BELLA ABZUG REMEMBERED • KATE MILLETT ON AGING

OTHE PROGRESSIVN THE WOMAN'ES QUARTERL HUEY • SUMMESR 1998 ning ire Doctors Going Too Far?

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The Tyranny of the Esthetic Martha Coventry - 16 Surgery's most intimate violation

REFLECTIONS The Poet as Prisoner - Reza Baraheni - 21 pc Language and creative imagination in exile

THE ABORTION WARS The Fire This Time - Mary Lou Greenberg - 24 When "pro-life" means death in Birmingham

FRONTLINE REPORT Buried Alive - Jan Goodwin - 26 Afghan women under the Taliban

SEXUAL POLITICS To Be Male or To Be Female, That Is the Question - Marilyn Stasio - 32 Gender-bending in Shakespeare

CHANGES Out of the Loop and Out of Print - Kate Millett - 38 Meditations on aging

PORTFOLIO Painted like a Man, Disappeared like a Woman - Marcy Rudo - 42 Luisa Vidal, the daughter of Modernism

RACIAL REALITIES "Passing" - Toi Derricotte - 46 Life in black and white

FOREVER BELLA In Her Own Words - 62 COLUMNS What's a Feminist To Do? - Merle Hoffman - 5 Zen and the Art of Motherhood - Phyllis Chesler - 8 DEPARTMENTS Feedback - 4 Talking Feminist The Nose Job - Sherryl Kleinman - 10 Loving Long-Distance - Westry Green - 11 Books Airless Spaces by Shulamith Firestone - Reviewed by Phyllis Chesler - 50 What Are We Fighting For? Sex, Race, Class and the Future of Feminism by Joanna Russ Reviewed by Ellen Cole - 51 Freud's Paranoid Quest: Psychoanalysis and Modern Suspicion by John Farrell Reviewed by Jaclyn Geller - 52 Film Women of a Certain Age: The Big 3-0, 4-0 and 5-0 - Molly Haskell - 54 Cover: Illustration by Lou Beach feedback ON THE ISSUES Lack of Outrage created a magazine for women with brains!! Jessica Caudwell - Sacramento, CA In "Hollywood Downsizes Women" [Spring Summer 1998 1998], Molly Haskell states that in 1997, Vol. VII • No. 3 with very few exceptions, film viewers saw Mary Daly not a "Christian" Publisher/Editor-in-Chief countless instances of exploitation and As I made clear in my interview Merle Hoffman abuse of women whisked past their eyes ["Manifesting the Goddess," Spring 1998], I Editor with "hardly a voice raised in protest." am not a Christian. I was deeply offended to Jan Goodwin It seems that with the right to make a be identified as such in the opening para- Art Director film comes the right to strip women of their graphs preceding the articles in the section Sharon Lee Ryder dignity, figuratively and literally. Women are titled "Should the Trinity Be a Quartet?" Editor at Large generally depicted as weak, unstable, inse- I left the catholic church and Christian- Phyllis Chesler cure, and submissive, and their lives almost ity in the early seventies. I have spent the Special Projects Advisor always revolve around a particular man, or better part of the past 35 years exposing and Julia Kagan men in general. Where there is a so-called analyzing gynocidal atrocities perpetrated Managing Editor strong female character, her strength and/or and legitimated by Christianity and other Mary Lou Greenberg independence are usually tempered by a patriarchal religions. Contributing Editors Eleanor Bader, Irene Davall, major character flaw or life crisis: The suc- Also, I am a Radical Elemental (not Katherine Eban Finkelstein, Molly Haskell, cessful, enterprising businesswoman is "Element") Feminist philosopher. Mahin Hassibi, bell hooks, Jane Garland Katz, depicted as callous and unlikable; the free- Mary Daly - Newton Centre, MA Flo Kennedy, Corona Machemer, Julianne Malveaux, thinker is plagued by loneliness and depres- Editor's Note: OTI apologizes for the typo, Fred Pelka, Marge Piercy, Arlene Raven sion, because her independence prevents her and for the mis-identification in the general Research Editor from remaining in relationships with men. introduction to the cover story. Daly was, of Lisa Vincenti There also seems to be a standard nudi- course, correctly identified in her article. Advertising Sales ty clause in all female film contracts. Even Lori Sokol during sex scenes, where nudity is entirely Webmaster Early Returns from Reader Survey Sara Yager relevant, any naked bodies that are shown Editor's Note: Following is a sampling of Assistant to the Publisher are female. Aside from the X-rating a film comments we've received in response to our Donna Matthew risks for a depiction of male nudity (for rea- Reader Survey [Spring 1998]. If you haven't Marketing Director sons I am unable to fathom), perhaps there yet responded, you have until June 30 to do so. Joy Silver is something else behind the lack of male nudity in films: If male actors appeared My reasons for reading OTI: It covers more ON THE ISSUES totally naked, Hollywood's "big" male stars than white women's issues; isn't afraid to The Progressive Woman's Quarterly wouldn't be so big after all. include women's spirituality; and goes beyond A feminist, humanist magazine of critical thinking, dedicated to In our society there is an established liberalism in advocating societal change. fostering collective responsibility for positive social change. pattern and attitude in which women are —Michigan ON THE ISSUES often abused and exploited. This might The Progressive Woman's Quarterly (ISSN0895-6014) is pub- lished quarterly by Merle Hoffman Enterprises, Ltd., 97-77 explain the lack of outrage when women are I can't believe you didn't ask about sex/gen- Queens Blvd., Flushing, NY 11374-3317. Fax: (718) 997-1206. treated this way in film: It is difficult to be der! Given the level of detail in the survey, I World Wide Web angered by a wrong when you do not per- assume this was by design, but just in Home page: httpJAvww.echonyc.com/~onissues ceive it as being wrong. case—I'm male! or http://www.igc.apc.org/onis9ues Deborah Reedy - New York, NY —Salt Lake City, UT E-mail: [email protected] Unsolicited Manuscripts: All material will be read by the Woman-Friendly Corporations editors. Articles should not be more than 2,000 words. All editing I am a white MBA/CPA, and a victim of decisions are at the discretion of the editors. Feminist cartoons are Being a retired General Motors autoworker, domestic violence. While feminists say also acceptable under the same provisions. I appreciated learning from your review of domestic violence strikes all classes, inter- ON THE ISSUES does not accept fiction or poetry. The Feminist Dollar [Spring 1998] that G.M. vention services aren't set up for working Advertising accepted at the discretion of the publisher. tops the 'Svoman-friendly" list. women. I can't even get counseling at night; Acceptance does not imply endorsement. I can remember when women came into and I really need counseling. Crisis staffers Publisher's Note our workforce in the early 1970s. It was a asked me seven times if I received public The opinions expressed by contributors and by those we inter- monumental effort, which took a lawsuit and assistance because they have trouble believ- view are not necessarily those of the editors. On The Issues: The Progressive Woman's Quarterly is a forum where women may several courageous women to accomplish. ing a professional like me can be a victim. have their voices heard without censure or censorship. G.M. would not have made the list, however, But my economic status hasn't stopped the Subscription Information: without the efforts of the U.A.W. Many of the man from hurting me. 1 year $14.95; 2 years $25; 3 years $34.95. Institutional rate: benefits are union-negotiated, and most were We need to destroy stereotypes about Add $10 first year, $5 each additional year. Add $4 per year for won by strikes and tedious negotiations. victims of domestic violence in order for Canadian orders; $7 per year foreign (surface mail) or $20 per Tommy R. Gomez - Norman, OK working women to obtain help. year foreign (air mail). Send to On The Issues: The Progressive —Name withheld by request. Woman's Quarterly, PO Box 3000, Dept. OTI, Denville, NJ 07834. A Magazine for Women with Brains Periodicals postage paid at Flushing, NY, and additional mailing offices. As a women's studies graduate of U.C. OTI welcomes letters and considers Berkeley who just checked out your web site, them for publication in the magazine Customer Service 1-800-783-4903 I'm thrilled to have found you! It is wonder- and on its web site, unless otherwise Advertising and Sales: (718) 459-1888, ex. 270 ful to see some insightful, (usually) well- specified. Letters may be edited for clar- Postmaster: Send address changes to On The Issues: thought-out articles. While I don't agree with The Progressive Woman's Quarterly, PO Box 3000, ity and space. Send to OTI, 97-77 Queens Dept. OTI, Denville, NJ 07834. everything, the dialogue that has been estab- Blvd., Suite. 1120, Flushing, NY 11374, Copyright © 1998 by Merle Hoffman Enterprises, Ltd. lished is rich and complex. Kudos for having or e-mail- [email protected].

4 - summer 1998 on the issues

have never liked Bill Clinton. I voted for him in 1992 What's a Feminist to Do? I primarily because of the abortion issue. I remember my revulsion when I learned that, dur- By Merle Hoffman ing the 1992 presidential campaign, Governor Clinton flew back to Arkansas to oversee the execution of Ricky Feminists may need to practice realpolitik to get the Ray Rector, a man so brain-damaged from a self-inflict- least bad candidate elected and the needed bills vetoed ed gunshot wound to the head that he asked for his or passed, but feminism—even mainstream feminism— unfinished piece of cake to be left in his cell for him to must continually articulate the transformative goals of eat when he returned from his execution. How Clinton the movement. To resist critiquing Clinton's admitted handled Bosnia once he became President was another and alleged bad behavior is to lose sight of the critical place we parted company—the way he refused to call vision of feminism. And it misses the larger message: By the mass killings there genocide because that would my feminist standards, Bill Clinton has defined leader- require an official intervention. I could go on—to all the ship down. Moreover, when we judge his actions in pure- "reforms," like health care, welfare, and campaign ly operational terms, by stretching the distance between ethics—but suffice it to say that Bill Clinton is far from the vision and the reality, we are in danger of defining being a progressive or a feminist. feminism down. I am no naif. I know that politics is the art of com- In "Feminists and the Clinton Question," a master- promise, and that, as one major liberal New York politi- ful display of realpolitik feminism published in The New cal operative told me long ago, "There are no issues, only York Times, Gloria Steinem writes that if all the sexual elections." And, yes, I have read Machiavelli and can rec- ognize and admire Clinton's brilliant political manipu- lations—his enormous strategic empathy and his ol ous leadership talents at a technical level; but there is a vast difference between intelligence and wisdom, between intellectual agility and psycho- logical depth. Personally, I cannot relate to his alleged charisma, or experience his legendary charm. While I recognize that many women find he has an erotic appeal (power being an aphrodisiac), I always experi- ence him as transparently exploitive. Clinton does deserve credit for his continuing support of abortion rights, particularly his two vetoes of "partial birth" abortion bills. The fact that he often acts like a 12-year-old boy, and is alleged to treat a number of individual women with profound dis- respect, does not negate the above. What it does negate is any reason to respect him as an individual or as a moral leader. True political leadership is about more than sup- allegations against Clinton are true, then he may be "a porting the appropriate policies and legislative agenda. candidate for sex addiction." She also cites polls that It is ultimately about defining a broader social meaning show many Americans believe Clinton is lying, but that within the context of communal values. Moral and there is sympathy for keeping "private behavior pri- visionary leadership should inspire people to be more vate." Indeed, as of this writing, Clinton's job approval than the least of their abilities. It should represent ratings have never been higher. courage, loyalty, fortitude, authenticity, honesty, and This feminist defense of Clinton fails adequately to intellectual integrity. critique "alleged" egregious, immoral conduct because it Where does feminism fit into all this? That depends. is "private," and/or "has not been proven in a court of Feminism as a vision, as a radical way of defining and law" (as if one can find absolute truth there!), and so redefining the world, depends on judgments, often criti- should not be judged. cal ones. Feminism as realpolitik—as practiced in every- Yes, tolerance and non-judgmentalism are often day reality—often has to suspend those judgments. The positioned as the quintessential American virtues. But ideologist asks the question: "Is it good for women?" The considering the nuanced definitions of sexual harass- politician asks: "Is this the best we can do for women ment that resulted in the recent dismissal of the Paula now?" The visionary holds to a higher standard, and Jones suit, and the partisan contamination of the entire takes the longer view. situation, it should not be the primary feminist virtue. on the issues - 5 on the issues

I am not arguing for "traditional morality," No passionate love let! or for Presidents to be monks. But it is unrealis- tic at best, and utterly naive at worst, to think to kiss it—not even to kiss me. that in this era of media saturation, and given the litigious, adversarial culture of current elec- toral politics, anyone in a powerful political position can one woman accusing him of sexual harassment charged have an authentically private life. Indeed, if the person- him with abusing his power or penalizing her, he was al is truly political, as the mantra goes, how can femi- forced to resign his office. At the time, Patricia Ireland, nists of any ideological stripe ignore the issue of presi- president of the National Organization for Women (then dential "character," which is the public manifestation of as now), declared that whatever good Packwood had a personal value structure? This is a heavy price for any- done for the women's movement had to be viewed in the one in public office to have to pay, but when one is the context of asking: "Can we be bought? And if so, how leader of the "free world," I think it should be paid. cheap?" (To her credit, Ireland has been one of the few Clinton and the defenders of his privacy are like mainstream feminists to speak out against Clinton's those celebrities whose very existence is dependent on conduct, though not until after the Kathleen Willey media coverage, yet who rail at the "intrusion" of the appearance on 60 Minutes.) press when it is tarnishes their image. There is a won- The reaction to my article was fascinating. Because derful scene in the movie Primary Colors where the can- I asked the question: "How is it that any man could didate Jack Stanton, played by John Travolta, complains make us feel like a dog, something less than human, just that "I just can't catch a break," after he's accused of by attempting a boorish pass?" I was castigated for being impregnating a teenage girl. It is classic Clinton: All the insensitive, classist, and not sufficiently "feminist." troubles, scandals, and difficulties that beset him are When Clinton is the issue, however, liberal feminists caused by others—his enemies, "right-wing conspira- seem far more willing to cut the man some slack. cies." He is just misunderstood! Susan Faludi, writing in the New York Observer, sees the issue as a battle between two types of women— The Ultimate Bad Boy the girls and the grown-ups—both of which use the lan- Clinton is the golden child of Entitlement—the ultimate guage of feminism, but to different ends. It is a "desper- bad boy, the lovable rogue, someone who is not responsible ately important battle," she explains, which will deter- for his behavior. And what behavior! There is not even a lit- mine "far more then the sexual behavior of Mr. Clinton." erary or romantic saving grace to these alleged encounters: Faludi separates the two this way: "On the one side No passionate love letters (copies of Whitman's Leaves of we have feminism as channeled through the Spice Girls Grass notwithstanding), no dark night of the soul; just a and Fiona Apple. This is 'Girl Power,' which is derived demand to kiss it—not even to kiss me. only by celebrating yourself, ideally via your injuries; Comparing Clinton's alleged singular "clumsy sexu- gaining power by talking about what was done to you." al pass" at Paula Jones with Bob Packwood's "offensive She defines Girl Power as enforcing the traditional behavior that was continued for years," Steinem gives female role of taking no responsibility for yourself. It is Clinton brownie points because, even after he dropped by definition a "destructive power aimed at bringing his pants and asked for oral sex, he accepted no for an down the bogeyman, by having a sulk 'n' sob in front of answer. Steinem would medicalize Clinton's problem. If adults," she writes. Prime examples of this Girl Power the boy did it, then he must have an addiction. Ergo, he mentality are Clinton's accusers—Gennifer Flowers, is a victim—unlike Bob Packwood, who, even with his Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky. own addiction (alcoholism), remains a predator. On the other side, we have what Faludi calls As previously reported in these pages (Winter 1994), exhibit A: a grown-up—Hillary Rodham Clinton. "If fem- in an encounter with then-Senator Packwood, in the inism is about anything," she writes, "it is about women middle of Park Avenue, I was the recipient of one of his growing up, about becoming mature and equal players infamous unrequested and non-consensual tongue kiss- in public life." Mrs. Clinton is an exemplar of the ability es. I wrote that, because Packwood had no direct power to see "what happened to you in proportion" and know over me, I "felt no shame or amazement." Even though I "when the public good outweighs your having a temper found the attempted kiss annoying, "I still respected the tantrum in public over a personal offense." Senator in the morning." Mrs. Clinton, Faludi says, embodies the other defin- Realpolitik dictated that I differentiate between the ing trait of feminism, working for the "sisterhood" as public politician, who was one of the strongest support- opposed to working for oneself, the way Linda Tripp ers of women's rights, and the private man, who was a and Susan Carpenter-McMillan have. Tripp betrayed bit of a nerd, somewhat of a boor, and an alcoholic (this Lewinsky by taping her, and Carpenter-McMillan, Paula last condition ultimately being his public rationale for Jones's former adviser, treated Jones 'Tike some dress-up his outrageous behavior). Barbie Doll." Their crime is not "thinking about freeing But Packwood was a Republican, and although not women fromth e stereotyped boxes that traditional society has 6 - summer 1998 fcrs, no dark night of the soul; just a mists grown-up only when they act like good middle-class housewives and ignore or deny infidelity and betrayal in emo- tionally inauthentic ways? Faludi claims that "Girl Power is all placed them in." about women staying in that most traditional of femi- In my view, Hillary Clinton is the main actor in that nine roles: as enforcers of public morality whose power traditional box: Good, dutiful, avenging wife standing by as social conscience derives directly from their political and speaking for her man at all costs, even to the point powerlessness." According to that definition, Hillary is a of smearing the women who have accused him. Her pub- girl through and through, not a woman. lic display of dissociation equals that of Joan Kennedy Let me make a disclosure here. Although currently and Lee Hart. living separately from my spouse, I am married, and I For Faludi, Hillary Clinton is a grown-up because would absolutely agree with Mrs. Clinton when she says she refuses to acknowledge that her husband has very that "the only people who count in any marriage are the publicly and continually, if reports are to be believed, two that are in it." I know firsthand about loyalty, made a fool of her. But let's face it, Hillary acquired her betrayal, jealousy, emotional bargaining, and personal power the old-fashioned way—she married it. What compromise for the "good of the relationship." kind of non-traditional role is that? But when a marriage involves two public figures, The feminist movement always had a great stake in and when those two are the President and the First Hillary as a feminist icon, but what is she now? How can Lady, then the marriage counts for something more. It we hold her up as a "role model" of a woman who has becomes a metaphor of the family, the First Family, made her own life, who has put herself on the line for a.k.a. the royal family, and it is through this couple and her principles? Rather than doing anything for the sis- their relationship with each other and with the country ters, she has transformed herself into that most tradi- that we come to define an idealized set of American val- tional of women, the most Victorian of examples, the ues. Behavior within that marriage is not private. It most enabling of partners. spills out and affects everyone. Witness the orgy of pub- lic and media attention to events at the White House. Neither Gallant Gentleman nor Feminist Americans yearn to have a royal family. In its place, Bill Clinton has shown no public respect for his wife, and we have created the "National Entertainment State" out if we are to believe the many accusations still standing of the Washington/Hollywood Celebrity Axis—though against him despite the dismissal of the Paula Jones ironically, there may be more authenticity in the British case, none for individual women. Power partnerships aristocracy than in our first families. After all, Edward aside, it is one thing to discreetly have a mistress; it is VIII gave up the throne to "marry the woman I love," quite another to be unable to keep your pants up, or your and Princess Di walked out of the palace to find a more hands off, young women who are working for you. This authentic existence. is no gallant gentleman, and certainly no "feminist." I am not asking Bill to resign to marry the woman All women become the same woman, objectified into he loves. It appears he loves nothing but power and no "that woman." one but himself. The constitution doesn't consider unreg- In a sense, Hillary has positioned herself as the ulti- ulated erections an impeachable crime. But feminists mate victim—an intelligent, ambitious political woman should call it as it is. If feminism is to count for anything who hitched her star to her husband's trajectory and beyond a mere interest group, we must vigilantly guard suffers from his detours. Which makes her, and her mar- its vision. We cannot bend it to compromise, or change riage, particularly dicey for feminists to support. Her direction in response to popularity polls. Our standards defense of her husband on the Today show—by posi- should be raised even higher for those in public life who tioning all charges as examples of a "right-wing conspir- would carry our banner or espouse our principles. acy"—was a masterful performance, as Faludi points Acknowledging that some of Bill Clinton's policies have out; but was it a feminist one? Maybe in a larger sense been good for some women does not require feminists to it was: She was showing the world that marriage really close their eyes, to become apologists, to find excuses for, is what radical feminists have long claimed it was—an or redefine, outrageous behavior. economic and security (or power, in the case of Mrs. Indeed, because the women's vote was instrumental Clinton) bargain in which the woman is required to look in Clinton's victories, Clinton should be held to an even the other way as her husband takes his pleasure outside higher standard in both personal and political behavior. the relationship. But neither feminists nor anyone else Clinton owes women. He owes us big. And payment call her behavior dissociated, or see her as someone who comes not only in vetoes, or in electoral or legislative has completely sold out, or essentially lives through the coin. He must articulate the vision in his everyday life. public role she has created. Instead, she is viewed as the He must understand that the personal is the political. prime example of responsible, adult feminism. Are fem- And that is the real realpolitik of feminism. • on the issues - 7 ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTHERHOOD world of their mothers, in order to receive their By Phyllis Chesler father's or the world's blessing. Now, in his 20th year, Ariel towers over me—not fair, I jest: I should be taller, since I've read more books than he has. I am, of course, kay, I've had it: With all those perfectly nice peo- proud of his height, in every sense. He's not merely pro- ple who remain indifferent to the poetics of moth- mother, he's pro his own mother! Quietly, he's changed O erhood, if not hostile to real mothers and chil- his name to mine. dren—their own, but strangers' too. I've had it with the How have I managed to wrest a feminist son from contempt, both spoken and left unsaid, toward those of this world? Was this destined, was it something I did, us who believe—dare I say it?—that the experience of or something my son brought with him—his gift to me? motherhood, even under patriarchy, is an incompara- Is he "mine," philosophically, because his father aban- ble human rite of passage. A plague upon those femi- doned him—and I was all he had? I doubt it; too often, nists who were so angry at what motherhood had done this scenario leads other, similarly father-wounded to their own mothers (or the pain their mothers had sons and daughters into overly prizing the absent passed along) that they remained hostile to biological father, taking the omnipresent mother for granted. motherhood in general—the mothers of boys in partic- I once thought that men could also do the work of ular—and who were no friendlier to children underfoot mothering/parenting—that, like women, men too could than were most corporate executives. Two plagues go far beyond the obligations of economic support. And upon those moralizing anti-feminists who felt (feel some do. But more don't. still) that mothers must marry both husbands and My son's father took excellent, maternal care of houses, and bury themselves alive, full-time, "for the him when he was an infant. He stayed home and kept sake of the children." the serial housekeepers company; took our son to his Please understand: The sentimentalizing and corn- doctors' appointments, and to the park, daily; changed modification of motherhood that occurs once yearly, on his diapers more expertly than I; was always calm in Mother's Day, impresses me even less. Also, being told an emergency. When this man left, I was certain that that God wants (married) women to procreate and that he would not divorce our son, too. all who refuse His commandment are evil or crazy elic- I was wrong. its naught but a fine pagan fury in me. And I admit it: I wish we could raise young boys to be the kind of I have no respect for governments that put profits first men who will never abandon a child, and who do not and people last, that do not provide paid maternity require wifely subordination in return for staying. In a leave (the United Nations reported that the United sense, whether they are married or not, most mothers States is one of six nations among 152 surveyed world- are single; that is, they shoulder the lioness's share of wide that fail to do so), guaranteed family income, and home and child-care responsibilities. It is, arguably, the health care for their most productive citizens. hardest job on earth. Unmarried single motherhood is Make no mistake: I do not romanticize mothers or harder still. It means working 12 to 18 hours a day, motherhood. The working conditions are inhumane, seven days a week; enduring escalating expenses and the choice to mother more forced than free. (No one a decline in both income and "prospects"; having little offers girls a choice: Do you want to run a small coun- time to spend on adult-only social or sexual diversions. try, study to be an astronaut, physician, musician, On the other hand, the children of single mothers stockbroker? Or would you rather be an unpaid, over- tend to develop a more balanced, human Self, embody- worked, probably impoverished, isolated, not-much- ing both "masculine" and "feminine" traits. Sons cook, loved mother of one to four children who are complete- do the family laundry; daughters repair toilets. ly dependent upon you?) The Forced Motherhood A good thing—but purchased by great maternal Experience does not transform every woman into a sacrifice. saint. Some blossom; others, martyred, shrivel. istorically, most writers and thinkers, both women Men can also nourish children. I have always been and men, have not been mothers—or have drawn to maternal men. Indeed, many daughters of my H not written on the subject. This is a profound, col- generation remember fathers, not mothers, as having lective, loss. "Mother-writers" (the phrase is Tillie nourished them into heroism. Olsen's) have, in the past, often been condemned to Twenty-one years have passed since I was first long periods of "silence." Instead of writing, they did pregnant, with Ariel, my only child. In the beginning, the washing, darned the socks, mended the dresses, we were raw strangers to each other, mere possibilities; tended the vegetable garden, cooked, preserved, baby- as he aged, we grew, miraculously, closer. We continue tended, child-tended, husband-tended, entertained, to defy the so-called normal course of "development," in attended church. ... I am haunted by the accounts of which young boys, girls too, are supposed to reject the great (not merely mediocre, but extraordinary) mother- 8 - summer 1998 writers who had to put off writing entirely, or for larger than myself. almost half a lifetime, and who could never write full- For me, motherhood was something of a reverse time, or while in a rested state, because there never Zen experience. In the beginning, I had no responsibil- was anyone to replace them. ities other than to my ideas. I was a nun, a warrior. For Most mother-writers had no wife, and no baby- me, having a child was a passage from detachment to sitters, either. attachment. I often wonder if the "mad" Sylvia Plath might After Ariel—oh, how the earth pulled me down, have lived a bit longer if only she'd had a live-in grounded me, deepened my imaginative reach. I babysitter that last cold winter in London—a wifely learned that I could not do everything for everyone, husband, a male Muse willing to become the Angel that certain limitations are not always transcendable: in the House so that his wife, the great poet, could I could not be in two places at the same time; saying compose undisturbed. "yes" to one commitment meant saying "no" to another. Harriet Beecher Stowe had no room of her own; Naive? Perhaps, but nothing else ever taught me such she lived for others—six children and a large extended simple life-lessons. family. Thus, she could only write sporadi- As I lifted up the unbearable burden of cally, in the interstices between her end- one small life, I felt like Atlas holding the less other tasks. Like Charlotte Perkins world on his shoulders. I had to trust that I Gilman and Rebecca Harding Davis, For me, would keep my balance, even when I was Stowe, too, finally had a "breakdown." I losing it. Just as I discovered that "I" was would too—wouldn't you, if you wanted to having not needed during labor, so I began to write a book that would "make this whole understand that there are forces at work in nation feel what an accursed thing slavery a child the universe beyond human consciousness. is," but your domestic duties would not It was upon becoming a mother that allow you to get to Uncle Tom's Cabin for was a I started to comprehend that life does nearly 15 years? not stand still, that it is always changing, mother-writer must become ruthless. passage growing, dying, renewing. For years, As others (Sappho, Adrienne Rich, when I looked in the mirror, I looked the AToni Morrison, Mary Gordon, to men- from "same" to myself. Time only became real tion just a few) have said: a child is, for me when I began to measure it by arguably, a woman's greatest love. On her detachment my son's obvious, visible growth. Time offspring's behalf, she must sleep less; became more finite. I comprehended, in my accept no social engagements; write quick- to body, that I would die. ly, and for only a few, precious, hours at a I learned to find ways to balance intel- time, while her child is sleeping, or in attachment. lectual and revolutionary work with the school; above all, she must be able and work of mothering and earning money. willing to put her work aside when her This is hard to do. Balancing—shifting young child needs her. one's weight while juggling at least five I was not this kind of mother-writer. I balls in the air without falling down or wrote at home, but my door was absolutely shut dropping any of the balls—is both an art and a when I was writing. True, I always paid someone to be process. I am still learning how to do it. On any given "on duty" in my place. Often, that woman judged me day, I, like so many other mothers, had not only to harshly for turning my back on my child. Sometimes, earn my keep—which, in my case, took anywhere from my son did, too. nine to twelve hours— I also had to spend both quan- Ariel has written an introduction to the 1998 edi- tity and quality time with Ariel, supervise the house- tion of my book With Child: A Diary of Motherhood. He keeperfoabysitter, attend one of Ariel's after-school writes: "My mother's office door is shut, but that means activities, phone other parents about summer camps, nothing to me I knock calmly on her door and enter pediatricians, clothing sales.. . . Within a single week, before she can reply. Her books surround her as usual I might place five calls to arrange for paternal visita- tion, shopping for clothing, food, surprises; organize a and she sits with a pen in hand. 'I'm off-duty!' she museum visit, a baseball game, a birthday party, a hol- informs me. I do not comprehend that phrase, and iday gathering. . . . There's much, much more. reply, You are not a taxi, Mom. I need to talk to you.'" Touche—little brother, sister-writer. Giving birth, becoming a new-born mother was, Before I became a mother, my ego knew no for me, both a humbling, and an empowering experi- bounds. I never lost "control." I thought I could over- ence. For a long time afterward, when I met people I'd come all obstacles through the force of my will, not visualize them being born, or giving birth; hence, I was by bending to circumstance, or trusting in forces not much impressed by out- —continued on page 57 on the issues - 9 talking feminist

