if you've heard this story before: A beautiful, young, over-achieving student from a poor family feels out of place at her fancy East Coast college. She’s embarrassed by her background, her appearance, and her lack of sexual experience. She meets a boy. He pressures her for sex. Her grades suffer. She becomes depressed, she hates herself, she engages in self-destructive behavior. Finally, she loses her virginity, and hates herself more than ever. Times are hard for a while, but eventually she gets together with the "nice guy," who’s been in the background all along. This pretty much fixes everything, and she slowly grows comfortable in her own skin.
If this synopsis reminds you of I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe, you're not alone. One big difference is that College Girl is told in the first person, which only makes the protagonist’s whining more prominent—and more annoying. It's hard to feel any sympathy for Natalie Bloom; she's self-absorbed and judgmental, and constantly sabotaging herself. In some ways, this is realistic and relatable; most college students have probably experienced the embarrassment of infatuation, dating, and awkward sex. Readers will cringe at Natalie's poor choices and constant humiliation.
While reading, I couldn’t help thinking Natalie might have benefited from taking a Women’s Studies course. Perhaps instead of throwing around words like "slut" and "whore" and buying into the idea of sex as a form of “leverage” in relationships, she could have stood up for herself a lot sooner. Instead, she keeps quiet about unwanted sexual attention from her roommate’s boyfriend, and caves to her own "boyfriend" when he pressures her into performing oral sex despite her protests.
Even the "nice guy" in the novel, Jack, doesn’t take no for an answer:
"...I squeezed my eyes shut, hard, and lay my head back on the pillow. Tears started to fall as my pants slipped over my hips, followed by my underwear. 'Stop,' I said. He didn’t stop. 'Please?' I begged. He kept going, and after a minute, I relented..."
The truly disappointing thing is that Natalie is actually grateful to Jack for not respecting her wishes. This kind of “I said no, but I really meant yes” rationalization is an incredibly irresponsible message. Ultimately, College Girl is a thoroughly depressing book. It may, in fact, be a realistic depiction of a young woman’s first romance—which may be the most depressing part of all.
Jessica Valenti is a part of the feminist blogger elite, and for good reason. The blog she helped to establish, Feministing.com, receives a significanJessica Valenti is a part of the feminist blogger elite, and for good reason. The blog she helped to establish, Feministing.com, receives a significant amount of web traffic and is well-known among young, internet savvy, hip feminists. Full disclosure: I read Feministing every now and then. Having read Valenti’s writing on the blog – which tends to be oversimplified and, quite frankly, bratty – I was hoping her analysis in book form would show a tad more depth. Unfortunately for Valenti, there’s a downside to fame; it opens you up for public criticism.
If Full Frontal Feminism is supposed to be the spark that ignites young women to claim their identity as "feminists" and hop aboard the Third Wave train, then women are in deep trouble. Valenti writes like feminism's version of Ann Coulter, and let’s face it, Ann Coulter is hardly known for her intelligent commentary. Flamboyant and egotistical, much of Valenti’s analysis is trite, at best. She makes sweeping generalizations (“When you’re a feminist, day to day life is better. You make better decisions. You have better sex.”), repeatedly refers to her opponents by juvenile names ("The consequence of having the last name Buttars is apparently being a huge asshole."), confuses “truth” with “opinion,” and seems to have done very little actual research to back up her claims, as very few citations accompany her assertions.
At times, she doesn’t feel the need to make an assertion at all, responding with a facile yet grandiose “Puke,” a deliberately ironic “Yeah,” or a pithy “Terrifying,” as though this is all that she needs to make her case. And despite hackneyed attempts every now and again to mention other marginalized groups, the truth is that this book overwhelmingly reflects the viewpoint of its white, middle class, (I assume) heterosexual, entitled, American, liberal feminist writer.
Valenti doesn’t give her readers credit for being able to do the thing she most wants them to do: think critically. This is apparent in the fallacious style by which she presents her perspectives. My personal favorite – taken straight from the right wing, talk radio instruction manual – is how Valenti uses the bait-and-switch tactic to “prove” her point (e.g., contending that anti-abortion advocates simply hate sex). A close second is when she uses the most extreme cases to illustrate a point as though they aren’t the exception to the rule (e.g., making the case for all women to have access to Emergency Contraception because rape victims should have access to it). These tactics are most unfortunate because, even as a person who is largely ideologically aligned with Valenti, I began to question her standpoint as fearmongering overshadowed politics.
Perhaps Valenti believes that young women won’t be moved unless they’re shocked by what she says, or completely scared to death. Fear is a powerful motivator, but it belittles the audience in the process. Oh, and did I mention that she uses the book as a forum to talk public trash about petty tiffs she’s had with other bloggers? If fear doesn’t sell you on feminism, apparently Valenti believes taking sides in some inane, personal dispute will.
Full Frontal Feminism is written in sound bytes, each chapter being comprised of smaller (usually) one page-long explanations of a given issue: sex education vs. abstinence only, virginity pledges, expensive weddings, unattainable beauty standards, and other typical feminist fare. Apparently, the television has taken its toll (or so Valenti thinks) on the public because there is no sense of organization or logic to the structure of the book. And solutions? Those must have been left for someone else to tackle because you won’t find them here, at least not outside of the standard volunteer, give money, and vote.
Now I know I’ve pretty much run this book into the ground, but I do want to say that I get what Valenti is trying to do here. And it’s a really smart idea. She wants to reach out to young women who don't call themselves "feminists" and let them know that it’s okay, cool even, to be down with the F-word. She wants to tell them that they already believe in feminist ideals and have benefited from the women’s movement. And she wants to encourage them to continue in that tradition in order to kick some misogynist ass. That’s a really honorable goal that, unfortunately, was a victim of poor execution.
If you’re truly looking to find out why feminism matters, you’d be better served to flip to the booklist in the back of Full Frontal Feminism and read some of the titles listed there – including Colonize This!, Listen Up: Voices from the Next Generation, To Be Real, and The Fire This Time – because cool packaging is really great, but if there’s nothing of substance inside then what you are selling is just the packaging.
I read The Ethical Slut by Dossie Easton and Catherine A. Liszt in 1998, but found the information they pI’ve been waiting for this book for a decade!
I read The Ethical Slut by Dossie Easton and Catherine A. Liszt in 1998, but found the information they provided rather basic. I’ve waited ten years to read something even more enlightening and instructive. Tristan Taormino has made my wish come true with Opening Up.
Foremost, I appreciate the writing style that Taormino choose for this book. Her writing is clear and incisive, not coy or sensational, and never obscene or vulgar. Her goal is clearly to educate, and she hits the mark throughout, making this book appropriate for people from a variety of backgrounds.
The body of the book is organized into twenty chapters in three sections. Several of the chapters include exercises or checklists to help readers explore boundaries, desires, and expectations. Some chapters have boxes with additional information. Comments from real people in open relationships emphasize many points made by the author. These quotes give authentic illustrations to the ideas the author is asserting and permit the inclusion of multiple viewpoints. Many chapters end with a profile of people in an open relationship, further allowing individuals to speak for themselves. I appreciated being able to witness the experiences of various people.
Section 1: Choosing an Open Relationship gives histories of different types of open relationships, tracing swinging to parties in Hollywood in the 1930s and gay bath houses as far back as the 1920s. This portion of the book also explodes the myths of nonmonogamy, offers numerous questions for self-reflection in order to help readers decide if they want to pursue open relationships, and gives ideas about what emotional skills and qualities are necessary for such partnerships to succeed.
In Section 2: Styles of Open Relationships, there are chapters dealing with partnered nonmonogamy, swinging, polyamory, solo polyamory, polyfidelity, and monogamous/nonmonogamous and mono/poly combinations. Each approach is considered thoroughly.
Section 3: Creating and Sustaining Your Relationships is the longest portion of the book. This section covers designing open relationships, jealousy and other intense feeling, common challenges and problems of open relationships, finding community, being open about one’s lifestyle, change, raising children, safer sex and sexual health, and legal and practical issues, among other topics.
The book ends with a notes section so the reader can investigate the research used by the author. There is also an extensive resource guide which covers books; conferences and events; GLBT/Queer resources; local and regional organizations, online groups, listserves, and communities; international resources; magazines; national organizations; professional directories; research and activism; and spirituality resources. The only thing missing from this section is an index, which would be a huge help in finding a specific topic quickly.
All in all, I highly recommend this how-to guide to anyone considering an open relationship or just wanting to learn what nonmonogamy is all about. This book will answer questions, address fears, and help individuals decide how they really want to organize their romantic/sexual/intimate relationship(s).
My library copy of Vegan with a Vengeance shouldn’t have been returned. Not in the state it was in after it lived in my kitchen for five renewed statuMy library copy of Vegan with a Vengeance shouldn’t have been returned. Not in the state it was in after it lived in my kitchen for five renewed status cycles (the maximum number I was allowed before I had to return it to my local library). The book shouldn’t have been returned because it smelled like food. A cookbook, naturally, absorbs the effort of its teachings: oils and buttered thumb prints, dried arrow root smudges, and one small berry stain on two of the pages when I tried to turn them with fruit juice-stained fingers. Luckily, I don’t have to return Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s newest book, Appetite for Reduction, which is doomed to the same fate as its predecessor: lovingly used with pages that are turned with excitement, torn at its edges and bearing of all kinds of quirky marks, compliments of the daring cook.
Moskowitz discloses her personal health reasons that resulted in her decision to find more recipes that are lighter in caloric intake. She also stresses her reluctance to contribute to the war on bigger bodied women. So what does Moskowitz do? She writes a cookbook for vegan stomachs searching lowfat, delicious recipes. For those in the vegan community who are also health conscious, Moskowitz has delivered the goods on a plate too irresistible to deny.
Isa Chandra Moskowitz is the best friend we’re all looking for: she writes in a way we understand, a language that is easily understood and humorous. She is also the cook we want for our healthy lives and families. She gets it. She gets that we don’t want to give up taste and satisfaction for healthy living. With this book, she dismantles the notion that vegan eating and cooking is not either extreme of the rumor spectrum. Veganhood is not bland rabbit food, nor is it substituting large amount of full fat in place of flavor.
