A quick hello from a layover in Dallas! Please do check out thisWomen’s eNews article, “Women’s Studies Writers Vie for More Media Turf,” by writer extraordinaire Courtney Martin. I’m so excited. Seriously, I’m jumping up and down.

And to stay updated on future workshops and course offerings, be sure to subscribe to the Girl with Pen newsletter (<-subscribe button over there). I'm looking forward to doing more.

I’m off to Wyoming this afternoon (crossing fingers that Cheney won’t be there!), but an exciting offering is coming to you in my absence. Not one, not two, but THREE guest bloggers will be posting their reviews of the new movie, Becoming Jane, during the next few days here on Girl with Pen. One, Alison Piepmeier, is a professor of literature at the College of Charleston in South Carolina and a blogger at Baxter Sez (described as “a swirling mini-cosmos of academic and cultural quirkiness”). Another, Elizabeth Curtis, recently finished a hot M.A. thesis project on blogging and the formation of feminist networks online and blogs over at A Blog without a Bicycle. The third, Tiby Kantrowitz, is a writer with a background in film production and a passionate interest in women’s issues. I really can’t wait to read their reviews!

Enjoy the weekend, enjoy these bloggers – and hey, you New Yorkers out there, stay cool.

In the category of too-goood-not-to-share, I just came across this poster (left) for a 1972 film version of Anne Roiphe’s feminist novel, Up the Sandbox. According to Wiki:

Up The Sandbox is a 1972 comedy film directed by Irvin Kershner. Paul Zindel’s screenplay, based on the novel by Anne Richardson Roiphe, focuses on Margaret Reynolds, a young New York City wife and mother who, neglected by her husband and bored with her daily existence, slips into increasingly bizarre fantasies that involve, among other things, armed robbery, tribal fertitlity music, and a terrorist plot to blow up the Statue of Liberty. The cast includes Barbra Streisand, David Selby, Paul Benedict, George S. Irving, Conrad Bain, Isabel Sanford, Lois Smith, and Stockard Channing in her film debut. Critics in general were impressed by Steisand’s performance but thought the film itself was a confusing mess. Audiences avoided it in droves, and it proved to be one of her lowest-grossing films ever.

Um, maybe that’s why I hadn’t heard of it. The movie version, that is.

I think a lot about the line between research, me-and-my-friends-search, and journalism. I read with interest the review of Wendy Shalit’s GGM in Sunday’s Washington Post. Reviewer Jennifer Howard seems to feel, as I did, dubious of Shalit’s method, yet somewhat sympathetic to the portrait she details. Writes Howard,

[Shalit] asks, “Why, in the year 2007, should women’s focus be completely on pleasing young men?” (Is it?) And she wants us to take heart (and I do, I do) from the growing number of young women whom she describes as “rebellious good girls.” These new avatars of girl power give abstinence talks to high-schoolers; they stage “Pure Fashion” shows in which fashion doesn’t just mean flesh; they become “girlcotters” who lobby retailers such as Abercrombie & Fitch to pull tee-shirts emblazoned with sexist slogans. They don’t sleep with the first, or second, or third boy who comes along. They don’t become “people-pleasing bad girls” who will do anything, anything, to get a boy’s attention.

More power to them. Behind Shalit’s celebration of such girls, however, is some very dubious sociology.

Dubious indeed. And passing off anecdotal journalism as researched reality is particularly frustrating to the academically inclined in light of the fact that Shalit is onto something important. As the American Psychological Association noted in a May 2007 report, there’s a paucity of research on the sexualization of girls.

Jim Naughton over at Episcopal Cafe has an interesting take on it all:

Wendy Shalit has made a career as the sort of journalist whose trend stories fall apart on closer examination. But no matter, because by the time closer examination occurs, the stories have frequently started quite useful conversations. Her latest book, Girls Gone Mild: Young Women Reclaim Self-Respect and Find It’s Not Bad to Be Good, is a case in point. Unless one believes that the plural of anecdote is data, there is simply no evidence for a resurgence in modesty. But by the time a reader figures that out, he or she has skipped past the need for data, and leapt to the discussion of whether such a resurgence would be desireable. It is possible to regard Ms. Shalit simultaneously as a mediocre journalist and a useful contributor to contemporary conversation about morals.

And so I ask you, when does mediocre journalism constitute a useful contribution, and how do we draw that line?

Economist Heather Boushey weighs in at WIMN’s Voices Group Blog on that New York Times article from Friday titled “For Young Earners in Big City, a Gap in Women’s Favor.” She writes,

I haven’t seen the full study, but I’d guess that NYC must have fewer of the highly paid (white?) men and more of the poorly paid men (Black and Hispanic?), relative to highly paid women of any race. Is this progress? If it’s because there are more young, low-wage men of color, I’m not so sure that this is a sign of college women’s progress….So, is this a story about women with college degrees moving to the big city and makin’ it or is it about a change in the demographics of cities, with more, very low wage men of color? It may be a bit of both, but while the article implies that this data show that women with college degrees are outperforming their male colleagues, there is nothing in the statistics presented that indicates this is the case.

