An Ambiguous Tribute to Orwell??

From the New Yorker, A Critic at Large: "Honest, Decent, Wrong: The Invention of George Orwell" by Louis Menand.

I was surprised at this article, posted by a colleague on Facebook. Apparently, it is necessary to debunk Orwell. The article meanders, mostly stressing the "constructedness" of Orwell's nonfiction and his use of a persona, and moving to the inaccuracy of his fiction. The assumption is that the person who would see Orwell's vision in 1984 as relevant in some way has been deluded into thinking that it is not fiction but prophecy. In doing so, the writer is speaking first of all to an audience of intellectual equals and like-minds, who look down on all of the uninitiated who get dangerous ideas from reading without guidance. At the same time, a group of outsiders is constructed, who are misinformed about the author and his works, and the connection between life and fiction in general. Though not the primary audience of the article, these individuals can benefit from the wisdom imparted, while the intended audience is invited to dismiss Orwell intellectually, or to take comfort in the fact that those who use him incorrectly are ignorant of Orwell's true character and purpose in writing. What risk does he pose? What is the motivation behind this article? What occasioned the discussion of his life and works? Any ideas I might have about it derive from the following passages:

Some people in 1949 received "1984" as an attack on the Labour Party (in the book, the regime of Big Brother is said to have derived from the principles of "Ingsoc"; that is, English Socialism), and Orwell was compelled to issue, through his publisher, a statement clarifying his intentions. He was a supporter of the Labour Party, he said. "I do not believe that the kind of society I describe necessarily will arrive," he continued, "but I believe (allowing of course for the fact that the book is satire) that something resembling it could arrive. I believe also that totalitarian ideas have taken root in the minds of intellectuals everywhere, and I have tried to draw these ideas out to their logical consequences."

The attitude behind this last sentence seems to me the regrettable part of Orwell's legacy. If ideas were to stand or fall on the basis of their logically possible consequences, we would have no ideas, because the ultimate conceivable consequence of every idea is an absurdity—is, in some way, "against life." We don't live just by ideas. Ideas are part of the mixture of customs and practices, intuitions and instincts that make human life a conscious activity susceptible to improvement or debasement. A radical idea may be healthy as a provocation; a temperate idea may be stultifying. It depends on the circumstances. One of the most tiresome arguments against ideas is that their "tendency" is to some dire condition—to totalitarianism, or to moral relativism, or to a war of all against all. Orwell did not invent this kind of argument, but he provided, in "1984," a vocabulary for its deployment.

"Big Brother" and "doublethink" and "thought police" are frequently cited as contributions to the language. They are, but they belong to the same category as "liar" and "pervert" and "madman." They are conversation-stoppers. [And "fascist." Don't forget "fascist." There are a lot of labels given to opponents that stop the conversation.] When a court allows videotape from a hidden camera to be used in a trial, people shout "Big Brother." When a politician refers to his proposal to permit logging on national land as "environmentally friendly," he is charged with "doublethink." When a critic finds sexism in a poem, she is accused of being a member of the "thought police." The terms can be used to discredit virtually any position, which is one of the reasons that Orwell became everyone's favorite political thinker. [True, but Orwell's lifetime saw, by the admission of the article, saw the actualization of extreme versions of ideas. One of the article's points is that Orwell considered Hitler attractive; that he had the same attraction to Hitler's brand of socialists as the "few" fascist sympathizers in England and France. And yet, he witnessed the extremist tendency of the ideas' implementation. Can we be secure in the assumption that ideas will NOT tend toward extremes?] People learned to make any deviation from their own platform seem the first step on the slippery slope to "1984."