From funky hummus creative ideas to “OMG Oven-Baked Onion Rings,” from sides to satisfying full entrée ideas, Moskowitz turns your vegan kitchen upside down, shakes out the fat, and replaces it with novel and tasty ideas to keep your mind interested and your tongue happy you tried something new. For this, I raise my spatula to Moskowitz with a need and heartfelt thank you. Vegan or omnivore, you will find something to rave about and savor in Appetite for Reduction.
48 Liberal Lies About American History is a shocking read. In formatting this book, Larry Schweikart states a "liberal lie", and then provides evident48 Liberal Lies About American History is a shocking read. In formatting this book, Larry Schweikart states a "liberal lie", and then provides evidentiary support to refute claims made. However, at times, he fails to realize that some of these "liberal arguments" are much more nuanced than the ones he posits.
Of particular interest is his take on “Lie # 14: Women had no rights in Early America.” Schweikart takes issue with Carol Berkin’s and Mary Beth Norton’s statement in Women of America that, “The United States had founding mothers… but on the whole our history celebrates only the white founding fathers.” I researched Berkin’s and Norton’s text; in fact, they do not dispute that women had rights in early America. What they do find problematic is the relative superiority of men to women prior to and after the American Revolution, and the continued espousal of patriarchal society. Schweikart skews their argument, making it far more extreme than it really is.
Moreover, in discussing why men dominate the medical field, Schweikart says, “Doctors—in an age without anesthesia—had to perform surgery and occasionally amputate limbs while restraining a patient who was protesting to no small degree… Small and less physically powerful women were at an important disadvantage in such work—but not in being midwives, which was exclusively a female domain.” I found Schweikart’s words extremely sexist and antifeminist. Schweikart easily falls prey to the claim that men are physically superior to women. For years, this school of thought has served to perpetuate a gender hierarchy. Here, Schweikart hardly acknowledges gender historians who would rightly repudiate his analysis. In fact, Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to graduate from medical school in 1849, became a physician before the widespread use of anesthesia.
There is much more to be criticized in Schweikart’s book. Indeed, Schweikart could not possibly imagine that any history text teaches that “The News Media Is Objective, Fair and Balanced – and Always Has Been.” Even a superficial study of American history debunks this notion. For example, in 1898, yellow journalism—the sensationalism and distortion of facts—surrounding the sinking of the USS Maine clearly led to the declaration of the Spanish-American War. In his attempt to introduce the conservative viewpoint in these historical discussions, Schweikart makes radical assertions that even those on the right might find disturbing. The intention of his book is honorable; however, Schweikart will need to reconfigure some of his arguments if he seeks to gain a wider audience for his work.
Julie Powell wrote a blog called the Julie/Julia Project, which was turned into a book entitled Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously, and lJulie Powell wrote a blog called the Julie/Julia Project, which was turned into a book entitled Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously, and last summer Julie & Julia hit the big screen as a movie featuring Meryl Streep. Admittedly, Julie & Julia was a heartwarming, sticky sweet account of Powell’s mission to cook her way through Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The blog/book/movie led us to believe that Powell was a somewhat quirky woman who loved to cook, occasionally cursed, and had a ridiculously lovely marriage.
In Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession, we learn that the public image Powell carefully crafted wasn’t true to form. Cleaving will surely smash any goody two shoes image fans may have had of Julie Powell. Though it does feature a few recipes and go into great detail about butchery, these things are more of an afterthought; Powell’s fucked up marriage and obsessive extramarital affair take center stage.
Out of the blue Powell decides to take up butchering and because she’s a go-getter, she sets out to obtain an apprenticeship at a butcher shop to the great confusion of her husband. Apparently it’s just a strong compulsion she feels. I call bullshit on that. It’s obvious to me that this would make an unlikely, though interesting second book idea. Perhaps her editors were breathing down her neck, or maybe Powell needed some kind of food-related slant to pacify her foodie fans while still being able to dissect her marriage in print. But it seems unlikely that it doesn’t just suddenly occur to a thirty-three-year-old to be a butcher. This is the same woman who famously dreaded boning a duck for months, after all.
During the months leading up to her apprenticeship, Powell’s marriage to her long-time husband Eric is falling apart thanks to a torrid love affair with a man she calls D. She cheated on Eric once before with D. while in college and when he calls her sometime after her Julie & Julia fame, the two pick up where they left and thus begin the meat metaphors. While hacking away at some animal, Powell will force a metaphor out of the skin and bones and sinew. Did you know that when “one has eaten a beautiful dry-aged steak, one remembers it, longs for it? That longing doesn’t stop. At least, it hasn’t yet and it doesn’t feel like it’s going anywhere.” Is she talking about the steak or D.? Oh Julie Powell, you’re clever.
In certain areas of her life Powell boasts that she’s tough as nails; she’s just “one of the guys.” She won’t ask for help in the butcher shop, won’t admit she’s afraid of using tools that could slice off arms or decapitate her. Julie Powell is a warrior, except when it comes to D. If he doesn’t respond to a text or e-mail, Powell goes off the deep end; sobbing, going through two bottles of wine a night, writing and calling him obsessively, even stalking him. These situations don’t illustrate the fragility of Powell, but rather her need for serious medication and therapy.
Powell’s portrayal of herself and her marriage aims to be complex, but it’s just perplexing. Her husband knows of her affair, but it’s never really discussed. She never really expresses guilt; she actually rubs her husband’s nose in it; bruises from D. cover her body and e-mails and “sexts” are left in plain view. When Eric begins an affair of his own, Powell seems happy for him. Despite all of this neither considers divorce. A divorce, Powell explains, is not a “clean break” like cracking open a joint with one “delicious pop.” It’s more like snapping a bone, which requires hacking, sawing, and destroying. I’d argue that a divorce couldn’t be any worse than what she’s already done to her marriage, but that’s just my opinion.
Powell is defined by the men in her life; she lets them shape and mold her into different women, whichever fits their needs. With Eric she is the asexual wife; cuddling, drinking wine in front of the television and making dinner together is enough and supposedly illustrates their intimacy. With D., she is the sex kitten, wanting to be taken, more than happy to submit to him and his every whim.
Powell wants to have her meat and eat it too, and for some reason, the people in her world allow her to carry on like this while remaining in her life. I’ll never know who the real Julie Powell is, but if she’s anything like the character in Cleaving, I wish her luck and something in the way of self-esteem.
Forget fairytales and fables that threaten rape and violence to women who go off the beaten path, deny their parents, or refuse to marry. Marilyn ChinForget fairytales and fables that threaten rape and violence to women who go off the beaten path, deny their parents, or refuse to marry. Marilyn Chin's novel, Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen, doesn't lock away its female protagonists into a tower so a prince can climb up their hair and doesn't ask the women to honor and obey their parents. Instead, Chin's twin protagonists are riot grrrls of the immigrant set: they take on everything from gender and sexuality to Chinese mythology and the immigrant experience.
Duality is a central component to the book: the sisters at the heart of the stories are like night and day. It's no coincidence that the sisters – Moonie and Mei Ling – are known as "double happiness." There is the hypersexualized sister, and there is the asexual sister: each is as wild as they are rebellious. Mei Lin throws herself into fling after fling as she makes deliveries for her family’s restaurant while her sister rips her away from too-willing American men again and again. Here, the contradictions of stereotypes are thrown into the face of the reader. The Madonna/Whore dichotomy was never so smartly articulated.
Chin is not unaware of what is at stake for her protagonists. Their boldness is spoken of when Chin writes of Mei Lin's reckless promiscuity: "It could ultimately mean the death of your tribe and your people." The children of immigrants often have high expectations to fulfill. They must honor their cultures and succeed in a new world. The tongue-in-cheek statement certainly has some levity behind it: Failure is not an option for the first generation child.
Chin drives the stake through the heart of the matter when describing the twins' reaction to a fellow first generation immigrant, Donny Romero: "Now he's on the East Coast studying art at Yale. How spoiled is that? First-generation immigrant and he gets to study art." While the girls rage and rebel against this expectation, they do indeed fall into it. They become the Ivy League successes predicted by their family and by the world around them.
The collection's only misstep is that the narrators, and consequently Chin, sometimes seem too pleased with themselves. Chin knows what she's doing, and like the adventurous Mei Ling, she seemingly has so much pushing the envelope that the message of the pieces is sometimes drowned out by the volume of the sexual escapades and wink-wink criticism of assimilation. For example, "Wiping One's ass with the Sutras" would be more than fine, but when coupled again and again with sexually explicit language, the rebellion at the heart of the collection is dulled because the nail is hit one too many times. The profanity is meant to jolt the reader, but without some relief from the jolting, the risk is desensitization.
The growing pains of the Chinese immigrant experience are bursting at the seams. These twins do not reject their heritage; they simply poke holes through its hypocrisies. These sisters do not blindly accept American culture, and mock its excesses. These are the new stories of the immigrant nation. It's no accident that the restaurant owned by the twins' family is called Double Happiness. Here, making one's way means working hard, sacrificing, and forging a path to the Ivy League schools, something the twins expect as much as the mooncakes they deliver. These vixens rebel and buck and crow against expectations: this "double happiness" of living in a new land with old world expectations. The twins make their own path without rejecting the history, expectations, and hopes of their family.
Chin does not offer a happily-ever-after-type ending nor does she offer a tragedy. Instead, the twins play in murky water and shed new light on old struggles.
The arrival in 1994 of HIV and AIDS to the London School of Hygiene's curriculum led Elizabeth Pisani, a former journalist and scholar of classical ChThe arrival in 1994 of HIV and AIDS to the London School of Hygiene's curriculum led Elizabeth Pisani, a former journalist and scholar of classical Chinese, to contemplate "a career in sex and drugs." The Wisdom of Whores recounts her work for (and increasingly against) the funding and technical juggernauts of UNAIDS, Family Health International (FHI), the World Bank, the WHO, and the President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) in defining and surveilling upon HIV and AIDS. Pisani collects data in fetid settlements, brothels, sex clubs and hairdressing salons from the body parts and fluids of marginalized people and then massages the data ("beating them up" in journo speak) to placate politicians and sponsors.
