book reviews

And now for our monthly contribution from Jacqueline Hudak, who writes the Family Stories column here at GWP. Here’s Jacqueline!

Heteroflexibility

Sexual politics are in a time of huge transition – think Ellen and Portia – and still, there is simply no public cultural consciousness about the concept of “sexual fluidity.” A well-crafted recent book by Lisa Diamond, Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and Desire (Harvard University Press), takes another step toward putting it on the map.

While perhaps not yet a public story, the notion of women’s sexual fluidity is certainly coursing through the zeitgeist. I was in the midst of writing this post on Diamond’s book when I decided to take a break and see Woody Allen’s new film, Vicky Cristina Barcelona. And there it was, right there on the big screen: sexual fluidity, and all the attendant complexities.

In one scene, Scarlet Johanssen’s character Cristina, is relating the complicated story of her relationship with Maria Elena, who happens to be her lover’s ex-wife. Her friends Vicky and Doug listen intently. As Cristina pauses, Doug rushes to ask, “So, what, you mean you’re a bisexual?” To which Christina replies, with some discomfort, “Oh, I’m not really into those categories.”

Not into those categories indeed.

Diamond, a Professor of Psychology and Gender Studies at the University of Utah, has conducted, to date, the only detailed longitudinal study of women’s same gender attractions. She interviewed nearly one hundred young women at two year intervals over a period of ten years about their relationships and desires and found that, for women, love and desire are not rigidly lesbian or heterosexual. By the 10th year of her study, two-thirds of the women had changed their identity label at least once.

The notion of “sexual fluidity” contradicts the dominant cultural story about sexuality—the idea that you are one thing or another, but rarely both. That story shapes our ideas about sexual orientation as fixed in early adulthood and remaining static throughout a lifetime. But as Diamond so eloquently points out, for women, this has not been the case.

One of the many things I loved about this book was the depth and analysis of research that Diamond amassed. Having done research on this topic myself, I was aware that there was a lot of data around that supported a more fluid conception of sexuality for women – Kinsey, Adrienne Rich, and the ‘erotic plasticity’ model in 2000, to name a few. The only problem was, it didn’t conform to the (male) sexual standard. Since genital sex is not necessarily how women construct their sexual identities, the sexual experiences of women have been invisible, or somehow deviant from the (male) norm. My friends, we have been called ‘outliers.’

My only disappointment with the book was that I wanted the conversation to continue. Just as it ended I felt like I had arrived at the good part: the implications of women’s sexual fluidity, for us as researchers and clinicians, and more importantly, as partners and mothers. As a family therapist and mom who went through such a transition, I know it was not a solitary process; it entailed numerous and ongoing conversations with my children, family and extended community. Suddenly I found myself in the midst of a story that was totally unfamiliar: Married woman with two kids falls in love with a woman. I mean, wasn’t I supposed to know which team I played for before I turned 45?

I remain curious and perplexed about our need to hold on to these rigid and discrete categories when they obviously do not fit for women. I am heartened by the youth who do not seem to have the same attachment to the labels, and instead are ‘questioning’ ‘spectrum’ and ‘heteroflexible.’ Perhaps my children’s generation will focus on the quality of a relationship rather than the sex of their partner. In the meantime, perhaps movies such as Barcelona books such as Lisa Diamond’s, and real life family stories like ours will help inch the conversation along just a little bit more.

For previous posts by Jacqueline, click here.

This morning, the debut of another of our new monthly columns, “Off the Shelf” by Elline Lipkin. Elline is a poet and nonfiction writer. Her first book, The Errant Thread, was chosen by Eavan Boland to receive the Kore Press First Book Award and was published in 2006. She’s currently working on a book about girls for Seal Press and will be a Visiting Scholar with the Center for Research on Women at UCLA in the fall. She recently taught at UC Berkeley where she was a Postdoctoral Scholar with the Beatrice Bain Research Group. And here she is! – GWP

Parenting, Inc. by Pamela Paul

Just six months ago I felt bombarded by my bedside stack of wedding guides. Each, under the guise of “must have to be happy on your Big Day,” proscribed things to wear, stuff to buy, favors to give, rituals to enact, details to watch, all apparently needed to fulfill the American wedding tradition. Without each one in place, they warned, The Wedding Dream just couldn’t be. Happily, I tossed most aside in favor of indiebride status (shared with you Deb! Mazel tov!), but the relentlessness of “to-dos,” all sheltered under the umbrella of “necessary for happiness,” was enough to make me question my every choice.

