File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1997/marxism-thaxis.9712, message 383


Date: Thu, 11 Dec 1997 12:18:02 +0000
From: James Heartfield <James-AT-heartfield.demon.co.uk>
Subject: M-TH: Who's afraid of Katie Roiphe?


In message <v03102800b0b574a7ed8f-AT-[128.146.5.64]>, Yoshie Furuhashi
<Furuhashi.1-AT-osu.edu> writes
>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").

I am intrigued that publisjhing a favourable review of Katie Roiphe's
book is now considered to be a sin.

But I wonder, have either Louis or Yoshie read Roiphe's book.

I did, and its follow up Last Night In Paradise. I'm surprised that
Louis and Yoshie should get the impression that the book is an
apologetic for rape. I am sure that Katie Roiphe would be surprised as
well.

The books I read were polemical works against sexual puritanism, and for
women's liberation.

Roiphe is young, in her early twenties. She has written two books on
feminism, and lectured extensively - not a bad achievement.

Ann Bradley is head of the Birth Control Trust, a charity that advises
women on birth control, and lobbies for greater abortion and
contraception rights. Ann was a founder of the Fight the Alton Bill
campaign to prevent the re-criminalisation of abortion here.

>
>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
>
>
>
>
>     --- from list marxism-thaxis-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

-- 
James Heartfield


     --- from list marxism-thaxis-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005