book reviews

Talk about synergy. On the way to my authors group last night, I picked up a copy of Leo Braudy’s From Chivalry to Terrorism: War and the Changing Nature of Masculinity. Then I learned that on October 2, feminist superstar Susan Faludi is coming out with a new book called The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America. Anyone remember how, following 9/11, media headlines declared women to be suddenly less inclined to be satisfied as single and independent beings? And that another baby boom was apparently bound to occur as women’s biological clocks began to tick faster after the tragedy? With what sounds like her hallmark in-depth documentation, Faludi looks at the gendering of cultural response.

The Liberaloc and USA Today have posted excerpts, and here’s what I’ve gleaned (from the book description):

Why, Faldui asks, did our culture respond to an assault against American global dominance with a frenzied summons to restore “traditional” manhood, marriage, and maternity? Why did we react as if the hijackers had targeted not a commercial and military edifice but the family home and nursery?

Faludi shows how an attack fueled by hatred of Western emancipation led us to a regressive fixation on Doris Day womanhood and John Wayne masculinity, with trembling “security moms,” swaggering presidential gunslingers, and the “rescue” of a female soldier cast as a “helpless little girl”? The answer, Faludi finds, lies in a historical anomaly unique to the American experience: the nation that in recent memory has been least vulnerable to domestic attack was forged in traumatizing assaults by nonwhite “barbarians” on town and village. That humiliation lies concealed under a myth of cowboy bluster and feminine frailty, which is reanimated whenever threat and shame looms.

In taking on the subject of American culture in the wake of 9/11, Faludi joins fellow superstar Naomi Wolf, who just came out with The End of America: Letter to a Young Patriot, as I mentioned in a previous post. It seems highly relevant that prominent feminist thinkers are turning their attention to the state of our union–which, according to both, is dangerously unraveling. The threat, they both argue, is not merely external; in the wake of 9/11, the threat to our nation’s integrity also comes from within.

I can’t wait to get my hands on these two books. More on this to come, for sure.

I’m so pleased to start off the day with a guest post from Melinda Parrish, a 22-year old instructor in the English Department at the US Naval Academy. Melinda is based in the Writing Center. Here she is! -GWP

Wendy Shalit’s new book, Girls Gone Mild, is the second in her legacy of literature, which includes numerous articles and online publications that preach abstinence to young girls as the best way to reclaim their feminine identity from the hedonistic, post-sexual revolution culture that currently holds it hostage. She claims that, “the plain fact is that girls today have to be ‘bad’ to fit in, just as the baby boomers needed to be good. And we are finding that this new script may be more oppressive than the old one ever was.”

But, Wendy, by countering the sexual revolution with another sexual argument, are you not just perpetuating the cycle? Whether you’re pro-abstinence or, well, easy, aren’t you still allowing what happens to your “good girl” (wink) define the entire girl? Isn’t THAT the biggest threat to the feminine identity of a young girl in modern society?

It makes me furious to think since the dawn of time, women have been defined primarily by their sex lives. I concede that in recent decades the values table has flip-flopped because of the sexual revolution and some young women may feel pressure towards promiscuity for social acceptance. But I don’t regard Shalit’s counter-argument as an enlightened or relevant one because it leads us back to where the feminists of the late sixties and early seventies started. Aren’t we a sophisticated enough society to progress beyond this issue? Can’t we find SOMETHING to focus on that doesn’t reside between our thighs?

My plea to my fellow young women: stop making your vagina your defining characteristic! Don’t let someone pigeon-hole you as a Madonna or a whore, or allow your life’s happiness to rest solely on the success you achieve in bed; rather, devote your energy into developing your (other) physical, intellectual and artistic abilities to such a degree that your worth as a human being is undisputed, regardless of who you go to bed with!

(If you’re interested in more of Shalit’s work, check out her blog entitled, “Modestly Yours.”)

I just discovered this amazing blog, Jewesses with Attitude. Judith Rosenbaum, Director of Education at the Jewish Women’s Archive, is a Jewess this Jewess would love to meet. Ok, Judith posted a lovely review over there, but that’s not the only reason I want to meet her. I swear. She sounds pretty amazing. Definitely check out the blog.

An extremely off the mark, nudge nudge wink wink article on the so-called collapse of feminism (“At Times Like This, It’s Better to Just Be One of the Boys”), by Magnus Linklater, appeared in the Times Online (UK) last week. Writes Linklater,

“Sometimes it’s a relief to be a man. Watching, at a safe distance, the collapse of feminism is a bit like seeing a huge chunk of melting glacier falling into the sea. You know it’s a sign of something serious going on, but you’re glad not to be anywhere near when it happens.”

The commentors in the comments section are doing an excellent job setting ole Magnus straight. My favorite is from “PN,” from London, who writes:

“This article is based purely on two feminist thinkers [Fay Weldon and Germaine Greer] who have made comments in the last week which have been jumped on and to some extent distorted by the media. Strangely enough, I don’t think my only choices of feminist icon are Anne Hathaway or Diana purely because Germaine Greer happens to have said something about them.

There are things to be said in defense of both Weldon and Greer, but I think the more important point is that the opinions of these two people hardly constitute the collapse of feminism. Perhaps you need to get on the internet and investigate some of the blogs and comments on feminist sites which seem to have missed the newsflash that their movement has collapsed.”