There are Big Brothers and thought police in the world, just as there are liars and madmen. "1984" may have been intended to expose the true character of Soviet Communism, but, because it describes a world in which there are no moral distinctions among the three fictional regimes that dominate the globe, it ended up encouraging people to see totalitarian "tendencies" everywhere. There was visible totalitarianism, in Russia and in Eastern Europe; but there was also the invisible totalitarianism of the so-called "free world." [I wonder what is in the author's head here. Hasn't discussion of U.S. "imperialism" become common place? How is that different from the "invisible totalitarianism of the so-called "free world"? The author's intentions are well-concealed, here. The U.S. is mentioned in the article as a variable that was outside of Orwell's consideration. So is the "free world" evoked ironically here because Orwell viewed it skeptically? Or is the "free world" being evoked skeptically by the author, who does not believe in a distinction between the "free world" and "totalitarianism"? I tend toward the former interpretation: that the author is referring to Orwell's supposed fallacy. But it seems to me that this is contrary to how we see the U.S. represented--oh wait! It seems contrary to how the U.S. was described under Bush. But this is a Brave New World! And we should not see it in Orwellian terms--so this author seems to say. Or Huxleyan terms either.] When people talk about Big Brother, they generally mean a system of covert surveillance and manipulation, oppression in democratic disguise (unlike the system in Orwell's book, which is so overt that it is advertised). "1984" taught people to imagine government as a conspiracy against liberty.

And the conclusion:

Orwell's prose was so effective that it seduced many readers into imagining, mistakenly, that he was saying what they wanted him to say, and what they themselves thought. Orwell was not clairvoyant; he was not infallible; he was not even consistent. [How many theorists are?] He changed his mind about things, as most writers do. [BINGO!] He dramatized out of a desire to make the world more the way he wished it to be, as most writers do. He also said what he thought without hedging or trimming, as few writers do all the time. It is strange how selectively he was heard. [Don't we typically take the works that are most useful or relevant and apply those works? It is strange how selectively Kristeva was heard, and she wasn't writing imaginative prose. . .] It is no tribute to him to turn his books into anthems to a status quo he hated. [Nor is it a tribute to him to ignore that which he critiqued--even if he hated everything!!] Orwell is admired for being a paragon when he was, self-consciously, a naysayer and a misfit. If he is going to be welcomed into the pantheon of right-thinking liberals, he should at least be allowed to bring along his goat. [Really, he was an intellectual freak. Don't use his works to refute US.]

Why is "Religious" a Dirty Word?

You see it paired with nasty words like "ideologue" and "conservative," it is not a far reach from there to "extremism" and "theocracy." All who are religious oppose sex ed, endorse book burning (at least metaphorically), probably endorse heterosexual monogamy, or at least pay lip service to it, support the NRA and the death penalty, and want to impose their backward morality on other people's bodies. I think I forgot to mention stupid or ignorant, generally opposed to science and rational thought more generally.

This pretty much sums me up--don'tcha know--so I'm not really qualified to judge the alternative. I just know that they're much, much better than me. Every now & then, you'll hear about someone who claims to be religious and yet still opposes war--another thing religious people don't do--or agrees that permitting abortion is okay. That puts them in the "decidedly not wacky" category.

I'll admit to looking down on Evangelical Christians in my own elitist way, particularly in the past, but lately I feel like I can understand and accept them more in theory, although theoretically I am not an understanding and accepting person. I still shudder at the more touchy-feely types. And I'm still put off by those who declare their love for Jesus above all things in classroom introductions. But they're simultaneously witnessing and being counter-cultural, and who can argue with that?

Anyway, I don't like cultish behavior any more than the next guy, but it really bothers me when just acknowledging that religion plays a significant role in one's behavior, philosophy, politics is enough to invoke scorn, derision, disgust, mockery and, finally, fear. What are they all afraid of? That at the end of the day, those moronic religious (Christian) types might be. . . *gasp, shudder* . . . right about something?

I've been there, my friend.

Equal Opportunity Campaign Humor

This is hilarious. Go see. You will laugh.

They Have My Number. . .

I didn't do anything to announce my personal views. I try to avoid the kinds of discussions that reveal how at odds I am with the presumed politics of my discipline--the kind that my students expect from English profs and (especially) grad students. But they know--perhaps because of my avoidance. I can talk the talk, I assure you. I took ALL of those graduate classes & played along. Truthfully, I used to be better at the playing along than I am now. I find myself giving lip service to the theories, while my attitude is subtly dismissive. I can't teach Herland anymore because there's too much that I find disturbing. I can't say, theoretically, "Well, under what circumstances MIGHT it be good for the babies to be raised by someone other than their mothers?" without betraying that I can't really entertain this as a valid possibility except in the most extreme of cases, which is not what Charlotte Perkins Gilman had in mind.