THE NOSE JOB by Sherryl Kleinman like Daddy," I get the joke: to share what they saw?" Mine is a man's nose on a lit- I'm not going to tell my story. My tle girl's face. images don't fit the assignment. But t's the start of a two-day workshop It is 1965. I'm 13, sitting on my that's not the only reason. Barry, a Jewish Ititled "Racism and Sexism on bed in the room I share with my sister, leftist and colleague, will think I'm either Campus." Enrolled along with me are my admiring the coeds in Seventeen maga- giving away tribal secrets or wallowing in colleagues who teach undergraduate zine. My mother appears at our bedroom personal trivia. And will my images courses that satisfy the university's new door, hesitates, then walks in slowly, unleash the anti-Semitism that my parents cultural diversity requirement. Fifteen as if the weight of her thoughts had taught me lurks in the heart of every undergraduates—mostly African- sunk to her legs. She's going to tell me Gentile? "See, they can't even be good to American women—are also attending. someone died. their own children!" Since the workshop leaders are psychol- "I've talked with your father," she I remain silent. Tracy, an African- ogists, I assume we will be exploring the says. "We're going to find the thousand American student, talks about touching her roots of our own racism. dollars to get you a nose job." white teacher's hair and thinking it felt I'm the white feminist who teaches Now I know the truth: If my parents nice, unlike her own hair. Monica remem- courses on race, class and gender. I've are willing to go broke to change my bers having a crush on a white boy when been doing it for seven years. You'd nose, to make me look better, this nose she was six, and having him turn to her and think I'd be confident going into the first is worse than I thought. "Is it that bad?" say, "Why do you have such fat lips?" Then session of this workshop, but instead, I ask. My eyes are stinging with tears, she shows us how she bit her lips for hours I've got performance anxiety. and I'm sure my nose is turning red and every day to try to make them thinner. The workshop leader, Phil, asks us puffy, growing as wide as it is long, right Phil asks Monica if she'd talked to to sit in a circle. "Think back to the first before my mother's eyes. her mother about it. She hadn't. "If you time you met a person of a different "No, no. It's not terrible," she says. had," says Sybil, a colleague, "you know race, ethnic group or religion," he "Let me show you." Show me? "Just two what she'd have said. 'You're beautiful just begins. "Close your eyes if that feels things to fix. We take just a little off as you are.'" comfortable." that," she says, lightly sweeping my Astonished, I look at Sybil. "I would An image of my family appears— bump with her index finger. Then she never have heard that in my family," I blurt. mother, father, brother, sister. What are moves her finger to the tip of my nose "It's in my family where I felt ugly." I feel they doing here? I'm supposed to be and pushes it up, gently. "And just a lit- heat spread up my neck and across my thinking about others. I close my eyes tle lift here, not much at all. Only a face as I begin to tell the story of my nose. tighter, but they won't go away. They are small nose job." When I'm done, I'm convinced my looking at my nose. I hear what they are I know that they break your nose in mother has overheard and that a telegram thinking: Sherryl is ugly and it's all order to fix it. I run from the room cry- will arrive any minute: "Why did you have because of her big nose. ing. I will not do this. to tell? STOP Your hurt mother STOP" Another image: I'm in a dressing For years I wonder, did I chicken out Hoping to ward off the anti-Semitism room with my mother, trying on what she or did I have principles? I'm sure my story encourages, I jump to calls "an outfit." "You're so skinny," she sociological analysis. "As I see it, this says. "Why don't you have a nice figure Her Intent - A Good Husband story is about internalized oppression— like your sister?" My sister is five years My mother doesn't mention surgery gender oppression as well as anti- older and, like my mother, has a nice again, though I know her offer remains Semitism. It was bad to have a Jewish nose. My nose stands out all the more, open. Only later did I grasp her intent. nose even if you were a man, because, I've been made to know, because it's She was trying to help me get a good after all, it was a Jewish nose, not just a glued to a skinny face on a boyish body. Jewish husband, a "professional man," big nose. But the real tragedy was when a "Never let anyone photograph you in by making me look less Jewish. girl had that nose." profile," my mother says. "And lift your After I save my nose from the knife, Phil says, "I'm glad you told that head when they take your picture; your I figure out how to save myself. I get story. It shows that groups that have less nose will look smaller." funny. I make better jokes about my power can take on the messages of the When did my nose become a family nose than anyone else, even my brother. powerful group, and pass those along to joke? My father has a big nose and no Phil's voice intrudes and pulls me insiders." one makes fun of him. But when my back to the circle. "Open your eyes Barry adds, "Sherryl's story is power- brother announces, "You have a nose slowly." He pauses. "Would anyone like ful because it shows us the narrow range 10 - summer 1998 of acceptable images out there." "Yes, a 30 years ago. believe them. narrow range," I say, "whether it's lips, "Ancient history," my mother I discovered I could be beautiful hair or noses. The three of us have suf- would say, as she always does, when I only outside the Jewish community. fered because of gendered images of bring up done-me-wrongs from the past. I linked up with Gentiles beauty we couldn't live up to." It is anti-Semitism that has led who didn't know what a Jew was. I'm worried about having put my Jews to hate "Jewish noses," but not And for whom my nose was just story in the same league as Tracy's and every Gentile is anti-Semitic. I learned a nose. • Monica's. this when I left my mostly Jewish high "I can pass as non-Jewish and have school and made friends with non-Jews Sherryl Kleinman is a professor of soci- most of the privileges of white people," I at college. At first I thought they were ology at the University of North add. But knowing this doesn't dispel my being polite when they said they didn't Carolina, Chapel Hill. anger as I think back to my near-surgery get my "nose jokes," but I came to

LOVING LONG-DISTANCE Notes from a Lesbian Mom friend. And then there was the Knowing nothing about lesbianism, I By Westry Green famous Sharon Bottoms case in often felt confused and alone. And to which a grandmother won cus- compound my confusion, and despite tody away from her lesbian using condoms, I became pregnant. I y partner kissed me one morning daughter. It would have been naive for had just turned 18. M last May and whispered, "Happy me to expect anything other than dis- Calvin was born in November Mother's Day." This was a holiday I was crimination at the hands of the court, 1990. I naively assumed that nothing "allowed" to celebrate, yet I didn't feel especially in my conservative Ohio much would change after his birth, that justified in claiming it as my own. community of 15,000 people. It's a town Chris and I would continue to live For the past two years, I have been of almost as many churches as restau- apart and I would do most of the child- only a part-time mom, a summertime rants, a town that has elected an rearing. Our parents, however, rea- guardian of my energetic and smart- avowed racist to the U.S. House of soned that if I liked Chris enough to ly-sarcastic seven-year-old who is now Representatives, and where anti-abor- have his child, I must like him enough so tall that we joke he'll soon be able to tion activism is the most dynamic polit- to want to marry him. And Chris him- give me piggyback rides. Although I am ical movement. self thought marrying was the right away from him for nine months of the We had moved there when I was a thing to do. I resisted. I'd never really year, we still manage to have an amaz- depressed, anorexic 16-year-old. planned on marriage being part of my ingly close bond. We're like two sides of Shortly after, I met Chris, my first and life, but finally, when Calvin was one person—put us together and we are only boyfriend, in my high school 13-months-old, and I was 20,1 wearily complete. But I keep wondering how trigonometry class. As agreed to get married. long it will take for the separation to the new girl on the block I tried convincing affect him, for our closeness to crumble? I felt like an outsider, and myself of all the benefits I never wanted to be a part-time the fact that I wasn't a of marriage: it would be mother, but given the situation in my big-haired cheerleader better for Calvin, it hometown, it was either that or no-time type, so popular there, would bring some finan- parenting. If you've read the news only made me feel more cial assistance, and it about custody disputes involving les- alone. Chris was the one would give me a little bian mothers, you'll understand. A man person who understood respect. The wedding who is a convicted murderer has been me, who was there for me was a somber affair; the deemed a better parent than the les- when I was at my lowest. ceremony was held in a bian mother. In my state, Ohio, a judge He and I had an judge's chamber, and the granted custody of two children to their on-and-off relationship during my first bride wore black. previously absent father because their semester at a local college. But some- Having declared a Gender Studies bisexual mother moved in with her girl- thing wasn't right between us. minor, I spent the next several years on the issues - 11 talking feminist

studying such eye-openers as Simone of 1996 I was offered a terrific career But during that fight it was made de Beauvoir, Mary Wollstonecraft and opportunity in my field, journalism. clear to me that if I fought a custody the early matriarchies. I blossomed The job was in New York City. Feeling battle I would lose not only my son but into a radical feminist and, as such, that some distance might help me sort also my strength, my self-esteem, and supported gay rights, which in our out my life, I accepted the offer. whatever stability Calvin had left. town was not a popular stand to take. Chris and I agreed that Calvin Caving in, compromising, would bring When a literature professor assigned would stay with him for the time being, some tranquility to the insanity that Lisa Alther's Kinflicks, a until I decided if it was the right move. was filling not just my life, but also lesbian-themed book from the 1970s, I spent the first several months shut- Calvin's. I caved in: I was not willing to there was a grumbling of negative tling back and forth between New York risk harming my child. comments from my classmates. The and Ohio, torn between where I should I am angry with myself for "giving only openly gay student on campus live, and how. Every time I said goodbye up." I am angry at the people who act as transferred out after repeated harass- to Calvin I cried the entire flight back if I must be some sort of monster to be ment and beatings. This to New York. I missed his denied my son. I want to explain that I was the climate in which first day of kindergarten gave him up because I couldn't bear I was awakening to my and his first loose tooth. seeing him sobbing, "STOP IT! sexuality. Remarkably, Seeing that a large part of MOMMY! STOP IT, DADDY!" when For two years I tried his life no longer involved Chris and I were screaming at each to ignore my feelings for today me was torture. Then one other. I gave him up because I was not other women but the Calvin day Calvin told me he was willing to place him in the middle of an desire, anxiety, euphoria glad I lived in New York: interminable battle. I gave him up and heartbreak began to is a "Now you and Daddy because I love him. What it cost me choke me. Eventually I don't fight," he explained. emotionally I hope he never knows. let Chris in on my secret well-adjusted With that I knew for sure Remarkably, today Calvin is a passion. At first it was first-grader that I needed to make well-adjusted first-grader whose just sexual-fantasy talk, New York my permanent favorite New York activity is riding the which didn't threaten whose home. And I wanted my subway. He likes my partner and enjoys him—he bought me a son with me. playfully ganging up on her with me. lesbian romance novel favorite Chris refused. "You'll He doesn't find it odd that she is a and we rented lesbian New York never take Calvin away woman. porn videos, which he from me," he yelled. His During the school year we have found as exciting as I activity is parents sided with him, long telephone conversations every did. Later, I was able to telling me I was unfit, as a night. He tells me every meal and talk more openly about riding the lesbian, to be a mother. snack he ate that day. We talk about my sexuality. It was a subway. With this, Chris, and by astronomy, he'll read me the local turn-on for Chris to have extension, his family, sports page, we'll plan our summer (we a "bisexual" wife. It was became my enemy. His are going to the Library of Congress, kinky and fun and even motivation in denying me his idea of heaven), 111 help him with improved our sex life. He never expect- custody was, in part, his rage over my his homework. To wind down our chats ed me to act out my desires. being able to find happiness without we send each other many air hugs and Around the time of my graduation, him. But his jealousy wouldn't win him kisses, which can take a while. But the I fell hard for a woman friend who was a custody battle. That would take out- best part is when he says he wants to a few years older than me. Though I ing me as a lesbian mother. If I tried to go now and play with his friend down never told her how I felt, Chris sudden- take Calvin, he threatened, he would the block, or get back to a video I sent ly realized that my interests were more use my sexuality against me in court. A him. This tells me that Calvin is than a sex game. "Would you leave me yelling match ensued, during which healthy, Calvin is okay with the way his for her?" he asked. He knew my answer Chris told our son that the reason I life is. I hang up and smile to myself, before I responded. moved away was because I didn't like and try to believe that what I did was What followed was eight months of boys. Horrified, I tried to explain to best for him. • screaming and crying, with Chris fling- Calvin the different types of love that ing every homophobic slur at me that adults feel. I am still not sure if he Westry Green lives in Brooklyn, New York he could come up with. The fights left understood. and writes for national magazines. me so physically and emotionally drained it was almost impossible to be On The Issues accepts personal-opinion essays for Talking Feminist of a caring parent. I knew I needed to up to 1,000 words in length for which we pay $125. Please send a self- make some major changes in my life, addressed stamped envelope with submissions. Our editors cannot com- and, coincidentally, during the summer ment unless articles are accepted.

12 - summer 1998 DESIGNINCOVER GSTOF PLAYING GOD, HAVE DOCTORS GONE TOO FAR?

by MAHIN HASSIBI, M.D.

y name is Michael Ross. I'm a condemned man most difficult things for me to deal with today is know- on Connecticut's death row," began the unso- ing that, had I begun receiving an Mlicited manuscript entitled "Reflections from of Depo-Lupron once a month I Death Row" in On The Issues' mail. "I'm the worst of women would be alive today. the worst, a serial killer and sexual sadist," it contin- "For some reason, be it beca ued, "who is responsible for the rape and murder of biological hook-up in my braii r some son eight women in three different states, who has assault- cal imbalance, testosteroi ie affects my mind ed several other women, and who has stalked and than it affects the mind of the average mak frightened many more. I have never denied what I did, In 1994, in Texas, Larry Don McQuay, a convicted and fully confessed to my crimes. The only issue in my child molester who was applying for parole after serv- case, from the beginning, has been my mental condi- ing six of his eight-year sentence, demanded to be cas- tion. For years I have been trying to prove that I am trated, at the expense of taxpayers. The news media suffering from a mental illness that drove me to rape reported that he claimed he needed help in curbing his and kill, and that this mental illness made me physi- sexual appetite for small children, because, while he cally unable to control my actions. I have met with lit- had not as yet killed any of his victims, he might do so tle success." in the future in order to prevent them from identifying Opinions were divided among the editorial staff at him. The media, running with the story, enthused OTI who read the manuscript. There is something about castration as a new strategy for righting sex unusual, if not cynical, about a killer and sexual tor- crimes. The result was a rush by legislators across the turer of women expecting to be published in a feminist country to introduce bills mandating chemical and/or magazine. The publisher thought OTI readers should surgical castration for a variety of repeat sex offenders be allowed not only to share in the horror and brutali- as a condition of parole. In many states, the bills ty depicted in the story, but to witness the man's sup- passed, and castration before parole is now law. posed redemptive striving. The editor was offended by Criminologists, however, are extremely concerned the self-pitying tone of the manuscript, and considered by the fact that legislators apparently assumed that his discussion of accepting "guilt" as convincing as Ted the problems of sex offenders strictly reside in their Bundy's, who said the same. She also questioned his genitals, rather than their personality, and hence con- meaning and intent. Was he arguing that he should not stitute an illness that is treatable. These experts point be executed, or receive a life sentence without possibil- out that it is the rage and the emotional imbalance ity of parole, because he is "cured"? characterizing sex offenders that need to be sup- From his writing, Ross comes across as a manipu- pressed, rather than their sexual drive per se. lative, self-centered, and grandiose individual. There is Testosterone, the so-called male sex hormone, which is no sign of those emotions which characterize a social- produced in the testes, is only one (although a major ized human being, or of an ability to grasp the depth of one) of several hormones known to be involved, along horror that his crimes engender. He writes: "I was with other chemical messengers essential to the body's plagued by repeated thoughts, urges, and fantasies of functioning, in normal sexual drive, sexual arousal, the degradation, rape, and murder of women. Having and sexual performance. To name just two: the "brain those unwanted thoughts, urges, and fantasies is a lot chemicals" dopamine and phenulethulamine, which like living with an obnoxious roommate." Ostensibly, are neurotransmitters (substances that "carry" infor- Ross's reason for submitting the article to OTI was to mation from one nerve cell to another), play a role in describe for an audience of women the "treatment" he sexual gratification. It is not yet known whether sex offenders produce more of any of these substances, is receiving while on the death row. He claims that including testosterone, than the rest of us. monthly injections of Depo-Lupron, which blocks the production of testosterone, have diminished the "suf- Even more worrisome than this lack of scientific fering" caused by his urges and thoughts. "One of the evidence: The effects of the two drugs commonly used in on the issues - 13 Surgeons playing God; with ambiguous genitals, that is inti 0.—castration.DepcLupronancan be neutralized bdy wjthout considering their underlying I other hormones, such as steroids, which are easy to obtain. Like athletes and body-builders, sex offenders are able to buy them on the street without a prescription. Nor have follow-up studies shown that castrated for those who had acted against the code of conduct or sex offenders have a lower recidivism rate than those the implicit expectations of the community. Abelard, who have not been "treated." (It should be noted that the 11th-century French intellectual and teacher, was the "recidivism rate" for a class of offenders is not the castrated at the behest of the angry relatives of true rate at which they resume committing crimes Heloise, his student, for having wed her in secret. In after their release, but the rate at which they are rear- 18th-century Italy, young boys were castrated in order rested. And that is subject to a multitude of factors, to maintain the purity of their voices; these castrati including the crime-fighting ability of a given police sang in operas in which women were forbidden to department.) appear. And until this century, eunuchs were employed In fact, this is not surprising. Experts in all disci- as the guardians of harems in order to prevent ques- plines dealing with sex offenders agree that these indi- tions about the paternity of children born to the viduals show defects and deficiencies in their emotion- numerous wives and concubines of Middle Eastern and al, psychological, and moral make-up. Hence mere cas- Asian potentates. In the West, also until this century, tration, whether chemical or surgical, will not "cure" surgeons removed women's clitorises, and later their them. Indeed, it may make them more violent. In a ovaries, to treat their "mental disorders," which were number of cases, chemical castration has been shown often considered to be the result of masturbation and to increase sex offenders' anger and aggression. There lesbianism. Women were "treated" in this fashion is also ample evidence demonstrating that the violence whether they were depressed, suffering from anxiety— associated with sexual battery is not treatable by any or refusing to toe the line dictated by society or their form of castration. families. Many hospitals in the U.S. performed the Michael Ross writes: "The monster within [me] is operation long after the method had fallen into disre- still present, but the medication has rendered him pute in Europe. impotent and banished him to the back of my mind." Historically, not all physicians have signed on to Fortunately, Ross is not free to roam the streets; but such programs. For example, the progressive Seventh- the fact that he has no contact with women also means Century Byzantine physician Paul of Aegina, com- that there is no way to assess how tightly this particu- menting on the practice of surgical castration, said lar monster is bound. that turning a normal body into an abnormal one was Castration of sex offenders is a medical or surgical inconsistent with his religious beliefs and professional manipulation of sexuality in order to achieve society's ethics. However, few such doubts about the morality of ends. Such manipulation, and the medical profession's the procedure have been raised by the medical profes- complicity in it, whether eagerly or reluctantly, is not sion of today, even though the FDA has not approved new. Physicians of the Byzantine era were compelled either Depo-Provera or Depo-Lupron for this pur- by the rulers of the day to castrate male children of pose—which means that neither the safety nor the defeated enemies, thus ending any hope that their de- effectiveness of these drugs for chemical castration, nor scendants might attempt to regain the power that was their long-term side effects, is reliably known. lost. During the Greco-Roman period, ambitious par- Medical and/or surgical "treatment" for conditions ents frequently had their sons castrated in childhood that have been redefined as "illnesses" and/or "aberra- to prepa hem for higher office. Eunuchs tions" by society and its agents in the medical profes- eld seni idministrative positions in both sion (who, in fact, often lead the charge) is not confined the mil r and *%overnme: because i was to efforts to reduce crime. Indeed, especially in the U.S., ssumed inable to begin their own dyr y or physicians in several specialities have "invaded" many lood line, y would have less motivation to betray aspects of life that heretofore were not considered the heir superiors. Wkjm province of medicine. Childbirth, for example, has been a was shment medicalized with the "justification" that in some cases 14 - summer 1998 V E R S T so reassign the gender of infants born rsexual or hermaphroditic youngsters, onsideri :kingly, few lological sex. e been opposition to this practice in al literature, One exception ed in th March 1997, edi Archives Pediatric and Adolescent Medici Drs. Milton Diamond and H. Keitl delivery may require extraordinary measures. As a Sigmundson, discussing the lor n effects of such consequence, this country has the highest rate of surgery on a boy who lost his penis at the age of three cesareans in the world, and many births are induced because of a surgical mishap, concluded that even in here to suit an obstetrician's golf or social schedule. cases where genitals are not clearly defined at birth, Similarly, doctors all too frequently consider immediate surgery and sex reassignment may menopause to be a disease in need of curing. the best course to follow. Physicians in the U.S. today are also decreeing It is interesting to t mtrast this quest f what shape and size human genitalia should be. Based cy"—read "perfection" f visible attributes— on little more than the medical profession's opinion on United States with the early Greeks' view of herma^M what is an acceptable size for a female clitoris, and rodites (the combination of Hermes and Aphrodite) as with even less knowledge about the long-term effects of people with special attributes of God and Goddess who the surgical procedure, surgeons proceed to excise deserve to be appreciated for their uniqueness. The those that are "too big," and therefore offend. [See "The Jewish Torah also recognizes hermaphrodites, as does Tyranny of the Esthetic," page 16.] They also lie to modern day India, whose Hijras are accepted by society. their young patients about what, in fact, they are We are on a slippery slope, indeed, when the med- doing, and encourage the child's parents to do so as ical profession maintains, falsely, that newborns (and well. The result is to severely traumatize the child, even young children) are psychosexually neutral and, causing lifelong physical and/or psychological prob- therefore, can be medically assigned a sex, and then lems, including sexual dysfunction, the inability to raised to accept a particular gender role. Yet leading experience sexual pleasure, identity confusion, and physicians at some of our top medical institutes have major difficulties in interpersonal relations. tinkered with human anatomy and physiology by per- Surgeons playing God also reassign the gender of forming mutilating surgery and/or prescribing power- infants born with ambiguous genitals, that is intersex- ful hormones, on the basis of social biases masquerad- ual or hermaphroditic youngsters, without considering ing as scientific findings. And advances in medical sci- their underlying biological sex. Children born with XY ence and surgical technology continue to provide the (male) chromosomes but with rudimentary penises are medical profession with more, and better, tools with surgically turned into "girls" who are proclaimed "nor- which to change, reassign, and regulate our bodies and mal," though they will never menstruate or be able to our behavior. The collusion between some consumers bear children. Girls with normal XX (female) chromo- seeking to change their own sex or their children's somes but whose clitorises are declared "abnormally appearance and doctors motivated by financial gain, long" undergo clitorectomies—the same procedure that individual hubris, and professional arrogance, has human rights activists have labeled "female genital increased the power of medicine. As treatment method- ologies are discovered or invented, the search for dis- mutilation" when it occurs in the developing world. In eases has intensified. The tyranny of esthetics, the dis- American hospitals such surgeries are carried out by satisfaction with the biological given and the desire to American doctors on American children every day. find quick-fix solutions for complex issues have found Another example: When young boys lose their medicine willing to undertake costly and dangerous penises as the result of trauma, such as a circumcision procedures based on little to no information, dubious gone awry, they are assigned the gender most conve- research and a shocking lack of concern for the overall nient for the surgeon carrying out the procedure—that health and well-being of society. • is, they are made outwardly female, given a "function- ing" vagina, instead of a new penis, because creating a Vagina" is easier. Conceptually, however, such a vagina Mahin Hassibi, M.D., is professor of clinical psychiatry at New is simply a receptacle for a penis. The distinct sensa- York Medical College in Valhalla, New York, and medical tions and sexual feelings of the individual concerned director of Choices Mental Health Center in New York City. on the issues - 15 COVER STORY