Even chapter titles such as "The Honesty Box," "Sacred Cows," and "Ants in the Sugar-Bowl" critique the "big business" of AIDS managed by "the AIDS mafia." Skewering the absurdities of the "abstinence-only" movement and the opponents of "harm reduction" in matters sexual and drug-injecting, Pisani pits the "truth" of painstakingly gathered empirical data (doing "good" science in HIV and AIDS work) against the "right answers" that keep politicians elected and funding streams flowing. Here is her solution: "We could save more lives with good science, if we spent less time worrying about publishing the perfect paper and more time lobbying, more time schmoozing the press, more time speaking in the language that voters and politicians understand. If we behaved more like Big Tobacco, in fact."
The Wisdom of Whores reads (and was edited) breezily, but there is much to praise. Clinical and pharmaceutical specialists and development agency reps have had aired the dirty laundry of their infighting, money-grubbing and ill-conceived treatment programs. Lay readers will be titillated by her frank talk, have their eyes opened by her revelation of greed and corruption in national AIDS programs, and be liberated by her constant use of metaphor and colloquialisms. "Sex can be a sticky business. The stickier the better...A wet vagina is usually a pretty safe environment" conveys the frisson of having seemingly encountered dangerous words and ideas.
Nevertheless, the clarity of her take on needle exchange, data coding, epi-speak, and religious squeamishness about sex belies their nuances and complexities. She contends that "the circumcision and untreated STIs are easy to understand [in figuring varying HIV antibody prevalence:] and they are relatively easy to measure." Not so. Men are becoming circumcised instead of using condoms. The recently circumcised heighten their own infectiousness when they have sex still wounded. Women don’t benefit at the population level from circumcision. Men sometimes undergo supercision, superincision and even circumincision. None of this is easily measured.
Pisani discusses the politics behind use of acronyms such as MSM (Men who have Sex with Men), FSW (Female Sex Workers), and IDU (Injecting Drug Users) that stuffs into conceptual boxes for epidemiologists the identities and behaviors that won’t stay put. Her summary nicely spells out the difference between epidemiologists and ethnographers. Admitting that she and her colleagues "bulldozed happily through the minefield of language," she then castigates the very calls for nuance and caution in such matters that elsewhere she uses to dink mainstream epidemiology. Her confession that, "When we started to look, it didn’t take long to explode the 'junkies don’t get laid' myth," insults the legions of social scientists and activists who invented no such myth in the first place.
This is the blessing and curse of The Wisdom of Whores. Pisani complains (rightfully) about the language of mainstream epidemiology and its sacred cows, but her language is as imprecise as are her conclusions debatable. Her picking on the World Bank for believing “poverty and gender inequality spread AIDS” lets off the hook the sum total of the negative effects of the structural adjustment programs and unregulated capitalism supported by it and the IMF and WTO and ignores how hard social scientists worked to enable the World Bank even to put "poverty and gender equality" on the same table of HIV blame as cognitive shortfall and individual responsibility. Her claim that the fact that HIV antibody-positive men are eschewing condom use "wouldn't really matter if they were having sex with people who were also infected," is flatly untrue on several levels. She confuses "hot and dry" sex for "dry and tight," and ignores its "Western" manifestations. Indonesia’s waria (men who dress, identify and have sex as heterosexual women) do significant rhetorical duty here, but she fails to cite the important works of Jake Morin, Leslie Butt, and Gerdha Numbery, and ignores the lengthy genealogy in male-male sexual activity in the region. Her language often exoticizes ("Madurese women are famed for their sexual prowess") and is sometimes inflammatory: "If you have sex in ways that do not follow basic human sexual design (which includes a lubricated vagina), you will increase the chance of small tears and abrasions."
While rightly calling for ethnographic data and sensibilities that would explode myths, they were largely the making of Pisani and her colleagues. Rushing to appear marginalized as a consulting epidemiologist, she neglects how marginalized are most ethnographers by epidemiologists and the funding agencies and conservative philosophies underwriting them. The "big business" of AIDS begins properly with just such epidemiological conceits.
What molding and stretching is required of a woman who chooses to better the quality of life of others over her own? Perhaps this type of self-sacrifiWhat molding and stretching is required of a woman who chooses to better the quality of life of others over her own? Perhaps this type of self-sacrifice cannot be fathomed from the outside in. To be the devoted wife, the doting mother, the gracious hostess, the caring friend—where and when does she find the time to find herself?
Within in her sharply defined world, Pippa Lee is everything to everyone who matters to her—to Herb, her husband thirty years her senior and a prominent publisher; to her grown children, twins; and to a small circle of friends, New York writers and artists. She has no visible past or plans for the future. Ever adaptable, Pippa sees only placid days spent catering to Herb as they live out the golden years of their marriage in the Marigold Village retirement community.
When Pippa wakes up to find that she has been tearing through the kitchen, smearing food around the dining room, picking up smoking again, and even driving to the convenience store all while fast sleep, her sure footing in life begins to falter. The destabilization of her environment and her youthful isolation in a sea of retirees lead her to revisit defining moments from her previous life, before Herb and their seemingly perfect marriage.
What begins as a one-dimensional character study of the archetypal Mother/Wife figure transforms into a richly drawn portrait of a complex, often complicated life. When the unexpected throws Pippa off her increasingly shaky track, she is set loose from the existence she had trained herself to relish; in that moment, her character vibrates with newfound vitality and possibility, and the story itself is elevated to a new level of being. Through intimately detailed and poignant vignettes from Pippa’s past and surprising twists from her present, Rebecca Miller constructs a deftly layered and moving novel of a woman’s journey to herself. The Private Lives of Pippa Lee is a subtly and emotionally crafted read for anyone who has ever wondered, “How did I get here? And where do I go now?”
Goodman has been freelancing for sixteen years at the time of publication. From the jump, her writing is accessible and fun. The follow-up to the someGoodman has been freelancing for sixteen years at the time of publication. From the jump, her writing is accessible and fun. The follow-up to the somewhat well known The Anti-9-5 Guide: Practical Advice for Women Who Think Outside the Cube, Goodman is once again onto something. What other how-to guides (repeatedly) use phrases like “get this freelance party started”? When you read a book like My So-Called Freelance Life, it isn’t hard to wonder how anyone can break from a traditional mindset about how to make money and allow themselves the freedom to quit nasty situations. My guess is that radical personal politics and at least a small cushion of safety are two important components. They were for me.
Goodman is particularly skilled at debunking the myth that freelancers are kept women who have quaint hobbies and fleeting interests. She also doesn’t assume anything is off limits because of gender. Want to be a freelance welder? According to Goodman, you just need a solid business plan – and not the ugly 200-page kind. Other practical tips include choosing your client instead of being so desperate; they choose you (and you’re forced to accept every nasty job that falls in your lap). Always be moving toward goals: better clients, bigger paychecks, more freedom. Isn’t that why you went solo in the first place? In other words, don’t be afraid to give yourself a promotion just because you’re self-employed.
You also should be clear: freelancing will not always mean working for others. Goodman loosely defines freelancers as women who have gone on to start their own businesses with multiple additional employees. Freelancers are also women (much like myself) who do creative work for pay and supplement their income with assorted odd jobs, often in the service industry or as social servants.
My So-Called Freelance Life is also a somewhat refreshing anti-establishment approach to making your own way, particularly during the recession that Americans currently face. Sometimes, freelancing can shrink some costs (less commute equals lower car insurance and repairs, for example). Fewer dry cleaning bills aren’t the only reason to work at home. And were you thinking about leaving your 9-5 while still in massive debt? Goodman doesn’t politely say, “Think it over.” She tells you to stick it out or your life, even if being lived in daily cube hell, will only get exponentially worse.
The only real criticism I’d have is that despite inclusive, pro-woman language that fills this pseudo self-help book, I cringe whenever I see a female write the phrase, “I’m their bitch.” Reclamation of the word aside, maybe this is a liberal feminism I don’t personally employ, but I do think a better word could easily be used in this type of context.
Freelancers abroad be warned – a lot of this information is for stateside folk. Certainly you should write what you know, so Goodman did just that, but if you’re a struggling freelancer in say, London or Cairo, this will give you great generalized advice, but the money sections (and some of the tech specs) won’t do you a bit of good. The author acknowledges her own limited scope, but she doesn’t spend time going into it further than that.
You don’t have to reach the final chapters before this book makes you believe you can make it as a freelancer. That, in our culture of fear and negativity, might be the most valuable aspect of all.
Connections: The Apostate and Professor What If review... Yes Means Yes!: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape
The Apostate: My initiConnections: The Apostate and Professor What If review... Yes Means Yes!: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape
The Apostate: My initial reaction when I heard about the anthology was mixed. It seemed that the problem of rape was being used for a catchy slogan's sake (the catchy slogan being a play on the anti-rape "no means no" rule), and not because it made any real sense. I wasn't sure where you could go with that—connecting sexuality with rape culture in a way that was meaningful for actual cultural change and impact on women's lives.
Professor What If: The introduction notes that the book intends to offer “a frank and in-depth conversation about forward-thinking ways to battle-rape culture,” and the book truly does contain many frank, in-depth conversations that formulate ways to rethink not only preventing rape, but also re-shaping the way we approach sex and sexuality. While the reasons behind the book are laudable, I find the claim that valuing female sexual pleasure will stop rape the book puts forward a bit too simplistic. Although the book nods to the complex socio-cultural factors that perpetuate rape culture, it stops short of really grappling with how rape is a by-product of our patriarchal, militarized, commodified world. I do think this is a very important book that makes crucial contributions to re-thinking sexuality, but it is only part of a much needed conversation we need to have—both in books and in blogs—about eradicating rape culture.
The Apostate: I think "rape culture" should have been expounded upon more. I don't think people understand the difference between rape and rape culture, and that wasn't really addressed, which gave rise to some of the confusion around why anyone thought Yes Means Yes! would stop rape—the writers didn't think it would! They just want to dismantle rape culture, which is a bigger and more amorphous thing than the specific crime of rape, even if rape takes place within the context of rape culture.
Professor What If: I was impressed with the broad coverage of the book and the diversity of voices. I especially appreciated those pieces that emphasized anti-rape activism must include teaching men not to rape and helping men to recognize rape. Jill Filipovic’s piece, for example, was very effective in examining the social-cultural contexts of rape culture and the need to include men in anti-rape activism and education. I also liked the inclusion of queer, male, fat, sex work, and BDSM perspectives.
