Some of you may have already read some of the misogynist hoopla regarding Katha Pollitt’s new book of personal essays, Learning to Drive, but I think that this Salon piece by Rebecca Traister really takes the cake.
You see, it’s technically supposed to be a defense of Pollitt and a rumination on the double-standards for male and female political writers. Except that Traister waits until page 3 to start talking about the double-standards, and until the last few paragraphs to get to the defense. The rest of the time is spent mocking Pollitt in every way under the sun– calling her book “humiliating,” “pathetic” and wondering, oh my, how she can be a feminist even though she has lived a real life.
. . . I wonder: Is there ever a point at which it is a good idea for women, especially intellectual, politically engaged women, to strip off their clothes and caper naked as jaybirds in front of a line of would-be assassins?
. . . Questions about the wisdom of personal disclosure get thornier if the writer is a vocal feminist. If a woman is critical of patriarchal practices, a stance that will inevitably lead to being called a man-hater, is there any gain or loss in disclosing that she is happily married to a man? Or that she is a lesbian? Or that she has recently experienced a breakup? What if she thinks that a personal betrayal, or a love affair, or a sexual experience, has shifted her ideology? What if she wants to make some extra money writing freelance essays?
Hmm, yes, when are women actually allowed to speak their minds? And how do they go about getting permission from the patriarchy? Is there a form to fill out?
My main problem here isn’t even that Traiser felt the need to spend two pages ripping Pollitt to pieces and questioning her choice to write the book before getting around to defending it (though that is a problem, too)– it’s that even when she does get around to defending Pollitt as being allowed to do whatever the hell she wants, she never bothers to answer the most pressing criticism, which is that feminists are not allowed to write about their lives.
I understand the impulse to censure a writer like Pollitt for fueling her critics, for revealing so much of herself that she imperils her well-earned reputation. What if the next time I read her on single-issue voting or the death penalty or the Supreme Court, I’m actually thinking about how she never liked to give her ex blow jobs in the morning?
Oh wow, good question . . . what if? I don’t know, then maybe you’re shallow?
I unashamedly stand by the claim that the personal is political. And like Amanda, I understand that “the personal is political” should not be used against women to criticize them for the choices that we make to survive the patriarchy. It means that we need to examine the need for those choices in order to break the system, and that our politics are undeniably shaped by our personal experiences.
I think that almost all feminists can claim some type of personal experience that led them to feminism in the first place. Some are huge, and some are small. I can claim a sexist father and an emotionally abusive boyfriend at the age of 14– not the most traumatic experiences in the world, but evidently traumatic enough.
Though I only rarely write (or talk, for that matter) about my personal experiences, I have a deep respect for those with the bravery to do so. In fact, I think that it’s necessary. When we still, to this day, hear feminists moan about why do women stay with abusive men– are they stupid or something?, I think that it’s excellent to hear from one of the world’s most famous and well-respected feminists about the shitty relationship with an unfaithful man that she stayed in for far too long. Not because I think that Pollitt should have done that, but because of the fact that she did. Because a lot of us do. Because a lot of us are feminists and yet are still in abusive relationships, or still do most of the housework, or still shamefully hide the fact that they had an abortion.
Being a feminist does not free you from the patriarchy, it only raises your consciousness of it. And I think that we forget that all too often. Being a feminist, in fact (and as Amanda notes), is precisely about not having to be perfect; it’s about recognizing that women are people too, and after centuries of having to be obsessively pretty and demure, we have the same damn right as men to fuck up sometimes. We also have the right to be emotional, even though it may be “confirming the worst suspicions about their gender” (as Traister says), because the idea that emotions are feminine and therefore bad is a sexist idea. If we want to actually be able to overcome sexism, it’s not just about being unafraid to be strong and powerful, it’s also about being unafraid to be occasionally weak.
So I thank Pollitt for the reminder, despite all of the shit that she personally has to take to get herself and all the rest of us there. That’s a fucking feminist if I’ve ever seen one.
{ 11 comments }
Cara–I think you’re off base on this one. Now, this may be because I know Traister and know that her and Pollitt are friendly, but I read the piece as her acknowledging that there were uncomfortable moments in Pollitt’s book (and there are) while taking the sexist reviews to task. I also think she asked some interesting bigger picture questions about what it means for political women to write about their personal lives in a sexist system…
My only comment: I don’t think that showing emotion (crying, etc) is weak. I think that labeling crying as weak is itself sexist and patriarchal. My ability to cry and seek out support when I’m hurting is a factor in my strength, not a weakness – if I bottle things up because I fear being labeled “weak”, that will shut me down for a lot longer than a crying jag ever will.
