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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
About a book most Americans will never hear of, let alone read? Why, dear Goddess, why?
Not that it wasn't a well-written four pages. But still...does anyone really take this Ladies Against Women garbage seriously? What's next, a four-page review of Ann Coulter's latest? (Hey, at least when Al Franken went after Coulter, he got laughs out of it.)
Personally, I think when most American mothers are looking for a guilt trip, they're a lot more likely to turn to Dr. Phil or Dr. Laura than some pseudoliterate Church Lady type like Caitlin Flanagan. Women in search of someone to make them feel lousy about themselves generally prefer to get their spankings over with quickly and without fuss, without having to wade through a whole lot of foo-foo prose to get to it.
C'mon, Joan Walsh. You're better than the woman you're writing about here, and probably more influential. Flanagan's fame clock was already at 14:57 when you started typing.
I understand Joan Walsh's frustration, but Salon writers have got to learn to take a deep breath and ignore some people who don't deserve the energy you expend on them. People like Flanagan are elitists and scam artists and should be treated as such. When she stomps her little feet to get our attention the best thing to do is ignore her. It works with kids and dogs so maybe it will work with crazy anti-feminists as well.
Ignoring people is the precise wrong way to deal with bad ideas. Although I would agree that one must choose one's battles, confronting a cultural pundit with as much power and as loud a voice as Flanagan requires many and loud responses.
Most people have the decency to play out their floundering mother-daughter identity wars in the sanctity of a therapist's office. And then there's Caitlin Flanagan. Somehow, there's no shrink on her vast roster of helpers who can tell her, "It's OK, Caitlin, your mommy really did love you. Now go take a nap." So, instead, she flails about on the pages of various Brainy Mags trying to decide..."am I trying to out-mother my mother? or out-succeed my mother? Look ma, no job! Well, maybe just these two or three jobs."
Basically, it's obvious that Caitlin has never forgiven her mother for the unspeakable sin of being human. After all, the very thing she can't stand about feminists (or, for that matter, children) is their messy, unpredictable human-ness: they make mistakes, they have conflicts, sometimes they are uncomfortable with their own opinions. Sometimes they are just plain boring. Sometimes life is hard for them. Just as it clearly was for Flanagan's mother, in many ways.
It will be interesting when Flanagan's boys are grown, to see how they regard her presence in their own childhoods. Suppose they, too, feel panicky and abandoned, cast adrift by their parents? Where would that leave Flanagan? In fact, I have sometimes thought wistfully how much more significant and interesting a writer Flanagan would be if she spent her time analyzing the ways in which fallibility and politics have intersected in her life...
but she doesn't, and her book THOROUGHLY deserved this pan. Even edited to such an extent, the book failed to move beyond the merely wistful or dreadfully shrill. Rock on, Ms. Walsh. And you're right about the Karma.
Wow. I read the Elle piece and now Joan Walsh's on Flanagan. Before the reviews and the book, I read Flanagan in the mags. Frankly, I find it discouraging how much she is being attacked. When I first began to read her in Atlantic Monthly, I found her voice--and her confusion--to be refreshing. Seems to me that some are envious of this "it girl." Give this a woman a break. Clearly she is in a position many of us wish we were in--New Yorker assignments and childcare to help her along--but it all goes to show that questions remain even for those so blessed. So much much for sisterhood.
It always amuses me how some working (or previously working) women bash feminism - apparently without it occuring to them that the feminist movement and ideology made their law practice, freelance writing, whatnot careers possible to pursue - or at least much easier.
This woman is a writer with some level of success, and there's some whiny lawyer who has been another feminism basher of late - yet they never express any gratitude, or admit that feminism ever had any bearing on their successful careers/lives. Talk about dishonest- or at the least, intellectually bereft.
Wifely duties? Oh, gosh...shall we drag out the whalebone corsets next? Yes, we're put on this earth to willingly have our bodies used for someone's pleasure when we don't feel like it - becuase THEY want it. I feel sick to my stomach reading this Victorian bullshit.
In fact, I'm sick of this whole subject - and sick of otherwise sane women always picking at each other over every little thing. Liberals and women have the same fatal habit - they both eat their own.
I wasn't aware that Flanagan was so big in the States, but she seems to be a deadpan version of the satirical character 'Polly Filler' in Britain's Private Eye magazine. Polly's blithe descriptions of her useless husband, spoiled child and succession of illegal nannies is the joke that Walsh was making Flanagan out to be.
I disagree that Flanagan is an honest striver after truth: the strident tone, the "straw women" and the all-or-nothing dichotomy put paid to that. While women writers might get a hard time, save your sympathy for someone who deserves it. Ask yourself whether or not Flanagan is helping people with fewer choices than she and it will become clear whether or not the harsh approach is justified.
This is the type of article Salon should present often, one that takes on a deserving target and demolishes in a stylish, professional fashion. Every word of this story rings true, and any article that does the holy work of exposing a charlatan, conman, and superstitious demagogue in America is the equivalent of the highest charity work. Whether you consider it personally relevant or not does not take away from its salubrious effect.
Great article, one that makes me realize why Joan Walsh is the editor-in-chief of Salon. I have often been a critic of Salon's often shallow and narcissistic treatment of women's issues and have been called misogynist in response, but this is the type of article that shows how this type of piece should be done: with considered thought, literary flare, and universal appeal.
Good job, Salon.
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