The Apostate: My favorite essay was Thomas MacAuley Millar’s. It really dismantled the perceptions of sex as something that is done to you, as a woman, rather than something you (enthusiastically) participate in. That is not a concept enough people understand; and although I get it, I have never seen it articulated so well as Millar did. His essay was beautifully written, cogent, with a great metaphor about sex as music. The commodity model of sex is one of the biggest hurdles women face, if they act like they are free to pursue their pleasure. People don't think their pleasure is really part of the picture at all, since women are the object, not the subject. And another thing: I had never realized how "no means no" continues to frame the sex as between a predator and prey, as Julia Serano defined the terms.
Professor What If: Many of the authors argued against the 'power over' dynamic that shapes our thinking about sexuality by emphasizing mutual consent, doing away with the competition model of sex, ensuring certain partners (namely women) are not objectified/dehumanized, etc. I think this re-thinking of the power dynamics in relation to sex/sexuality are crucial. However, they must also be addressed in relation to those politics of domination that shape our society—patriarchy, capitalism, sexism, racism. Also, I wonder about the subtitle “visions of female sexual power.” Do we really want to rethink sexuality in terms of power? Doesn’t this go against the mutual consent/pleasure model the book upholds?
The Apostate: The emphasis on sexual assault—and personal stories of pain and damage around that—got overwhelming in the second half of the book. The joy of enthusiastically consenting sex got lost in there. I think that focusing on how rape and sexual assault affect women's lives is very important, especially as so much of this reality is not captured in statistics or on the news, but perhaps sex as pain should not have predominated quite as much.
Professor What If: I think an analysis of rape in same-sex or non-heterosexual relationships is missing. In keeping with this notion, the book frames women as rape victims, not covering boys and men as also victims/survivors of rape. For example, as rape within systems like the Catholic Church and public schools is prevalent, this seems a key omission. How could the rape culture condoned by religious establishments or the military be addressed via the “yes means yes” paradigm? In ways, the book leaves out the institutionalized aspect of rape and focuses on “individual rape scripts.” In so doing, it doesn’t fully examine those social structures and institutions that shape sexuality and perpetuate rape culture—the family, the church, the law, the military, etc.
The Apostate: The overall feel I got from the book was very "alternative." It was very citified, and very margins-of-society, written by people we don't hear from on a daily basis in mainstream coverage. Those voices are all the more crucial for being so marginalized, and also because it is on the margins of society that the worst abuses happen. That said, I think it lacked a certain degree of balance. I did think it covered a wide range of issues and perspectives—except for married, heterosexual, middle class sexuality and the sexuality of older people. The only reason I would have liked to see that balance is to "normalize" these issues for the mainstream; so much of this sort of thing is hidden, under wraps, and allowing only the margins to speak out about it gives the deceptive impression that the problem of rape culture is not the problem of all women—which it most certainly is.
Professor What If: I love blogs and blogging, but books are not blogs. Rather than trying to make the two mediums the same, I think we should value each medium (print v. online) in its own right. I found the “hyper-link” structure did not translate well into print format. Further, in keeping with the “blog format” of the book, many of the pieces were written in the less formal, talky style of blogs. Javacia Harris, for example, writes “Don’t get me wrong. I’m certainly not anti-sexy—I’ve been to my fair share of striptease aerobics classes.” This style seems too light for the aims outlined in the introduction and this style allows comments like these to be tossed out with no analysis of the wider cultural contexts that defines normative notions of “sexy” and results in the very existence of striptease aerobics classes in the first place.
Too often the attitude that framed the arguments in the book is that any choice is ok as long as you know why you’re making it. This “sexual empowering choices model” is too simplistic. This is partly due to choosing a “blog style” for the book—a style that makes the book seem a bit too light given the subject matter at hand. While blogs work in a conversational, of-the-minute style, books allow for more thoughtful, hard-hitting, heavily researched writing. Both have their merits, but trying to write a book that functions like a blog makes me wonder about the purpose of going the print publication route; if one is not going to take advantage of a book format (and go into deeper analysis/research), stick to a blog (and indeed, the editors have a blog of the same name now up and running.
The Apostate: I also thought the hyper-link theme was a little redundant. I liked the idea to begin with, but I ended up skipping the lists at the end of each essay and just read linearly. I did glance at a few and thought they didn't always make sense; they tended to include a quarter of the book each time, after every essay. A thematic unity among pieces kind of fell into one's head automatically, so I didn't see the necessity of that. As for the authors being mostly bloggers and part of the blogging community, I do think that it was perhaps a little insular and self-referential. For someone outside that community of bloggers, perhaps a lot of this stuff would be very new—some context is missing and some pieces are more bewildering than others. But overall, the hyper-linking style is easily ignored and doesn't detract, even if it doesn't add.
Professor What If: I think examining the many factors that contribute to rape culture is helpful in addressing the pervasiveness of sexual violence. However, I still found there was a bit too much emphasis on what females do/do not do. The introduction notes that often what is missing in analyses of rape is the rapist. This book, with its focus on “yes” and on female’s “owning” their sexuality also under-analyzes rapists, instead focusing on women’s need to familiarize themselves with “enthusiastic consent.” In a strange way, the book thus keeps the onus of changing rape culture squarely on women’s shoulders. Many of the solutions seem a bit too individualized—as if becoming sexually empowered and educated will be enough to stop rape (or at least stop it from happening to oneself). While many of the texts offer useful, concrete suggestions to move towards a world without rape, I think more analysis of how the politics of domination upheld within patriarchy, capitalism, and militarism (all which profoundly shape our world) was needed. Also, we need to examine how intertwined violence and sexuality are in contemporary society—violence is so pervasive that it cannot be extracted from sex/sexuality. All of the enthusiastic “yes’s” in the world won’t change this.
The Apostate: A lot of issues being talked about are really not discussed in our society and they need to be. And I was totally won over by the thesis of the book—that a woman's right and enthusiastic consent to sex were central to how sex and sexual violence are perceived. I’m really glad to see a somewhat mainstream book about women's experiences and hopes for a positive, enthusiastic, feminist ideal that also includes women as sexual creatures: horny, lusty, and slutty. Jaclyn Friedman's essay about overt sexuality really spoke to me on that front.
Professor What If: I think the book is a really good first step towards re-thinking rape culture. I think, like Valenti’s other books, it will speak to many young feminists. However, being the theory-loving academic that I am, I found myself writing in the margins comments such as, “But where is the theory?” For that reason, I really liked Lee Jacobs Riggs account of our “sex negative” culture and the ways she also addressed the prisons/the criminal legal system and other oppressive systems. I would have liked more hard-hitting pieces like the ones by Coco Fusco and Miriam Zoila Perez (which were my favorites). Too often elsewhere, I came across the word “probably” being used to assess information. In the end, I also found the attack on second-wavers off-putting. Why does this have to be one of the defining characteristics of third wave texts? We need to get over the feminist blame game. No one “wave” has all the answers, and I think sometimes third wave feminism fails to address it’s own shortcomings.
Review by The Apostate and Professor What If...more
I stand firm in the belief that the most obnoxious party conversation of all is the origins of words. There is never a good reason to bust out the OldI stand firm in the belief that the most obnoxious party conversation of all is the origins of words. There is never a good reason to bust out the Old French "cover fire" roots of "curfew." A close second is the proper use of words and expressions. For the ultimate horror, a combination: a statement on the proper use of an expression, followed by the origin of that expression or the words therein. I, like many people, have been guilty of all these pretensions in the past, but in the last few years, as part of an effort to talk less altogether, I have avoided armchair etymology.
Roy Blount, Jr.'s Alphabet Juice ("juice" as in "juju", he clarifies) is a delicious, extended meditation on these issues. Read it, love it, but do not repeat its lessons in a social setting. Not to friends because they will tire of your company and "unfriend" you, or to children either because they will repeat you and pollute the world with precociousness. A dad might tolerate hearing you recite how "gourmet" evolved from a word meaning "servant," but he's the only one.
Letter by letter Blount moves through Roman alphabet, reviewing whatever strikes him as interesting or infuriating. In the introduction Blount prescribes Alphabet Juice as a guide for good writing, and for the preservation of the proper uses of our beloved English language. He goes after such annoyances as "literally" and "bit much", and plumbs the etymology of "lava." The tone is, well, that of a veteran word nerd and renowned author attempting to define and defend English. "Listen up folks" and "Like most overused intensifiers" kick off biting entries. Tough to get through in one shot, give Alphabet Juice a hearty once-over, and return often to random sections when you need a word nerd fix.
Most of the attention Dr. Leonard Sax gets is for his advocacy of single sex education for boys. In his first book, Why Gender Matters: What Parents aMost of the attention Dr. Leonard Sax gets is for his advocacy of single sex education for boys. In his first book, Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Sex Differences, Sax described the developmental and biological differences between the sexes and how contemporary early education puts boys at a disadvantage. In his follow up, Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men, Sax elaborates on the modern crisis of maleness.
Sax is interested in boys, and tends to ignore females except as counter-examples, which is fine because one cannot be all things to all people. Sax also, in spite of himself, writes about a certain class of white affluent suburban boys. He tries to allay critics on both of these counts, with sometimes hilarious results. In explaining how inclusive his work is of all cultures, Sax offers this compelling example:
“Emily (or Maria or Shaniqua) goes to college...Justin (or Carlos or Damian) may go to college...”
I am still laughing. Maria, Shaniqua, Carlos, and Damian? Are we seriously playing a "Let’s think of Black- and Latino-sounding names" game? At least Sax is trying to fill the ethnic diversity requirement, even if he has a clunky way of showing it.
Regardless, the focus of Boys Adrift is the plight of affluent white boys living in American suburbs with a few generations of American living (read: consumerism and apathy?) pumping through their veins. “Damian” is actually not his concern. But whomever he is speaking about, Boys Adrift was written from Sax to parents.
From a hyper-academic kindergarten curriculum that favors females, to phlalates that leach into your Dr. Pepper and stunt mental development, Sax covers the basics of what we're talking about when we're talking about the modern crisis of manhood. He identified this crisis of boys as a “failure to launch,” an epidemic of fat, Halo-playing man-children who don't understand why everyone keeps telling them that they should move out of their parents house.