THE TYRANNY OF THE ESTHETIC n SURGERY'S MOST INTIMATE VIOLATION

Sexual conformity at the point of a knife is being forced on women whose genitals are declared not "normal" — with devastating results

BY MARTHA COVENTRY

Big aren't allowed in a U-shaped incision around my half-inch clitoris, America. By big, I mean over three-eighths of an inch remove it, and put it in a specimen dish to send to the for newborns, about the size of a pencil eraser. Tiny lab. He then closed the wound and stitched the skin up penises, under one inch, aren't allowed either. A big cli- over the stump. toris is considered too capable of becoming alarmingly Take no comfort in the fact that this took place 40 erect, and a tiny penis not quite capable enough. Such years ago. Today, most parents and doctors in this genitals are confounding to the strictly maintained country are still unable to see that a child has a right and comforting social order in America today, which to her or his own sexual body, even if that body is has everyone believing that bodies come in only two deemed "abnormal" by their standards. If a parent is ways: perfectly female and perfectly male. But geni- uncomfortable, a doctor can be found who will be will- tals are surprisingly ambiguous. One out of every ing to make irreversible changes in the child's body, in 2,000 babies is born with genitals that don't elicit the order to ease that discomfort. My gynecologist told me automatic "It's a girl!" or "It's a boy!" Many more have about a case in which he had been involved the year genitals that are perceived as "masculinized" or "femi- before: A woman brought her five-year-old daughter nized," although the child's sex is not in doubt. to his office in Minneapolis; the mother felt that the The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends child's clitoris was too big. He examined the girl and surgically altering these children between the ages of assured the mother that her daughter would grow six weeks and 15 months to fashion their bodies into into her clitoris, which was no longer than the end of something closer to perfection. Everyone can then his little finger. The mother left. A few weeks later, breathe easier, except for the child, who may well he was called into an operating room to help another spend the rest of her or his life trying to let the breath doctor who had run into trouble during a surgical pro- flow easy and full through the fear and shame created cedure. On the table, he found the same little girl by such devastating surgery. he had seen earlier. She was hemorrhaging from a cli- On a November night in 1958,1 was playing in the torectomy attempted by the second doctor, from bathtub in the cheery, country home of my childhood. instructions he had read in a medical text. My physi- I was six years old. My mother came in and sat on the cian stopped the bleeding, and managed to keep the edge of the tub, her kind face looking worried. I girl's clitoris mostly intact. glanced up at her, wondering, "Time to get out so It is not new in our culture to remove or alter the soon?" She told me that I had to go to the hospital the clitoris. Not so long ago, such surgery was commonly next day for an operation. I knew this was about some- practiced to prevent masturbation and "unnatural thing between my legs. My chest felt tight and there sexual appetites." Although such justifications still was a rushing sound in my ears. I begged not to go. lurk in the minds of parents and doctors ("Won't she Please. But my mother told me only that I must. Not a become a lesbian?" is a concern of many mothers word was said about what was going to happen or why. whose daughters have big clitorises), clitorectomies The next day, it took the surgeon 30 minutes to make gained new status toward the end of the 1950s, as a 16 - summer 1998 SUBSCRIBE NOW AND SAVE! Please enter my subscription to ON THE ISSUES: The Progressive Women's Quarterly

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III...ImlLL.II,.I,.11,1,,LI...II,LI,Mm! Martha Coventry as a child, with her father (left), and today (below).

metic reasons some five times a day in the U.S. The rules of the game are still the same as they were 40 years ago: Erase any sign of difference, tidy things up, and don't say another word. After I had my cli- "legitimate" way to torectomy, my innocent make a child with life became filled with fear and guilt. The atypical genitals feel secrecy surrounding my surgery began to and appear more normal. Surgical techniques learned undermine my entire sense of identity. I knew I had during World War II led to advances in the field of cos- had something between my legs cut off, and I could metic genital surgery; at about the same time, a new imagine only that it was a penis. Girls were medical discipline—endocrinology, the study of the Barbie-doll smooth, so there wasn't anything on a girl hormonal system—was established at Johns Hopkins to cut off. Was I really a boy? Or perhaps the horrible University Medical School. A child's body could now be thing I had somehow known about forever: hermaph- successfully altered by surgery and hormones to look rodite? The study of my father, a physician, was full of just about any way you wanted it to look. And the con- medical books, but I flipped through them quickly, troversial research into sex and gender roles by Johns drawn to the pictures of children with their eyes Hopkins' John Money, Ph.D., led doctors to believe blacked out, knowing there was something we shared, Just because your body may look "normal" is no guarantee that you will feel that way The truth is that the very thing surgery claims to save us from—a sense of differentness and abnormality—it quite unequivocally creates. that by changing that body, you could make the child yet terrified to find out what kind of freak I really was. into a "normal" male or female, both physically and Then, one night when I was 11 or 12,1 found my par- psychologically. Children could be made "right" if they ents, as they sat at the dining room table, looking at were born "wrong." And American medicine, and our studio pictures of my sisters and me. My mother held society at large, sees "imperfect" genitals as wrong. up my photo and I heard her say the word "boy." My That view is challenged by farsighted pediatric gut heaved. I was a boy. It was true. I blurted out, urologist Justine Schober, M.D., of Erie, Penn.: "Why "What was that operation I had?" My father turned to should we say that, because this is a variation, that it me and said, "Don't be so self-examining." I never had is a wrong variation? If all their faculties work, their the heart to tell this man who loved me so dearly that, sexual sensitivities work, why should we presume by keeping the truth from me that night, by trying to that their body is wrong?" But by seeing a child's body protect me from my own wondering mind and wan- as wrong and by labeling such a child "intersexed," we dering hands, he had sentenced me to a life of almost turn a simple variation on a theme into a problem that crippling fear in relation to my sexuality, even to a can and should be fixed. And fixed it usually is, by profound doubt of my right to be alive. surgery that sacrifices healthy erotic tissue for cos- It would be 25 years before I could begin to start on the issues - 17 COVER STORY

asking questions again. When I she would be a "very normal little finally pressed my dying father as girl," albeit one born without ovaries gently as I could for a reason why or a uterus. This was lie number one. he and my mother wanted my cli- Just because your body may look toris removed, he said, "We didn't "normal" is no guarantee that you want you to be mistaken for a her- will feel that way. The truth is that maphrodite." My father was a the very thing surgery claims to save surgeon. No doctor had us from—a sense of differentness patronizingly spun to him and abnormality—it quite unequivo- tales of "improperly formed cally creates. gonads," or lied to him about Left: Angela at age Doctors then told Angela's par- my medical condition, or told twelve. Above: ents that if she didn't have surgery him I would become a lesbian Angela today at 26, she might kill herself when she if I had a big clitoris, or pre- three years after found out that she was different tended that no other children she finally learned the truth about her from other girls. It had happened to like me existed. Just having a surgery and her another patient, the physicians said, child with an abnormal body sexuality. and it could happen to Angela. in Rochester, Minn., was bad Although such speculation is not a enough for my parents. But lie, it is also not the whole truth. In doctors do lie—to parents and my talks with scores of people with atypical genitals, to children, in a gross insult it is those who have been surgically altered as chil- to their intelligence and their dren and left alone with their trauma who most often right to the truth. Lying to children is a rule strictly become suicidal. The isolation from others who have adhered to, and enforced, by all but the most enlight- experienced what we are going through, the loneli- ened doctors. First the surgery steals your body ness, is what kills us. Angela's parents were justifiably from you, then lies confirm that there is so little frightened and agreed to the surgery. respect for you as a human being that you don't even The final lie was to Angela herself, with her dis- deserve the truth. traught parents' complicity. She was told, at her physi- X Marks the ... cians' suggestion, that her nonexistent ovaries could Angela Moreno was a happy child growing up in the become cancerous and that she would have to go into late seventies in Peoria, 111. She was fairly sexually the hospital and have them removed. precocious with herself, and became very familiar with In 1985, at a leading children's hospital in her clitoris: "I loved it, but had no name for it. I Chicago, doctors removed the testes from Angela's remember being amazed that there was a part of my abdomen. The clitoris that had brought her so much body that was so intensely pleasurable. It felt wonder- joy was not merely shortened, it was all but destroyed. ful under my hand. There was no fantasy, just plea- She woke up and discovered the extent of the deceit: "I sure—just me and my body." Life in the pleasure gar- put my hand down there and felt something like the den came to an abrupt end for Angela when, at age 12, crusty top of some horrible casserole, like dried caked her mother noticed her protruding clitoris while blood where my clitoris was. I wondered why no one Angela was toweling off after a bath. After being told me and I just figured it was the kind of thing examined by her family doctor, she was sent to an decent people don't talk about." endocrinologist. The endocrinologist revealed to her Angela became depressed and severely bulimic. "I parents that, instead of the two X chromosomes that blamed my body. My body had betrayed me. Made me characterize the female genotype, Angela had an X someone worthy of that kind of treatment. I just stud- and a Y. She was "genetically male." She had the ied and puked." She was a straight-A student in high external genitalia of a female because the receptors school, but otherwise, her adolescence was a night- for the "male" hormone testosterone did not function; mare. She avoided becoming close to other girls her that is, her body was unable to respond to the androg- age, afraid she would be asked questions about the enizing or masculinizing hormones it produced. Her menstrual period she knew she would never have. The parents were assured that if surgeons removed uncomplicated sexuality she had reveled in before the Angela's internal testes, and shortened her clitoris, clitorectomy was gone, and she was desolated by the 18 - summer 1998 COVER STORY

loss of erotic sensation. In an attempt to find out the ly is "abnormal," and you separate us from each other truth, she returned to her original endocrinologist, and deny our right to find solace and strength in the who told her that her gonads had not formed properly, sameness of our experience. and her clitoris had grown because of an abnormal The doctor who was kind enough to help me begin level of hormones. She did not tell Angela about her to explore my early surgery did just that to me. I found XY status or her testes. Angela fell deeper into dark- the Intersex Society of North America on my own sev- ness, sensing that she had not been given the whole eral months after my initial visit with him, and told story. Finally, at 20, weakened by chronic and him later how healing it had been to find others who near-lethal bingeing and purging, and suicidal, she knew intimately what my life had been like. He had checked herself into a psychiatric unit. known about ISNA all along, he said, but didn't pass After her release, she began seeing a therapist the information on to me because I was not intersexed. who finally hit on the connection between her bulimia I was a real woman. He had tried to save me from a and the control she lost over her body at the time of pathologizing label, but ended up enforcing my isola- surgery. Angela knew she had to find out the mystery tion instead. of her body in order to get well. By now she was 23 and New and Improved? could legally obtain her medical records, yet it took a When a baby is born today with genitals that are year for her to find the courage to write for them. ambiguous, a team of surgeons, pediatric endocrinolo- When she received them and read the truth about her- gists, and social workers scramble to relieve what is self, she could begin at last to save her own life. called a "psychosocial emergency." Tests are done and "Although the doctors had claimed that knowing the orifices explored to determine as nearly as possible the truth would make me self-destructive, it was not baby's "true sex." Then, in almost all cases, doctors knowing what had been done to me—and why—that perform surgery to make the child look more like a made me want to die." girl, because, they say, the surgery required is easier to In my case, I have XX chromosomes, and my out- perform than trying to make the child look like a boy. sized clitoris was the only part of my body that was The form this feminizing surgery most often takes Doctors then told Angela's parents that if she didn't have surgery she might kill herself when she found out that she was different from other girls.

not like that of most other girls. is the dissection and removal of healthy clitoral tis- Do these facts make you want to differentiate me sue—a clitorectomy, also known as "clitoral recession," from Angela? To say, "Wait a minute. You were simply "clitoral reduction," and "clitoroplasty." Sensitive, erec- a girl born with a big clitoris, but Angela had a real tile tissue is stripped from the shaft of the clitoris, and pathological condition." But the doctors removed the glans is tucked away so expertly that all you see is Angela's clitoris for exactly the same reason they the cute little love button that is the idealized clitoris. removed mine—they thought it offensively large. Her But the pleasure is almost gone, or gone completely, chromosomes and her abdominal testes had no bear- for the owner of that dainty new clit. If orgasms are ing on the decision. possible, and they aren't for many women subjected to If you rush to see Angela as fundamentally differ- clitoral surgery, the intensity is greatly diminished. ent from me, if you see her as a real intersexual and One woman whose clitoris was "recessed" writes: "If me as just a normal woman, you do two very damag- orgasms before the recession were a deep purple, now ing things: You may see it as justified to perform cos- they are a pale, watery pink." metic surgery on her and not on me because she real- Doctors maintain that modern surgery retains on the issues - 19 COVER STORY

more clitoral sensation than the older forms of young girls in Africa to reconstructive surgery of a surgery, but they base their assurance on nerve young baby is a giant, giant leap of misrepresenta- impulses measured by machines—supposedly accu- tion." But neither Dr. Gearhart, nor anyone else, has rate and unbiased information—and not the real ever bothered to ask those of us subjected to clitoral experience of thousands and thousands of women in surgery as children if being taken to the hospital with- this country. This is because no long-term post-surgi- out explanation, having your healthy genitals cut and cal studies have been done. I, who had the old-style scarred, then left alone with the results feels like surgery, have clitoral sensation and orgasmic function, mutilation or "reconstructive surgery." Gearhart's mis- while those subjected to more modern surgeries often take is to judge surgery only by the surgeon's intent, have neither. How much do doctors truly care about a and not by the effect on the child. I spoke with a child's sexual future if they decimate the one organ in woman recently who is young enough to be my daugh- the body designed solely for pleasure? ter. With great effort, she told me of her clitoral In 1965, Annie Green, then three years old, took a surgery as a child. She implored me, "Why do they car trip with her father from the small town in Idaho have to cut so deep, Martha? Why do they do that?" where she lived to Spokane, Wash. She sat in the back Of the notable feminist voices raised long and loud seat with her stuffed animal, unaware that she was on in outrage over traditional genital surgeries practiced her way to the hospital. The next day doctors removed in parts of Africa, which are now denounced as "female I challenge them to pay attention to the fact that in hospitals just down the street in any big American city five children a day are losing healthy erotic parts of their bodies to satisfy a social demand for "normalcy"

her inch-long clitoris. She was never given any expla- genital mutilation" (FGM), not a single woman has nation of her surgery. As she got older, her attempts to said a word about the equally mutilating practice of find pleasure in masturbation failed, and she began to surgically destroying the healthy genitals of children suspect that she was very different from other girls. in their own country. Like Gearhart, they shrink when Then, during a visit to her sister's house as a teenag- we describe our surgeries as mutilation. But do they er, she found the book Our Bodies, Ourselves: "I stud- believe that African mothers, any more than American ied the female anatomy and read about sex from that surgeons, cut their children out of malicious intent? book. That was when I learned I didn't have a clitoris. Could their silence be because they don't know what is I remember looking at the diagram, feeling myself, happening in American hospitals? It's possible, but and reading what a clitoris was over and over. My this issue has received media coverage in the past God, I couldn't figure out why I didn't have one. I year, and many of them have had the facts explained couldn't fathom anyone removing it if it was that to them in person or in writing. important. I was stunned, and I held it all in. I was I could speculate that these women don't want to only 14.1 became depressed. I was disgusted with my take on a foe as formidable and familiar as the med- body, and I thought there was no hope that I would ical profession, and that it is simpler to point fingers ever be loved by anyone. I became a little teenage alco- at more barbaric countries. They may not want to holic. I drank heavily every weekend. I really blew it dilute their cause with the sticky subjects of sex and because I had been a really good athlete and an honor gender that surround the issue of ambiguous geni- student." talia. Or perhaps they don't want to be aligned with Clitoral surgery on children is brutal and illogical, children they can only see as freaks of nature. Even and no matter what name you give it, it is a mutila- the liberal-thinking Joycelyn Elders, the former tion. When I use the word mutilation, I can hear doors Surgeon General, refers to children who blur gender slamming shut in the minds of doctors all over this lines in a less-than-humane way. When Elders, a pro- country. John Gearhart, a pediatric urologist at Johns fessor of pediatric endocrinology who continues to pro- Hopkins, has said, "To compare genital mutilation of mote "reconstructive" surgery —continued on page 60

20 - summer 1998 REFLECTIONS

Language and Creative Imagination in Exile by Reza Baraheni

or the person in exile there is only one country, fight for the freedom of human-beings and for the free- the country of his birth, and only one language, dom of expression in literature. F his mother tongue. All other countries and lan- It was with this mood and mentality that I went guages seem fictitious in comparison. And those who through the Islamic Revolution of 1979, through undergo forced or voluntary exile will recognize what prison two years later, and my ouster from the Salman Rushdie describes as "a dream of glorious University of Tehran later in 1982. Stripped of all my return." rights as a human being and forced into exile in my Immediately after the Shah's departure from Iran own home, I began illegally teaching writers in the in 1979, thousands of men and women who had lived basement of my apartment. For many years, that in exile for many years, myself among them, were on basement was Iran's center of modern, postmodern, their way home. Many of us were leaving behind and feminist literature. It was the collective womb of things of great value. For me it was an American rep- creativity for a younger generation of men and women utation as a writer, a tenured full professorship at a who read their works to one another, and studied respected university, and many friends. But this was Iranian and foreign literature. Exiled and oppressed to be our glorious return. And it was, in a way. The by the authorities, we worked to eliminate the patri- dark city of Tehran enclosed us as we arrived. archal structure and styles from the literary creations Suddenly, we saw the familiar faces behind the flow- of the individual writer. The writing of those of us ers; we heard the languages, the jokes, the poems, and exiled at home became the voice for what was lacking the sharp, exquisite blossoming of recognition. We in the society. were home, the dangerous and familiar home. I had left that home five years earlier because he Islamic Republic of Iran's attitude toward repression had turned it into a hell; I went back writers not affiliated with the government— because I hoped that the revolution would turn it into T whom they label spies for Western govern- a paradise. I left this last time, in October 1996, ments—has been one of utter brutality. Early in the because years of the regime's brutality had turned revolution, a number of prominent writers either fled Iran into something worse than hell. This was a coun- the country, or were arrested. In recent years, three try characterized by one turbulence after another, have died in mysterious circumstances. One of them, with its people, and its writers, rising and falling with Faraj Sarkouhi, the editor of the monthly Adineh, the waves. It's very difficult to be a writer in such a underwent atrocious tortures. Many others lived in State. It is dishonest to see women stoned and keep fear and in hiding; several escaped abduction and silent. Dishonest to see the languages of ethnic groups attempts on their lives. I escaped two abductions, and suppressed and keep silent. It is equally dishonest to was under unannounced house arrest; for years all my keep your feelings of love, affection, and passion with- books have been banned. Invitations arrived from in the prescriptions of hypocritical legalities; dishon- Sweden, Canada and the United States. Decisions had est not to write of what happens between two human to be made. beings when they are in bed. It is dishonest not to I arrived in Canada in January 1997. It was the on the issues - 21 REFLECTIONS

longest winter of my life, as this new period of exile of the underworld when her husband, the poet kept me, my wife, and two of our children both para- Orpheus, made a mistake and looked back. Then, the lyzed and preoccupied. All my life, it seems, I have poet has nothing but a language, a voice, a mouth. lived in exile. Little is more traumatic than the suppression of Many people tend to view exile as a metaphor for one's mother tongue. The suppression does not result misery and tragedy, or their metonymies. But it is in a total amnesia. You use it one way or another. more paradoxical than that. When I think of Canada, Racial or ethnic suppression of the mother tongue can Iran doesn't appear in my memory and mind. Iran and never be total, because you use it with your family, and Canada are completely irrelevant to each other. I am a friends. But the dominant language and its culture (in displaced person or a writer, and my significance lies my case, Persian) are imposed on you, supplanting somewhere else. Within the context of Persian lan- your mother tongue and culture (mine is Azari, a guage and Iranian literature, particularly the lan- Turkic language), labeling it the language and culture guage and literature of the last 45 years, my work has of traitors. The imposition of Arabic, Turkish, and a particular meaning. I cannot explain this to even the Persian on the Kurds in Iraq, Turkey, and Iran, and most sympathetic writer or publisher in Canada. But the imposition of Persian on all the Azari Turks in I didn't have to explain anything to the members of Iran, are glaring examples of cultural and linguistic my basement workshop. They knew what I was talk- suppression. Since this is done from early childhood, ing about; we have one another's blood in our veins. I you look at the innocent faces of your parents, rela- don't exist in their eyes physically; I exist as language tives and hometown people—in fact, the entire popu- and literature. I am not a poet and novelist in their lation of your province—and you wonder whether it eyes; I am poetry and fiction. But in the eyes of my can be true that the language and culture of such peo- Canadian friends, I am a resume, without any special ple is so treacherous. Your mother tongue becomes a significance. criminal conspiracy against the great official culture of state. If you write anything in your own language, come from one of the ancient countries of the you automatically become a separatist and a traitor to world. My city, Tabriz, is a place of fables and sto- the sovereignty of that state. So even in your child- I ries, a place reportedly rebuilt by Scheherazade. I hood and youth in your own city you begin to live in am a story in several languages. I am what the French exile, and you are told to hate your mother tongue. philosopher Michel Foucault called when, discussing a What happens to your own language? You simply tale by Jorge Luis Borges, the Argentinean writer, a swallow it. How? "non-place," which exists only in language. And that In the winter of 1945, as a 10-year-old school kid language is not readily available in a new home. I love in Tabriz, I wrote a school paper in colored inks in the multicultural society of Canada, but I suffer from Azari, and hung it on the wall. The paper was in my a kind of claustrophobia. With a language and a sig- mother tongue, the mother tongue of the entire nificance hidden in my chest and throat, I move province of Azarbaijan. In those days, a half- around from one location to another, and from there to autonomous government was in charge of the affairs yet another place, truly a writer in exile, experiencing of the province. In a few months that government was the eternal intermingling of memory, desire, hope, and overthrown and the central government of Iran language to such a degree that all places are left regained the control of the city and the province. When behind, and I find myself in my mouth, throat, and I took my paper to school and hung it on the wall, I chest—in the actual seats of my poetic language. Then was forced by the school authorities, whose mother the language of dreams and desires begins to have tongue was the same as mine and that of my paper, to another function. My entire notion of referentiality lick the ink off the surface of the paper in front of all changes, and I don't trust my eyes anymore, because the teachers and the students. I swallowed my mother they are not equipped to put me in contact with the tongue. I never forgot the humiliation. right things. The panoptic visual acuity, however new, I had just begun to write petty, childish pieces of beautiful and solidly structured, departs. I don't see poetry in my mother tongue. That door was shut for the scenes before me. Visions from another memory good. The mother tongue, a female tongue, a language come to find me, to torture me with friends who are learned from the lips and the caresses of one's mother, dead and gone, with the loved ones who keep disap- became a hidden thing. The I/thou connection to which pearing, like Eurydice, who disappeared into the mists the hierarchy of syntax had not yet been introduced, 22 - summer 1998 REFLECTIONS

the irregular and spontaneous rhythm of hands, ears, other prisoners close to me. Nothing comes from lips, and mouth—all disappeared in that humiliating behind the door. I think that perhaps she doesn't want licking of the ink. to tell me who she is, that she was simply curious about Almost 50 years later, I saw a few sentences by me. Then she speaks. the French feminist and philosopher Julia Kristeva I am stunned by what she says: "All four of us are that could have been written about the course my life pregnant. We're going to be shot." took in the next few years after that ink-licking: Afraid to make any move that will betray this con- "Writing is impossible without some kind of exile. versation to the guards, I wait. She, too, waits. After Exile is already in itself a form of dissidence." You dis- almost half an hour, she suddenly breathes heavily, sent from the norm, the conventional and the regular. and says: The language that has been swallowed will turn into "It moved." the actual fruit of language: poetry. "What?" I ask involuntarily. "Here. In me. Joy...The baby...It's here...Reza." here are about 30 of us, all men, who sit or lie I don't know what to say. stretched on the floor of one of the upper wards "My butterfly," she murmurs. "Here, Reza T of the prison. Since I have been here, I have .. .Here.. .My butterfly.. .Moving.. .Here.. .Palm.. .Under been blindfolded, so I don't know that this is the my..." prison in which I stayed in 1972 for more than a hun- "Be careful. They might hear your voice," I say. dred days. This time, I am kept blindfolded in this cor- Then, after a moment, I ask, "Where's your husband?" ridor for 22 days. All the others are also blindfolded. "Shot." We are anonymous. Without name. All the solitary- "When?" confinement cells are occupied by women. As I lie here, "Three weeks ago." stretched out on the floor, I can see under the blindfold I don't know what to say. Nothing has prepared pressed on my eyes, through the crevice between my me to speak to this woman whose husband has been nose and cheeks, the solemn parade of the women as shot, and who keeps repeating "butterfly," and seems they are taken to the toilets at the end of the corridor. to be inviting me to touch and feel her child's move- They look like ghosts borrowed by prison authorities ments through skin. How can an Iranian woman say from Shakespearean plays. Upright and dignified, these things to a man, to a mere stranger? Is there they walk in chadors, or in scarves and long coats. Not something wrong with her mind? a single tress of hair is allowed to escape. The scarves "It's every day.. .My butterfly...Every day now..." are pinned under the women's chins, and in spite of "Ask them to take you to the hospital Tell them the blindfolds concealing their eyes, there is still some- to send you." thing magnificent in the way they carry themselves. "They'll come...No need...No asking...They come The covered hand of the first holds a truncheon when the pain comes." extended to her by a guard, with the others following And after a moment's silence, she asks: "What's in an irregular line, each with her left hand placed on your crime?" the shoulder of the woman ahead of her. I can see this "I don't know," I whisper; I am not able to think through the crevice of my blindfold. The guard has about my crime. already warned me: If I loosen my blindfold, he will "You think they'll let you go?" beat me severely. But when he told me this, he also accidentally mentioned my name. Tonight, one of the t first I cannot hear her very well—or I don't women passing, whispered to me: "Sir...Sir...are want to believe what I hear. How can any you.. .the poet, Reza.. .are you?" A woman be put in this position? Then I hear a Some of the men in the corridor are snoring. few simple sentences from her. And nothing else. The Beyond the blindfold, it is bright, but hazy, as if an next day, she is removed from her cell. The women are overwhelming light has been muffled behind a cloud. crying, all of them. After this, no one talks to me any- The snoring of the men is a great help, but I am afraid more from behind the door; there are three of them her soft voice will be detected. now going to the toilets. A few days later, I am "Who are you?" I whisper to the void behind the removed to another floor, and another exile. Her irreg- blindfold, and then keep silent, fearing that my voice ular sentences from behind the door ring in my ears: might have been heard by the guard or even by the "They'll shoot...I have no —continued on page 61 on the issues - 23 THE ABORTION WARS