Aside from the comments, the most interesting tidbit I gleaned here was that Germaine Greer has a new book out called Shakespeare’s Wife. One of my all-time favorite moments in literature is Virginia Woolf’s speculation about Shakespeare’s sister in A Room of One’s Own. (He didn’t have one, but Woolf imaginatively speculates about her fate nonetheless. What if she had wanted to write?) Anyway, back in real life, apparently men from James Boswell to Anthony Burgess had all assumed that Anne Hathaway (aka Shakespeare’s wife) was either “a lustful, scheming woman who lured Shakespeare into a loveless marriage, or an ugly harridan who drove him away by making his life a misery.” Greer takes a new look. The book sounds intriguing.

Now, if only Greer and Weldon (heros, truly!) could stop commenting all over the place that feminism is dead among young women long enough to get themselves online and to a bookstore and take a new look themselves, perhaps they’d reconsider. Or maybe not. Either way, though, it would make for a much fresher article. Then again, Magnus may not be the person to write it. He’s too busy dreaming of ice chunks and thanking god (or whoever) for having made him a man.

One more on men this morning, cuz I just can’t resist. Charles McGrath of the New York Times speculates on what Scott Rudin and Disney are going to do with the movie version of The Dangerous Book for Boys, which they’ve bought the rights to. Writes McGrath,

A report in Variety suggested that the plot of the movie is likely to involve fathers who struggle to balance their instinctive need to protect and their offspring’s craving for adventure, even though the evidence mostly suggests that these days it is the sons who are risk averse, unwilling to unplug themselves from their iPods, and the parents who are eager for their offspring to go outside and have some old-fashioned fun.

Anyone got other ideas for Disney and Rudin? Who should star? And while we’re on the subject of sneak peaks, of course, don’t forget to preorder your copy of the Daring Book for Girls, which, in an amazing act of daring speed on the part of our ladies of MotherTalk, comes out October 30!

(Thanks to Marco for the heads up on the boy movie.)

In the wake of all that semi-silly media interpretation of a new scientific study of how masculinity in male faces is perceived, I recently learned about a resource with what sounds like a little more (forgive me) balls: Shira Tarrant’s forthcoming anthology, Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex, and Power. An interview with Shira is currently up over at The Feminist Pulse (a blog connected to Girlistic magazine). Shira is an assistant professor at CSU Long Beach. Looking forward to reading the book when it comes out. And for the goods on the science behind the man face study, check out the post by my savvy friends over at Broadsheet.

Speaking of feminist man books, I’m sorry I missed Jackson Katz, author of The Macho Paradox, who I heard was maybe going to call in on The Lisa Birnbach show last Friday when we were on. If you’re out there reading this Jackson, keep on keepin on! I’m all for the “no man left behind” school of feminism. Can someone get Jackson and all those guys in Shira’s anthology a “Feminists Dig Me” t-shirt please?

So I’ve just started reading
Sperm Counts: Overcome by Man’s Most Precious Fluid by feminist sociologist (and lesbian mother of two) Lisa Jean Moore and I tell ya, someone over at NYU Press had a wee bit of fun writing her flap copy. “Moore offers a penetrating exploration…” “Sperm Counts examines the many places sperm rears its head.” And of course, the subtitle. But my favorite is the fact that there is a drawing of a squiggly little sperm positioned at a slightly different spot on every single page and if you flip through the book real fast, the sperm seems to swim. Try it. It’s fun.

On the serious side, this looks like an incredibly well-researched and captivating read. Moore looks at children’s birds-and-bees books, forensic transcripts, porn, and sperm bank brochures to offer this biography qua cultural history of modern-day sperm. Check out Thomas Rogers’ seminal interview with Moore over on Salon. I’ve got a suggestion for the sequel: Egg Matters. More to come. Ok ok, I’ll stop while I’m ahead.

My take on Wendy Shalit’s Girls Gone Mild is now up over at The American Prospect Online. A teaser:

“Unrequited Love: Musings on Girls Gone Mild”

Author Wendy Shalit wrongly blames lenient baby-boomer parents and third-wave feminists for the hyper-sexual culture that surrounds young women, and in doing so loses potential allies in her nascent “modesty movement.”

Had Wendy Shalit not adopted the tone of a beleaguered conservative, blaming feminism for turning young women into sluts, I could have gone with her all the way. She’s not like those modesty-advocates of yore who fretted that women’s liberation would result in coed bathrooms, and then went on to oppose the Equal Rights Amendment. She’s different from the rest….

…As the American Psychological Association notes in a May 2007 report, there’s a paucity of research on the sexualization of girls, and there’s certainly a need for more. Shalit’s reliance on the experiences of those who email her is beyond questionable, but she nonetheless peppers her prose with some solid statistics that make you want to run to your local toy manufacturer and stop them before they put Slutty Elmo on the shelves. She emphasizes girls’ agency and activism. Among the book’s heroes are the girls from Pittsburgh who orchestrated a successful “girlcott” of offensive t-shirts sold by Abercrombie and Fitch with catchphrases such as “Who Needs Brains When You Have These?”. Shalit’s desire to incite positive social change is admirable — and genuine.

But Shalit giveth, then taketh away. Her tactics are gratuitously divisive. After celebrating said young activists, for instance, who were hailed by third wave feminists as inspirational, she uses these girls to trump up the so-called intergenerational divide on modesty. She also loses progressive allies in the fight against the pornification of the girls’ toy aisle by giving a free pass to advertisers and corporations. And she loses feminists young and old by conflating the inappropriate, premature sexualization of girls under age 18 with the entire project of sexual revolution….

For more, click here.

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?

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!)