Gender issues aside, Boys Adrift would interest anyone seeking a comprehensive history of Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder and its treatments and the various, terrifying ways that environmental estrogen has infiltrated our bodies, wreaking physiological (early puberty in females) and societal (sexually mature girls in school alongside their prepubescent male peers) havoc on post-baby-boom generations.
The educational problems that Sax describes are applicable to kids of all kinds (even, dare I imagine, Shaniqua), and it's a little annoying to see them attributed to gender difference. Pegging problems like a struggle to pay attention and a failure to get decent grades to a condition of maleness might feel good to parents of a struggling boy, but to a female who failed similarly, it seems wholly unhelpful if not insulting.
There is a lot here, and Sax's work will comfort many parents, but the work is not without some contradictions. Early on in the narrative we learn that modern American schooling is not conducive to male brain and body development—it does not play to their strengths or their timetable. Later, Sax cites a statistically notable decline in boys’ intellect since the 1990s. The statistics rely on grades given in school. But if school works against boys, then their grades in school are not a fair or accurate measures of their intellect, so what use are they?
Recommended for those curious about education, gender, boys, men, and environmental estrogen.
Don’t be fooled by the somewhat whimsical title of Jayanti Tamm’s memoir Cartwheels in a Sari; this account of a young woman’s life as "growing up culDon’t be fooled by the somewhat whimsical title of Jayanti Tamm’s memoir Cartwheels in a Sari; this account of a young woman’s life as "growing up cult" couples the childlike innocence of a cartwheel with the feeling of inertia and tumbling; she sums this up in a passage from the end of the book: "The inversion of my body, losing track of gravity and direction, was disorienting and delirious. From my vantage point, I saw Guru and all of the disciples upside-down, and no one else had... I did not know which was the correct way."
Nothing in the way of goat slaughtering or the sexual abuse, as some may associate with the dark ideas of cults, Jayanti Tamm’s experience of being born into the Sri Chinmoy Center is a more subtle meditation on the struggle with spiritual meaning and the hypocrisy of being and 'enlightened' yet blind follower. Sri Chinmoy, who passed away in 2007, was a charismatic Indian "Guru" who lived in the Bronx. He gained notoriety in the late '80s through weightlifting stunts and spiritual friendships with celebrities such as Carlos Santana and Richard Gere.
Sri Chinmoy, or "Guru," as he is referred throughout the book, essentially arranged the marriage of the two strangers who would become Tammi’s parents. Although they were married, sex was not allowed, but Tamm was conceived anyway. Through his ability to spin great PR, Guru blessed the embarrassing arrival of Tamm by calling her his "Chosen One."
Throughout the memoir, one sees Tamm struggle with the yearning for spiritual harmony with the ideas of peace and love being spoken about around her and the everyday reality of observing the strange behaviours and hypocrisy of Guru’s followers. As her parents were too preoccupied with their own devotion—yet aware of their own hypocrisy in conceiving her—Tamm was allowed relative freedom and attended public schools. As an intelligent young woman whose heart was open to the world around her, Tamm grows up to search for something real.
Her story is one with which we can all connect, even if we did not grow up with hour long meditations; having television, boys, and dancing banned; singing songs in a language we didn’t know; wearing saris to New York public schools; and being the Chosen One for a famous Guru. Tamm was a black sheep, the one who questioned her place in the world and saw things in ways the other people around her did not. More than anything, she wanted to find truth and meaning in a mixed up world.
Tamm's anecdotes are moving and often funny. The memoir reads like a friend telling you crazy stories at a bar with the privilege of distance from what they felt at the time. We go up and down with her as she struggles to leave the cult, returns, is exiled to France, and is eventually expelled from the Sri Chinmoy Center in her twenties. From such a strange upbringing, Tamm seems relatively well-adjusted and is very open, thoughtful, and honest about the shaping of her ideas and personality. With a poignant ending, Cartwheels in a Sari offers a unique view of one woman's effort to find meaning, hope, and a place to belong.
Food has become a very controversial subject, many arguing that education levels, income, and race unfairly dictate the availability of fresh foods anFood has become a very controversial subject, many arguing that education levels, income, and race unfairly dictate the availability of fresh foods and vegetables in low-income American neighborhoods. Though Muriel Barbery (The Elegance of the Hedgehog) does not focus specifically on these issues in her recent novel Gourmet Rhapsody, the division between the working class and the wealthy as it pertains to food and quality of life is often glaringly apparent in the story.
The premise of the novel is simple: The world’s greatest fictional food critic, Pierre Arthens, is dying and wants one last bite, but what that bite is, he does not know. Barbery uses beautiful, sumptuous language to describe the critic’s most fond food memories as he attempts to pinpoint a single flavor that constitutes “the first and ultimate truth” of his life.
Gourmet Rhapsody mostly takes place in Arthens’ bed, where he’s been confined since receiving word that he is dying. Every other chapter is narrated by the food critic and focuses on a specific food from his past such as tomatoes, mayonnaise, and bread. Be warned: Arthens is not a likable character; he is self-important, condescending, and rude. Think Vogue/New York Times food writer Jeffrey Steingarten, but with more clout, French flair, and venom. Arthens is a man who repeatedly cheats on his wife, drives countless chef’s aspirations to hell with glee, and who refers to his children as “monstrous excrescences.”
Thankfully, the chapters of Barbery’s book that aren’t focused on Arthens' quest for the mystery flavor are narrated by others who have known the critic in some capacity. Here the concierge, who has spent his life dutifully tending to Arthens' children and guests and catering to his every whim gets to weigh in, as does the housekeeper who’s looked over the critic’s home for the past thirty years. It is with these characters that the class divisions are perfectly illustrated; they are simple, hard-working people who don’t understand their boss’ cruelty or his quest for one more bite, despite a life filled with the best food imaginable. To them, it seems a hell of a lot like gluttony and in many ways, it is.
We also hear from Arthens' family members, such as his daughter Laura, who has grown cold and hateful of the father who's been more concerned with stuffing his face and chasing after women than with being a loving parental figure. We also hear from his wife, who is aware of his indiscretions but who’s stayed by his side for whatever reasons women in similar situations do. She is pained and frantic, desperate to keep her husband alive and eager to help him find that last, elusive taste.
It would be incredibly easy to hate Arthens, but what saves him from being completely unlikeable is his overwhelming love and passion for food. I have to believe that a man who can describe a rustic meal as “two thin slices of raw, smoked ham, silky and supple along languid folds, some salted butter, and a hunk of bread” has to have some redeeming qualities.
In the end, Arthens does get his last bite and it’s quite unexpected, though fitting. At one time or another, all of us come to long for the simple things of our youth, things we thought we’d forgotten until one day we get a whiff of them or a glance at them while walking down the street. This unique form of human longing and emotion is what ties us together, despite wealth, class, or race, and Barbery does a beautiful job of making this apparent through the use of food, all the way down to the last page.
The disenchantment of our parents, when we realize they’re humans too, is an unpleasant event of growing up. We all handle it differently. For Laurie The disenchantment of our parents, when we realize they’re humans too, is an unpleasant event of growing up. We all handle it differently. For Laurie Sandell, she put it into a graphic novel, The Impostor’s Daughter: A True Memoir. In a little less than 250 beautifully painted pages, Sandell shamelessly shows each and every skeleton in her closet—starting from childhood and ending as her young adult self—and the battles she fights to expose the lies about her larger-than-life father and form a new identity in that truth.
Growing up on the east coast, Sandell was the eldest of three daughters, and her father’s favorite. She spent her childhood idolizing him and forming her identity in his stories of historical and academic greatness. He had a Ph.D. from Columbia University, earned a Purple Heart and Bronze Star in Vietnam, and corresponded with a not-yet-christened Pope John Paul II. Doubt enters Laurie’s mind when she discovers in college that her father had taken out many credit cards in her name, unbeknownst to her. With over two hundred thousand dollars in debt and a father who couldn’t give a proper explanation, Laurie hits the road. She traveled for four years, a time when she says: “I was willing to be anything, try anything, as long as it didn’t resemble the life I was living before.”
The heaviest ball drops when Sandell returns from her escape. After an evening of sharing anecdotes with a friend in publishing, Sandell agrees to write an article about her father’s adventures. Routine fact checking revealed that her father wasn’t as extraordinary as he claimed to be. She proceeds with the article against her family’s wishes, exposes the lies he told, and becomes estranged from her father. However, Laurie doesn’t get the satisfaction she expected: “Nothing had changed: my family continued to be insistently blind to the truth. I remained the lone voice of protest.”
Things begin to look up for her when she lands an admirable job interviewing celebrities. However, she continues to be haunted by her father’s deceit. She battles with an addiction to sleeping pills mixed with red wine and drastic weight loss. She explains to the rehabilitation center she eventually enters: “My alcohol use? Not much—two or three glasses a day. Of course I drink alone: I’m single.” Without fear or lack of comic relief, she shows the inside of rehab, confrontations with her parents and the ultimate serenity she finds within herself. After more than ten years of searching for peace in her relationship with her father, Laurie simply says: “I gave up.”
The strength of this book is the way in which Sandell presents her story. In a more classic format, the experience of The Impostor’s Daughter would be lost. The ability to evoke emotions (light and heavy) subconsciously through images makes this book unforgettable. She possesses a humble and often comic tone in her writing. Both voices work harmoniously to neutralize the series of traumatic events in her life. The Impostor’s Daughter is a cathartic work that will make you reflect on your own relationship with your parents. It shows us the painful, scary, and frustrating process of going from gullible and impressionable children of our parents to self-defining confident women—something we can all appreciate and laugh about sooner or later.
Jessica Yee and I have a lot in common, personally and politically. For one, last year we were both curating collective published works that simultaneJessica Yee and I have a lot in common, personally and politically. For one, last year we were both curating collective published works that simultaneously construct and deconstruct contemporary feminist theory while broadening the scope of who is seen as legitimate enough to be a theory-maker. I wasn't aware of her work, and so far as I know, she wasn't aware of mine either. Despite being topically similar, the results of both projects are strikingly different. And I have a few theories about why.
