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 ---
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