So the other day, one student told me about a news story in which a child was suspended from school for playing cowboys & Indians, or cops & robbers, or some equally politically incorrect game and making a handgun motion with his hand. I incredulously asked where this occurred, and she replied that it was in Texas. Then she asked, "You would have felt better if I had said California, wouldn't you?" Yes, yes I would. How did she know? Not that I think Texas wins any kind of prize for just discipline of children, or leads the nation in healthy attitudes toward violence, but I would have been comforted to know that the incident was further removed from where I am now. Of course, a harsh backlash is usually the strategy to correct something that's seen as an extreme problem, and some administrator probably meant to nip "Texas gun culture" in the bud. But that's not the point. How did she have me pegged??

I gave admirable lip service to the notion that the canon should be deconstructed. I mean, I put in some good words for the traditional canon. But for the most part, I think I gave a pretty convincing account of why the canon (or the notion of a canon) should be questioned, and I talked about representing a multiplicity of voices to more accurately represent who was, indeed, writing. I don't think they believed me. Truthfully, I like models that acknowledge the influence of certain writers on others, though this is admittedly uneven representation. I do not believe in including mediocre works just to add diversity, or because they represent marginal opinions. I am all for diversity when it is appropriate, and I do see value in exploring cross-cultural perspectives, but not simply for the sake of doing so. There are times when we are all talking about the same things, albeit from different perspectives, and it's good to compare, as long as you acknowledge a basis for comparison--typically, Western Culture, since that's the tradition our discipline grows out of. I don't see why ANYONE should have to read Gloria Anzaldua. Or Kate Chopin, for that matter.

I brought in very inclusive picture books! But only the best examples. Okay, some of the environmentalist titles were bad. Really bad. But I've published in ecocriticism and children's lit, so I'm entitled.

Today, we were talking about fairy tales. I encouraged them to retell a story with emphasis on some "-ism." I guess this was inviting mockery. So one group took a proto-feminist tale with some ambiguities and complexities and suggested removing the complexities to make it a more blatantly feminist text. The female character was more self-sufficient, did the accounting for her father, opened her own business after being rejected in marriage. When she admired her beloved, she noted that he had a nice butt. Nice. So I blurted out, "You're objectifying him!" Well, one of my group members, English major, the same one who made the California crack (above), BURST out laughing--and was joined by the rest of the class. Including myself.

I can't help thinking that I'm actively working against what others in my department--er, discipline--are trying to accomplish. Not sure what that is or how I'm undermining it, but you know. . .

Earlier in the class, I argued with a student that to use "proletariat" to mean "peasantry" or "lower class" or "working class" was inappropriate because it invoked a specific theoretical perspective or methodology. You can't talk like Marx without invoking Marx in my class, especially when discussing "Beauty and the Beast" (the 18th Century version). Umm, yeah. So he argued that he just thought that Marx was pretty accurately representing history (see Literacy-chic's head explode), at which point I corrected him and said that Marx was using the term to describe his perception of history, but when you say "proletariat" it is not a neutral term, and does not merely invoke Marx but all who come after Marx.

They have so totally got me pegged. I don't know how I'll ever find an academic job in my field.

No, really. . . Stanley Fish is my hero!

Check out his own words, here and here. I understand his position perfectly.

A couple of things, though. . .

First, I just love that the inventor of Reader Response Theory has this to say:

Bob reports that he was not able “to obtain a grade above a ‘C’ until I changed my political views when interpreting, say, a Robert Frost poem.” But why should your political views have anything to do with the interpretation of a Robert Frost poem? You’re trying to figure out where Frost stands, politically or otherwise; where you stand is simply not to the point.

First thing--DEATH OF THE AUTHOR. We might try to figure out what discourses Frost's poem is tapping into, or historicize it according to issues of his day. We are absolutely NOT "trying to figure out where Frost stands" (anymore). You should know that, Mr. Fish! Second thing--Aren't the students' political views part of what they "bring to the table" in the act of interpretation in which the reader and the author collaborate through the written text in the creation of a separate but more valid text that is the result of the reading process (since how can a text exist unless it is read)? Or was all that kind of thing just an exercise in theoretical loop-de-loops?

