Letters to the Editor
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You go, er, ahem . . . girl?
"Of course, there are mean girls who write negative reviews about you in the New Yorker and there are mean girls who sneer at the rape testimonials of young college women, which is what Roiphe did, and no doubt accounts for some of the treatment she received in kind."
You go, Becky!
Oh, and Anonymous, you are a total dickwad.
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This article's description of Roiphe's work is such crap
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.
That is not what her books say, not even remotely. It is not a pass to let men treat women however they want. It’s an imperative that women must ask for the treatment they want, as men must, and that people being human, and bounderies being questionable in any romantic scenario, black and white descrpitions don’t work.
Traister says that she
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.
That is not the message she was sending, it is a complete misreading of her first book, which was not pro-rape, or pro-all sex, but looking at the complexity which surrounds the term "date rape."
And note that this article has to mention repeatedly that Pollit responded to her in the New Yorker. As if to say "it must be thoroughly driven home that she received her much-deserved come-uppance.” How curious to read a female writing feeling the intense need to put another female writer “in her place.”
It’s really kind of pathetic really, that Baumgardner can say (and Salon can clearly see it as a positive statement) “I came not to be threatened by what she had said.” How empowered is a feminist, if an alternative view “threatens” her in the first place.
And how very curious that Traister won't take issue with Joan Didion, won't actually acknowledge one of the sources for Roiphe's outlook, and instead blames Roiphe for the sentiments that can clearly be found in a major female author of that feminist era.
Finally, what “painful price,” to quote Traister, are women still paying? It’s an embarrasssing victim mentality: you shouldn’t pick up the leggos because you are only doing it because you can’t financially stand on your own as well as a man. Who can say that with a straight face: without first knowing which of the married partners has what degree from what college and works in what industry? It’s a foolish, false paradigm that only works for people reluctant to give up their victimhood, who clutch it tight as a security blanket. The kind of person that Traister in this article seems to be.
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Good for NYU...
Thank goodness there is still room for varying points of view at least in the ivory tower. I find the "with us or against us" polarization of the political landscape extremely distressing, as is evident in this article when Traister can't bring herself to quite forgive Roiphe for her political heresy. When you're all fired up about somebody's stance, you really can't step back and give it thoughtful consideration. Now that I've crossed the half-century mark I find that whenever I have a violent, visceral negative reaction to somebody's ideas, that is exactly the time I have to give myself a mental time out and really examine my own preconceptions. I'm excepting, of course. the true loons like Coulter (sad commentary on "the market" that she has a nation-wide sounding board). Even Coulter could produce a good idea...it doesn't seem likely, but the rules of logic would demand that we recognize the possibility.
I think there are two evident truths here that we all keep circling: all individuals are different, and any attempt to pigeon-hole men or women as being "all" anything does us all a disservice AND men and women do not enjoy a level playing field in our current social landscape. I bet we could all agree on that.
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Give Michele1971 and Altaira99 a star
Well said!
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Michelle1971-
Superb. Salon ought to turn Broadsheet over to you.
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Its Good Money to Agree to be an Apologist for Oppression
Camille Paglia, anyone? These shock-academics who deliberately cultivate a "I'm really the free-thinker" stance for the pop-thought market tend to A. Develop name recognition based upon their perceived rebellions that are really not and B. Laughing to the bank, amorally chuckling perhaps. Roiphe and Paglia are two of the most successful at that, particularly since they are willing to (as women) to take up the cause of endangered masculinity and claim women really are cunts, so do what you will because we like it...
Criticizing 2nd wave feminism needs to be done--particularly in light of the failure of many in that generation to recognize the inter-relatedness of oppression (particularly in what was often seen as patronizing or dismissive attitudes toward women of color) and for the failure to step out of one's own immediate circumstances and come to understand the patriarchy's impact on women in a range of social subject positions. Many 2nd wave feminists have sense come to recognize their earlier mistakes...they recognize what they were writing in their early 20's may not have reflected what they would want to say to do (or at least addressing as many issues and perspectives as they'd like to address today). Roiphe isn't doing that; nor does she seem to acknowledge that one's opinion might change over time (though, understandably, she is a Polemics Instructor). Roiphe made the exact mistake of some of the earlier second wavers--she only looked to her immediate friendship circle to make universal statements! If she had stepped over to mine (I'm also an upper-middle class, daughter of a feminist and an academic (father though) white chick who went to a good private school)...she'd find something quite different. Addressing Polit's critique, I don't see how that was a personal attack. If I had been raped and had a dogmatic, fuck-me-feminist friend, I wouldn't share with her the trauma of rape; her general assholery would probably make me want to avoid her as best I could until I got things clearer in my head. Her question makes sense in context. Its just that Roiphe likes to work with semantics and likes to change the subject through rhetorical acrobatics...she is an amoralist...and by attacking Polit's line of questioning, she gets to avoid its deeper meaning.
Overing a critique of feminism (or of any movement) should be helpful toward the movement because it makes us dig deeply in to our thinking and activism, but what Roiphe is doing is sucking the cock of the patriarchy and then claiming that we all should like it; its academic porn for the status quo that traps us all. Patriarchy isn't healthy for men or women, but it is convenient for intersecting oppressions of gender, race, class, sexual orientation, and for those who privilege most from devaluing the majority of us, those few white men who write Roiphe's checks.