Moving quickly on to the next stage of later-in-life union, I was glad for journalist Pamela Paul’s preview warning about the lists of Stuff new parents are told they need — so I can know what not to do, or at least, to try to resist. The “new parents checklist” Paul is given before the birth of her first child starts her off on a consumer journey that exacerbates every anxiety, worry, and concern stewing about her impending parenthood.

In her new book Parenting, Inc., Paul fires back – by examining the multiple industries that launch both an avalanche of products at new parents (only sometimes aimed at their babies) and the landslide of guilt, obligation, and often enough, misinformation that accompanies these products. Paul outlines how confused, overwhelmed, and/or desperate parents feel and then how susceptible they become to overpriced wares and unnecessary “edutainment” programs that they’re told will give their babies a head start.

Paul’s research is thorough as she exposes the selling points of everything from Baby Einstein (experts can’t tell if a baby is really engaged or not and setting a tape on an endless loop often serves as a less guilt-inducing break for parents since their child is “learning”) to teaching signing to babies (results dubious) to exclusive NYC clubs tailored to well-heeled babies, nannies, and parents (tapping into peer pressure and celebrity allure). She visits “enrichment classes” that range from Little Maestros to Gymboree. It doesn’t take a critical eye to see most kids are actively disengaged and that often the only ones benefiting are the parents who are eager to be out of the house and connecting with each other.

Paul exposes the phalanx of consultants who stand at the ready to charge overstretched or just overly concerned parents, from sleep specialists to thumb-sucking experts to bike tutors to potty-training day programs. A through-line in the book is the loss of extended family for support and expertise and their replacement with a consumerist approach to parenting through a deluge of products each packaged with angst-inducing rhetoric: This will be the key to make your baby smarter, brighter, swifter in his or her head start to Harvard. Particularly revealing are Paul’s interviews with many of the business-savvy entrepreneurs (including some “mompreneurs”) who realized what a vulnerable and anxious customer the new parent can be and who are ready to market accordingly.

Paul’s writing is engaging, particularly as she candidly reveals her own needs and frustrations as a parent and partly researches the book while into her pregnancy with her second child. She uses her own experience as a measuring stick to look critically at what she finds.

One critique of the book is, in some sense, also its strength — its relentlessness. Paul reiterates the sheer velocity of products to buy, outsourced help to tap, and crushing sense of obligation that parents feel, but her point is made (and remade) as she debunks their necessity. There are “nameologists” who will provide naming packages, tot manner minders, expert baby-proofers; no corner of childhood is exempt from a product or expert to help a parent do it better. The sense of frenetic obligation is palpable.

After awhile, I would have found it more interesting to hear about alternatives – parents who resisted, consumer groups who called products out, DIY’ers who found a way around the monolith of consumer pressure. And while she makes it clear that the dilemma of too much stuff is a class-based issue, this seems a place to expand her argument. How many kids who had tutoring before age 2 really live up to the racing head start they were supposedly getting? How many geniuses came from humble beginnings where no educational accoutrements were available? And from what context do these parents feel “every opportunity” is truly necessary for a child?

The negative effects of “helicopter parents” are only touched on and I wondered from where and when did such class-based devotion to achievement spring? Towards the book’s end the text turns more reflective as Paul asks a range of experts what it even means to parent, never mind parent “well” and it’s a relief, finally, to tie together the economic and social forces that goad parents toward an ethos of inadequacy and a cycle of self-doubt that seem to make few happy, despite the consumerism that promises exactly that. A few startlingly refreshing voices practically sing through the madness, such as that of Elisa Sherona, a 63-year-old grandmother who raised five kids in the ’60s and ’70s and is unafraid to declare outright you just don’t need any of this stuff and questions how raising kids like this will affect them as adults. While the latter remains to be seen, at the book’s end Paul finally has determined that she doesn’t need these products or programs for her kids and that that doesn’t mean she’s a bad parent. She lets out a sigh of relief that echoes Sherona’s thoughts, and seems all the more relieved that she can finally release.

