Date: Thu, 11 Dec 1997 06:34:10 -0500
From: Yoshie Furuhashi <Furuhashi.1-AT-osu.edu>
Subject: M-TH: LM in love with bourgeois feminist Katie Roiphe


I finally got around to taking a look at the LM web site. And I found the
magazine feels it has something to say because it prefers one kind of
bourgeois feminism (represented by Katie Roiphe) to another (the
activists/theorists whom  Roiphe and the LM writer Ann Bradley
contemptuously call "victim feminism").

Katie and Ann are unhappy because some young college women have been
organizing around the issues of rape while there are so many other pressing
issues. My advice to them is this: "Go ahead, organize people around the
issues that are more important to you. Don't waste a whole book (or even
articles) complaining about being cast as a 'victim.'" I don't know about
Ann Bradley, but I know Katie Roiphe is not an activist. The only purpose
in Roiphe's life seems to be to build her career. (So far, she has been
successful at that. Publish one book that trivializes rape, you'll get more
famous than any grass-roots activist or conscientious researcher who has
put in years or even decades of work for other women.) Congratulations,
Katie. You are *not* a victim!

Yoshie




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