Then, there's this piece of loveliness:

It would be no more difficult for a neo-Nazi or a Klu Kluxer to set aside his or her views and concentrate on the pedagogical task than it would be for a devout Catholic or a militant atheist.

I object to "devout Catholic" being named alongside a "a neo-Nazi or a Klu Kluxer" (admittedly, not terms supplied by Fish himself, merely repeated from comments), since the latter terms are anti-social, hate-filled ideologies and extremist positions. If one should object that "devout Catholic" was being equated, rather, with a "militant atheist," the objection doesn't improve matters. Observe the term, "militant." Is "devout" even analogous? Only if one assumes that both positions are equally invalid, and even so, devotion does not imply domination of others through belief. Or if one thinks that religious belief itself, or perhaps the beliefs of certain religions (not Islam, for example) is inherently extremist. (Anastasia has some interesting thoughts on extremism. . .)

This choice of comparisons also introduces something that Fish does not address, namely, whether the "leave personal beliefs out of the classroom" admonition applies equally to all types of colleges/universities, since religious belief is clearly included. The implementing of curricula at Catholic colleges, hence, the organization of syllabi and selection of texts may be (but isn't always, I understand) done according to a Catholic perspective. What then? I guess if you accept that a university may explicitly contextualize itself within a certain worldview (or intellectual tradition), the goal of the educational experience might shift a bit, being framed within a religious context, so one might expect to find Joyce taught a bit differently, for example. I would still consider teaching Joyce within a context appropriate to the specific intellectual tradition or worldview represented by the university focusing on the task at hand, but the task is defined somewhat differently.

Which brings me to the conclusion of this piece:

Sarah touches on what is perhaps the most urgent question one could put to the enterprise of liberal education. What, after all, justifies it? The demand for justification, as I have said in other places, always come from those outside the enterprise. Those inside the enterprise should resist it, because to justify something is to diminish it by implying that its value lies elsewhere. If the question What justifies what you do? won’t go away, the best answer to give is “nothing.”

I like this, really. I've said before that I believe that reading and analyzing text is inherently valuable, in spite of the fact that it does not directly impact the "real world"--whatever that is. And a contemplative life (which I do not claim to live) may be valuable for the individual and those he/she touches, if intangibly so. I think that some colleges and universities are able to more openly acknowledge that not only "useful" subjects are "useful." And I think that some colleges and universities are able to couch this inherent worth by framing the learning process within the context of religious belief--at least, that's how I would imagine it would work. Does that mean that I would feel confident saying in the classroom that I find Obama morally repugnant? Not a bit of it. Does this mean I would feel comfortable comparing aspects of the worldview in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings to a papal encyclical? Yup.

Stanley Fish is My Hero

From the man who brought us Reader Response Theory comes some really useful advice: Save The World on Your Own Time! And Good Lord, do I hope it catches on! At the very least, it should cause a stir. I have not had time to blog around to see what others are saying. This hat tip goes to my husband, who referred me to a blog he frequents, Instapundit, and here's the quote:

STANLEY FISH'S ADVICE TO PROFESSORS: Save the World on Your Own Time.

More on that here. "Whether anyone notices it or not or comments on it or not, the teaching of writing in universities is a disaster. [There is] the conviction on the part of many composition teachers that what they are really teaching is some form of social justice, and that the teaching of writing ... takes a back seat. And in fact in many classrooms the teaching of writing as a craft as something that has rules with appropriate decorums ... is in fact demonized as an indication of the hegemony of the powers that be. This happens over and over again in classrooms and it’s an absolute disaster."