THEii FIRE WHEN PRO-LIFE By Mary Lou Greenberg

s I held in my hand the sharp slivers of intensity, the seriousness and viciousness of this war. glass that were now the only remains But as soon as the yellow crime-scene tape came of the shattered windows, my eye was down, and clinic staff were allowed to enter the build- drawn to a metal object in the debris. It ing, an outpouring of support and assistance both was a nail, a small, sharp spike two locally and across the country turned the intended incheAs long. I shuddered. Hundreds of these projectiles message of intimidation on its head. It was hard for intended to shred human flesh had been propelled some of the local people to approach the building; outward by the blast when the bomb went off, just a images of their absent colleagues, recurring in news few feet from the main entrance. I could still see some photos, were vivid in their minds. But as volunteers of the nails embedded in the building's masonry began to sweep up the glass inside and out, and the facade, between the now boarded-up door and bits of clinic's owner, Diane Derzis, and its administrator, what had been an awning. A crater, a foot deep, Michelle Farley made plans for repairs, the work at marked where the bomb had been planted. The trajec- hand propelled all of us forward. Workers were soon tory of the nails and shrapnel was toward the front filling the holes and repainting the walls, and door and windows, and the reception area just inside. installing new glass. A shredded sofa was removed If the bomb had gone off minutes later, women coming from the reception room, and chairs from an inside to the clinic for abortions would have been among its room which had not been damaged were brought out victims. As it was, security guard Robert D. Sanderson to replace it. New plants were delivered. And the was killed in the explosion, and nurse Emily Lyons phone began ringing with calls from women who was severely injured. The bomb was not meant to wanted to make appointments. destroy the building—the New Woman All Women Health Care clinic in Birmingham, Ala., sustained no "This Clinic Stays Open!" structural damage—but the walls of the reception At an outdoor press conference exactly one week after area were torn by the nails. the bombing, Jeff Lyons, the 41-year-old husband of Just as this anti-personnel bomb at the clinic was the injured nurse, spoke for us all. "I just want to tell intended to rip apart bodies, so too was it meant to whoever did this," he said defiantly, pointing to the penetrate people's minds and emotions with a chilling clinic, "it didn't work!" Diane Derzis announced proud- message: If you provide abortions, if you work at clin- ly that the clinic was open again, and with a full ics or go to them as clients, you will be a target! This staff—there had not been one resignation, and anoth- is the stark reality behind the statistics on clinic vio- er nurse had come forward to fill in for Emily Lyons. A lence: In the last five years, six people have been sign in the window boldly proclaimed: "This clinic assassinated at five clinics. They included two doctors, stays open!" two clinic workers, one clinic escort, and the security In the weeks to come, Emily's continuing recovery guard in Birmingham. Seven others were wounded in and courage would be an inspiration to everyone. The these attacks. During the same period, two more doc- nurse lost her left eye and sustained serious injuries tors were seriously injured—one was shot, the other to her right one; she had multiple shrapnel wounds in slashed with a knife—outside their clinics. And three her face and torso, a broken left leg, and damage to the physicians were shot and wounded by a sniper or muscle in her right leg and to both shins. She was snipers in Canada. In 1997, there were a total of 12 forced to undergo numerous surgical procedures, and bombings or arsons at U.S. clinics, the highest annual received intensive physical therapy. Yet this mother of rate since 1984. two teenage daughters by a previous marriage is I have traveled to the sites of all the fatal anti- hopeful of walking, even jogging, again. In a statement abortion assaults to help organize pro-choice demon- read by her husband at a press conference on March strations against the attacks and to support the clin- 2, she said the bombing had not swayed her from her ics. Now, in Birmingham, these bomb shards brought strong belief that women should have the right to an home to me once again, with vivid, gut-wrenching abortion if they choose. "Abortion is a legal and legiti- 24 - summer 1998 THIS TIME

mate form of health care, and I offer no apolo- asked her how she felt about the death and gies for being employed there," she said. At a rally to injuries caused by the bombing. She muttered I arrived in Birmingham on Friday, protest the bomb- that she was "sorry" about the security guard, January 30, the day after the bombing. On ing and support but sorrier about "the babies being murdered." Saturday morning, I and other out-of-town abortion clinics, Other anti-abortion protesters echoed this activists from Refuse & Resist! (an organization Birmingham, Jan. 31,1998 sentiment. One man, who had been at the formed in 1988 to oppose today's repressive bomb scene shortly after the explosion, told political agenda) went to Summit Medical the Birmingham News: "I don't like to see any- Center, another abortion clinic just a block away, to body die, but they're in a business of death.... You live join local volunteers in escorting clients to the clinic. by the sword, you die by the sword. We've told them When we arrived, there was a small crowd at the that they're in a grisly business—the flesh trade. You entrance to the driveway. Some wore neon-orange never know what's going to happen to you. . . .There vests with "clinic escort" printed on the front in bold, are 200 to 300 people [sic] killed a week in those clin- black letters, and were waving cars into the parking ics. That's a much more tragic loss of life." lot. But local anti-abortion activists were present, too. Such rhetoric encourages attacks on clinics and Showing no remorse about the fatal bombing the day staff, says David Gunn Jr., son of Dr. David Gunn, who before, they thrust signs with anti-abortion slogans at was murdered outside a Pensacola, Fla., clinic in the occupants of the cars and yelled, "Don't murder 1993—the first physician killed by an anti-abortion your baby!" The demonstration was being orchestrat- gunman. As long as anti-abortion demonstrators con- ed by the national leader of Operation Rescue tinue to call clinic workers "murderers," he said, "you National, Flip Benham. Well-tanned, and with a TV can't be surprised" by such attacks. evangelist's perpetual smile, Benham, like a military Justifying the "pro-life" activists' kill-people cam- commander, could be heard urging his troops to give paign, Rev. Donald Spitz, director of Pro-Life Virginia, their all. sent an e-mail to a columnist for the Birmingham One man, who had driven a woman to her Post-Herald, stating: "Robert Sanderson [the security appointment at the clinic, stormed across the sidewalk guard] was the protector of the baby killers and was to confront the protesters, with their photos of what an accessory to murder. He was paid with blood money they claimed were bloody aborted fetuses. "The bomb- from the babies that were slaughtered. He reaped ing was terrible. Why are you out here?" he demand- what he sowed. He was not a hero or a good person. He ed. A protester wearing a clerical collar pointed to the was a killer, an accessory to murder. He deserved poster of a fetus and began to speak, but the chal- exactly what he received." lenger cut him off: "This is about a woman's life," he Spitz also intruded on the web site Emily Lyons' hus- said, gesturing toward the clinic door. "It's her choice. band set up (www.net800.com.emily) to enable people to Not yours!" A woman holding anti-abortion pamphlets send their get-well wishes to Emily and to publish tried to elbow me away from the clinic driveway. I updates on the progress of her —continued on page 59 on the issues - 25 FRONTLINE REPORT

AFGHAN WOMEN UNDER THE TALIBAN FEBRUARY 27, 1998—Thirty-thousand men and boys weekly fixtures for the entertainment-starved male poured into the dilapidated Olympic sports stadium in residents of Kabul. Now that "weak officials" have Kabul, capital of Afghanistan. Street hawkers peddled been purged from key ministries, says the city's gover- nuts, biscuits and tea to the waiting crowd. The sched- nor, Manan Niazi, who like many of the regime's offi- uled entertainment? They were there to see a young cials is also a mullah, the way has been cleared for woman, Sohaila, receive 100 lashes, and to watch two such displays. "We have a lot of such unpunished thieves have their right hands amputated. Sohaila cases, but the previous civil servants didn't have the had been arrested walking with a man who was not a courage to do what we are doing. These people have relative, a sufficient crime for her to be found guilty of now been replaced, and these events will continue." In adultery. Since she was single, it was punishable by fact, the next scheduled program, as announced, flogging; had she been married, she would have been would be one stoning to death and three amputations. publicly stoned to death. Earlier that same week, three men accused of As Sohaila, completely covered in the shroud-like "buggery" had been sentenced to death by being par- burqa veil, was forced to kneel and then flogged, tially buried in the ground and then having a wall Taliban "cheerleaders" had the stadium ringing with pushed over on them by a bulldozer, a bizarre and the chants of onlookers. Among those present there labor-intensive form of execution dreamed up by the were just three women: the young prisoner, and two supreme leader of the Taliban, the 36-year-old Mullah female relatives who had accompanied her. The crowd Mohammad Omar. After another man, a saboteur, was fell silent only when the luckless thieves were driven hanged, his corpse was driven around the city, swing- into the arena and pushed to the ground. Physicians ing from a crane. Clearly, there is nothing covert about using surgical scalpels promptly carried out the the regime's punitive measures. In fact, the Taliban amputations. Holding the severed hands aloft by the insure they are as widely publicized as possible. Last index fingers, a grinning Taliban fighter warned the March, for example, the regime's radio station, the huge crowd, "These are the chopped-off hands of only one permitted to operate, broadcast to the nation thieves, the punishment for any of you caught steal- that a young woman caught trying to flee Afghanistan ing." Then, to restore the party atmosphere, the with a man who was not her relative had been stoned thieves were driven in a jeep once around the stadium, a flourish that brought the crowd to their feet, as was to death. On another occasion, it was announced over intended. the airwaves that 225 women had been rounded up and sentenced to a lashing for violating the dress code. These Friday circuses, at which Rome's Caligula One woman had the top of her thumb amputated for would doubtless have felt at home, are to become the crime of wearing nail polish. And when the

Talibs, like these boys, are authorized to shoot or whip women if they decide any are breaking the Taliban's repressive laws. Taliban castrated and then hanged the former com- munist president and his brother in 1996, they left their bloodied bodies dangling from lampposts in busy BY JAN GOODWIN downtown Kabul for three days. Photographs of the corpses appeared in news magazines and newspapers Conference, a 55-country body, has withheld both a around the world. seat and recognition from the regime. "The Taliban is The Taliban now control between 65 and 85 per- not the image the Islamic world wants to project," says cent of Afghanistan, a country where statistics are one Muslim diplomat. And with good reason. anyone's guess. (Even the population size of Now in its fourth year of existence, the pari Afghanistan is uncertain: possibly 15, maybe 22 mil- regime has expunged all leisure activities. Their list o lion. The U.S. Department of State's figure on war what is illegal grows daily: music, movies and televi- fatalities—1.5 million—has not changed since 1985, sion, picnics, wedding parties, New Year celebrations, although the armed conflict there is now in its 19th any kind of mixed-sex gathering. They've also banned year.) For the last two years, the Taliban have been children's toys, including dolls and kites; card and trying to win both a seat at the United Nations and board games; cameras; photographs and paintings of international recognition. Thus far, only three coun- people and animals; pet parakeets; cigarettes and tries have recognized the regime: Pakistan, the United alcohol; magazines and newspapers, and most books. Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. And even Pakistan They've even forbidden applause—a moot point, since is becoming embarrassed by its neighbor. there's nothing left to applaud. Until the Taliban came to power, Saudi Arabia "Whatever we are doing in our country, it is not in was the most oppressive country on earth for women, order for the world to be happy with us," Sher Abbas and many of the Taliban's restrictions are rooted in Stanakzai, who until recently was the Taliban's 36- that hardline Gulf state's gender apartheid. Saudi year-old deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, told me Arabia has also been financially supportive of the during my visit. Explaining why his regime has Taliban and the religious schools in which they are banned virtually all forms of entertainment, he says, indoctrinated. "We have long regarded the Saudi king- "Time should be spent serving the country and pray- dom as our right hand," says the head of the Taliban ing to God. Nothing else. Everything else is a waste of governing council. time, and people are not allowed to waste their time." The Taliban regime claim they are restoring For women, the restrictions are even harsher. Afghanistan to the "purity of Islam," and the Western Female education, from kindergarten through gradu- press invariably parrots them. But authorities in a ate school, banned. Employment for women, banned. number of Muslim countries insist that few of the It's now illegal to wear makeup, nail polish, jewelry, regime's dictates have a basis in Islam. And just as the pluck your eyebrows, cut your hair short, wear colorful UN. has denied the Taliban a seat in the General or stylish clothes, sheer stockings, white socks and Assembly, so too, the Organization of Islamic shoes, high-heel shoes, walk loudly, talk loudly or

Afraid of the Taliban's long reach, these Afghan schoolgirls cover their faces to avoid recognition, even in a refugee camp in Pakistan. laugh in public. In fact, the government doesn't believe which are rarely available, and have all windows, women should go out at all: "Women, you should not except the driver's, covered with thick blankets. step outside your residence" reads one of the Taliban It is now illegal for women to talk to any men dictates. except close relatives, which precludes them from vis- If women do venture out, it must be for an essen- iting male physicians, no matter how sick. At the time tial, government-sanctioned purpose, and they must of my recent visit, the evening curfew began at 7:30 wear the all-enveloping burqa. Even then they risk p.m., after which no one, except government troops, their lives. Not so long ago, a young mother, Torpeka, was allowed out, even for medical emergencies. Even was shot repeatedly by the Taliban while rushing her women in labor and needing hospital care must seriously ill toddler to a doctor. Veiled as the law remain at home until morning. requires, she was spotted by a teenage Taliban guard, It would probably be quicker to list what the who tried to stop her because she shouldn't have left Taliban haven't banned. The regime has even out- her home. Afraid her child might die if she were lawed paper bags. Like many of their edicts, this delayed, Torpeka kept going. The guard aimed his would be laughable if the penalties for infractions Kalashnikov machine-gun and fired several rounds weren't so severe. Break the Taliban's law and you directly at her. She was hit, but didn't die on the spot, risk imprisonment, flogging, or worse. And to insure as she could have. Instead, Afghans watching the inci- their dictates are followed, religious police, part of the After 19 years of conflict, Kabul, once Afghanistan's symbol of modernity, is now the most war-damaged and landmined capital in the world.

dent in the crowded marketplace intervened, and "Department for the Propagation of Virtue and the Torpeka and her child received prompt medical atten- Suppression of Vice," constantly roam the streets. tion. When her family later complained to the Taliban Often teenage boys armed with automatic weapons, authorities, they were informed that it was the injured they also carry broken-off car aerials or electrical woman's fault. She had no right being out in public in cabling to whip women they decide are not properly the first place. observing the regulations. The burqa is a garment that covers women from Despite its disastrous and very public record on head to toe, the heavy gauze patch across the eyes human rights, when the Taliban was petitioning the makes it hard to see, and completely blocks peripher- United Nations for a seat in the General Assembly al vision. Since enforced veiling, a growing number of last May, its then New York representative, Abdul women have been hit by vehicles because the burqa Hakeem Mujahid, claimed his government was "pro- leaves them unable to walk fast, or see where they are tecting human rights and liberties in Afghanistan." He going. Recently in Kabul, a Taliban tank rolled right also stated that, having put a stop to the "miserable over a veiled woman. Fortunately, she fell between the living conditions under which our women were living," tracks. Instead of being crushed to death, she was not they had "restored women's safety, dignity and free- seriously hurt, but was severely traumatized. dom." He then went on to justify the Taliban's ban on To insure women are effaced as effectively as if women's education: Afghanistan lacks the resources to they never existed, the government ordered all exteri- educate them, he said, adding that the Taliban also do or windows of homes to be painted black. The only not trust the values that became part of the education public transport permitted women are special buses, system under previous governments. Those reserva- 28 - summer 1998 FRONTLINE REPORT tions, however, only apply to women, since the regime competition to build gas and oil pipelines from land- continues to educate boys. locked Turkmenistan to Pakistan through war-torn Mujahid omitted to mention a personal detail- Afghanistan. In testimony to the U.S. Congress this how he circumvents the ban for his own daughter by February, John Maresca, vice-president in charge of sending her to an English-language school in Unocal's international relations, referred to the $4.5 Pakistan. But this kind of hypocrisy is common in billion, some 790-mile project as the "new Silk Road...a Afghanistan today. Under the regime, cigarette smok- commercial corridor that can link Central Asia supply ing is severely punished, yet in every Taliban office I with the demand, once again making Central Asia the entered in Kabul, even that of the head of the depart- crossroads between Europe and Asia." ment of Virtue and Vice, Mullah Qalam-ad-Din, from Iran offers an alternative pipeline route, but whom most of the restrictions originate, used ashtrays because of U.S. sanctions legislation, American com- were always in evidence. A senior official in the foreign panies would not be able to participate in its con- ministry chain-smoked throughout our hour-long con- struction—or, as a result, gain any benefit from what versation. "Isn't that illegal?" I asked. "I can't help it, are considered the largest untapped oil and gas I'm addicted," he replied with a smile. reserves outside the Middle East. And while Unocal While touting to the UN. the Taliban's "improved" says it cannot sign any deal with the Taliban until living conditions for women, Mujahid didn't mention they are formally recognized, this hasn't stopped them Not so long ago, this avenue was a major, international shopping center. Today, these ruins reflect conditions in the rest of the country.

the regime's banning of women's employment, or any from wining and dining Taliban officials, and arrang- of their myriad other restrictions, which have so con- ing shopping trips for them to purchase luxury items strained women's lives that half the population of the on their visits to the oil company in the U.S. Unocal country is now effectively confined to house arrest. already has a $900,000 training program underway, in Amnesty International calls Afghanistan under collaboration with the University of Nebraska at the Taliban "a human rights catastrophe." Afghan Omaha, for pipeline construction personnel, a pro- women, struggling to survive in what has become a gram limited to Afghan males. Additionally, the duo police state claiming to be a theocracy, describe them- has established two technician training centers in selves as the "living dead." Afghanistan, also benefitting men only. It is hardly surprising, then, that the UN. has not Unocal's main partner in the consortium is Delta seated the Taliban delegation; or, indeed, that the cre- Oil Co., a Saudi-owned company, in whose behalf for- dentials committee has refused even to meet with the mer White House legislative assistant Paul Behrends regime's representative in New York, and most offi- and Delta's American vice-president Charles Santos, a cials prefer to duck his phone calls. But the UN. has recent UN. peace negotiator in Afghanistan, are busy seated the representatives of some pretty brutal lobbying in Washington. regimes in the past, and the ostracism is unlikely to The pipeline would bring the Taliban some $100 last forever—especially with lobbyists for American million annually in transit fees, in addition to provid- oil concerns entering the picture. ing thousands of jobs and improving infrastructure— Unocal, a California-based global energy company, building roads, supplying electricity, telephones, etc.— heads up one of two consortiums engaged in fierce in the war-devastated country. The Clinton adminis- on the issues - 29 HOW YOU CAN AID THE tration reportedly supports the WOMEN OF AFGHANISTAN astrous public relations record. Afghan pipeline, which would None of which has affected the free the new nations of Central Clearly, the Feminist Majority and NOW Taliban, however, who have since Asia from dependence on campaign is having an effect on clamped down harder on women, Russia, avoid the Iranian route, Unocal. But this is just a beginning. To this time ordering that all foreign and bring needed energy to the help restore human rights to women in Muslim women working with the U.N. or NGOs be accompanied by Indian subcontinent. Afghanistan, add your name to a peti- Competing with Unocal to male chaperones, which in effect build the pipeline is Bridas tion the Feminist Majority is sending to will halt their employment in International of Argentina, the U.S. government and the United Afghanistan. whose managing director, Mario Nations. Call 703-522-2214 or to trans- While it may be some time Lopez Olacireegui, has gone on mit instant e-mail via the Feminist before Taliban coffers are swollen record saying he is not con- Majority's "Take Action" center, log on by petrodollars, one of the main- cerned about the Taliban's stays of the regime's economy is human rights violations. "We to http://www.feminist.org. heroin production, which they use are just an oil and gas compa- in part to supply their war ny," he says. "We are not bothered by human rights or machine. Afghanistan now produces more of the nar- politics." The Taliban, for their part, say they will cotic than any other country—and much of it ends up award the pipeline contract to the consortium that is on the streets of the U.S. Despite promises by the first able to start construction. Unocal's deadline to Taliban to eradicate the industry, according to a report begin is this coming December. released last February by the U.N. Inter- national

Left: Afghan women begging to survive. Right: Banned from college, women students continue their education in an underground school. A number of American women's organizations, Narcotics Control Board, the harvest of opium poppy, headed by the Feminist Majority and the National from which heroin is derived, increased by 25 percent Organization for Women, have mobilized to prevent in Afghanistan during 1997. The Taliban control 96 the Clinton administration from recognizing the percent of Afghanistan's total opium output, this coun- Taliban government unless it radically changes its try's only real remaining cash crop. treatment of women. They are also campaigning for Though it was always impoverished, before the Unocal to include women in their training programs. Soviet invasion Afghanistan was able to feed its peo- As we went to press, sources within Unocal admitted ple. Today, after almost 20 years of war, this is no this campaign is beginning to have an effect. A split longer true. Afghan women, in the rural areas, have has occurred within the oil company—those who want always worked alongside men in the fields. In the cap- to press ahead, and those who do not want a political- ital, until the Taliban took over, they often wore ly embarrassing "rogue operation." As the U.S. Western dress, served in parliament, and worked in a women's campaign gains momentum, Unocal is also variety of professions, including medicine, engineer- finding foreign investors suddenly unenthusiastic ing, architecture, the media and law. During the long about being affiliated with a regime with such a dis- years of fighting, as men were killed, went missing, or 30 - summer 1998 FRONTLINE REPORT became disabled, the survival of many families came still receiving one. Most cannot afford to buy the gar- to depend on women's income. ment, and whole neighborhoods must share one. It can Before the Taliban ban on female employment, 70 take several days for a woman's turn to come round; percent of the teachers in Kabul were women, as were even if she has money to shop for food, she can't go out 50 percent of the civil servants and university stu- until then. dents, and 40 percent of the doctors. In Kabul, the number of street children has risen Why does the regime insist that women be con- from an estimated 28,000 to 60,000 in the last year. fined at home? Reducing women to mere objects, the This city, once a symbol of modernity for Afghanistan, minister of education says, "It's like having a flower, or is now in ruins—the most bomb-damaged capital in a rose. You water it and keep it at home for yourself, to the world. It is also the most land-mined. Mines maim look at it and smell it. It [a woman] is not supposed to and/or kill an average of 25 people a day in be taken out of the house to be smelled." Another Afghanistan. Two-thirds of them are children. It is Taliban leader is less poetic: "There are only two predominantly children who herd animals, or search places for Afghan women—in her husband's house, for fuel or for scrap metal to sell to help support their and in the graveyard." families. Scrap metal merchants will only purchase I have been visiting and reporting on Afghanistan unexploded bombs or shells if the children disarm since 1984, and have traveled extensively throughout them first. Kids doing this highly risky work earn on the country, but it was only during my visit last fall average enough to buy just two or three pieces of that I saw for the first time legions of women and chil- bread per day. dren reduced to beggary, the result of the Taliban's Despite the terrible toll mines are taking, the ban on women's employment. Many families, having Taliban have interfered with programs to teach