Feminism FOR REAL brings together twenty written works, both poetry and prose, penned by a variety of radical activists. While the authors are diverse in their backgrounds, they converge on one belief: academia, boo! This is a pretty common refrain among activists, one I've sung over and over myself. But it's also one that now feels a little off key to me for its wholesale exclusivity and apparent lack of understanding of the ways activism and and academic are necessarily interdependent. For that reason, I found myself having to put forth some effort to read many of these pieces where they're at, instead of with condescension.
I want to be clear about a couple of things: 1) although it is a frequent accusation tossed my way, I am not an academic and 2) I claim the sentiment in the paragraph above as a part of my own personal struggle and processing, not a failing of this anthology. Too many times we patronizingly press our lips together, just waiting to inform the young'ins that they'll see things differently one day. And even though they might, that's no excuse for bolstering one's sense of superiority at another's expense, nor choosing not to interrogate the things that contribute to our own self-righteous point of view. In fact, it's just this kind of ageist trope that Yee and crew (rightfully!) rail against in Feminism FOR REAL.
So every piece in this book didn't speak to me—so what?! The ones that did were exciting to read and filled me with validation. Megan Lee's "Maybe I'm Not Class-Mobile; Maybe I'm Class Queer" is an excellent examination of the complex conflicts held by those of us who have been able to 'escape' our families' poverty while maintaining the desire to embrace our working class identity and advocate for us and for them. Andrea Plaid discusses the unintentional delegitimizing of Ann Marie Rios, and therefore all nontraditionally educated sex workers, by professional (read: degreed) sexologist Bianca Laureano in "No, I Would Follow the Porn Star's Advice." And ending with Kate Klein's "On Learning How Not to Be An Asshole Academic Feminist" (re)assured me that Yee and I are probably on the same page with our personal and political intentionality.
Pick up Feminism FOR REAL if you're looking to gain an worthwhile education, and perhaps a bit of critical self-awareness too.
I was first introduced to Marilyn French as an enthusiastic college student entering the world of radical feminism. I came across references to The WoI was first introduced to Marilyn French as an enthusiastic college student entering the world of radical feminism. I came across references to The Women's Room repeatedly in my personal studies of feminist history and theory, and finally had to sit down and read it. I read the book in less than a week, and it had an enormous impact on my feminism and overall politics. When I heard Marilyn French had written a multi-volume anthology on the history of women, I was intrigued.
While I can’t say that I read this book in less than a week (the book runs 516 pages), the final volume of the four-volume From Eve to Dawn series, Revolutions and Struggles for Justice in the 20th Century, was far from disappointing. While nonfiction and very academic, the history kept me turning pages for the same reason that The Women's Room did. Revolutions and Struggles for Justice in the 20th Century is unashamedly feminist and provides readers with a world history from the perspective of women's struggles for justice in a capitalistic and misogynistic world.
The anthology starts out with a brilliant overview of socialist movements in Europe. It begins with the story of Rozalia Luksenburg, a physically disabled Jew from Poland who overcame her physical barriers to become one of the most influential voices of the socialist movement in Eastern Europe, both attacking and gaining great respect from Lenin. It was during this time (early twentieth century) that the observance of International Women's Day began, initiated by Clara Zetkin, a fellow socialist revolutionary. After providing a comprehensive history of socialist movements in Europe, French covers anti-imperialism in Latin America, India, and Africa before moving on to a history of feminism itself.
I appreciated French's inclusion of women's and feminists histories that are little known, even to Women's Studies majors such as myself. For instance, I was surprised and intrigued to know that in Japan, the feminist movement was started largely by men who saw the advancement of women as vital to their cultural preservation and relevance in the world. However, when women decided to follow men in wearing their hair short, it was decreed illegal and required that a woman prove she had medical reasons for cutting her hair.
Given the abundance of meticulous detail in the history, it is astounding to think that this is the final edition in a four-volume series. French ends her anthology discussing the future of feminism and proposes alternatives to the current state of the movement in order to achieve our ideals. The conclusion of the book very much acts as the climax of this history and serves as a celebration of womanhood. My favorite line is in the closing chapters of the book when Marilyn French reminds us that feminism "is a revolution one can dance at. Its ends and means stress cooperation, felicity and the fostering of life."
The From Eve to Dawn series is the very personification of this statement and a must-read for any women's history enthusiast. I can't wait to get my hands on the previous volumes.
In her latest study, Free From Lies, famed psychologist Alice Miller examines the way child abuse shapes the psyche and the effect it can have on humaIn her latest study, Free From Lies, famed psychologist Alice Miller examines the way child abuse shapes the psyche and the effect it can have on humanity. While the human brain has an incredible ability to normalize traumatic events, Miller argues that abuses suffered in childhood can never truly be repressed. It appears as though humanity is suffering from a collective amnesia regarding the wrongs we suffered in infancy. These wrongs, according to Miller, will manifest themselves later in life. We see evidence of this everywhere—in the form of domestic abuse, war, and genocide—all of which are prominent throughout our history. Those who have been able to break away from the cycle of abuse (a minority of about ten percent) are not without their problems, often suffering from serious health conditions later on in life.
Miller argues that humanity has, for the most part, come to define child abuse as "good parenting." The negative implications of this are two-fold: first, the child develops conflicting views regarding their parents, who act simultaneously as care-giver and as tyrant, and secondly, that the general, worldwide acceptance of child abuse will ensure it is passed down from generation to generation.
Miller examines horrific dictators like Adolph Hitler, revered icons like Marilyn Monroe, serial killers, and domestic abusers. While the common denominator among her subjects is, of course, child abuse, Miller looks at the way her subjects have been psychoanalyzed. She argues that history tends to analyze and treat severely traumatized and/or psychotic adults by looking at the symptoms of their pain rather than determining the causes of it. Miller stresses the importance of asking the right questions when dealing with these seemingly traumatized adults. This, according to Miller, is the only way to determine the root cause of abuse and determine the appropriate course of therapy.
Free from Lies is a logical, well-documented study that examines the ideologies that society has been reluctant to confront. Miller challenges others in her field head-on, wondering aloud why some child psychologists continue to deny and document the existence of child abuse. Not only is her fearless study convincing and engaging, the book is also extremely readable. Miller's approach to writing is refreshingly no-nonsense; she refrains from padding her observations with diatribes and academic-speak, ensuring her work can be read and enjoyed by a mainstream audience.
A compelling read, Free from Lies belongs on the bookshelves of everyone from the novice to the well-seasoned psychoanalyst. This important study has all the trimmings of a classic in the making and it is bound to invite and create debate and dissection for many years to come. The study is best appreciated through multiple reading as it will reveal new truths and insights each time. If we want to better our communities, it is imperative we understand our own inner-workings. Free from Lies will serve as an excellent aid by promoting open discussion and release from our own forgotten abuses.
I’ll admit I am neither a friend of celebrity culture or the particular brand of it that centers on the Kennedys. I am, however, interested in sexual I’ll admit I am neither a friend of celebrity culture or the particular brand of it that centers on the Kennedys. I am, however, interested in sexual politics and thus in the normative institutions of marriage and monogamy and the hardly less institutionalized behaviors of male bonding. In many ways Jed Mercurio’s American Adulterer is a riposte to Ruth Francisco’s The Secret Memoirs of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, which a Publisher’s Weekly review described as a “fictionalized peek behind Camelot [that:] will satisfy only prurient interests.” Both novels are understandable constructs that allow conjecture from the historical record while allowing the authors and their publishers to evade the consequence of potential libel suits. Although the reviewer read only excerpts of the Francisco novel, hers is more novelistic and even literary than Mercurio’s.
American Adulterer might be described as an apologia for habitual, compulsive adultery during the time a character—called "the Subject" by the omniscient authorial voice speaking in present tense—spent as President of the United States, with flashbacks to early periods of his life sufficient to shed light on the behavior as exhibited in the White House under conditions of scrutiny and Secret Service security. A medical doctor, the author also regales us with clinical details of the subject’s multiple maladies—adrenal insufficiency, a painful back, gastrointestinal disease, allergies, and the side effects of steroid therapy. A sickly youth, the subject nonetheless served in the military and was a war hero, but by the time he reached the White House is poor health, managed by a team of physicians and a rogue Dr. Feelgood. A back brace is fingered as a contributing cause to his shooting, proving lethal in the final pages.
An account of how compulsive sexuality can jeopardize careers of men, especially powerful men, is a useful corrective for feminists more commonly concerned with the destabilizing effects romance and sexual obsession can have on women, with dangerous consequences to their educations and careers. As the narrative proceeds from ejaculation to ejaculation (and from bowel movement to bowel movement), readers who are after more than prurience will become aware of the vast protective apparatus that props up public figures—and I mean more than the Secret Service—the advisers and administrative infrastructure on which they depend and which have a minute by minute view of one’s conduct of life. How these constrain the subject’s behavior is a timely reminder for those who look to a particular individual as a hero of reform. Knowledge about someone’s predilection for fellatio under a desk is not the only leverage outside interests have on a political figure. And for those, like me, not particularly attracted to political figures, the familiar rationalizations for male sexual behavior suggest the continuing need for further explication of sexual politics, a half-century after these fictional facts took place.
Cute chick + NYC + media job + boyfriend troubles + comedically quirky friends and family + insipid metaphors + lightbulb moment resolution = book deaCute chick + NYC + media job + boyfriend troubles + comedically quirky friends and family + insipid metaphors + lightbulb moment resolution = book deal! Next, it will surely be opening at a multiplex near you.
This read was so formulaic I had to remind myself that The Late Bloomer's Revolution is actually a memoir, not fictitious chick lit. We all know too well the irritating law of chick lit bestsellerdom: a free-spirited, but still safely conventional, damsel must learn to balance career, relationship, and self-esteem in the glamorous paradise of the Big Apple while watching out for charming, narcissistic, Prada-clad snakes! To make sure I did not forget this book's classification come review-writing time, I actually stuck a yellow sticky flag under the very, very lightly printed "A Memoir" that appears teeny-tiny over the author's very, very boldfaced name.
Perhaps it's because I truly love a deeply moving memoir that I find a book like this one to be a fluffball wafting around in a genre that once had at least a couple of anti-glib gatekeepers. However snobby and cranky that might sound, let me add that Amy Cohen's sharply observant, empathic, and witty writing style somewhat refreshes this 'single and scared silly' story, which turns out to be a securely strapped-in ride on the bourgeois emotional roller coaster. (Big Daddy always hovers in the background like a safety net).