I’m guessing this counterview never makes it mainstream. Instead, how long do we think it will be before the backlashy chorus–women outpacing men!–chimes in? If that chorus shines the light on raising wages for urban low-wage men of color, terrific. But I’m not holding my breath.

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Grandma, happy birthday to you! You are an inspiration. When I’m 98, I hope that I, too, am reading blogs.

Much love,
“Debbie”
(Grandma Pearl is to my right; Grandma Marge, 89, to my left. I am one lucky lady, sitting in between.)

I’ve moved on from Wendy Shalit’s Girls Gone Mild to Katie Roiphe’s Uncommon Arrangements: Seven Portraits of Married Life in London Literary Circles 1910-1939, which I’m considering, along with Rebecca Walker‘s latest, Baby Love: Choosing Motherhood after a Lifetime of Ambivalance, for another piece I’m writing. Both these books received some virulent public thrashing, but I have to say, I read Walker’s from cover to cover yesterday without stopping. I’ve always found her style compelling, and the writing here is crisp. Could my interest in her subject matter have anything to do with the fact that I’m newly fulltime obsessed by pregnant women? Natch. (Marco is, too, as last night at dinner al fresco he commented to me, “There must be a boom. Every other woman seems pregnant on the Upper West Side.” And it’s entirely true. It’s not just the maternity fashion everyone seems to be wearing. At least, I don’t think it is. Or is it? But I digress.)

As for Roiphe’s new book, I’ve only read the intro so far, but I find it gripping. Michelle Green (who thrashed the book for the New York Times) thought Roiphe failed in making a case for the relevance of “musty dramas” of these Bloomsburys today. Au contraire. Roiphe (pictured above) does an excellent job, in the intro at least, of describing these women, and their consorting men, as “determined to live differently, to import the ideas of political progress into their most personal relations.” And she smartly highlights the ways aspects of their myriad personal, political negotiations are still with us. Tina Bennett thought so too. In a June 24 New York Times review, Bennett wrote,

The way the alpha women of Bloomsbury wrestled with their need for love while producing work of the highest quality should be an inspiration to a modern generation of women who, we keep being told, are more and more inclined to give up the struggle and abandon their aspirations.

Not sure I agree with that entire sentiment cough cough, but I do think Roiphe frames her portraits in a topical and newsworthy way. Has anyone out there read the book yet? Would be eager to hear what folks think.

(I’ll be eager to hear reactions to my review of GGM over at The American Prospect – stay tuned!)

Kimmi Auerbach’s reading at Border’s in Columbus Circle last night was packed–I’ve never been to a reading quite like it. Kimmi, author of The Devil, the Lovers, and Me: My Life in Tarot, picked three tarot cards from the deck and read the correlating chapters (each chapter’s title is the title of a card). Her performance was stellar; her writing hilarious, poignant, alive.

During the Q&A, someone asked how her parents (who were sitting in the front row) felt about turning up as characters in her memoir, and I had flashbacks to all the times I got that question while on the road with Only Child earlier this year. Among other bits of wisdom the 30-something wise-beyond-her-years writer dispensed was this, a line adapted (I think) from Kimmi’s friend and fellow funny girl Wendy Shanker, who was also in the house:

“The children who are loved the most are boldest on the page.” Meaning, children who are well loved don’t fear losing the love of their parents when they grow up and become writers who write about their past. I thought this was an interesting counter-sentiment to the words of the writers who told Daphne and me that they couldn’t safely write about their parents until they were 6 feet under. Interesting litmus test, I say.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Chapter 8 of Wendy Shalit’s book, the one called “Feminism’s (Mild) Fourth Wave.” The chapter’s title of course begs the question: Is mildness the choicest term? My dictionary defines “mild” as gentle, easy-going, and slow to get angry. Lightly flavored and not strong, hot, spicy, or bitter in taste. Pleasant and temperate and not excessively hot or cold. I prefer mine hot, but hey, I’ll admit: It takes all kinds.

Why do journalists consider Hillary Clinton’s “fat thighs” newsworthy in
coverage of her presidential bid, while Dick Cheney’s beer belly is never
noticed by political reporters? Are women all really vapid, pathetic, gold-digging whores, as so-called “reality” TV producers would like us to believe? Feminist media activism and independent media production can interrupt this misogynistic media landscape – but how can either survive in a fractured funding climate? These are just some of the meaty issues that will be tackled by Women in Media and News (WIMN) in Chicago while I’m at Kimmi’s reading tonight.

WHEN: Thurs., Aug. 2, 7pm
Click here to view Evite, and RSVP

WHAT: Wine, cheese and strategic conversation
Meet Women in Media and News’ Executive Director, Board members, bloggers and special guests, including Veronica Arreola (Chicago Parent blogger), Paula Kamen (WIMN’s Voices blogger, author and playwright), Gwynn Cassidy (co-founder, The Real Hot 100), and others at: “Don’t Pin Your Hopes on Katie Couric: How Women Can Confront, Challenge and Change Contemporary Media – a discussion with Jennifer L. Pozner and Anne Elizabeth Moore.”

If you go, tell me all about it! (And if any of the Chicago gals would like to guest blog about it here, please let me know.)