Veiled women at a supplementary feeding center for children. Forty percent of Kabul is now reduced to living on food handouts. sold all their household items, even blankets, are sur- women and children how to locate and stay clear of viving on bread and sugarless tea. Supplementary mines. Board games used by foreign humanitarian feeding centers, funded by foreign agencies, are dotted agencies to instruct a mostly illiterate population in across the capital. Here, malnourished children—four- mine-awareness have been disallowed because they year-olds weighing 16 pounds, 18-month-old toddlers use now-banned pictures of humans or animals com- weighing 9 pounds—are fed. Their mothers are not, ing too close to a mine; an alternative, flash cards, has even though they, too, are malnourished. Women often also been outlawed—as gambling. eat once every two or three days, preferring instead to Conditions are so deplorable for women under the give whatever food they have to their children. Taliban that many are now severely depressed. According to new U.N. figures, some 40 percent of the Without the resources to leave the country, an increas- Kabul population now exists on food handouts, either ing number are now choosing suicide, once rare there, from humanitarian agencies or from begging. as a means of escape. A European physician working in The legally mandated burqa has also become a the city told me, "Doctors are seeing a lot of esophageal severe financial hardship. The veil now costs the burns. Women are swallowing battery acid, or poiso- equivalent of five months salary—if any women were nous household cleansers, —continued on page 57 on the issues - 31 —W GENDER POLITICS To Be Male or To Be Female- That Is the Question Gender, Sex and Politics in Shakespeare by Marilyn Stasio

hen Sarah Bernhardt played Hamlet in Bernhardt Hamlet: Culture and Context, "in opera, in 1899, two French critics disagreed so vio- ballet, and in theatre, the female travesti role had by lently about her performance that they the 19th century become a standard convention." The marched over to the Seine and onto the ballet was so "saturated" with female performers in Isle de la Grande Jatte, where they male roles that, "outside of Russia and Denmark, male Wfought a duel in which Bernhardt's champion was seri- dancing was seriously impaired in the 19th century." ously wounded. All Paris and, indeed, most of the liter- And stage companies in France, England, and America ary world, took sides in this rancorous dispute, which were so hospitable to women in classical male parts turned on the ludicrous question of whether that by the time Bernhardt undertook Hamlet, more Bernhardt, a theatrically towering but physically than 50 actresses had already had a crack at the role. diminutive actress, could lay legitimate claim to a Now, a century later, with actresses taking to the character described in Shakespeare's text as "fat and practice again, you'd think that the sight of women in scant of breath." male trousers or tights would be familiar enough not to As theatrical brouhahas go, the fatty fracas was stampede the livestock or send the men dashing out to not as murderous as, say, the 1849 Astor Place Opera duel. But, however lofty the role or ambitious the per- House riot in New York, in which 31 lives were lost formance, any woman who takes the part of a man still when a gang of admirers of the American actor Edwin finds herself being judged on the silly issues. (She's too Forrest attacked partisans of his English rival William fat or too slender or too soft or too supple or simply too Charles Macready, who was performing Macbeth. All graceful when she crosses her knees to be entirely con- the same, the vitriolic rhetoric unleashed by the vincing as a "real" man.) How come? Because criticism appearance of a great female actress in a great male formulated on physical principles is still the safest, role was genuinely fierce—and awfully silly. sneakiest way of saying (without losing one's credibili- "You always get into silly issues when a woman ty as a critic) that women can't play men. plays a man's role," says the actress Kathleen "I had no idea that I was about to be convinced that Chalfant, who was nominated for a Tony Award in women cannot 'do' men's parts," the American actress 1993 for the three male roles she took in the Broadway Elizabeth Robins said in 1900, in a commentary on production of Angels in America, and who also won Bernhardt's Hamlet she wrote for The North American acclaim in the role of Clov in Samuel Beckett's Review. Refusing to weigh in on the avoirdupois con- Endgame. Like Hamlet's girth, the troversy, Robins instead attacked Bernhardt for play- ing Hamlet as "a scampish schoolboy." Daring and Sarah Bernhardt matter of how a man crosses his knees (left, in an undat- qualifies as one of those silly issues, irreverent, it was an interpretation that deliberately ed photograph, says Chalfant, who had problems with undermined the Romantic tradition of that sexy, brood- as Hamlet) was the movement herself. "I finally had ing, mercurial prince of melancholia who was for 19th- accused of play- my husband sit in a chair, with no century audiences "a symbol," as Taranow puts it, "of ing the brooding the spiritually embattled hero: sensitive, creative, Dane as "a clothes on, and cross his knees, so I scampish could see where his balls go." philosophic, irresolute, pessimistic, cosmic, and doomed." schoolboy." As Gerda Taranow points out in her exhaustive scholarly study The Unlike the popular, contemporary Hamlet of on the issues - 33 GRNDER POLITICS

jiother technique for la™ is to accuse an actresAs of, over-emoting in a manij ically ^womanly," rather than simply numan.

Edwin Booth ("Hamlet with all his sensitiveness, pro- The conflict is even more acute when women take fundity and subtilized passion emphasized"), on Shakespearean roles, according to Scofield, who is Bernhardt's impetutous young prince was too "crude" writing her doctoral dissertation on the two pre-emi- and "frankly comic" for Robins' romantic taste. "It was nent women's Shakespearean acting companies in this not the gentle prince, the melancholy Dane, that we country, the Boston-based Company of Women and the were seeing, nor any man of any sort," she wrote, "but Los Angeles Women's Shakespeare Company. an amazingly good imitation of a high spirited, some- "Shakespeare is the King of the Dead White Male cul- what malicious boy." tural icons, just like Elvis is the King of Rock and Roll," Calling an actress "boyish" is no compliment in the she says, "so there is tremendous criticism from femi- lexicon of theatrical criticism. It is a snide way of ridi- nists about doing the work of a playwright who em- culing her performance and diminishing her person— bodies the white male patriarchal culture of the and it is still widely practiced by critical pundits. western world." Writing in New York magazine in 1982, John Simon arah Bernhardt weathered the critical storm in termed Diane Venora "a runt of a prince" in the role of Paris in 1899 and took her production of Hamlet Hamlet at the New York Shakespeare Festival. "She Sto Austria, Switzerland, Hungary, South America, does not for a moment pass for a man," Simon said, the United States, and England. Today, all-women eerily echoing Elizabeth Robins' criticism of Shakespearean companies continue to explore the clas- Bernhardt. "A twelve-year-old boy, yes, though a rather sical canon and, in the process, to inspire other female small one—with all manner of little-boyish tricks and theater professionals to follow their lead. A little criti- mannerisms—and, as a colleague remarked on the way cism isn't about to make this phenomenon go away, out, a very creditable Peter Pan." because women of vision have something to teach Another technique for landing a dirty critical western civilization about its dramatic literature. punch is to accuse an actress of over-emoting in a man- One of these visionaries is Kristin Linklater, the ner presumed to be specifically "womanly," rather than artistic director and cofounder (with feminist psychol- simply human. When the Irish-born actress Fiona ogist Carol Gilligan) of the Company of Women. "Our Shaw gave her striking interpretation of Richard II mission," as she defined it in 1990, "is to bring the voic- last year, the British press bit her in a hundred places es of women and girls into the mainstream of live the- for being too wild, too emotional, too intense, too fren- ater in order to add fresh resonance to the ancient zied, too flaming—language suggestive of a Victorian power of theater to illuminate and heal its community." physician diagnosing a case of uterine hysteria. The vision part, drawn from her seminal work on Probably the most cutting criticism of women play- vocal theory and technique, Freeing the Natural Voice, ing men's roles is the feminist charge that women has to do with Linklater's belief that the human body shouldn't be playing men in the first place. can be transformed—"on a molecular level, as well as "This is a very conflicting issue for a feminist in a on an imaginative level"—when the "natural voice" is post-feminist period," says Barbara Scofield, formerly freed. "Freeing the natural voice means removing the director of undergraduate theater at the University of conditioned defenses and limitations of expression that Missouri in Kansas City. "If you believe that women manifest vocally in muscular tension," explains should be offered as broad an opportunity as men to Linklater, who currently teaches in the graduate the- express their experience of life as human beings, then ater department of Columbia University in New York you have a dilemma with women in male roles. Part of City. "Once you release those conditioned habits, you you believes that women in theater should be promot- free a voice that has a range of three to four octaves." ing the work of women." These "expanded female voices" are able to accom- 34 - summer 1998 Right: Lisa Wolpe as Angelo, and Karole Foreman as Isabella ling a dirty critical punch in the Los Angeles Women's tr presumed to be specif- Shakespeare Company's production of Measure lor Measure, May 1997. Kathryn Chalfont (second from top) plays Clov in Samuel Beckett's Endgame.

modate male characters of great size, Linklater says. "It was never our intention to interpret Shakespeare's male characters from a narrow female perspective," she points out, but to "absorb" them into the enriched psychic and emotional resources of the freed voice. Through the process, the performer finds a source of "dormant energy" that, when activated, can generate "a sense of being possessed." Linklater experienced that feeling of possession herself, when she played King Lear and multiple male roles in Henry V. "I found that, in entering these male worlds, I had tapped a source of psychic and physical power that was intoxicating," she says, "so much so, that when I stepped out of the role and back into my woman's life, the question was: Now, where did that energy go?" This is the kind of talk that can make a feminist queasy, with its implication that women must assume male roles in order to access these hidden pools of psy- chic and physical energy. But, as Barbara Scofield points out, the theory is entirely consistent with Carol Gilligan's groundbreaking studies in the psychology of young girls. "Freeing the natural voice," says Scofield, "means freeing the original female voice. . .the female voice before it came into conflict with the stifling patri- archal culture and was silenced." Other actresses who have played classical male roles confirm the sense of transformation that made Kristin Linklater feel "possessed" when she played King Lear. "It changed me," says Lisa Wolpe, of her experience in the role of Richard III. "I think it made me a better person because I explored a dark side of myself and, having brought it to light, I was able to choose whether to be a relentless force or a collabora- tive force in my own life." Above and right: olpe, the founder and artistic director of the Scenes from Kristin Los Angeles Women's Shakespeare Company, Linklater's Company says she was not seduced by the predatory of Women's produc- W tion of King Lear in king's evil soul—but she was exhilarated by the oppor- tunity to plunge into its blackness. "As a woman, I am 1996. always pressing myself to be nurturing, collaborative, and peaceful in the world," she says, "so it was liberat- GENDER POLITICS

JLext is transformed when wq especially when they play them in the act of making

ing to be able to explore, through this character, my man, the relationship between Hamm and Clov has voracious, ambitious side." She adds that it was also often been taken to be the relationship between "strengthening to break through those constricting Beckett and his wife," says Chalfant. "When you see it rules of order that govern the behavior of women, as a marriage, in which Clov is in the apparently sub- pressing them to be invisible and supportive of the servient position, you really feel it when he walks out status quo." on someone who is absolutely helpless." This intoxication that women experience when To Lisa Wolpe, the misogyny of characters like they play men's roles seems to derive, in large part, Henry V, Richard III, and Angelo in Measure for from the innate political power that masculinity con- Measure leaps from the text when the lines are spoken fers. Although critics like John Simon imply that by a woman. "Our audiences love the seduction scenes," women take male roles out of gender envy, it seems to she says. "The misogynist lines always get huge be the power, not the masculinity, that women find laughs, because you really hear them when a woman is irresistible. the seducer." According to Kathleen Chalfant, "What men have "The huge revelation for me," says Barbara is natural authority in the world, and you don't realize Scofield, "was how audiences learn about themselves that until you play a man." She was forever getting the when they are confronted by their own stereotypes. directorial note that she was "not regal enough" when Time after time, people said to me, 'I came in with prej- playing queens and other female figures of authority. udices. I came in expecting a freak show.' And always, "You think you're being very regal. You stand up after the first 15 minutes or so, they get caught up in it straight, walk with dignity, and you think you are and they are able to see through their own prejudices" being very firm and authoritative. But what you're It is by illuminating the core issues of a text, how- really doing is insisting on your strength from a posi- ever, that gender bending really wins its suit to be tion of weakness," she says. "Playing a man made me taken seriously. Maureen Shea, who has directed for feel entitled, so that I didn't have to insist on my both the Company of Women and the Los Angeles authority." Women's Shakespeare Company, offers example after learly, actresses have much to gain, on an artistic example of how text is transformed when women play and technical level, from taking male roles. To men—especially when they play them in the act of CBarbara Scofield's way of thinking, that alone making war. should justify the practice of playing against gender, "A different thing happens with the violence, especially in the monumental Shakespearean roles. because a woman's experience with violence is com- "So many actresses just have this longing to do the pletely different from a man's," says Shea, who is direc- work," she says, "to speak those words, to feel those tor of theater of Emerson Stage in the division of per- feelings, to be that enormous. Women are not often forming arts at Emerson College in Boston, where she given the opportunity to be enormous. It's a tremen- also teaches. "Men's childhood playing at war games dous feeling for an artist." skews their sense of violence, because they come to the At the same time, there is something to be said for stage still 'playing* soldiers and cowboys. But women the fresh insights that women bring to the male roles don't play at violence as children. We don't have that they play and the illumination that these insights cast experience with war. So, when you put a sword in a on familiar texts. Kathleen Chalfant speaks of the pro- woman's hand there's much more danger, because a found sense of desolation that struck her when Clov woman takes it more seriously. You never feel, as you leaves Hamm at the end of Endgame. "Although Clov do with the guys, uh-oh, here comes the fight scene. is an androgynous figure and is always played by a When it's women with swords in their hands, it's not a 36 - summer 1998 men play men war. r<

fight scene—it's a scene of violence." Kristin Linklater was angered when she heard crit- ic John Simon say, as he watched a woman play a tra- ditional male role in Henry V, that, "it was ridiculous seeing women trying to play soldiers," since the whole point was to show that war is itself an unnatural act. "If women aren't supposed to make war," she says, "then why are human beings doing it?" Another area to which female performers bring spe- cial insight is the domestic front. Over and over, theater professionals say that Shakespearean scenes between marriage partners or parents and children take on more emotional depth with women in the roles.

or Maureen Shea, one such reveal- Like women ing moment came when Frances today who play FWest, playing Essex in Henry V men's roles, and telling of the death of Suffolk spoke Sarah the line: "And all my mother came into Bernhardt, seen mine eyes and gave me up to tears." The here in L'Alglon, was judged on connection the actress made, according appearance, not to Shea, was the connection with her performance. own mother, and the reading became profoundly moving. "The relationship between a woman and her mother is totally different from the one between a man and his mother," says Shea, "and when Frances West spoke that line, in that way, I heard it for the first time. I heard the whole text differently." A hundred years ago, Elizabeth Robins conceded that Bernhardt's Hamlet had the same emotional force. "It does, perhaps, take a French tongue to utter the word 'father' with such an effect," she wrote, "but cer- tainly, having seen a good many Hamlets, I never got so vivid an impression of the warm, personal relationship between the buried Majesty of Denmark and his son as Madame Bernhardt gave me." Perhaps, to steal a line from Hamlet, "Though this be madness, yet there is method in it." •

Marilyn Stasio is a columnist for The New York Times and frequently writes on theater for national publications. Meditations on Aging by Kate Millett

nother season at the farm, not that bad, but not $50,000 to $80,000 "positions." A real faculty appoint- that good either: the tedium of a small commu- ment, or "line," seems an impossibility, in my case as in Anity, shearing trees, so exhausted afterward so many others now. I have friends with doctorates that I did nothing but read. A season without writing or earning as little as $12,000 a year on these measly silk screening or drawing. Back to the Bowery and courses, eking out an existence at five different schools, another emptiness. I cannot spend the whole day read- their lives lived in cars and on the economic edge. I'm ing, so I write, or try to. A pure if pointless exercise. My too old for that and must do better. "Oh, but our budget," books are out of print, even Sexual Politics, and the they moan, "we really have no funds at all, much as we manuscript about my mother cannot find a publisher. would love to have you." Times are so difficult; the Trying also to get a job. At first the academic voices bureaucracy or the legislature so obdurate. "Surely I'm were kind and welcoming, imagining I am rich and am qualified?" I ask, not as a "celebrity" but as a creden- doing this for amusement, slightly embarrassed as they tialed scholar with years of teaching and a doctorate offer the usual new slave wages of $1,200 or $1,800 per with distinction from Columbia, an Oxford First, eight course. Things have gotten worse since I was a young published books. Nor am I asking for anything fancy, no lecturer at Barnard College in New York, earning $308 hotshot professorship. How about half-time in honor of a month (they didn't pay during the summer months). my age, two courses a semester and a modest living Now a far more evil system has been inaugurated, not wage, I scream silently, embarrassed to put reality into just affecting teaching assistants in graduate school, words. This would put me in a different category, a cat- but graduates and Ph.D.'s. A two-tier system, where the egory which does not exist and can only be created fortunate have "lines" and "positions" and the other 50 through long, complex negotiations with higher-ups, not percent of college faculty, the "adjuncts," have nothing. the department chair, but the dean or the provost. No benefits, no assurances, no future. As "temps" they They'll get back to me. are paid piece-work by the course, tiny sums that are an |ut they never do. One woman promised to call insult to them as well as their students, who pay plen- >me next week, and when she hadn't phoned for ty and have no idea this is going on. This is now a scan- 'three weeks I called her. She "hasn't had a dal all over the country. Saving the new corporate uni- chance" to talk with the dean and is incapable of hiring versity a bundle in salary and benefits, dividing the me herself, even though she is the department head. faculty, and enforcing quiet and obedience and social More time passes. When five months have passed from and political conformity throughout our society. I hate our first conversation in June (it is now October), and the new American university for outdoing industry in she still hasn't "put this idea" before the dean (their "cutting back" to temporary and part-time teaching. offices are in the same building), I begin to realize that, Peonizing learning this way, and so devaluing the for all her charm, this may never happen. We have even learned; the faculty reduced to mere employees of the had a drink with the two other women who teach in this administrators who now rule the academy according to vast English department, nice women, but I begin to the harshest corporate model. This in a time when realize that 25 years after we started proving that Columbia and New York University are two of the lead- women were either not hired or kept at the bottom of ing real estate powers in my city: landlords. Less uni- the heap in Academia, nothing really has changed. versities than businesses making a profit with endow- They seem so vulnerable, so powerless, so hunted. ments in the billions. At another school, the man in charge of the English I hear the guilty little catch in the administrative department was charming but he too has to consult, voice, forced maybe to make a big concession of $3,000 this time with the new head of women's studies, since a in my case. But I couldn't live on that, I demur. "Of joint appointment might be a possibility. Then, through course, no one does," they chuckle from their own an entire summer, he just can't seem to make contact.

38 - summer 1998 epn rt J ate show, also nav J ij 1^1 lay tiiujr & soa linking for#^p 'his ^Bjuck 'o candi^ite pf'du atc^eclit, |)tiJ ed year sul rvif •w'x- Al i liil ciisti s. :alf coli orf ed iry\ bjis. «ppl\r, i the dwamic\ jivr ;ed|^^ .' besfL nd Being Unemployable

By fall, he has become dubious about her too—she's a ficult favor, going out on a limb, exercising the most dim mysterious figure, but all my other informants reckless courage in merely making a phone call on my know her, say she's wonderful, yet now it seems she too behalf. When I check back, having allowed them "has no money." Nor does he. Long ago he had seemed months to do this, they have never even done it. They to offer me one class for young writers of promise, but are all "so busy." The present semester races by, my now that job has gone out to a committee who will take chances for the next disappear. months to decide and are very unlikely to decide on me. And now my last hope, the night school, the unfash- begin to wonder what is wrong with me. Am I "too far ionable extension in college, where a merciless young out," or too old? Is it age? I'm 63. Or am I "old hat" in woman laughed at the idea of paying me anything Ithe view of the "new feminist scholarship"? Or is it above the usual peon wage they pay everyone, and then something worse? How much of this rejection may be gave way to the princely young scholar Assistant Dean due to hearsay about my "mental health," even rumors who pledged me double that rate, slips from my hands that I'm crazy? I wrote an entire book, The Loony Bin as well. This was my fall-back position, if nothing better Trip, to prove that I wasn't, and even debunk psychia- turned up. It was all settled last August, just before the try, but these folk have never read it. In fact they may Dean's vacation trip to France. He would guarantee my never have read me at all, or are depending on vague somewhat higher wage; I had only to meet with the memories of Sexual Politics being a "bestseller." They head of curricula and choose course names with her— have also never read Flying and Sita, since they were after her vacation. But when I finally reach this lady, in "queer" books; The Basement and The Politics of Cruelty late September, the deal is on the rocks. She'll get back were "depressing." The effect of The Loony Bin Trip was to me after consulting again with the Dean, no point in a perception that I had "emotional troubles"; maybe outlining courses they may have no money to pay for. what is left unsaid is that I'm unreliable, "shaky." But When she never gets back, I call the Dean again, five no one will come out and say it. Meanwhile, the profes- times. Secretaries now intervene and protect him for sor on the telephone drones on for 45 minutes about the two weeks. He doesn't get back. October passes. lack of funds, the lateness of the state legislature in begin to realize there isn't a job. I cannot get employ- passing the university's budget. He hired his wage- ment. I cannot earn money. Except by selling slave adjuncts three days before fall classes began. He IChristmas trees, one by one, in the cold in didn't offer to hire me. Poughkeepsie. I cannot teach, and have nothing but I was hoping for something for spring semester, but farming now. And when physically I can no longer farm, next spring's catalog is already at the printer. He won't what then? As for publishing, I cannot even publish know till December. He'll call me as soon as he knows. reprints; my editor quit the business and I have no He was supposed to know months ago. I sweat at the prospects for a new editor, even though the book about phone, humiliated, furious, listening to his long-winded, my mother has been finished for three years. Nothing I impenetrable language. What's wrong with me? Why write now has any prospect of seeing print. I cannot won't you give me a job, offer me something, anything, earn money in any way, and the idea terrifies me. I have a dog bone, damn it? At least tell me the truth. Have I no saleable skill, for all my supposed accomplishments, been denounced or bad-mouthed? By whom? What is qualifications and training. the matter with me, for God's sake? Has my feminism I begin to understand that I have invested a great made me "abrasive"? Surely my polite, St. Paul manner deal of "self-esteem" in the prospect of teaching. Age and should be reassuring. God knows I'm deferential identity have entered in. If I'm not able to publish and enough to these people. have thereby lost my profession and must find another The atmosphere is patronizing in the extreme. to survive, I imagined I might age better as an academ- These people are doing me the most elaborate and dif- ic than as a Christmas-tree farmer wringing out a liv- on the issues - 39 CHANGES ing on the trees we planted to support the women's art 10 most important books the house has published in the colony at the farm. Surely it's more dignified to be a 100 years of their existence. A young female editor at paid intellectual with the status of a professor, even if Doubleday gave my agent to understand in a letter, only an adjunct? My friends thought so, and have fol- which she was kind enough not to forward, that the lowed the job search with baited breath, wishing me work of more recent feminist scholarship had somehow every sort of good luck; a few of them, well-placed in rendered my book obsolete in the "current climate." academe, were perhaps vaguely embarrassed that their So I am out of fashion in the new academic cottage friend the writer is really that strange marginal figure, industry of feminism, unable to find even the most neg- the seasonal peddler of spruce trees. ligible teaching assignment in a field now seething with Some days I think about "any job," even forgetting practitioners, and unworthy of publication as well, how- the specter of age and a seductive appearance, "good ever spurious and underpaid. clothes." At this age, toward what is becoming the end ecently a book inquired Who Stole Feminism? I of my life, I am unemployable. Frightening, this future. sure didn't. Nor did Ti-Grace Atkinson. Nor Jill What poverty ahead, what mortification, what distant Johnston. We're all out of print. A few years ago, bag-lady horrors when my savings are gone and I am feminists gave a rent party for Ti-Grace in a loft down- supported by $350 a month of social security? town (she was too broke to pay her own). And another And why did I imagine it would be any different, one for Cindy Cisler, who came from rural Kentucky imagine my books would give me some slender living, or poverty through Yale University's school of architecture that I could at least teach at the moment in life when and sacrificed an architect's career to get abortion legal- every other teacher retires, having served dutifully all ized in New York State. those long years when I was enjoying the freedom of We haven't helped each other much, haven't been writer and artist, unsalaried but able to survive on the able to build solidly enough to have created community little I'd always been used to, and still able to invest in or safety. Some women in this generation disappeared a farm and build it into a self-sufficient woman's art to struggle alone in makeshift oblivion. Or vanished colony and even put a bit by in savings. The savings into asylums and have yet to return to tell the tale, as might last me as much 10 years, has Shula Firestone (see page 50). more like seven. So in seven years I Our fragile cohort, unable to be effec- should die. But I probably won't; Recently tive against the real circumstances of women in my family live forever. our discouragement, were also too Much as I tire of a life without a book timid to address them and could only purpose or the meaningful work stand by and murmur the formulae which alone would make it bear- of "mental health" as if it were an able, I can't die because the moment inquired Who individual's personal "problem" with I do, all my sculpture, drawings, the world. These "depressions" lasted negatives and silkscreen prints will Stole decades, as our hopes faded—depres- be carted off to the dump. sions that were rooted in profession- The Feminist Press, in its first Feminism? al frustration and were solid obsta- offer last fall (it took them 12 cles to self-realization. Frustrations months to come up with this), sug- we not only could not resolve, but gested only $500 to reprint the I sure didn't. could not even succor, until they entire text of Sexual Politics. finally became disease: we could Moreover, they couldn't get around Nor did rally round disease. Too late: there to it till the year 2000, since they'd were despairs that could only end in need to commission one or two Ti-Grace death. A few had the courage of fancy prefaces by younger, more direct action: Maria del Drago chose wonderful women's studies schol- suicide, so did Ellen Frankfurt, and ars. My agent and I were happy to Atkinson. Elizabeth Fischer, the founder of refuse this offer, and the next one, Aphra, the first feminist literary too, for $1,000. Nor Jill journal. The book also fails to attract Elizabeth and I used to run into sufficient interest from the powers Johnston. each other at a comfortable old hip- that be at Doubleday, who have pie cafe in Greenwich Village that I refused to reprint it, even though visited in the afternoons, writing another division of the company is We're all out some of the darker passages of The celebrating Sexual Politics with a Loony Bin Trip in public to avoid the long excerpt in an anthology of the of print. dangers of suicidal privacy at home. 40 - summer 1998 There's no She'd just finished a book that was her bottom, survival existence. Thanks to life's work. Probably it wasn't getting retirement, the magic of programmed arithmetic, I the reception she'd hoped for in the am, at one stroke, spared the humilia- already crowded new market of no safety tions of searching for regular employ- "women's studies" texts written by ment, institutional obedience, discre- sudden specialists in this field. tion or regimentation. Looks like I can Elizabeth and I would eat an afternoon in age; stay forever footloose and bohemian, a breakfast and chat, carefully and suc- busy artist-writer free of gainful cessfully disguising our misery from you work employment. Free at last—provided I each other. Feminists didn't complain live real close to the ground. to one another then; each imagined the till you There's subsistence living. And the loneliness and sense of failure was trees: hard physical work. There's no unique and personal. Consciousness- retirement, no safety in age; you work raising groups were over by then. One die. till you die. On return from Elder's had no colleagues: New York is not a cozy town. bucolic life in retirement, where at a sporty 68 she no Elizabeth is dead, and I must live to tell the tale, longer practices much law because it "interferes with hoping to tell another generation something I'd like traveling" (she's not only fond of Italy but has five them to know of the long struggle for women's libera- grandchildren in various parts of the United States), I tion, something about history and America and censor- found a letter full of pieties, but no cigar. It begins by ship. I might also hope to explain that social change saluting me as Professor and spells my name wrong. does not come easy, that pioneers pay dearly and in "I regret to inform you that you are not among the unnecessary solitude for what their successors take for finalists chosen for the senior feminist theorist/critic granted. Why do women seem particularly unable to position open in our department. I regret, too, that it observe and revere their own history? What secret has taken us longer than promised to arrive at a deci- shame makes us so obtuse? We did not create the com- sion. But the response to the search was astonishing munity necessary to support each other through insti- both in the number and distinction of the applicants. tutions, against the coming of age. And now we have a Members of the committee commented again and again lacuna between one generation's understanding and on the difficulty of selecting individuals from a pool that that of the next, and have lost much of our sense of con- contained so many women like you, whose thinking and tinuity and comradeship. writing have shaped and reshaped feminist inquiry for kut I have also spent 40 years as a downtown two decades." Hard to believe there were so many fish < artist habituated to the existential edge, and in the tank from my age group. And the lucky "finalists" 'even as I proclaim all is lost, I am surreptitious- get to give a "major address" at this university for free, ly planning a comeback, if only in fantasy... imagining a after which the ultimate winner of the contest actually sinecure in human rights for extreme old age, matched gets a job with four courses and committee work editions of my collected works, and final glory. And just thrown in. Just to consider it wearies me. What good last week, after a good dinner and a good play (Arthur fortune to have flunked out. Miller's American Clock), I lay awake scheming till the As for the other jobs, they still don't call back. The early hours, adding up the farm rents and seeing the two courses at the night school have dwindled to one for way to a summer of restoration, figuring to replace the less money, but anything else might interfere with my slate roof on the back of the farmhouse, which is full of own travels. The trees will keep me alive for the year, serious leaks that all who patch it claim are beyond fur- and an old flame beckons me to New Orleans to try out ther repair, then going on to paint every building, the her hospitality and the better restaurants; it might be lavender house, the blue barn. Bundling my sums time at last to see Paris again on a cheap ticket, since a together, ecstatic that I have finally paid off my credit friend there has offered me the use of a studio for a cards, scribbling at three in the morning that I will while. And in May, the German crazies are having a plant roses again, the ultimate gesture of success; the Bertrand Russell type trial in absentia to condemn psy- place will glisten. I will have won out after all. Living chiatry for its abuses; Thomas Szasz will be there, well is the best revenge. and Jacques Derrida. They want me to play juror and And then a trip to see my elder sister, the psychiatric survivor. Sweet revenge and a free ticket to Berlin. Why not? • banker/lawyer, caps my determination. The Elder has a computer program that guarantees you survival on your savings at five-percent interest if your withdrawal Kate Millett, Ph.D., is a sculptor and author. Her books include rate does not exceed seven percent—a vista of no less the groundbreaking Sexual Politics, which she wrote in 1970. than 30 years. My savings plus my rat's turd of social She divides her time between New York City and Poughkeepsie, security: The two figures together would give me a rock- New York, where she founded an art colony for women. on the issues - 41 PORTFOLIO PAINTED LIKE A MAN, DISAPPEARED LIKE A WOMAN LUISA VIDAL, THE DAUGHTER OF MODERNISM BY MARCY RUDO