-Elline Lipkin

Sandra Tsing Loh’s new book, Mother on Fire: A True Motherf%#$@ Story About Parenting! comes out this month and I give her brilliant f&#%g credit for the subtitle. For a taste of Loh, see her latest, “I Choose My Choice!” in The Atlantic. (Thanks, Heather, for the heads up!)

Heads up over here about another guest poster coming to you next week, one who I am thrilled (THRILLED!) to announce will be contributing regularly here at GWP with a column featuring reviews of newly released books, called “Off the Shelf.”

Elline Lipkin (pictured left) is a poet and nonfiction writer. Her first book, The Errant Thread, was chosen by Eavan Boland to receive the Kore Press First Book Award and was published in 2006. She is currently working on a book about girls for Seal Press and will be a Visiting Scholar with the Center for Research on Women at UCLA in the fall. She recently taught at UC Berkeley where she was a Postdoctoral Scholar with the Beatrice Bain Research Group.

Watch for Elline’s review next week of Pamela Paul’s latest,
Parenting, Inc, a book that investigates “the whirligig of marketing hype, peer pressure, and easy consumerism that spins parents into purchasing overpriced products and raising overprotected, overstimulated, and over-provided-for children.” Parents, yes, and especially, perhaps, mothers.

And with that, I am signing off for reals–to go get married!!!

I am so very proud of a writer named Michael Heller today. Check out this review by Tim Wu in Slate:

The last decade has produced enough books challenging received wisdom to fill a small—and stupendously popular—library called the Compendium of Counterintuition. Here we find Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink, which teaches that snap judgments are sometimes more accurate than studied observation. James Surowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds, almost a companion volume, argues that a bunch of random idiots can sometimes do better than experts. Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail makes the point that selling unpopular stuff can be a way to make lots of money.

The newest addition to the collection is Michael Heller’s The Gridlock Economy, which does for property rights what the Long Tail does for product marketing. The difference is that Heller, unlike most of the authors of counterintuitive books, is actually a leader in the academic field he is scrutinizing. As one of the nation’s leading property theorists, he has accomplished a feat. In an area that has generated very few nonacademic books, Heller has managed to pull off one of the most perceptive popular books on property since Das Kapital.

The review is titled “Move Over, Marx.” And the book’s author is not just any ole ex. He’s my ex-husband.

Michael worked enormously hard, I know, writing this book, and I am just kvelling over here to see him receive laurels so richly deserved. I’m looking forward to reading the book, and I urge folks to check it out.

Congratulations, Professor Heller. You are the best first husband, ever! I wish you all the joys in the world.

This morning I’m pleased to bring you a review by Claire Mysko (pictured left), author of the just-released You’re Amazing!: A No-Pressure Guide to Being Your Best Self. I mean really, who better to review an anthology of very personal essays about what women see when they look in the mirror than a writer who is also the co-founder of Inside Beauty and 5 Resolutions to Transform the Fashion and Beauty Industries, two groundbreaking initiatives that have garnered international acclaim for responsibly addressing the intersections of health, body image, fashion, and beauty?! Without further ado, here’s Claire. – GWP

Those MotherTalk-ers have got it going on. They’ve just launched a matchmaking service for Books Seeking Reviewers, called Connections. The listings it seems are typically from authors or small presses who are looking for online reviewers but not a full-blown blog tour. To submit your own book for a listing, email info@mother-talk.com with 500 characters or less and include the book title(s) and contact information. To become a reviewer, get in touch with Melissa at melissa@mother-talk.com. Among others, they are currently seeking reviewers for Mama PhD for a blog tour that starts July 30.

And yet another reason I’m BUMMED I won’t be at BlogHer this year: The MotherTalk “First Drink On Us” party at BlogHer on Thursday, July 17th from 5-8 pm at Caruso’s. They’ll be giving away nearly 300 fabulous books, and author Shari MacDonald Strong will be on hand to sign copies of The Maternal Is Political.

I know, I know. I have a good excuse. I’m getting married. (Have I mentioned that?! YIKES – it’s now 2 weeks away!)

Academia is still in many ways a man’s world, and I’m thrilled to offer this post on a just-released anthology that constitutes a truly important contribution: Mama PhD: Women Write about Motherhood and Academic Life. A copy just reached me and it’s now available at stores.