Can I just say thank you?? I have been skeptical of professors' agendas since I was an undergrad, but since I was an undergrad when Clinton was pres. and at a university where no one really cared anymore, I was spared the more overtly political preaching. There was no Ph.D. program, either, so I didn't have activist grad student types (sorry, guys, you know they're out there) telling me what to think. And I've been the fly on the wall for too many "reprogram the Conservative Christian Students" conversations to dismiss the activism as myth. And I'm not just talking about the current generation of Ph.D.s in the department, most of whom I don't know. This stuff has been bantered about since I got here, and got worse when the fear of 9/11 wore off and after Bush won reelection. Perhaps the only thing that would come of a democratic victory would be that we could go back to teaching literature and composition and back off of the politics. (I don't believe this for one minute, btw.) Now, I do think that there can be a political dimension to literary criticism, but it's being hit a little hard, ya know?

Now Stanley Fish has in the past drawn a skeptical response from me, as he seems, elsewhere, to advocate the "anything goes" method of teaching literature, and I have never seen the use for that. It seems to me that we must have the text as a common ground, and even if we can't refer back to the author, we should at least be able to refer back to the text and assume that multiple readers, while each bringing something else to the table, can still agree on the essential elements of that text. The text, for me, does not exist somewhere "out there"--discourse surrounding the text and about the text exists "out there," but that's different; rather, it exists in the book in front of us. However, Fish posited (a while ago, this is old news) that it is the reader's engagement with the text, including what the reader brings from his/her own background, that creates a separate thing, the "text" that is the result of a collaboration between the reader and the author. I don't buy it. And I'm not alone, but it was all the rage for a while--before my time. I think the idea was to liberate something from something--the text from critics, the author from biography, the students from professors.

So as a guy who wants to liberate, and transfers this to the classroom, the advice seems odd, no? Except that he remains the champion of the student, in a way. Why do we have to steamroll their opinions and values--all that they bring to the table? Why should we automatically assume that we are the enlightened ones in all matters--including individual values/beliefs? When we alter their ways of thinking, must we alter their consciences? At any rate, Fish has tapped into exactly why I don't want to go into Rhetoric/Comp, although I'm technically qualified and have been groomed for it, more or less. I don't want to hang around these guys and be subjected to the enlightened assumption that everyone does or should agree with their views of the world. And--by the way--teach from their textbooks. If the meaning of a literary text depends on the reader, and if the professor should keep that in mind, then how much more should we stay out of their responses to politics, since that's not what we're called upon to teach?

[Of course, I am coming at this from a very different perspective from Mr. Fish, who scorns neoconservative blah blah blah, etc. and really thinks this king of thing only happens a small percentage of the time. But if that's so, why can't I find a decent composition text?]

Politicians and Morality

I like to say that I consider "personal integrity" important in a candidate. By that, I mean accepting the consequences of one's affiliations, words, and actions--standing clearly for something and sticking with it, or else being able to admit when one realizes that one is wrong, has been proven wrong, or discovered to be wrong. Now, this is not to be confused with morality. I can respect a candidate's personal integrity while considering his or her morality suspect. However, I consider that to be a separate issue. And if I feel that a candidate is suspect morally, but has personal integrity, well, the next question is in what areas the suspect morality comes into play, and how it will affect his or her execution of duties and things like national security. I don't expect any candidate to be spotless morally. I might expect his or her moral weaknesses to exist outside of the realm of public duties, but that's different. I think there are differences of scale when it comes to politicians' moral transgressions even when it becomes public. I don't necessarily think that every politician who cheats on his wife and is found out should automatically resign, though 'fessing up and accounting for oneself and taking responsibility for actions are on the menu, and the higher up one gets in government the more accountability I require. Illegal actions are another matter. Actions that interfere with one's execution of office are another matter. Actions that undermine the integrity of the government in power need close examination. Now, "morally suspect" and "morally abhorrent" are different things entirely. Even if there is some measure of personal integrity, I can not support someone whom I find morally abhorrent. I wouldn't like it, but I would support someone morally suspect with little personal integrity to keep out someone morally abhorrent. So yeah, I'd take John Kerry over Obama.*

*Though I do hold politicians who publicly declare themselves to be Catholics and imply their full Communion with the Church to a different standard. But you know, there are enough people out there to point out the wrongs of their behavior. On what grounds do you criticize someone who will claim no distinct belief?