wo revolutionary Spanish artists first exhibited their backward and patriarchal Iberian Peninsula. work at Els Quatre Gats Cafe in Barcelona during Vidal's progressive father, Francesco, was a Catalan Tthe 1897-1898 season. One of them would redefine William Morris. A talented cabinetmaker, he was an pictorial space and the centuries-old European way of innovative designer of furniture, and a great promoter portraying the human form. The other would become the of the Modernist movement (the Catalan version of Art quintessential Modernist, producing authoritative alle- Nouveau). A regular collaborator with another Catalan gorical and genre paintings and portraits. Both won the eccentric, architect Antonio Gaudi, Francesco Vidal had recognition, praise and respect of their peers. One would an international clientele that was aristocratic and cul- become mythic; the other, by virtue of her gender, would turally sophisticated. His wife, Mercedes Puig, came remain obscure, rarely indexed in the art and/or history from a family of musicians, and was herself an accom- texts of our era. plished pianist. When Pablo Picasso, educated at art schools in which The couple had nine daughters (and three sons), and female enrollment was forbidden, exhibited his work to a encouraged all the girls to pursue professional artistic circle of other artists at a bohemian cafe, he was doing careers. They employed as their children's at-home music what was expected of a young talent. When 21-year-old teachers such promising young talents as cellist Pablo Luisa Vidal (1876-1918) did the same, it was considered a Casals. Luisa, who was the second daughter but the most transgression of monumental proportions because, driven, received instruction in her father's workshop from although of enormous talent, Vidal was a woman. In 19th- his most talented employees, among them artist Joan century Spain, the idea that a woman might have a pro- Gonzalez (older brother of the sculptor Julio Gonzalez) fession—let alone a career—was unthinkable. and luminist painter Arcadi Mas i Fondevila. And from an Despite attempts by devoutly Catholic Spain to early age, she often accompanied her father to Madrid, to obstruct the advancement of women, which included for- the Prado Museum, where she copied the works of bidding them any formal education (80 percent of Velazquez and other masters, learning directly from the Spanish women then were illiterate), Luisa Vidal best of Spanish painting. received excellent instruction in foreign languages, litera- Though all the sisters were highly accomplished— ture, music and art. Nurtured in an exceptional family among them were a violinist, a cellist, a sculptor, a com- environment, where artistic creativity, with professional poser and a poet—it was only Luisa who, while acknowl- aspirations, was not just tolerated but actively encour- edging early on the sacrifices implicit in an artistic career, aged, she also had the good fortune of being raised in the nevertheless took advantage of the opportunity to pursue rarified cultural atmosphere of turn-of-the-century a life in art. At a time when women were supposed to be Barcelona, the chief city of Catalonia, in northeast Spain, the "Angel of the House" (a term the Spanish then used to and the epicenter of all things modern on the notoriously refer to a wife and perfect domesticated servant), Vidal 42 - summer 1998 Opposite page: Luisa Vidal and her sisters, photographed in 1904. Left to right, Marta, Frasquita, Carlotta, Luisa and Rosina.Above: Girl with Roses, oil on canvas circa 1903. Right: The Housewives, oil on canvas, 1905.

Above: Teresa Vidal, pastel on paper, circa 1903. Right: Sketch of a Woman, charcoal and pastel on paper, circa 1908. on the issues - 43 Left: Carlota Vidal, oil on canvas, circa 1905 Below: Among the Flowers, oil on canvas, 1905

strove to step outside this life without options. Raised almost as a boy; inculcated with such "masculine" traits as bled in painting; she painted nudes, not the flowers that independence of thought, aesthetic adventurousness, a were the commonly accepted theme for female painters. great capacity for work, and competitiveness, the young And it was in Paris that Vidal came in contact with the painter began her career, perhaps without realizing that European feminist movement, largely through her friend- as a professional female artist she would forever be bat- ship with the managing editor of La Fronde, an tling the social current—more aptly, riptide—of her times. "advanced" French journal written and printed exclusive- After attending the Universal Exposition in Paris in ly by women—professionals like herself. 1900, Vidal was determined to return there to further her Vidal's return to Barcelona, in 1902, coincided with artistic education. Her desire to study in Paris was char- a noisy, incipient feminist movement, which she enthu- acteristic of all aspiring turn-of-the-century artists. For siastically joined. Although history has made it appear Vidal actually to do so, however, was scandalous—women that women were excluded from, and uninvolved in, the simply did not go anywhere unescorted—and required a Modernist movement, in fact, female activists were often remarkable amount of courage and conviction. at the forefront. The work of writer Caterina Albert (her Nevertheless, in 1901, at the age of 25, Vidal left for Paris, 1905 novel, Solitude, written under a male pseudonym) accompanied only by her family's blessing. She is the only addressed female sexual awakening before D. H. female Spanish painter of the era who is known to have Lawrence gave it a shot. And in 1907 Catalan journalist studied there. Carmen Karr founded Feminal, a feminist magazine for Vidal took classes at the famed art schools of Paris. which Vidal illustrated the monthly short story. Many She studied plein-air painting (impressionist theories of other women also organized to fight for women's rights, color and light were still an innovation). Her teachers, albeit within the constraints of a conservative, Catholic, who included Eugene Carriere, Georges Picard and Joan machismo society that ridiculed and tried to thwart Gonzalez, having broken with traditionalism themselves, their efforts. offered her new ways of seeing—and a new way of being A prolific and driven painter, Vidal continued to seen: they viewed her as an artist, not a female who dab- exhibit her work, as she had done since that first show in 44 - summer 1998 Left: Frasquita Vidal, oil on canvas undated. Right: Maria Vidal, oil on canvas, circa 1911.

Above center: Self-portrait, oil on wood, circa 1899.

referring humorously to herself as a hard-working spinster. Els Quatre Gats Cafe. She participated in group and indi- She was also an astute businesswoman, managing vidual art exhibitions in Barcelona, and showed her work her own income from her work as portraitist and illustra- at international exhibitions in Spain, Mexico, and South tor. After the death of her sister Carlota in 1905, which America. Everywhere, she exhibited bold, dynamic por- was followed by her father's nervous breakdown, she was traits rather than the insipid still lifes expected of successful enough to take over the economic support of "ladies." Critics, all of whom were male, were awed as well her family. Friends and colleagues also counted on her for as stumped, using words such as 'Virile" to describe her financial, emotional, and critical support, which she was talent. In surprised admiration, they would write: "She able to provide. In 1911, she founded her own art acade- paints so well... she paints like a man!" my, which she ran until her death in 1918. She partici- This narrow appraisal haunted her entire career. But pated in cultural and social events, primarily those involv- it was the price levied by society when a woman of Vidal's ing women's rights; at the beginning of World War I she genius rejected the circumscribed, domestic world of helped found the women's pacifist movement. women to embrace the public life of the artist. Vidal took Luisa Vidal's energetic artistic and social endeavors such praise of her "masculine art" in stride, and went on were abruptly halted by her untimely death, from perfecting her skills and garnering portrait commissions influenza, at the age of 43. By this time, after 20 years of and exposition awards. A renowned and sought-after por- assiduous work and of facing down obstacles of every traitist, she painted not only her family and friends, but kind, she was a popular, and highly regarded, public fig- members of the Catalan aristocracy and men in public ure. It was only afterwards that she and her work fell—or life. Her depictions of children are exceptional, both in her were nudged—into near oblivion by the writers of art his- formal portraits and in her genre paintings, which pre- tory, as is the case with so many women artists. Somehow sent a unique record of intimate family life in that time we must rewrite those chronicles. • and place. Although it appears she had several opportunities to American author Marcy Rudo is the biographer of artist Luisa marry, Vidal clung to her independent status, occasionally Vidal. She makes her home in Barcelona, Spain. on the issues - 45 N BL

'm sure most people don't go around all people had, we had contempt for what we the time thinking about what race they saw as their pale lives. are. When you look like what you are, the I truly cannot remember when I first external world mirrors back to you an learned I was black. It is as if every experi- identity consistent with your idea of ence I have had of realizing I am black, all yourself. However, for someone like me, who the way back to grade school and before, is does not look like what I am, the mirrors are tainted with that fear of discovery, of being broken, and my consciousness, or lack of con- recognized as black. Now I realize that the sciousness, takes on serious implications. depression that made me begin the work of Am I mentally "passing"? this book was really a first re-memory of All my life I have passed invisibly into "killing" voices from my childhood. It was the white world, and all my life I have expe- like feeling returning in a limb that has rienced that sudden and alarming moment been asleep. of consciousness when I remember I am House Hunting - September black. It may feel like I'm emerging too Last month, I called a real estate agent. quickly from deep in the ocean, or touching "There is a house I think you'd be interested an electric fence; or like a deer stuck in the in," she said. "It's on an estate on Highland headlights of an oncoming car. Sometimes in Avenue, and the people are very particular conversation with a white person who does- about who buys it." n't know I'm black, suddenly a feeling comes My heart shriveled. Should I find out over me, a precursor—though nothing at all whom they are "particular about"? Should I has been said about race—and I either wait let her think I'm white and go without Bruce helplessly for the other shoe to drop, or try to see it? When I take Bruce we are shown desperately to steer the conversation in entirely different neighborhoods, all-black or another direction, or prepare myself for integrated. painful distinctions. My desire to escape is I decided to act dumb: "Oh, really? Why indistinguishable from my "blackness," my isn't it a multiple listing? What are they so race, and I am filled with shame and fury. careful about?" People have asked why my parents, my "Well, you know, some people like to do it grandmother and I never "passed" over into this way. Let me have your phone number; the white world. It was unthinkable. With I'll call you back." But she never called back. my dark grandfather driving, my grand- I wonder if our name is known: "That black mother and I would ride in the backseat of couple looking for a house in town, and the my grandfather's Cadillac as if we were wife looks white." being chauffeured. We'd shop the aisles at This week I called another agent and Saks Fifth Avenue when there wasn't even a played a game. "We'd like to look at the black elevator operator. On the one hand, house you're describing, but we'd also like to there was always a feeling of anxiety that see a house we heard about on an estate." something would betray what we really "I'll see if I can get the owners on the were; on the other, I think we were really phone and we'll go see it." quite self-possessed, almost arrogant. When Bruce and I got to her office, of We saw ourselves, with all our struggles and course she hadn't gotten hold of them. "The complexities, as rich in culture and history, man works at night. No one is at home." fierce, determined, strong, and even beauti- "I'd still like to see it. Drive by on the ful. While we wanted the privileges white way to the other house."

46 - summ«r RACIAL REALITIES WHITE BY TOI DERRICK

She got lost! Imagine a real estate deal- gave us a cocktail party. I felt grateful, but er getting lost in her own town! "That's all out of place. I couldn't get over the feeling right," I reassured her. "We can go past it on that I had to prove myself different from the way back." what I was sure almost all of them took for The house she showed us, in the inte- granted—that Bruce and I didn't know any- grated part of town, was expensive and run- thing about wine or art and had never seen down. On the way to the "particular" house, an Oriental carpet in our lives—yet at the once again she got lost. We had to direct her. same time, I had to be absolutely "myself; Bruce said, "There it is! There it is!" It was that was the only way I could earn their all lit up. And she kept driving. Finally, half respect. Suddenly, right in the middle of my a mile down the road (I was waiting to see if urgent desire to belong, came my hatred of she would ever stop), I said, "Why didn't you them and everything they stood for. stop at the house?" April "Oh," she stammered. "Did we pass it?" This morning I put my car in the shop. The I felt a hopelessness descend. No matter neighborhood shop. When I went to pick it up how clever and determined I am, they can I had a conversation with the man who had always find a way to stop me. I decide to look worked on it. I told him I'd been afraid to for a house in another community, one leave the car there at night with the keys in where we are not yet known, and this time it. "Don't worry," he said. "You don't have to I'll go to the real estate agent's alone. worry about stealing as long as the niggers October don't move in." I couldn't believe it. I hoped I It's the overriding reality I must get had heard him wrong. "What did you say?" I through. Each time I drive down the streets asked. He repeated the same thing without and see only whites, each time I notice there hesitation. are no blacks in the supermarket or walking In the past, my anger would have past, I think, I'm not supposed to be here. swelled quickly, I would have blurted out Some part of me doesn't give a fuck something, hotly demanded that he take my about boundaries—in fact, sees the bound- car down off the rack immediately, though he aries and is determined to dance over them, had not finished working on it, and driven off no matter what the consequences are. in a blaze. I love that reaction. The only feel- March ing of power one can possibly have in a situ- We finally decided on Upper Montclair, ation in which there is such a sudden feeling New Jersey. The neighborhood isn't integrat- of powerlessness is to "do" something. When ed but the schools are, since busing is in you "do" something, everything is clear. But effect. Many afternoons, instead of asking— this is the only repair shop in the city. Might not wanting to arouse the suspicion of the I have to come back here someday in an real estate agents—I would sit outside one of emergency? the neighborhood schools at lunch hour like Blowing off steam is supposed to make a pedophile, counting the number of black you feel better. But in this situation it does- faces. Though sometimes I'd be brave and n't! After responding in anger, I often feel ask. I didn't only want information; I wanted sad, guilty, frightened, and confused. Perhaps | to commit a small revolutionary act—to my anger isn't just about race. Perhaps it's leave the impression that the world is full of like those rapid-fire responses to Bruce—a liberal white parents who want change. way of dulling the edge of feelings that lie Last week the people across the street even deeper. RACIAL REALITIES I asked Bruce and he admitted that, partly, it was true. He was allow him to be seen in a different way.

I let the tension stay in my body. I go home and sit liquid self, as I do again and again each day. with myself for an hour, trying to grasp the feeling—the Knowing whom we love and hate holds reality in odor of self-hatred, the biting stench of shame. place. His body protects me, stands between me and a The Club - July kind of annihilation. Last week a young woman who lives down the street April came over for dinner. We got into a conversation about I see them going out together on Friday nights. I peek Tall Oaks Country Club, where she is the swimming through the shutters when I hear their voices in the instructor. I asked her, hesitantly, but unwilling not to street. They come out, all at the same time: the get this information, if blacks were allowed to join. Baldwins walk across the street and get into the (Everybody on our block belongs; all had been told Lloyds' car, the Stevenses wave at them as they pull out about "the club" and asked to join as soon as they of their drive. They're all going to the club for dinner or moved in. We had never been told, or asked to join.) a party. And they make noise out there, the noise of "No," she said. happiness, as if they want me to hear and be sad. "You mean the people on this block who have had August us over for dinner, whom I have invited to my home for Saturday morning Bruce and I spend a couple of hours dinner—I can't swim in a pool with them?" talking about the club. I want to try and join, to sue "That's the rule," she said, as if she were stating a them, but I just don't have the energy and guts to do it mathematical fact. without him. He says he's tired of talking about it. He Four days ago Ann, the woman down the street, claims I'm taking this hard because it's the first time called to ask if my son could baby-sit. I like this woman. I've directly felt the results of racism, the first time I've Easy to talk to. She and her husband are members of been refused because I'm black. I don't get the constant the club, and I couldn't resist telling her the story. reminders that people with dark skin grow so accus- She said, "Oh, Toi, John and I wanted to invite you tomed to that they are often not bothered. He says my and Bruce to be our guests at a dinner party. Several of color has given me a kind of mobility. The pain I feel us said we would turn in our resignations unless you now is the pain most black people experience when could come. But the majority felt it wouldn't be a good they are children, when they realize they cannot idea, because you would see all the good things and escape from their skin. want to join, and since you couldn't join, it would just When I finally talked to Ann again—she never did hurt you and be frustrating. John and I wanted to quit. invite us to the club—she invited us to their home for I feel very ashamed of myself, but the next summer, dinner, and we went, sick with anger but wanting to be when I'm stuck in the house with the kids and nothing forgiving. She poached salmon with creme fraiche and to do, we'd start going again." served it on her grandmother's china, with sterling, August and damask from Holland. I sat in the living room as When I'm with Bruce, I feel black, feel as if I'm taken in sick as if I had eaten feces, my lips pulled back like a by his blackness, as if his blackness falls on me, as if it frightened dog's. casts a powerful shadow. Perhaps I assume we become That night my heart touched self-hatred. It was as the things we love, and I assume everyone else can see. white as white light. It burned my eyes like a holo- Whatever is tainted of Bruce is also tainted of me; caust. I had to enter and be one with it before I could whatever is beloved of him is also beloved of me. I forgive myself. become what he is in restaurants, in real estate December offices—at times reluctantly, but without question. I asked Bruce if he had married me because of my light Do I, given my place of trembling identity, slip over skin, and he admitted that, partly, it was true. He was and become the thing I am closest to? If so, no wonder aware that my color, especially in business, would allow I married a black man! To have married a white man him to be seen in a different way. would have been terrifying, to love a white man would I had always thought that Bruce was the one per- have made me feel constantly adrift from my most son in the world who loved me for myself. We have been primitive cells. How frightening to be awash without married for twenty years and never talked about color. constructs! To be placed outside the walls of the city! To Now I see that I am partly a shield he is holding up for lose kinship, memory, and begin again with nothing, a protection. He, too, has a secret in the corner of his 48 - summer 1998 ramis;T cui-i urn • roLiiKi • taxAiumsmn - AHAMSIS GIFT SUBSCRIPTION Include my subscription • New • Renew Total Order at $14.95 each $ Payment enclosed • Bill me

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heart that stands between us like a mirror we don't ness is both real and unreal, that it can't be explained, want to look into. nailed down, or verified. That it is an attribute of the I want to tell him how, when we pull up in front of body, slightly, like a halo. a hotel, I want to rush out of the car door, to go in before "You bright?" a young girl asked me as she passed him just in case he will be given an inferior room. Often by on a street in the small town in Louisiana that was I don't because I don't want him to be "emasculated," my mother's childhood home. I had never heard it said not to have the normal power of a male to get a hotel that way before. "Bright?" I asked. room, but I distrust what women are supposed to trust Was it something in my body that gave me away? in their men—the power of acquisition. I often feel I That girl, with her Southern X-ray eyes, having peered could do better alone. more deeply and concertedly into miscegenation? She Thinking White looked proud of herself, as if she had caught me hiding. At a recent dinner party for my mother, my black Or perhaps she was smiling because it made her happy friends astonished me by saying that I look whiter than to find me kin. Or perhaps, like those girls who combed she does. But I had always thought that she looked and brushed my "good" hair, she saw me as an example whiter than I. Was that my way of rejecting her, of not of what could in fact burst out of any one of us girls— wanting to be like her? Or was it my way of "ennobling" not the "throwback" our mothers warned us about, what I came from? Someone said I'd better have a good, making us worry through all our pregnancies, and clear picture on my book; she said that, in a way, it is check first, before fingers and toes, our baby's ears—but brave of me to say I look white, because saying you look a "bright" child, like me. white, at least to some black people, is a red flag of pre- Face to Face sumption, arrogance, and perhaps even insanity. Can whites begin to understand and take in the pain "She think she white" was one of the worst insults of this racist society? So often white people, when a that could be hurled during childhood, rasped nearly deep pain with regard to racism is uncovered, want it out of the subject's hearing. to be immediately addressed, healed, released. Black "She think she white" might indicate, not that you people have had to live with the wounds of racism for wore a pretty dress, but that you wore it in a certain generations. Even goodwill and hard work won't make way, as if you were proud of it as a fact of your being, the personal hurts cease. Perhaps awareness can as if you deserved it, took it as a personal accomplish- insure that we do not pass the damage on to others. ment, as if in some way it created a hardness around Things don't change. Newsweek, October 1994— you, set you apart, gave you not only an identity of blacks have inferior intelligence, re: The Bell Curve. your own but one that separated you from the others It's as if, no matter how much I heal myself, the world and shut them out. keeps breaking my image into shards and sticking "She think she white" is not the same as "She them into my heart. I am supposed to distrust and wants to be white." It means, she thinks she is white. It hate myself. How can I explain to you that, at the aims not only to make the hearer think that she has same time, I do distrust myself; the world has suc- done something wrong, but to assault the very idea of ceeded; I won't let this happen. I will not think what the self, to deal a shattering blow to the center of all the world wants me to think. And that, in some way, thought. Isn't that racism's greatest injury? my confession is a kind of subterfuge, a tactic, a way What Makes You Black? of overturning the damage. It is the silence that I fear more than anything, the pretense, the way it seems It is always a question asked by whites who, I suppose, that, in the silence, suddenly some violence springs think, looking at me, that the necessary attributes- out that is unconnected. Is it better to keep things color, features, hair, or perhaps something more subtle: looking neat? • speech, some giveaway inflection of being—are missing. Some have said, shocked: But nothing about you is black! This expresses a puzzlement, a curiosity, but it Excerpted from The Black Notebooks by Toi Derricotte (W.W. can also be an accusation, as if they were saying: Look, Norton & Company, New York). Derricotte is an award- now, black is one thing that I am absolutely sure of— winning writer and the recipient of two fellowships from the you owe me an explanation! National Endowment for the Arts. She is an associate Black people never ask. We understand that black- professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh. on the issues - 49 Ill