I’m WAY impressed with these ladies’ marketing savvy. Check out the book blog, the blog at Inside Higher Ed, the excerpt, and the shop (complete with Mama, PhD t-shirts–“let the world know you’ve got it going on, body and brain”–hats, bags, mugs, beer steins and even license plate holders)–and take notes!

Elrena Evans and Caroline Grant, author of Literary Mama’s popular Mama at the Movies column, are the masterminds behind the project, and for those in the Bay Area, you can catch Caroline reading with a number of other Literary Mama editors and columnists at Book Passage in Corte Madera on Saturday, August 9th at 1pm. There’s a review by Bob Drago over at Activistas, and for a sneak peak, here’s a quick overview of the different sections:

Part I: The Conversation
This section contains essays representing the variety of choices women have to make as they enter academia, and the struggles and losses encountered as a result of each choice. Selected essays include topics such as:
~ choosing to have children and an academic career, in a range of fashions
~ choosing not to have children in favor of an academic career
~ choosing to delay having children in favor of an academic career

Part II: That Mommy Thing
In this section, women write about pursuing both academic careers and motherhood. Essays feature women who have experienced:
~ children before and during graduate school or the dissertation process
~ children during job searches or new appointments
~ children and the tenure track process

Part III: Recovering Academic
This section features essays from women who are redefining themselves and their careers after a period within the ivory tower. Essays talk about women who have:
~ left the academy after landing a tenure-track job
~ left the academy after achieving tenure
~ moved from teaching positions to administrative work or independent scholarship

Part IV: Momifesto
Having delved into the realms of motherhood in, out, and on the periphery of the academy, this section offers hope for the possibility of a different future, as contributors envision:
~ changes toward family-friendly university settings
~ changes in the economic structure of the academy to benefit mothers
~ changes in the tenure structure that would benefit mothers

Big kudos to Rutgers University Press for taking this project on. For another great contribution to the worklife debate as it hits academics, see the National Clearinghouse on Academic Worklife, created by the Center for the Education of Women at my alma mater the University of Michigan. The clearinghouse is a repository of articles, research & policy reports, policies, demographics, links, and more.

On the heels of the news about a significant rise in the number of black women entrepreneurs here in the US, I learned about a forthcoming book called Race and Entrepreneurial Success: Black-, Asian-, and White-Owned Businesses in the United States. One of the authors happens to be married to my best gal (formerly known as maid or matron or whatever of honor), Rebecca, who herself researches youth and poverty at Stanford. (Congrats, Rob!) Here’s from the book’s description:

Thirteen million people in the United States–roughly one in ten workers–own a business. And yet rates of business ownership among African Americans are much lower and have been so during the last 100 years. In addition, and perhaps more importantly, businesses owned by African Americans tend to have lower sales, fewer employees and smaller payrolls, lower profits, and higher closure rates. In contrast, Asian American-owned businesses tend to be more successful. In Race and Entrepreneurial Success, minority entrepreneurship authorities Robert Fairlie and Alicia Robb examine racial disparities in business performance. Drawing on the rarely used, restricted-access Characteristics of Business Owners (CBO) data set compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau, Fairlie and Robb examine in particular why Asian-owned firms perform well in comparison to white-owned businesses and black-owned firms typically do not. They also explore the broader question of why some entrepreneurs are successful and others are not.

After providing new comprehensive estimates of recent trends in minority business ownership and performance, the authors examine the importance of human capital, financial capital, and family business background in successful business ownership. They find that a high level of startup capital is the most important factor contributing to the success of Asian-owned businesses, and that the lack of startup money for black businesses (attributable to the fact that nearly half of all black families have less than $6,000 in total wealth) contributes to their relative lack of success. In addition, higher education levels among Asian business owners explain much of their success relative to both white- and black-owned businesses. Finally, Fairlie and Robb find that black entrepreneurs have fewer opportunities than white entrepreneurs to acquire valuable prebusiness work experience through working in family businesses.

Look for the book on shelves in September 2008.

While headlines continue to duke it out over whether pink is the new blue, the current issue of The Women’s Review of Books features “The Boys Against the Girls,” which reviews Playing with the Boys: Why Separate is Not Equal in Sports, by Eileen McDonagh and Laura Pappano and Equal Play: Title IX and Social Change, edited by Nancy Hogshead-Makar and Andrew Zimbalist. Worth checking out.