HIB, Hep B, and Chicken Pox, Oh My!!

The Chiclette goes in for her 2 month check-up on Thursday, the one on which they bombard this little developing immune system with all kinds of nasties--all for her good, of course. Now, I have mentioned before that I exercise caution with the recommendations of doctors. I have a skepticism about--well, everything, but about medicine in particular. I am not against all vaccines, however. I am merely cautious. The vaccines I received as a child are familiar territory, though they are questioned by many, and even linked to onset of autism in some children. Measels, Mumps, Rubella, Diptheria, Pertussus, and of course, Polio, are vaccines I tend to consider "safe," though I know many would question this. At any rate, I know that the vaccines have been around for a long, long time, and have been studied, and judged to be as safe as 50+ years of research can make them. My son, to be 11 on Friday, received all of the recommended vaccines. Until the chicken pox vaccine. I had heard the cautions about vaccines even then, but thought that the benefit was worth the slight risk. Until the chicken pox vaccine.

You see, in my mind, vaccines were reserved for childhood illnesses that killed children--polio, whooping cough--and posed a genuine public health risk. But chicken pox was only a mild nuisance for most children, keeping them out of school for a week or two, which wasn't really an issue, I guess, unless there was no one available to care for them at home. So my son did not receive the chicken pox vaccine. He got two very mild cases of chicken pox from exposure to children at school who had been vaccinated recently and were "shedding" the virus. That strengthened my opinion that the vaccine was not really advisable.

When I was in the hospital after having my Doodle, I read in the papers about the vaccine against Human Papillomavirus and was instantly against the idea of vaccinating pre-teen girls for an STD. It seemed hasty, unnecessary, inadvisable. Not to mention discriminatory--to subject the girls to a vaccine, the safety of which is not entirely known, when presumably they were getting the virus from boys. Besides the fact that this was hardly an air-borne illness. Let's face it, STDs are highly preventable. So my attitude towards vaccinating my daughters with Gardasil? Over my dead body, thanks.

I relaxed my vigilance some when it came time to vaccinate my Doodle. I don't know why, but I shrugged and did a "What the heck" when it came to the chicken pox, possibly because it was easiest at the time, or perhaps because my son had felt the adverse affects of not being vaccinated in a culture where vaccination was the norm--and was infected as a consequence of this being the norm. So I figured I would skip a step or two and make it easier when she had to go to school (eventually). Of course, I did not realize that Texas allows parents to opt out of any vaccine. Evidently all one has to do is file the paperwork. So Doodle has had all of the "mandatory" vaccines, but has not had the ones that are only required if she happens to attend daycare. Since her last round, I have read more about adverse affects of Gardasil (HPV) and the vaccination for chicken pox, and it makes me wonder about all of this all over again. Not to mention that link Jen posted about the use of aborted fetal tissue to make vaccines. Great. So here I am, wondering what to do. . . again.

Because this is no easy matter. Any time we refuse medical treatment or tests, we are going against the grain. It feels like gambling, and health is nothing to gamble with. I have less of a problem when it's just me--but when it's my children and I take a risk, it feels, well, wrong. Culturally we are told that doctors are superior to just about everyone, and should not really be questioned. This changes from place to place. I have to say that people in New Orleans that I knew seemed to question medical practitioners more--even before something went wrong--than they do in this corner of Texas. I'm sure there's another corner of Texas I could name where the questioning is more intense still--at least in some circles. But that's decidedly countercultural. And so if I follow my instincts and refuse one or more of the vaccines, I feel like a bad parent. For what? For doing what I feel is right, and for gambling on the chance that my child will not contract whatever they are vaccinating against. The last time I faced a decision like this, I was deciding whether to treat my child for an enzyme deficiency that I knew she didn't have while they retested her after botching the first screening so that she and 3 other babies came out positive. She was about 3 weeks old. I won that bet, but it was agonizing.