The story opens with one of the book's best characters: Amy's wonderfully wise, laugh-out-loud funny and intellectually curious mother. Unfortunately, she and her fantastically original dialogue exit the stage all too soon, struck down by cancer. At the same time as her mother's death, Amy suffers through the loss of Josh, the man she thought she was going to marry, who ends up marrying a cartoon femme with the requisite big boobs. As the story continues, regular gal, imperfectly attired, small bosomed Amy's woes are compounded with the loss of her job as a television writer, several terrible dating experiences, and a crummy, dark, claustrophic apartment.
Amy's journey toward adult independence begins in her mid-thirties. She suddenly finds that it's time for her to learn to confront fears and take charge of her life - alone... as a woman... alone... in the lipstick jungle... alone... without a diamond ring on her finger. Did I mention, alone? So what does our heroine do? She learns how to ride a bike. For Amy, bike riding (a pat metaphor for balance) is a major phobia, having never learned as an urban-bred child. The realization here is that Amy is still able to enjoy life without being married because she conquered one big fear.
Less a journey through profound grief (which would have been a richer story), The Late Bloomer's Revolution anchors itself with a fear of spinsterhood, insidiously fostering this fear. Entertaining and well-written, yes. Will you like plucky Amy? Definitely! Will you forget this novel-memoir as soon as you put it down? Unfortunately, I think so.
Rana Husseini is a journalist from Jordan, and in Murder in the Name of Honor, she writes of the aftermath and trauma of honor killings in Jordan and Rana Husseini is a journalist from Jordan, and in Murder in the Name of Honor, she writes of the aftermath and trauma of honor killings in Jordan and around the world that she has researched and witnessed. Honor killings are defined as the murder of a woman by a family member(s), usually a man or men, because the woman has in some way brought dishonor upon the family. Some of the examples of dishonor, and reasons for death, include rape, marrying without permission, leaving home, falling in love, or even the rumor of impropriety. In some countries, including her home country of Jordan, the punishment for the murderer is generally quite lenient, under five years in prison. While some believe that honor killings only take place in Jordan and neighboring countries, in fact, there is a disturbingly large number of killings that take place in the Western world, including America.
Husseini has become determined to shed light on honor killings and to change the laws that allow those who commit the killings such lenient punishments. The book traces her journey of reporting and researching the crimes throughout the world. It is filled with touching and terrifying anecdotes, along with the challenges of trying to change minds and laws. Many “tribal” customs and courts support the killings; a family’s honor, but most particularly a man’s honor, is to be held in the greatest esteem. In the cases of these murders, a man’s honor is worth more than a woman’s life. Women going to the police or authorities can face disbelief or they are simply returned to their families, and it is the families that are the women’s worst enemies in these cases.
Husseini also addresses the challenge faced by such a polarizing and politicized issue; it can be easy to stereotype and assume; however, she makes it clear that not all men and women from Jordan (including Jordanian royalty), or other countries where honor killings are prevalent, believe that murder is honorable. With the interviews that she conducted with some of the murderers, many stated remorse and regret over the actions, but most state that they had no choice. It was something that had to be done. The book illuminates the problem for the complex and convoluted issue that it is, and it offers no easy solutions because there are none. I would have liked to know more about what could be done by the “everyday” reader: writing politicians, etc., though at her website, there are links for more reading and some sites with calls to action.
It’s debatable whether collections of work by “women poets” (or, shudder, “poetesses”) are legitimate groupings. I tend to regard these types of colleIt’s debatable whether collections of work by “women poets” (or, shudder, “poetesses”) are legitimate groupings. I tend to regard these types of collections with a raised eyebrow, imagining a group of women having an outdoor party, having been shut out of some stuffy jackets-required club, now herded together and pushed through the doors all at once to their dismay. But in Poems from the Women's Movement, the poems are linked with a real thread, a socio-political movement, making this anthology a historical, artistic, and literary record of the consciousness of the movement in both its broadness and diversity.
In a concise, warm introduction that places the poems in a context of not just the movement, but the greater American poetry landscape, Editor Honor Moore, explains that the scope of the volume begins with Plath, whose posthumous Ariel was published in 1966, and ends with the early 1980s. The first poem in the volume, Plath’s “The Applicant,” is a shudder-inducing representation of what the movement fought against: the repeated manipulation of a woman-object in morphing professional and marital tests ending with a repetition of “marry it, marry it, marry it” that is frightening as hell.
With anthologies always come quibbles of overrepresentation or exclusion (and those more widely read than I can take it up below in the comments), but the former doesn’t seem possible with this smallish volume—under 250 pages all told—and it seems that Moore has taken great care to include poems on diverse topics and poets with varied perspectives. There are poems on previously taboo subjects like abortion, pregnancy, and rape, as well as those that arise from a collective female and simply human conscience.
Marge Piercy, whose “Secretary Chant” is anthologized all over, is represented not by that poem, but by the more serious “Rape Poem” and the resonant “The Nuisance”—“I want you to want me/as simply and variously/as a cup of hot coffee.” This theme, the want of a woman to be wanted—probably a want of men, too, but perhaps they’re historically less likely to say it—and a can’t live with/without ’em scenario also appears in Maureen Owen’s “Wanting You”: “this need I have to sleep beside you / that has caused all the trouble in my life.” And I can’t stop thinking about the feeling of collective motherhood expressed in Audre Lorde’s “To My Daughter the Junkie on the Train”:
Little girl on the nod if we are measured by dreams we avoid then you are the nightmare of all sleeping mothers . . . My corrupt concern will not replace what you once needed
Reading the poems in this volume feels familial: the secrets and stories within them are directly responsible and continue to nurture the privileges I exercise today, without serious conflict, as a woman, writer, wife, and mother. This great little volume is well designed and full of wisdom, and I’m thankful to have it in hand.
It’s absolutely astonishing to realize how much junk people in North America consume only to throw away. Most of it is from China. When I started to rIt’s absolutely astonishing to realize how much junk people in North America consume only to throw away. Most of it is from China. When I started to read Where Underpants Come From, I picked up various objects in my office—from the mechanical pencil I write with to my iPod—and I discovered that yes, everything had been made in China. Author Joe Bennett, who is based in New Zealand, does a fantastic job of describing his experience of traveling to that far off land to discover the process of how his cheap underpants were manufactured. The idea is absurd, but he runs with it anyway.
China is the cheapest bidder on manufacturing most of the convenient items we consume at an exhausting rate. It comes as no surprise that the giant nation is, as a result, driving its peasant labor force for meager wages and polluting the air, land, and water at an even faster rate. Statistics aren’t necessary; just take a look at the dirty grey-brown clouds of smog that hover over Chinese cities.
Bennett does more than observe the grainy air; he physically visits various places in China to see for himself what the industrial giant has created in order to keep the Western materialist appetite satisfied. It isn’t pretty, but his encounters are often humorous. As other journalists (such as Anderson Cooper, in the Planet in Peril series) have pointed out, China’s bid to create the cheapest industrial production of everything from underpants to machinery is creating environmental destruction on an astronomical level.
Chinese citizens are also just as disposable. When I was a little girl (in Canada) during Mao’s time, I became interested in not only American Vietnam War veterans, but in the Vietnamese and Chinese soldiers who—as the National Geographic displayed them—were left rotting in dilapidated vet hospitals. Bennett’s descriptions of countless health and safety hazards and substandard machinery show that while Mao may have died in 1976, the view that Chinese workers are easily replaceable has not.
Bennett’s account gets past the stats and much-repeated talk of China as an economic giant. He offers readers glimpses into people’s lives. He goes where the Chinese won’t—places like Urumqi south, where Muslim populations exist—and tries to communicate with the locals. His angle lends compassion and a sincere urge to understand all sides. He admits to his own prejudices against China and its peoples before he actually arrives and notes that people are people everywhere.
As I sit here and type my review on my ‘Made In China’ laptop, the darkness is lit by my ‘Made In China’ lamp, and I drink Chrysanthemum tea (grown and harvested in China) from my ‘Made in China’ glass, I hope that people will take the time to read Bennett’s work. Despite the pollution and slack labor laws and high rate of labor deaths, Bennett finds the people he encounters to be generally happy. Yes, they are driven, but they take time to live for the sake of living and family takes care of family. We Westerners monetarily benefit from the fruits of their hard work, but materialism has only left us miserably wealthy, fat, and insecure.
Everybody Talks about the Weather... We Don't is an informative attempt to better understand the revolutionary German journalist-turned-terrorist of tEverybody Talks about the Weather... We Don't is an informative attempt to better understand the revolutionary German journalist-turned-terrorist of the ‘60s and ‘70s, Ulrike Meinhof. The heart of the book is a compilation of twenty-four columns from Meinhof’s run as a famous left-wing writer for the magazine konkret from 1960-1969 before her founding of the Red Army Faction (RAF) in 1970. The book includes a preface by Elfriede Jelinek, an afterword by Meinhof’s daughter Bettina Röhl, and an enlightening introduction by the book’s editor, Karin Bauer.
The introduction, “In Search of Ulrike Meinhof,” offers an insightful biography of Meinhof from her upbringing to her tragic end. Imprisoned for her violent crimes as a member of the RAF in 1972, Meinhof was found hanging in her prison cell four years later. At the time of her funeral, Meinhof had been constructed into an icon with many forms: “a revolutionary martyr, a product of German circumstance, a woman who wanted to change the system and became its victim,” writes Bauer.
Within her columns, readers can observe Meinhof’s views change over time and develop into those of politically motivated violence. She makes the transition from protest to resistance and pacifist to terrorist. Despite this, Bauer rightfully urges that while we cannot erase the violence associated with Meinhof, we also should not let it define her completely.
Many of the issues addressed by Meinhof are still relevant to women and politics today. It is no surprise that in the ‘60s journalism was even more male-dominated than it is today. At that time, Meinhof became one of the first in the profession to expose the inequality faced by women and mothers in the workplace and the unfair view of them by government and society. In “Everybody Talks About the Weather” she writes of “the oppression of women based… on the difficulty for women to see their private trials and tribulations as social problems and to organize them accordingly.”
