Letters to the Editor
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Rebecca the sexist....
"What you're picking up is my resistance to demonizing men," she said. "I have a definite ideological resistance to placing women in the role of victim, especially when you talk about something as intimate and complicated as their personal lives. I do believe that both people are always responsible, and I know from my own experience with marriage that it's very easy and seductive to see yourself as the victim. To me, there is a moral imperative to resist that story."
This is a tune Roiphe has been warbling for 14 years now, and it surely soothes those men who are sick of being told that sex is no longer theirs to take whenever they want it, that they have to share domestic duties, that they have to wear condoms to keep themselves and their partners safe. Don't worry, her books say. Not all of us want so much from you.
Thank you for casting any man that has questions or concerns about feminism as a rapist. Thank you for trivializing any man who wonders how NOW can oppose fathers sharing custody as being trivially concerned with having to wash the dishes. Thank you for characterizing any man that wonders if the Duke Lacrosse team is indicative of a systemic bias in the courts as being upset to have to wear a condom.
I am so glad that feminism is always on the alert to make sure that no one can make broad (no pun intended) sweeping demeaning generalizations about women.
Too bad for Salon, feminism, and women that Rebecca Traister can't even perceive her own sexism and bigotry.
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Is Roiphe's female stoicism really just co-dependency?
Roiphe indulges
"in some of the same appealingly retro complaints about women: that they are whiny and hypocritical. It's clear that the kind of female strength she admires is derived not from the courage to speak up about mistreatment but from stoicism: the willingness to suck it up, put your clothes back on, and chalk it up to the wildness of unsensible emotion. Weakness is the quality she most deplores, and "victimhood" is her favorite verbal spear."
What's so great about women being treated badly by men and not objecting to it? That's crazy! So it's OK for men to accuse women of being "whiney and hypocritical" but women are supposed to shut up and suffer in silence? I've never read any of Roiphe's work, but that's the drift I get from this article. And what's it like for children growing up with a mother who doesn't speak up and defend herself? Roiphe strikes me as a literary-world insider who's good at self-promotion but pretty clueless when it comes to actual relationships.
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Criticize feminism once, you'll be on thin ice for the rest of your career...
"I was furious at Roiphe, for sending a message to young women that all sex was OK sex, and that they were probably complicit in any violent sexual experiences they might have had."
Rebecca could've saved herself a lot of anger. The only way she could've possibly gotten this "message" out of The Morning After is if she did not know how to read. Or if she willfully misread it.
Roiphe's crime was to suggest it's emotionally-manipulative to inflate the threat of rape up to titanic proportions and it does women no favors to give them a distorted picture of the risks they face. She essentially urged women to stop viewing the world through victim-goggles. Indeed, the "rape crisis feminism" she described wanted to have it both ways: rape is to be regarded as the worst possible crime on the planet, but it also includes having bad sex after a glass of wine.
The legacy of this hysterical mentality has not been benign. Just ask the Duke Lacrosse team.
And how interesting that grudges among feminists can persist for decades... especially ironic that this comes from the same camp which likes to say that women's style of communication is more cooperative and less contentious.
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No respect for Roiphe
The dominant culture reserves rich rewards for token figures who are willing to publicly parrot its most cherished myths, and Roiphe has spent her whole career to date cashing in big-time. She flatters herself that she's some kind of iconoclast, but there's nothing more traditional than blaming women for their own rape and abuse.
Roiphe made her name and fortune by bashing women. Just because happens to be a woman doesn't make her a feminist.
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Is Roiphe's female stoicism really just co-dependency? -- Well consider the source
You're right about the drift you get from this article, but consider the source.
Traister acknowledges within the article how she viewed Roiphe as a traitor to feminism and states that it is Roiphe that energized Traister. And Traister has acknowledged not being able to shake Roiphe's hand.
I sincerely applaud Traister for being upfront with her disclosures and conflicts -- I wish all journalists would do that. I prefer reading this known biased account (meaning absolutely no disrespect to Traister) over reading some other account that would claim to be objective and not tell you of the history or the biases.
But knowing this history, do you think that Traister can put away 13 years or so of acrimony and seeing Roiphe as a traitor and objectively review her work? I know that I could not. I might try, but I think existing biases would come through in terms of tone or subtle skews.
Just because Traister is biased doesn't mean the article is of no value. Indeed there is a lot that I got from it, including Roiphe's "inheritance" and the history of the professor formerly in her chair.
I also took in the confirmation that in feminism pre-90s, it used to be easier for alternative viewpoints to be stated without fear of being called an anti-feminist. Traister admits how she fell into the black/white dichotomy where she could not listen to Roiphe or read Roiphe or even shake Roiphe's hand.
It's a pity.
People knowledgeable about how Thomas Kuhn and Paradigm Shift will see that Traister will be on the wrong side of the next paradigm shift.
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Proof postive cleverness isn't wisdom...
Roiphe laid the groundwork for folks like Coulter, O'Beirne, Flanagan, and Maureen Dowd to make cash flow off bashing women. And she's playing a very old "talented-tenth" game--putting down other women and making out like she's the sterling exception to their "weakness" so men/those in power will see her as strong. But of course, she reserves the right to whine "You're picking on meeee" tactics when she gets called out for her crap (as her reaction to Pollitt's perfectly-logical question proves.) Doubt she's learned a damm thing except how to hide her contempt better.