This week, she faces several vaccines, and I am not particularly comfortable with all of the vaccines, the fact that they are given simultaneously, the fact that they will be administered even if the baby has a cold, or the fact that parental consent is generally assumed, and that these vaccines are deemed "mandatory" for my children by state boards. At two months they receive: Prevnar, DTaP, HIB, Polio, and Chicken Pox. Possibly Rotavirus also. She has not had any vaccines at this point. I refused the one in the hospital--Hep B--because, well, I don't see it as necessary, as it is transmitted sexually or through a transfusion. I can't say I know much about Prevnar or HIB. I believe both of my earlier ones had them. I feel like a cop out admitting that I haven't done the research. DTaP is familiar territory, as is the Polio. Chicken pox--well, you know how I feel about that one. And I don't feel comfortable with the Rotavirus vaccine. It sounds like a daycare vaccine to me. You know, so the workers don't get sued for not washing their hands. I just can't see that it's more crucial now than it was 2 years ago. The main goal seems to be to prevent trips to the hospital and the doctor's office. So it's an insurance company vaccine, too--it saves them money.

And you know what socialized medicine means to me? More of this shoved down our throats, with less recourse if side-effects occur, and less choice in the matter!

Feminism, Family, and Femmes Politiques

I was referred by a friend to an article on "Feminism and Politics." While I usually like to avoid political posts, this one intersects somewhat with my musings on motherhood and work from a while back. Here's an interesting side note--when I read the "I'm a Woman" song that the author reprints with reference to a perfume ad, I was reminded of Miss Piggy. Seriously. There's a Muppet show sketch with Miss Piggy and some has-been brunette (offhand, I forget who!) with whom Piggy was competing for Kermit. Hardly an emblem of the woman's movement, even for the sake of argument!! This is also kind of funny given the reference in the quote to bacon.

What questions does this article raise for me? I'm not sure. Perhaps what it says about what we want to believe women are, or do, or whatever. The point seems to be that, while ostensibly, all choices for women are equally valid, in the political arena, this is not the case. This is no new news. Certain "choices" are definitely represented as being "rights" more often than others. However, I'm not entirely sure when the correct choice for professional women became to have a family and a career. Or, indeed, to have a family before a career, which really seems to be what the women in question represent. Rather, career first, family later has seemed the way to go, which is why unplanned pregnancies, and especially unplanned pregnancies before a certain age are deemed damaging and burdensome. Or did I misunderstand something all this time? I don't think so. So is feminism rethinking itself (again)? Is it in crisis? Is it obsolete? Or is it just imperfectly represented for political expedience?

Or am I, in concert with the author of the article, merely focusing too hard on meaningless offhand remarks that likely meant very little except for image-building purposes? Probably. And I can even make a literacy-orality reference. In our era of recording technology, remarks uttered in a specific context, that otherwise would have evaporated after being spoken, whose context could not have been recreated after the utterance was spoken, are preserved. We can hold those who spoke the words responsible for their offhand remarks as if they had been written. We can, of course, alter the context through selective editing, but then written words can be taken out of context also. However, the fact remains that we have the words, and the lives of the women who are holding themselves up as our role models. Would they have represented themselves the same 10 years ago? 20? And does this say more about what the women of the country want to hear, or what message these women want to convey?

Lest anyone consider too conservatively the assertion that "[m]ore young women at elite colleges are planning to stay home with their children," it should be mentioned that doing just that is becoming a status marker among young women, at least in certain parts of the country. The idea seems to be, why work if you don't have to? An extension of why should I take an elective if I don't have to? or why should I pay for my own car/apartment/college/etc. if my parents are willing to do so? I'd like to follow-up on that survey and see how many of those who decide to "stay home with their children" have them in child care before the age of one year for one reason or another that is not economically-based. Is this the rise of the family, or of a voluntarily leisured class (instead of involuntarily chained to the home, or voluntarily working)? Who knows?

I apologize if your self-righteousness meter is off the charts, here. The article raises a number of questions, and I have related them with a hearty measure of cynicism. I will not say, with the author of the Post Chronicle quote, "O.K. now, ladies, stop the cat-fight!" I think that what is at stake here is larger than bi-partisan sisterhood. I think it has to do with how each and every one of us views family in general and motherhood (or mothering) in particular, how our politicians think we feel about these issues, and how our media thinks we ought to feel. Now, who can tell me which is which?