AIRLESS SPACES By Shulamith Firestone dreamed I was on a sinking Firestone writes of times gone by, Semiotext(e), New York, 160 pages ship . . . here and there I saw of people rendered anonymous by the strange goings-on, like in a Kafkaesque routines of institutional life; Grosz cartoon. ... I woke of unnecessarily brutal attendants and hulamith Firestone's Airless Spaces from this dream in a panic that this dis- strife among patients; of death—by sui- Sis a poignant, poetic, but stark aster was real, and that I was picking cide or "natural causes." She reminds account of her years spent in and out of all this up by e.s.p. I even called UPI to me of Nathalie Sarraute in Tropisms. psychiatric hospitals. Feminist-activist ask if there was any recent news of a Firestone captures the moment, its Firestone is also the author of the sinking liner, and they said yes, but it interstices, with a dreadful clarity and brilliant and influential The Dialectic of was in the Bermuda Triangle, so no honesty. She does not spare herself. Sex (1970). I have been haunted, and attempt would be made to find it." She is without self-pity. Her compassion saddened, by her long silence. I now Like so many, Firestone found no lies in her rendering of each painful, but understand it. help in the hospital. With telling detail, relevant, detail into word-portraits of Many women writers, feminists she describes the forced medication people, both as inmates and as "real" included (Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and the forced showers, the dull food, people. She writes obituaries of both Harriet Beecher Stowe, Catharine the complete lack of privacy, the failed Valerie Solanas and Allen Ginsberg, and Beecher, Frances Farmer, Valerie attempts at friendship, the utter of less-well-known people, who were Solanas, Kate Millett), have written absence of family support, the difficulty dearer to her. about their severe psychological dis- of relating to someone I look forward to tress, and/or forced, often dangerous, who has "sunk"; that Firestone's next work. • psychiatric hospitalizations. Firestone is is, someone who is no clear: She was unable to manage her longer able to "pass" Reviewed by Phyllis life; she needed help. She writes: "I for normal. Chesler

Excerpted from AIRLESS SPACES sure she had long off the private rooms, one by Shulamith Firestone since stopped sweat- of which was inhabited ing. Still, one of the by the ancient Chinese aides nosed into her crone who needed a 24- The Forced Shower room and said, "Get hour attendant. A stool Corinne was waiting for the ready for your show- filled most of the small Environmental Control Board to er, girl, one way or shower. They forced her send in a water inspection team. In the other." It was down on this even though fact, she knew they had already been about 8:30 at night she was still going limp in the hospital, and the word was to and shower times were usually in the for the cameras, so much so that her bring those water levels up to nor- mornings. She guessed they had torso hung limp from the waist all the mal. In the meantime, she had been missed her at dinner. Now she willed way to the floor, her arms flapping. without a shower so long a few more them with all her strength to go away Then they got brutal, all with merri- days would hardly make any differ- and forget about her. She was gen- ment. (She had always noticed that the ence. The thing is, you see, she actu- uinely surprised when this didn't more security cops were on the job, the ally wanted a shower, just not one work. The whole team appeared at more of a good time they had. Maybe with 40 percent formaldehyde in it. her door about 15 minutes after the they were posing for some candid cam- She had waited many months warning, security cops and all. She era too.) One soaped between her legs because the water in her apartment went limp. Someone took each of her and another got her hair worked into a had 116 different poisons in it, all four limbs and someone else cradled stiff lather. She was beyond yelling that listed in the CIA manual, which is her head. "But I agreed to take a the soap was worse than the water, how you knew they were hard poi- shower as soon as the water levels being about 89 percent chemicals. How sons and not just the "medication" pass inspection," she protested to no did she know all this? It was simple. that was pretended. She narrowly one in particular. Her limp body prac- Read the label of the shampoo body escaped seizure at mealtime by dou- tically brushed the floor, only the stiff wash. Didn't a hospital the size of Beth ble-guessing them and hastily rins- limbs held up. Abraham have even some leftover ing under her arms, though she was They took her to one of the showers Ivory Soap from ten years ago? Was the 50 - summer 1998 WHAT ARE WE FIGHTING FOR? of everything that went SEX, RACE, CLASS, AND THE FUTURE OF FEMINISM through Russ' mind, by Joanna Russ every sentence she ever St. Martin's Press, New York, 476 pages What Are We read that held meaning EX, RMS, CUSS, AND THE FUTURE OF FEMIMSI for her. A related difficulty is Fighting For? the lack of a clear orga- oanna Russ, best known for The the other hand, there nizational scheme. J Female Man (1975) and other works was always a gem to be Because there was so of feminist/New Wave science fiction, is found, a reward for my much material, and the wonderfully and accurately described on efforts. In the end, I sentences were so long her unofficial home page as a "lesbian was pleased I had read JOANNA RUSS and full, it was difficult feminist science fiction fantasy Utopia every word, and with to figure out how one horror postmodernist author with a some reservations and suggestions, I chapter related to another, or the point wicked sense of humor." With this as a can recommend it to others. of the whole. The book jacket states backdrop, I eagerly awaited the opportu- First, the problems. Chief is that the book's intention is to connect "the nity to read her third nonfiction book Russ tries too hard to say everything feminist movement to struggles for ever, in the works for 13 years: What Are she thinks, feels, or opines. I found racial and class equality," arguing We Fighting For? Sex, Race, Class, and myself actually laughing at the copious "against the shift in contemporary femi- the Future of Feminism. notes at the end of each chapter. A few nist theory—from the direct political I don't think I've ever had such a chapters even had their own appen- struggle of the 1960s and 70s to a mixed reaction to a book. On the one dices. And then, at the very end, there depoliticized focus on women's psychol- hand, it's very slow reading, often are four more chapters, which Russ ogy and personal relations," charting tedious. After putting it aside, I some- calls "leftovers." It was as if she'd had the "scapegoating of separatists and times had to force myself to pick it up one more thought, and into the manu- lesbians," and introducing the need to again. Absent the fact that I was read- script it went. In some ways the book "accept the leadership of women of ing it with the intention of writing a reads as if it were a stream of con- color." I, however, was unable to formu- review, I doubt I'd have persevered. On sciousness, an unexpurgated collection —Russ continued on page 52

budget so weak you had to wash with grabbed her long tangled soapy hair It was matted and stiff with chemicals what amounted to a glorified paper and pulled it to the top of her head on but she had already tried to get a brush towel full of medication and pure chem- the side under a rubber band. The with no luck. All she had was a semi- icals? lights were glaring and she managed brush for pocket or purse, so it was this "She's anorexic too. She hasn't through the sedative from the shot to or nothing. It took hours to comb it out been eating, she's lost even more ask someone to turn off the light. "Turn strand by strand, and in some places it weight since she got in here." it off yourself," said a big black woman, was so clumped she feared she would "How would you know? You've one of the guards. just have to cut into it and leave a gap- never even seen me undressed before or Corinne lay there for hours in a ing hole. taken my weight," Corinne shot back. daze. Not exactly the shower she had Finally, very proud of herself, she They had her standing naked up dreamed of. She doubted she was even managed a modest braid, but she noted against the small mob of attendants clean. But that she would have to con- that her hair was no longer thick and crowded into the bathroom. quer her fears and take showers herself luxurious but thin and wispy as if the "Evelyn Eldred," Corinne read her from now on there could be no doubt. chemicals had burned away whole name off her badge, actually jabbing She wasn't going to let herself be put strands. From here dates Corinne's her with her index finger in the throat through this again. And why did they haircut, which turned out to be a bowl- area, "you are fired!" Evelyn's face con- sedate her at the end, when it was all on-the-head sort of job, what with the exigencies of hospital passes, the torted, and she pulled out of her pocket over, rather than at first? Because she money required to visit a professional a couple of needles. "Hold her down," dared to wave a finger at the head aide. stylist, and other problems. From this she said, and with maximum impact They treated you as a leper, they were time on Corinne began to look like a they jabbed her in each naked buttock scared of patient aggression, the small- mental patient, not an attractive as she stood there leaning up against est infraction brought out the whole woman who just happened to be them. battery. thrown into a mental hospital. • "You forgot to wash the soap out of Corinne went to mealtimes like a my hair" was her last attempt before wounded creature for some days. Her Shulamith Firestone is a feminist theorist they dragged her out limp again and dreadlock served only to remind the dumped her on her bed. Someone staff of what she had just been through. and early activist living in New York City. Ill

Russ continued from page 51- it is no longer true that lesbians are the reasons that heterosexual women, late any such description of overarching invisible. Maybe in some places, of even feminists, find it frightening to purpose and intention while reading the course, but there are too many counter- question the "naturalness" of women's book. Frankly, I got lost in the details. examples for Russ to make this state- attraction to men. I particularly appreci- Finally, the outdated references are ment so categorically. And in my own ated the quotes from feminists of color, very disappointing, heavy as they are. field of psychology, it has been many describing their alienation from the Perhaps it would have been better if years since psychoanalysis was the the- women's movement. Although the Russ had framed the book as a review ory against which all others were mea- quotes were not current, the collection of, and reflection on, the classic works sured. I recently heard a speaker say Russ pulls together is still exciting, an of second-wave feminist theory; as such that the only mental health practitioners inspiring reminder, perhaps especially to it would have made more sense. At the who still subscribe to Freudian theory white women, but also to feminists of beginning, the reader is eager to learn are a few male psychoanalysts who live every hue and persuasion, that we had something new, to be taken down a new on Park Avenue in New York City. better realize "we will lose any possibili- path, to expand her consciousness and Outside the arts and humanities, psy- ty of developing an accurate map of the awareness and her list of things-to-do- choanalysis is just not very important world . . . [unless we have] the ability to about-all-that. Having just finished hear- these days. understand the interconnections ing Jim Nantz, the sportscaster who ran But then there are the gems. From between different kinds of oppression." the show for CBS at the 1998 Winter the very beginning, even in the acknowl- While this is not the book for some- Olympics, describe the "global communi- edgments, I cheered out loud when one who is looking for new material, it ty of man," even as the U.S. women's Russ announces that it is okay to steal is an excellent study to dip into. It's dif- hockey team won the gold medal, I her ideas, and that she approves of the ficult to read cover to cover, even in looked to Russ for "ammunition." What tendency of women writers to use excla- many sittings, but it is a rich resource, I found instead were many references mation points and italics for emphasis. including many of the best quotes ever from the feminist glory days of the And in every subsequent chapter, I compiled in one place, a reminder of the 1970s and '80s, and nothing written underlined something that I loved. basic principles, the raw roots, of femi- since. Valuable as many of these ideas Examples abound. I share Russ' con- nist theory and practice. • still are, we already know about the tention that feminism as political action importance of coalition-building across has been abandoned in favor of intro- Reviewed by Ellen Cole, Ph.D., profes- lines of color, class, and physical abili- spection: an emphasis on the unique- sor of psychology at Alaska Pacific ty/disability. A more serious conse- ness of women's issues and problems, University in Anchorage and former quence of using references from the on the "interior" life. I applaud her invi- editor of Women & Therapy and the past is that some of Russ' conclusions tation to return to activism. On a more Haworth Press series, Innovations in are simply no longer valid. For example, subtle plane, I loved her speculation on Feminist Studies.

FREUD'S PARANOID QUEST: PSYCHOANALYSIS AND MODERN SUSPICION the rece ts d the er whose influence continues to grow in By John Farrell P P /? P - academic circles. John Fan-ell's original, sonahties of his move- New York University Press, New York, 275 pages ment the leader penetrating study, Freud's Paranoid Jl suspicious, megalomaniacal philoso- denounces its renegades. Those who dis- Quest, demonstrates how problematic rtpher demands total submission from play independent thought are excom- the legacy of Freud's genius is, calling his pupils. He tolerates no dissent; they municated; those who question their into question many of the most cher- submit. They are inducted into their teacher are branded weak, mentally ill, ished precepts of psychoanalysis. While role as devotees through furtive, cultic or both. The followers' relationships providing a chilling chronicle of Freud's rituals, and don rings on which are with their leader exhibit an identical formation of the esoteric Psychoanalytic mounted Greek intaglios, in imitation of pattern: worshipful devotion gives way Committee in 1913, Farrell contests the emblem worn by the classical god to tension, followed by estrangement such proverbial Freudian beliefs as the Jupiter. The students swear unswerving and bitter accusation by the master. He centrality of dreams to human psychol- loyalty to their master and his precepts goes so far as to gloat when a too-gifted ogy, the hidden significance of minor and commit themselves to absolute student returns traumatized from errors such as slips of the tongue (those secrecy. Their teacher proclaims himself World War I, and commits suicide. so-called Freudian slips), and the role of "the conquistador," "the giant," and This is not the leader of a lunatic- sexual desire and aggression as prima- identifies himself with history's con- fringe group, but the progenitor of psy- ry motivators. These assumptions, quering heros: Moses, Caesar, choanalysis, Sigmund Freud, whose Farrell argues, emerged from a darkly Alexander the Great, Hannibal, imprimatur is stamped indelibly on the skeptical mode of thought which Columbus, William the Conqueror, field of mental health, whose vocabu- assumes that each banal impulse cloaks Napoleon. Obsessed with control of both lary has become popular parlance, and a vicious secret. According to Freud, the 52 - summer 1998 physician's desire to heal masks deeply experience into symbolic codes. By By putting aside Freudian rhetoric rooted sadism, just as the social aggressively negating the thoughts of and operating outside psychoanalytic activist's promotion of equality disguis- his analysands, many of whom were categories, Farrell shows the extent to es fundamental hostility to others. "And female, and discrediting their accounts which Freud's conclusions are without for the psychoanalyst, of course," writes of their own experiences, Freud estab- foundation. While he does not deal Farrell, "everything we do is worthy of lished himself as a figure of heroic extensively with the subject of gender, suspicion, except for those actions that authority. According to the double stan- his critique of Freud's pathological are overtly selfish, violent, or libidinally dard that he set, only the analyst, authoritarianism has profound implica- driven. These things alone can be trust- whose diagnoses are simply "correct," is tions for feminist scholars of psycho- ed to present their true aspect to the free from suspicious investigation: analysis and for all mental health pro- world." "Making a withdrawal from all intellec- fessionals who retain aspects of Freud's In Freud's personal and profession- tual commitment, he establishes illu- program. al life, in his theoretical vocabulary and sion and error as universal structures.... Farrell's most imaginative connec- his clinical method, suspiciousness rein- But when it comes to the certitude of his tion is his equation of Freud with the forced by grandiosity and the desire for own claim, the reductionist makes an delusional protagonist in Cervantes' control reached the level of full-blown exception." The highly charged dynam- Don Quixote, a character with whom paranoia. Freudian paradigms, Farrell ics of dominance and submission inform Freud had a lifelong fascination. claims, could never have emerged in a psychoanalytic theory and practice. Convinced that he is persecuted by normal research environment. By 1933, Sigmund Freud had invisible, all-powerful sorcerers, Farrell's study aims to uncover the become a cultural icon. In that year, he Quixote tilts at the windmills that he intellectual background of Freudian brought together his previous, scattered believes are giants: he is an impover- theory in order to solve the riddle of the writings on the subject of ished gentleman who, high regard for psychoanalysis among women in the seminal essay, though the Age of Chivalry clinicians, scholars, and lay people. "Femininity." Here, Freud is long past, poses as a Farrell places Freud at the end of a line argued that the turning medieval knight in service of thinkers—principally, Bacon, Locke, point in female psychologi- to "Dulcinea," the great lady Hobbes, and Hume—who, from the 17th cal development occurs who may or may not exist. century on, raised doubts about the reli- when a young girl perceives Freud, an anonymous ability of the mind. Freud's contribution that her clitoris is inferior to researcher hoping to be to the field of epistemology was that of a the male penis. Acceptance hailed, one day, as "a systematizer: he found consistency in of femininity entails living genius," a Jew in an human psychology "by the banishing of with one's status as a "cas- increasingly anti-Semitic all motives but those of a total and sys- trated" being, although the Austria, and a man beset by temic lustfulness and selfishness to the wish to be male lives on in cocaine addiction, cast him- realm of mere appearances...." the unconscious, asserting itself in self in the role of modernity's most Perhaps it was this confident gaug- many sublimated forms. According to determined knight. Convinced of the ing of human behavior that insured Freud, the secret lurking within the antagonism of his colleagues, he Freud's popularity throughout much of female mind is anatomical jealousy: plumbed the depths of human con- the 20th century. According to the "The fact that women must be regarded sciousness in a quest as farcical as movement's own, self-heroizing history, as having little sense of justice is no Quixote's and as teleological as that of the turn- of -the- century medical com- doubt related to the predominance of any medieval pilgrimage. Each foray munity was outraged at Freud's revolu- envy in their mental life, for the could yield only one result: a hidden vio- tionary findings and punished the mas- demand for justice is a modification of lent or sexual urge. If we accept John ter. But in fact, according to Farrell, psy- envy and lays down the condition sub- Farrell's premise that Freudian logic is choanalysis elicited no such violent out- ject to which one can put envy aside." contaminated by its own suspicion, then cries: "For, contrary to psychoanalytic Freud's ideas about women's innate we must conclude that the women of dogma, the movement has commanded passivity and hysteria permeated med- Freud's corpus—the "castrated female," the "hysteric"—are, like Quixote's a depth of commitment among its ical discourse throughout most of our Dulcinea, the product of a deluded adherents, and a level of acceptance century, and his paternalism set the vision. They are the creations of a among intellectuals, which exceed what tone for relationships between psychia- misogynistic philosopher posing as a is justified by the scientific validation of trists and their patients. His hostile, scientist. • the theory... It seems to be, for many sweeping claims about female psycholo- people, a compelling, almost irresistible gy have been attacked by contempor- body of doctrine." ary scholars, but those scholars too Reviewed by Jaclyn Geller, a Ph.D. can- didate in English literature at New York Farrell explains the cult of Freud in often rely on Freud's own terminology, University and an instructor in its writ- terms of the satisfaction that reduction- accusing him of unconscious rage ing program. ist theories offer by condensing human or hysteria. on the issues - 53 film

WOMEN OF A CERTAIN AGE THE BIG 3-0, 4-0, AND 5-0 of the unconscious forces the "Marriage is a catastrophe for issue. What comes to seem in ret- women," the young Clarissa and her by Molly Haskell rospect as a resolved "turning adored friend Sally Seton agree. Yet point" is, at the time, a flurry of what choice have they? Certainly not to terror, panic, and possibility. run off with each other, though the pas- woman who, just past 50, reviews her Three new movies pay riveting sionate kiss they exchange may be the Aentire life on the eve of a party, and attention to a woman's twists and erotic high point of their lives. And so, wonders if she married the right man. turns at moments of crisis—as it hap- for the rest of her life, Clarissa has A woman who, just turned 40, falls pens, those three critical ages noted oscillated emotionally between two convulsively into an affair with a much above. Such attentiveness to grown-up men: the one she married, the kind, younger man, threatening her marriage women and their rites of passage isn't conventional Richard Dalloway, and and her sanity. exactly a staple of movies today, which, the one she spurned, the charming A woman who, just reaching 30, has reflecting the youth culture around "failure" Peter Walsh, who will turn up them, prefer their women as mis- on this day of days. tresses and ingenues—at the blos- It is 1923, a beautiful June day, soming point rather than in full and Clarissa is planning one of her par- flower. That's why these ventures ties, walking through London, return- into the labyrinths of female psy- ing home, seeing to the flowers, silver, chology, two directed by women and clothes. As Big Ben tolls the hours, with one by a man, are themselves mile- the gardens of Westminster in full stones, and not to be missed. bloom, modernity intrudes: planes, Who would have thought that "autocars," advertising in the form of anyone would even dare to adapt skywriting, and reverberations of the Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, Great War, only recently ended. One much less do it successfully? With disturbance on the horizon of Clarissa's its non-linear, stream-of-conscious- clear sailing is a young man she sees ness style and fragmented narra- but never meets, Septimus Warren tive, the slender, groundbreaking Smith (Rupert Graves), a shell-shocked the choice of two 1925 novel would seem impossible to war veteran whose madness and sui- men, one represent- transfer to the screen. Yet the script by cide—an uncanny projection of Woolf s ing dull security, Eileen Atkins, who has come to "inhab- own depression and death—come to the other a danger- it" Virginia Woolf in theater pieces like intrude on Clarissa's party. ous unknown. A Room of One's Own and Vita and We meet the two men who repre- A whole life Virginia (with Vanessa Redgrave as sent the poles of her existence: Richard hangs in the bal- Vita Sackville-West) is a masterpiece Dalloway (John Standing), a politician ance, and a move of fine-tuned sympathy. The director is who never quite made it into the this way or that Marleen Gorris, the Dutch filmmaker Cabinet (because Clarissa didn't devote will alter the rest of of, most recently, Antonia's Line, but herself sufficiently to his career? Or her existence. The more memorably of the explosive femi- because of his own inadequacies?), and moment of reckoning doesn't have to nist parable A Question of Silence, in who would really rather live in the occur at one of the crucial ages—30, 40, which a group of women in a boutique country and hunt. Peter Walsh or 50— but it so often does. At the "big turn on a salesman in homicidal laugh- (Michael Kitchen) lives in India and five-oh" or the "big four-oh," time stops; ter and rage. manages (barely) to stay afloat, while it's as if you've emerged from the woods With clarity and grace, the movie continually falling in love. Legal prob- into a clearing at the top of a hill, and slides back and forth between past and lems with his latest paramour have you're obliged to look both backward present, between Natascha McElhone sent him to London, where he drops by and forward. The present has to be as the young Clarissa and Vanessa to see the woman who broke his heart, faced: Is it all that you expected and so Redgrave as her ruefully retrospective and confirm in his own mind that she's blindly pursued, or is it arid and point- older self. Without the least effect of dis- thrown her life away. less? You might continue treading water, tortion or special pleading, Woolf s fem- Etched no less vividly than the but some unexpected event or eruption inism seeps into every crack of the film. men is the daughter, Elizabeth, who's 54 - summer 1998 7 at war with her mother, and has fallen of suggesting and implying into the company of a religious fanatic. most of what's in the book. For This funny, pitiable woman despises Far left: a youthful example, the screenplay does- and more mature Clarissa—her class, her frivolity—but n't include Walsh's wonderful Mrs. Dalloway, wilts before her social confidence. observation on Clarissa and played by Vanessa What an extraordinary array of Richard: "With twice his wits Redgrave. Above characters, of social layering, of insight and right: Actress- she had to see life through his producer Brigitte into lives so distant from Woolf s own! eyes: one of the tragedies of Roiian becomes The interlocking subjectivities, and the married life." But Walsh's hot for a younger free-association technique once thinking is transparent in man in Post thought exasperatingly difficult and Coitum, Animal Michael Kitchen's superb per- Trieste avant-garde, now seem to reflect the formance, the way he conveys way we live and breathe. The novel the intellectual arrogance of even anticipated cinematic conventions the superior outsider, and it's also clear Never far from caricature, Roiian like interior monologue, jumps in time, that this is the view of a still-embit- boldly depicts the arc of this consuming and intersecting or parallel story lines. tered rival who can only see marriage passion, whose early charm and humor Moreover what was regarded as sectar- as a state of possession. He will never gradually degenerate into nastiness ian, as "feminine" and narrow in its understand that the reason Clarissa and fury. Diane's husband, a lawyer focus (as if Mrs. Dalloway's life-or- turned him down was that, for all his played by Patrick Chesnais, is never death concern with the success of her cleverness, he would have allowed her less than sympathetic as he tries to party had been Woolf s point of view) no room for maneuver, no "room of her maintain his dignity and that of the when it was published, now proves to own" in the claustrophobic chamber of marriage. In a funny and scary coun- be the early-20th-century novel with his too-intense love. terpoint to Diane's story, he takes on the widest grasp of modernity, of the In Post Coitum, Animal Triste the defense of a woman who, after social issues and tensions that would Brigitte Roiian directs herself as a 40- years of suffering her husband's adul- come to haunt us. (And after all, isn't ish married publisher who, despite an tery, finally murders him. giving a party an existential moment enviably charming husband and chil- One of the saving graces of Diane's fraught with peril, no less terrifying— dren, becomes crazily besotted with a life is the delight she takes in success- and perhaps less senseless—than going much younger man. fully nurturing her writers, and Roiian into battle?) The film opens on a shrilly ambigu- keeps that side of her in view while Atkins has wisely streamlined the ous note: a cat claws the air and mews, audaciously recounting the nasty, book by restricting the interior mono- presumably in sexual frenzy, but is it brutish side of the end of the affair, logues to one voice, Mrs. Dalloway's. agony or ecstasy? We are forewarned: sparing nothing in her self-exposure. Vanessa Redgrave gives yet another this love story will not be a tidily She drinks, she lets herself go, she great performance as a well-heeled detached chronicle of an amour fou, but fumes at Emilio, displaying (as one so socialite, musing on her past, wonder- a descent into the bowels of passion, of often and self-destructively does) pre- cisely the behavior she knows will drive ing just what she and the world are nature raw in tooth and claw. him away. And, in one of the most made of. Her Mrs. Dalloway, silly and Rolian's Diane Clovier arrives at remarkable scenes ever filmed, she majestic by turns, wise and giddy, dom- the apartment of one of her authors at stands nude in front of the mirror, pick- inates the film, but remains richly an hour when many Parisians, the ing apart her aging body. "Am I still in ambiguous. Neither "good" nor "bad," writer, Frangois, and his girlfriend the game?" she wonders as she exam- neither a complete failure nor a included, are still in post-coital sleep. ines her breasts, her skin, her flabby Unperturbed, Diane ousts him from his resounding success (though her party underarms. With this openness and bed, urges him to the writing table (he is), she has accepted her life and her generosity, Roiian makes it easier for is suffering from second-book block), limitations, itself a sign of breadth of all of us—women on the screen, women sensibility—of higher aspirations and while standing guard, looks up to everywhere—to look at ourselves more acknowledged and retained at least as see Frangois' roommate, Emilio, a dark honestly and forgivingly . . . and, let us an ideal. Apollo with black curly hair, emerging hope, for movies to confront and take in Unable to include everything, from the shower. He brushes past, gives stride the desires and inhibitions of Gorris, Atkins, and their first-rate cast her a lingering, curious look, and the women — continued on page 56 have nevertheless done an amazing job die is cast.