In “False Consciousness” she addresses equal rights in the workforce such as pay equity and what she calls a trap between employment and family. She argues that these problems cannot be solved by women alone, but need to be confronted by the public sphere. Calling the term “working mother” a form of abuse, she chastises society for compensating for its own failures by attacking mothers instead of recognizing their needs. Meinhof experienced this discrimination herself and was often publically chastised for the abandonment of her children and her rejection of a traditional female role.
The columns are also indicative of the many ideals and frustrations faced by Germans in Meinhof’s generation growing up in the aftermath of World War II. She shares the aggravation of being neither involved with the crimes of the Third Reich nor in determining the direction that was taken by the country after the war, yet being forced to share in the blame.
Meinhof was an important voice for her generation. While it may be difficult to read her writing outside the context of her violent acts, that does not mean her views should be dismissed entirely. Readers will find Meinhof’s columns are truthful, engaging, and still relevant today. Most importantly, the columns allow Meinhof to speak for herself.
I prefer not to make New Year’s Resolutions. However, there is one that I intend to make and keep. I will never read a "chick lit" book again. For yeaI prefer not to make New Year’s Resolutions. However, there is one that I intend to make and keep. I will never read a "chick lit" book again. For years, the vapidity of this genre has enthralled millions of women and kept the printing presses running at publishers’ establishments. I frankly refuse to even glance through something of this standard ever.
I read One Fifth Avenue on a whim. A college friend suggested it to me after I admitted that I had never watched Sex and the City. “It’s Candace Bushnell, you’ll love it!” she exclaimed.
Gosh was she wrong. And my ire was indomitable once I read this passage between the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Philip and his lover-to-be Lola:
"Every girl wants to get married now. And they want to do it while they’re young."
"I thought they wanted to have careers and take over the world by thirty."
"That was older Gen Y," Lola said. "All the girls I know want to get married have kids right away."
Supposedly, girls my age want to marry young so that they don’t end up unhappy like their mothers. Could there be a more uninformed conclusion?
Bushnell's work is meritless. I struggled to keep my eyes open. Boring. Boring. Boring. Even mass-produced paperback editions of Stephen King hold more excitement than the pages of One Fifth Avenue. Not to mention that there is a completely unrealistic portrayal of New York City. All too often chick lit writers fail to capture the city’s ethnic and racial diversity. This appears to be the case here.
Where is the pathos? All I could note was the pettiness and the general banality of the characters. The novel supposedly covers the tension between old and new money in modern age New York. However, Bushnell does not even deserve comparison to the likes of Wharton and Fitzgerald who successfully covered such material in The Age of Innocence and The Great Gatsby, respectively.
When its rich proprietor of One Fifth Avenue dies, the life of each resident is simultaneously impacted. Never doubt that the super rich have grave problems. Indeed, pathetic Mindy Gooch lives in the smallest apartment of the building. And her husband James has his sights set on the elusive, young Lola. The couple epitomizes the middle-aged unhappiness that the other characters exude.
In keeping with the tradition of escapist literature, nothing entirely terrible happens to any of the characters. The romantic subplot involving an aging actress and her former flame Philip is favorably resolved.
One of Bushnell’s characters laments the demise of good literature. Ironic, considering Bushnell began the trend and served in a capacity to perpetuate it. Next stop for this book: my trashcan.
The town I grew up in—Athens, Georgia (pop. 100,266)—is generally known for two things: indie music (a la REM, Elephant 6, and Kindercore) and the UniThe town I grew up in—Athens, Georgia (pop. 100,266)—is generally known for two things: indie music (a la REM, Elephant 6, and Kindercore) and the University of Georgia, both of which play a major role in maintaining the town's liberal leanings. However, Athens doesn't lean too far. It's still a place where college football dominates from Labor Day to Christmas, and if you're not in church on Sunday morning, you are assumed to be riddled with sin.
Coming up in an environment rife with contradiction, I learned a lot about peaceful co-existence through plausible deniability. (He's not gay; he's just eccentric.) Sure, we had an annual human rights festival where the young and old listened to people like UGA law professor Eugene Wilkes speak about the need for student activism to combat the world's ills, but mostly they were there for the music. One can only ask so much from a small town in the South, and once my identity as a radical queer feminist began to set in, Athens began to feel stifling. So as soon as I was able to, I did as gay rights icon Harvey Milk instructed, and fled to the nearest city.
The city, however, was not the activist paradise I'd imagined it would be. I did find a lot of feminists and socialists and anti-racists and queers with whom I could link arms and "fight the good fight," but I lost that sense of community I'd always known at home. What good was knowing someone would show up at a protest if you couldn't count on them to show up when your car dies and you need to get to work? What good were late night conversations about Spivak when you couldn't tell someone you were late with the rent (again)? I knew I'd lost something in the transition from small to large, and while I was happy with what I'd gained, I still questioned whether it was enough. I wondered if it were possible to reconcile being in a place where no one is a stranger with the benefits one gains when one is able to be anonymous.
Enter Out in the Country: Youth, Media, and Queer Visibility in Rural America. I recently interviewed Mary Gray for WireTap Magazine after reading her groundbreaking new book about the myths and mysteries of being queer in small town America. The book resonated with me deeply, as Gray (herself a former queer rural youth) explains how the current gay rights movement excludes rural LGBTQ issues and constructs a queer identity that increases rural queer invisibility. She provides strategies for altering the course to address their needs without requiring re-location (a luxury that is not always attainable or desired) or conformity to a falsely homogeneous queer standard.
Out in the Country was like a breath of fresh country air—just what this Georgia girl needed.
Incredible. Insightful. Inspiring. These are the words I use to describe Dragon Ladies: Asian American Feminists Breathe Fire, the pivotal textbook onIncredible. Insightful. Inspiring. These are the words I use to describe Dragon Ladies: Asian American Feminists Breathe Fire, the pivotal textbook on the growing politics of Asian American women. Essays embrace wide-ranging issues that include domestic violence, health, exploitation in the global trade, the role of spirituality, and punk-rock culture—all in the light of organizing and activism.
The anthology’s key concern is with the attitude of mainstream feminism whose individualistic and essentialist views are at odds with the affairs and experiences of Asian women. Sonia Shah, editor of Dragon Ladies, believes that a singular Asian American feminist movement is essential in representing Asian American women’s interests. The term ‘Asian’ is problematic in that it corresponds to a diaspora of ethnic identities, but Shah nevertheless manages to take into account the realities that females face from this walk of life.
As Juliana Pegues points out in “Strategies from the Field,” unlike white activists, Asian women have to deal with invisibility as well as “exotic” racial stereotypes and labels like “well-behaved,” “hard-working.” and “obedient.” The trouble is that Asian women’s perspectives are ignored when race is viewed in terms of black and white. When it comes to organizing resistance, “groups in many cases act as all-white groups internally, and white perspectives and standards are the norm.”
Purvi Shah’s article “Redefining the Home” is very engrossing, though the entire text is by no means an easy read. In fact, a lot of the material is tough, but if you’re passionate enough about this topic, you’ll fly through it. Shah discusses the belief that the personal is political when it comes to abuse within the home. Community elites seem to be the culprits in seeding the idea that culture and politics are separate issues—matters of the Home/Marriage for instance are cleverly disguised as tradition; these leaders are in essence threatened by organizations that challenge their norms. Rightly so, Shah proposes that “a home in which violence occurs is a public space” and a political problem that is affected by a range of factors like social, cultural and environmental.
Many prominent figures have come together to comprise this collection of interviews, personal essays, and eye-opening historical and current facts such as on the slave-like treatments of overseas Filipina workers. The joint mother-daughter article “Bringing Up Baby: Raising a ‘Third World’ Daughter in the ‘First World’” was a piece I found quite amusing and relevant to my own view of reality. Shamita Das Dasgupta and Sayantani DasGupta talk about balancing their different identities—Indian immigrant and American-born Indian—against Western culture. The idea of community is important to Indian culture and therefore for Indian women, it forms part of their identity; adopting the model of western feminism whose emphasis lies on the ‘individual’ would inevitably further alienate them; the issues concerning white feminists do not always apply to women of Asian origin.
Dragon Ladies: Asian American Feminists Breathe Fire in itself deconstructs the Asian woman stereotype conveying instead an image of the “virangana”—the ‘warrior woman’ thirsting to battle for change and victory. The contributors are good role models to rouse the next generation to self-reflect and take part in some form of action to empower the disadvantaged. From a spiritual standpoint, Cheng Imm Tan makes an important assertion: “When activism is fuelled by anger and hatred, we end up objectifying the ‘enemy’ just as we have been objectived.” What Tan then subtly suggests is that injustice can be met with compassion, and an intent to transform our aggressors rather than destroy them.
Certainly, this is a book with great ideas from women who not only breathe fire but speak with absolute conviction.
The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death is a strong anthology of essays, which Laurie Notaro presents with an utterly unique sense of humor anThe Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death is a strong anthology of essays, which Laurie Notaro presents with an utterly unique sense of humor and insight. What may initially appear to be a random collection of humorous and unrelated anecdotes soon unfolds to expose a thoughtful and revealing look at the larger emotional and social issues that underpin the lives of people in general, and women in particular. Notaro treats each of these personal narratives with a biting and self-deprecating wit that makes her life and her work both accessible and personal.
What makes this collection most compelling, perhaps, is Notaro’s willingness to own her flaws and, by relaying them with honesty and side-splitting hilarity, transform them into mere loveable quirks. She does this best while painting vivid scenes that hint at larger social issues in which she often sets herself up as the amusing court jester. This is best displayed in the piece “Love Thy Neighbor,” in which Notaro and her husband receive notice that a sex offender has moved into a house across her street.
If the collection has a single flaw, it is that it seems sometimes self-consciously aware of its need to maintain a certain amount of levity. Interspersing humorous essays on serious topics – like “Love Thy Neighbor” – with trivial (yet still thoroughly entertaining) pieces like “Death of a Catchphrase,” Notaro appears to be testing the waters, wading into serious territory only briefly before returning to the old standards (many in the style of Steve Martin’s classic Cruel Shoes). This is a safe choice that keeps the book readable and light, but you may find yourself craving more substance.
All in all, The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death is a thoroughly entertaining and fun read. Notaro has a near pitch-perfect voice that is in turns evocative, curious, and hilarious.
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