Equating crying = weak is one weapon that patriarchy uses to crush men and women both.
Thanks for the comment, Jessica. Personally, I don’t know– Traister and Pollitt could be great friends, and Traister could normally be a great advocate for feminist issues. But that’s not what I see here, and I stand by my assessment that this article could have been handled a lot better. Again, my main problem is bringing up the idea that Pollitt can’t say these things not only because she’s a female political writer, but because she’s a feminist, and then failing to resolve that aspect. I don’t think that resolving the sexist aspect is the same thing, and that’s why I didn’t comment on that area, because I thought that she covered it pretty well in the end (and maybe I should have stated that).
In any case, I’m interested to see what others think.
RachelPhilPa, here is where I think that where you and I might disagree on this: I argue that there is nothing wrong with being occasionally weak, and that the idea that there is something wrong with occasional weakness is a patriarchal notion. You say that calling emotion “weak” is a patriarchal idea. I agree with you to the extent that all emotion is certainly not weak. But sometimes people are weak, and when they are, they tend to be emotioanl. And I am okay with that.
I quite honestly think that we’re in agreement on the issue but coming at it from opposite theoretical angles.
See here is where we disagree. I don’t think that Traister was saying Pollitt can’t say these things because she’s a feminist. I think she was pointing out the fucked up sexist culture that has consequences for a feminist that says these things. Or something. (Sorry for rambling, I’m exhausted from being at CGI all week.)
Well here’s an example that is quoted above:
I personally find these questions to be incredibly frustrating and disingenuous. My reading of the article is that it is Traiser who is asking these questions, not that she is pointing out how others are asking these questions unfairly and then shooting them down. Hence my ire.
Hi Cara,
Jessica pointed me to this blog, and I’m so excited to read more. But I think you’ve misread my piece. It is a defense of Pollitt’s book, albeit one that takes seriously the questions of her critics. I do ask questions in the piece, but I’m doing so because I’m considering the perspectives of those who think it’s a mistake for Pollitt to reveal so much about her personal life. The reason that the straight-out defense doesn’t come until the last page is structural: I have to lay out the tension of the piece, i.e. the criticisms, my own initial reactions to her essays, and the larger questions that her writing prompts about women writers and disclosure, before I offer my own answers. But I’m not sure why you think I spend the first two pages ripping her apart. A disagreement over the use of the term “pathetic” is very fair. But I spend a good deal of the first two pages describing how well-wrought and funny I think Pollitt’s essays are. In any case, I’m sorry that you felt it to be unnecessarily harsh; I think the book is very fine, and that she has every right to reveal what she wants about her life. But I also am interested in what her critics say because I think it prompts discussions like this one. In any case, please drop me a line if you want to talk more about this. All best, Rebecca
Hi Rebecca, thanks for commenting and clarifing the points in your article. I appreciate that you took the time to stop by and share your side. While I still stand by the meat of my criticism, I can see that some of the language I used was stronger than it needed to be, and I humbly accept that criticism of my criticism (wow, that’s a lot of criticism!).
Thanks again.
hey cara, very interesting stuff. i just read the traister article today, and i think i was in a similar headspace as jessica in that i tend to go into a traister article with the assumption that she is going to be, at base, fair-handed with feminism. (whether or not that’s an erroneous idea to take into a reading of anything is a whole ‘nother story!)
i guess i find myself a bit flummoxed by the whole debate (well, not flummoxed that it’s happening – “a woman? writing about her experiences? get ‘er!!”) in the sense that your point – hey, yeah, why can’t a woman be an intellectual feminist and a human being with personal, emotional experiences at the same time? – has gotten fairly lost in the din. and i’d wager that is the exact question that pollitt would most like raised and really discussed, not just in the feminist blogosphere, but everywhere.
all this back and forth about “memoir culture” and exhibitionism and myspace and reality tv? not really cutting it, imho.
” the idea that emotions are feminine and therefore bad is a sexist idea”
EXCELLENT!!! That summarizes it all.
Hey, I didn’t even really know who either Rebecca or Pollitt were before reading that Traister article (because I spent most of my adult life in Europe, not here), and yet I recognized that is was written in bad faith. I’m with Cara.
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