on the issues - 55 Haskell continued from page 55— his mother, as we see in a brilliant scene Women of Expression as they grow older but no less passion- that opens the film, doesn't want at ate. home. As writer-director Burns carefully from Shaman Asha Publishing The young and precocious Edward locates his film, painting a bleak picture Burns (The Brothers McMullen and of the way climate and the economy work She's the One) sets his new film, No together to erode hopes: salt air and win- Looking Back, in a working-class try despair seep into everything—the UNAPOLOGETICALLY Rockaway Beach, New York, community, paint peeling from houses, the cars rust- and takes us deep into the heart and ing on the streets. And the consolation— FEMALE dilemma of a pretty young woman who sitting around the local bar guzzling beer Listening for Cactus works as a waitress in a diner. Claudia with the same people night after night— I poems by Mary McGinnis persists in postponing the date of her really isn't one. $14 ISBN 0-96644196-4-5 marriage to a local boy, and is then pro- Also in the must-see category are: I These poems are described as sensuous, pelled into a terrible quandary when her Clockwatchers, a brilliantly sly first film passionate, fierce and unsentimental. old boyfriend Charlie, a charming ne'er- by Jill Sprecher, working with her co-sce- Blind since birth, she has written with do-well, returns to claim her. narist and sister Karen, about four power and humor about the disability Lauren Holly is marvelous as "temps" in a sterile workplace who experience, wild pears, the New Mexico Claudia, one of those women who falls become friends and are then torn apart landscape and the dreams she doesn't into the cracks between feminism and by suspicion. Both black comedy and sur- remember. old-fashioned housewifery, between the real melodrama, the corporate setting is examined and the unexamined life. a malignant character in its own right, She's thoroughly dissatisfied with and the four actresses—Parker Posey, TILL YOUR STORY small-town existence but has no idea Toni Collette, Lisa Kudrow, and Alanna where to go or what to do, and no con- Ubach—show why they are some of the ception of herself as a whole person, hottest new talents around. Movies in the Mind: with a destiny outside marriage. And Wilde, an immensely moving How to Build a Short Story Michael (Jon Bon Jovi) is good-looking and beautifully acted story of the great by Colleen Mariah Rae and sweet, but dull and barely making dandy, his marriage, his emerging homo- $14.95 ISBN 0-9644196-5-3 ends meet, while Charlie (Ed Burns), sexuality, the trial and its aftermath. It "Colleen Rae teaches writing from the though no more of a success, neverthe- seems that the great Oscar has had more inside out, which is the only way to less represents the lure of escape. The films made about him than Jesus, but teach it properly. This is an invaluable problem is, he's not a good guy—a bit this endlessly fascinating and prophetic I book." —Julia Cameron like her father, who's cut out for Las gender bender is given perhaps a defini- author of"The Artist's Way Vegas, leaving her mother (Blythe tive turn in Stephen Fry's gentle, sad, Danner) bitter and depressed. And in not-entirely-sympathetic performance, fact Charlie has left Claudia once in the company of Jude Law's no less SASSY before—right after she'd aborted his definitive rendering of the selfish but child. The slow progress of Claudia's gorgeous Lord Alfred Douglas. In his Gr SCHOLARLY move toward awakening and indepen- passion for the younger man (for youth, Men Need Space dence magically mirrors the baby steps, beauty and aristocracy), Wilde throws ($12.00 ISBN 0-9644196-3-7 the hesitations, of real life. himself headlong into a masochistic folly A Presence of Angels One is not surprised at the degree whereby he harms and loses everyone he I $12.00 ISBN 0-9644196-1-0 to which women directors stay with loves. poems by Judyth Hill their female leads through ups and Director Brian Gilbert makes what I A Presence of Angels is filled with the downs, but it is rare for a male direc- think is a major miscalculation in fea- craft of writing and the luminous tor—even one who has already shown a turing scene after scene of male nudity presence of muses and angels. In Men real liking for women—to give such and lovemaking, an excess presumably Need Space this standup poet ex- leisurely attention to a female protago- intended to push the envelope for homo- plores marriage, divorce and relation- nist. Here, as in the films of Gorris and sexuality and steer clear of Merchant- I ships — funny, wise and bold. Roiian, a camera is so unhurriedly at Ivory refinements, but it adds nothing to home with its central character that it the story and will scare off moviegoers SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE can live with her, trace the very progress who are either uninterested in or made OR CALL 1-888-984-2686 OR of awareness in her face, and allow her uneasy by acres of in-your-face male WWW.SHERMANASHER.COM Sherman Asher Publishing to expose her vulnerability when she flesh. • P.O. Box 2853 Santa Fe, NM 87504 feels rejected, frightened, off her game. CATALOG AVAILABLE No less interesting is Burns' treat- Film critic Molly Haskell is author of ment of the character he himself plays: Holding My Own in No Man's Land Charlie, though charming, is more than (Oxford University Press) and From just feckless; he's a bit of a swine, mean Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of with his buddies, and nasty to a college Women in the Movies (University of girl who won't put out—a guy that even Chicago Press). 56 - summer 1998 Chester continued from page 9— Taliban continued from page 31— ward pomp, by uniforms of any sort. because they are easy to find. But it's Re-evaluating All the Emperors were naked . . . new- a very painful way to die." borns. This vivid, visual appreciation of Spoghmai, a 24-year-old former Your Personal human connectedness did not last for- teacher, refers to herself as being Life or Career? ever, but from time to time it returns, "buried alive." The young woman lost and when it does, I recognize it. These her right arm up to the shoulder, and \Ohese proven tests are feelings put me in touch with longings her right leg to the thigh, in a shelling for Nature and for solitude, for all that economical and easy to take attack three years ago. After her injury, (in the comfort of your own which is cyclical, seasonal, sacred. when she spent weeks in a poorly home), and provide an I became aware, as I had not been equipped hospital, Spoghmai was, not excellent starting point for self- before, of the importance of rituals, surprisingly, so depressed she wanted improvement: family life, community—and their to die. A lifesaver, literally, was a job Self-Discovery- Measures aching absence in so many lives. For she found with a Western relief agency your interpersonal skills to help many young parents, blood relatives that enabled her to work with the dis- develop more positive social stopped living around the corner some- abled. But four months later, when the relationships. ($49) time after World War II. In my time, Taliban took Kabul in September 1996, (Companion Compatibility test few divorced mothers-and-children she was forced to stop working. available at additional cost.) were invited to be part of the social life Today, she wears a badly fitted, Total Person- Provides an of married couples. Single mothers in-depth evaluation of your and painful, prosthesis—badly fitted total personality. ($99) drowned alone; we didn't live collec- because, in Afghanistan now, false tively. There was, as yet, no lesbian limbs come in only three sizes. Career Mapper-Assesses your baby boom or single-parent adoption Disabled as she is, walking is difficult, abilities, interests and personality movement. Today, even grandmothers traits, matching them to 200 and is impossible if she is wearing a occupations. ($149) and grandfathers have careers, or they burqa veil. Since she cannot go out are too old, or too ill, or temperamen- without one, she hasn't left the house Money-back guarantee if not tally unsuited to parent a grandchild in two years. "There are so many days completely satisfied. for more than a few hours a month. when I am too depressed to get out of Call A.M.S. For Free They need care themselves—and bed. Why should I? There is nothing for Telephone Consultation daughters, not sons, tend to do me to do. So many times I ask, Why this work. didn't I die when I was injured?" 1-888-745-1500 Therefore, most single mothers I offered to take Spoghmai out for The director of a major American who want a family life within a com- a short excursion in my jeep. She humanitarian agency in Kabul, who munity must create and maintain refused. "I am afraid. It is too danger- asked that his name not be used for them on their own. The creation of fam- ous, for you and me. Afghans are not security reasons, admitted he found it ily and community are fairly labor- allowed to be with foreigners, or talk "personally abhorrent," but felt he intensive, daunting tasks in late-20th- with journalists. If we are caught, the had no choice when he had to tell his century American cities. Taliban will beat us, maybe worse. And female employees first to wear the On Mother's Day, sentimental anyway, to go out briefly would be too burqa, and then to stay home. "I felt Americans spend over $300 million on painful. It will remind me of what I awful that I was forcing them to veil. greeting cards. Amazingly, one-quarter have lost. One day of freedom will When you only see women in burqas, of all flowers given in a year are pur- make this prison so much worse." you realize the power of covering a chased on this commercially-created woman like that. You don't treat them holiday. My suggestion? Use that International Complicity like people anymore, just bits of cloth money to elect politicians whose prior- A major concern today is how most of moving down the street. But on a ity is raising the standard of living and the international community operating pragmatic level, that's what had to improving the at-home working condi- in Afghanistan is going along with the happen to keep everybody safe, and to tions of primary caretakers, year Taliban's restrictions on women out of keep our program moving. round. By the way: Only someone who fear of having their agencies forced to "When the Taliban started threat- has learned how to socialize a child close. Complicating this issue is the ening and then beating our guards without breaking his or her spirit is fact that a number of U.N. officials and drivers, we had no choice. When I worthy of being elected to public office. posted there in senior positions are realized that no one, no authority, was Start voting feminist Mothers into from developing countries where going to stop the Taliban from beating office. They probably won't abuse their women are traditionally second class. women if they worked, it became an issue of protecting the staff. I know power in sexual ways for at least 50 Consequently, they consider the that is a rationalization, but they years. After that—look out! • Taliban's restrictions on women unim- portant, or choose to look the other have demonstrated what the conse- way. One such head of a U.N. agency in quences are of not complying with Phyllis Chester., Ph.D, first published their edicts. And so you compromise." With Child: A Diary of Motherhood in Kabul has often told colleagues, "the He admits that there is an 1979. It is currently being reissued by gender issue is too dangerous, I don't plan to risk my career over it." "incredible —continued on page 58 Four Walls Eight Windows press.

on the issues — 57 Taliban continued from page 57— "Islam dictates that education is drift in the international community mandatory for both males and here with regard to the gender issue. females," says Zieba Shorish-Shamley, Women are told: 'Stay home, suffer Ph.D., chair of the Women's Alliance for your fate, it's easier for everyone.' It's a Peace and Human Rights in slippery slope we're on." Afghanistan, based in Washington, IMMFQRKTION: ARE Tiff LAWS FAIR? One agency in Kabul, Oxfam, which D.C. Hassan Hathout, M.D., Ph.D., the y • is headed by a retired American profes- director of the outreach program at the •oices sor, Nancy Smith, chose to make a stand Islamic Center of Southern California, against the regime, and closed down her agrees: "At the time of the Prophet, SI multimillion-dollar program until such Muslim women attained such scholar- time as the Taliban remove the restric- ship they became teachers to promi- tions on women. With her agency nent men." They also worked. In fact, charged with restoring 40 percent of the the Prophet met his first wife because water supply system to Kabul, a project she was his employer. "The medical Voset*rUli\J| that would also benefit the Taliban, corps of the Prophet's army was an all- Me*t c<»tenlB Smith, a wiry 65-year-old, told the woman corps, and in some battles, Friendship PaMs f regime her agency's mandate was to women took up swords and joined relieve poverty, distress and suffering, active combat. Women participated in public affairs, were involved in negoti- • • •• • _ I and that included women's. "We con- ating treaties, were even judges. Islam An intelligent alternative to glitzy, cluded that our core principles are not negotiable," she says. "Oxfam will work declared gender equality through the fashion-oriented publications. Prophet's words, "Women are the sib- The premiere, national magazine with women in Kabul, or not at all." Afghan women also defy the lings of men."' written by, for and about teen Taliban. I visited several underground Islamic scriptures are very clear women. schools that women were running for on the veil: Only the prophet's wives For a subscription to Teen Voices magazine, please girls out of their homes. Operating one- were required to cover their faces. In send $21.75 payable to Women Express, Inc. PO Box 120-027, Boston, MA 02112-0027. room school houses accommodating fact, when women undertake the Phone 888-882-TEEN Fax (617) 426-5577 students aged six to 24, these dedicat- Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, the Hajj, http://www.teenvoices.com ed women were breaking the Taliban they are required to do so with their law on a number of counts, including faces uncovered. They also mingle the one forbidding gatherings of unre- with men not related to them. Help us rebuild lated people. In a city where paper and "Obviously, the Taliban's military America's pencils are now hard to acquire, the prowess far exceeds their knowledge of teaching aids were handmade from Islam," says Dr. Hathout. Perhaps the inner cities... scraps of whatever they could find, regime's most important oversight is and we'll pay you including stones and twigs. the Prophet Mohammad's teaching: While these women risk their "There is no compulsion in Islam." back with interest! safety to keep teaching, much of the When I raised these issues with regime that threatens them are either the chief mullah of the Department of Your South Shore checking, savings, illiterate or nearly so. Even the Virtue and Vice, and asked him why, if time deposit or IRA account directly Taliban's Ministers of Education and such things were good enough for the targets the inner-city neighborhoods Higher Education have little school- Prophet, they weren't good enough for we serve. Plus, you earn an attrac- ing. Most Talibs (the name means reli- the Taliban, he grinned and changed tive, guaranteed gious student) are young zealots, grad- the subject. The regime's Sher Abbas return that helps uates of the regime's madrassas, so- Stanakzai was more honest when he build cities today. called religious schools that are based, admitted, "Our current restrictions Contact John for the most part, in Pakistan, and are necessary in order to bring the funded in part by the Saudis. In these Afghan people under control. We need Houghton cloister-like environments, boys grow these restrictions until people learn to for details: up totally segregated from any obey the government." • 800-669-7725, women, including those in their own ext. 5636, families. The highest honor they can Jan Goodwin, editor of On The Issues, is [email protected]. earn there is that of qari, a Muslim an award-winning journalist and honorific given to those who memorize human rights activist. She is the author MEMBER FDIC and can recite the entire Koran, and a of Caught in the Crossfire (E.P. Button), number do. Sadly, however, they learn a book on the conflict in Afghanistan, to do so in Arabic, a language they do and Price of Honor (Plume-Penguin South Shore Bank not understand, and is not taught to Wliere America banks its values. Books), which examines how Islamic them. Consequently, they have no idea extremism is affecting the lives of of the rights given to women in Islam. Muslim women. 58 - summer 1998 Birmingham continued from page 25— in a large anti-abortion march. They were nationwide. Rural areas are hardest hit, recovery. Addressing himself to the the thugs who bullied and shoved pro- with at least 15 percent of women in wounded nurse, Spitz wrote: "Emily, there choice demonstrators on the steps of the many states—including Alabama, are many, many people who believe you Court, as we held up a large banner that Kansas, Kentucky, Iowa, Minnesota, reaped what you sowed. I am one of them. read: "They can't have our day, or our Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee, and the I hope you get out of the BABYKILLING lives!" The Rev. Spitz was there, too, hold- Dakotas—having to travel more than 100 business. Your husband is going around ing a sign reading: "Free Paul Hill- miles to get an abortion. The cost of trans- showing your picture for sympathy. He Execute Abortionists." Hill is the man portation and overnight accommodation doesn't show any pictures of the babies convicted of killing Dr. James Bayard can be prohibitive for those on low you helped murder. Why not?" Britton and clinic escort James Barrett, incomes. The national media gave a platform in Pensacola, in 1994. to others to promote the same message. Such zealots are unyielding in their Drawing the Line in Birmingham Michael Bray, who served four years in determination to intimidate women and The Birmingham bombing was part of a jail for a string of clinic bombings in the abortion providers and, ultimately, to halt many-pronged attack on abortion Washington, D.C., area, told a nationwide abortion entirely. "If you don't want to be rights and access. The response to the audience on ABC-TVs Nightline that he pregnant, keep your legs closed!" snarled attack, however, indicates that we may had no misgivings about the clinic bomb- one man to a young pro-choice woman at be moving toward a new level of nation- ing, "given the benefit that comes from it the Supreme Court. al unity and support for the providers and the issues at stake." Bray also But there is committed determina- who make "choice" possible. National praised the Army of God, which had tion on the pro-choice side, too, as exem- organizations, including the Feminist claimed credit for the 1997 bombings of plified by the courage and dedication of Majority, National Organization for an abortion clinic and a lesbian-owned the clinic employees and escorts in Women, National Abortion Federation, nightclub in Atlanta, as well as the Birmingham. They had been seasoned Planned Parenthood, and Refuse & Birmingham bombing. over a period of a dozen years, dealing Resist!, immediately sent representa- On the surface, claiming to be "pro- with anti-abortion protesters who have tives to Birmingham. And three days life" yet approving cold-blooded murder continually targeted both the Summit after the bombing, the Birmingham reflects either twisted logic or rank and the New Woman clinics. Many clinic Emergency Coalition for Choice orga- hypocrisy. But such words provide moral employees and escorts live near the clinic, nized a protest rally. justification and encouragement for so when the bomb exploded they knew Then, on March 14, well-known those who plant the bombs and pull the immediately what had happened. People feminists and leaders of many triggers. promptly began mobilizing, and grief Washington, D.C.-based organizations Such justification also indicates that quickly turned to resolve as volunteers came together with the staffs of the movement's real agenda is not the started calling the Birmingham Clinic Birmingham clinics and local and protection of so-called unborn "people," Defense Team's hotline to see what they national activists at the historic 16th but a political campaign bent on denying could do. Some local people who had not Street Baptist Church in an encourag- women, at any cost, the right to decide been involved before offered to be escorts. ing show of national unity and resolve. how their lives will be lived. Others stepped up their activism because, (The church was the scene of the racist Anti-abortion campaigners' com- as one said, "Women can't be truly equal bombing that killed four little girls in ments to the media cannot be dismissed until they can control their bodies. I've 1963.) The theme of the gathering was as the rantings of lone crazies. They decided that this fight is mine as long as in the proclamation: "We're drawing the must be seen for what they are: rallying it takes." line in Birmingham!" cries for the brutal, storm-trooper wing Today, new sod has replaced the of the anti-abortion movement, a move- No Access Means No "Choice" shards of glass which covered the lawn ment that is funded and sustained by In major urban areas where there are rel- of the Birmingham clinic after the powerful, well-organized, well-connected atively few restrictive laws, the availabil- bombing. A new maroon awning with forces hiding behind professedly moral ity of abortion is easy to take for granted. crisp white lettering shades the door- motivations. But for women who live in states with no way. And a new level of energy and A number of the Birmingham-based Medicaid funding, waiting periods determination to defend abortion anti-abortion protesters are part of a between the time they first visit a clinic access and women's lives is coming out committed national movement that has and when they can get the abortion, par- of the horror of that early morning harassed abortion providers and clinic ent consent and notification laws, and in January. • clients across the country. I had seen their other restrictions, obtaining an abortion faces in Dayton, Ohio in July 1997, when requires major resources and extensive Mary Lou Greenberg is an activist and they helped Operation Rescue blockade planning, or, because of this, may not be writer who has defended clinics and and close clinics there. Outside the clinics, an option at all. Consequently, for mil- worked with abortion providers around OR leaders preached and testified about lions of women who are poor, under 18, or the country. the "glories" of women submitting to men. live in the 84 percent of U.S. counties that And this past January 22, the 25th have no abortion provider, "choice" effec- For more information on how you Anniversary of Roe v. Wade, these same tively does not exist. From 1978 to 1992 can support clinics and providers, people were present in front of the access to abortion decreased with an 18 contact Refuse & Resist! at 212-713- Supreme Court, where they participated percent drop in the number of providers 5657 or e-mail: refuse® calyx, com on the issues — 59 than to build a pole." There may be Violation continued from page 20 for girls with big clitorises, was asked In the 40 years since surgical hidden ingre- about the wisdom of genital surgery on intervention to "correct" genitals that dients in the such children, she responded with, are viewed as abnormal was first pre- products you "Well you just can't have an it\" scribed, treatment protocols have use... cruelty, Each woman has her own reasons rarely been questioned. After all, it is Pain, Suffering. Rabbit with burned back from a skin r ' ° toxidty study at a praduol testing lab, for turning away from this issue. But I much more comfortable for doctors to Let us send you a free Cruelty-Free challenge them to pay attention to the assume all is well than to start digging Shopping Guide so you can make fact that in hospitals just down the around to find out if it's really true. compassionate choices on your next street in any big American city, five Until recently, all discussions of what trip to the store. To receive a copy children a day are losing healthy, erot- is done to people's sexual bodies have call us toll free at (800) SAY-AAVS or ic parts of their bodies to satisfy a been hidden safely away in the pages of write to The American Anti- medical texts, where real lives are only Vivisection Society, 801 Old York Rd. social demand for "normalcy." There is #204, Jenkintown, PA 19046. no Federal ban to save them. The "interesting cases," and pictures of gen- surgery is left out of the law against itals are disembodied curiosities or FGM because it is deemed "necessary teaching tools. Many doctors would like Ancient Wisdom to the health of the child on whom it is to keep things that way. For example. for this Time performed." But as social psychologist Dr. Kenneth Glassberg, a pediatric Suzanne Kessler at the State urologist associated with the American University of New York at Purchase Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), insists silver K^^ Goddess points out, "Genital ambiguity is cor- that people who speak up and tell their bronze (jjjjft\ jewelry rected not because it is threatening to stories are doing a disservice by "scar- Sold W Catalog the infant's life, but because it is ing patients away." threatening to the infant's culture." In a blatant disregard for patient feedback not seen in any other medical octors and parents believe soci- field, the AAP still advocates early ety will reject a child with surgery and insists that the "manage- j P.O. Box 389-U Datypical genitals, and the child ment" of children with atypical geni- Brimfidd MA 01010 is made to pay with her or his body for tals has improved over the past sever- Phone/Fax: (413) 245-9484 this shortcoming of our culture. What al decades. Their refusal to consider is happening in American hospitals to the reality of the lives of people who Someday a woman healthy children is just as mutilating have been treated by this protocol can win t?e PRESIDENT! to the bodies—no matter how exquis- be likened to an astronomer gazing at ite the surgical craftsmanship—and Mars through his telescope while Adults: violating to the souls of these children ignoring the real live Martian tugging S, M, L, as FGM. And frequently, the surgical at his sleeve. The messy truth of what Ex-L $15 craftsmanship falls far short of happens to children treated with exquisite. surgery and hormones is simply Youth: The strict sexual agenda for bod- ignored by the AAP, as they stubbornly 2-4,6-8, ies in America extends to little boys as cling to a treatment paradigm that has 10-12, well. To grow up to be a real man, a boy never been anything but experimental. 14-16 $12 will have to be able to do two things— Cosmetic genital surgery on chil- pee standing up and penetrate a vagi- dren is out of control. As the practice Visa/MC 1-800-891-2126 10% discount with ad na with his penis. If a little boy has to has careened along unexamined for Mail orders: Add $3 for shipping sit like a girl to urinate because his decades, illustrious careers and repu- urethra exits somewhere along the tations have been made, consciences The Elizabeth Stone House shaft of his penis rather than the tip (a have been swallowed, and terrific dam- A Feminist Health Alternative condition that can occur in as many as age has been done. For a doctor even to 8 out of 1,000), he may be subjected to hesitate before operating takes The Elizabeth Stone House is known inter- many disheartening surgeries over the tremendous effort and self-reflection. nationally for its innovative ability to course of his childhood to correct this The need for babies to have genitals empower women in emotional "defect," and be left with a lifetime of that look typical has been perceived as distress as well as their children. chronic infections and emotional trau- so unquestionable that surgeons travel ma. And if the baby is born with a all over the world to perform surgery Residential and Non-Residential Programs "too-small" penis that doctors decide on children free of charge as a "human- Resources and Training Available. will never be big enough to "success- itarian gesture." Call for information fully" penetrate a woman, physicians Dr. Justine Schober challenges her will probably make him into a "girl" fellow surgeons to realize that "when P.O. Box 59 Jamaica Plain, MA 02130 through surgery and hormone treat- you do [this kind of] surgery on some- (617) 522-3417 ments, because, in the words of one one, you are responsible for them for surgeon, "It's easier to poke a hole the rest of their lives." In less than two 60 - summer 1998 hours in a sterile operating room, a Poet continued from page 23 writing itself. His self-exile from Ireland child's personal and sexual destiny can doubt They'll shoot me for sure ... At was one of the greatest things that hap- be changed forever. The stakes are childbirth ... My butterfly is born and pened to world literature. To be sure, excruciatingly high for the sake of immediately after that, I am taken out there are great moments in the history appearances. Angela's story, Annie's and shot." of every nation when a writer feels for- story, and my own tell only the small- These sentences were spoken to me tunate that he can stay with his people est fraction of the terrible fallout from in Persian. I am writing them in and be enriched by the experience and these surgeries. No one is naive enough English. Neither of these languages is write about it. But exile is also an adven- to say that a life in a body seen as my mother tongue. This is exile, what ture, an experience in another world abnormal is a ticket to bliss. But it is Julia Kristeva, a fellow writer in exile, that gets one's imagination going in not the bodies of these children that called "a way of surviving." How did this directions unknown, both technically are wrong, it is the way people see process of my survival take place? At and spiritually. Joyce's letters and his them. And if these children grow up home, in the factory, in the marketplace, first novel show that he intentionally and want to change their bodies one even at school among the students and threw himself out of Ireland to embrace day, that will be their right. Nobody, the teachers, the mother tongue was the experience of not only the Continent, but nobody, no matter how loving, no used. But the written form of all school- but also continents of artistic adventure. matter how well-intentioned, should ing, the written form of all business, An imagined territory was created in the have the power to steal precious parts police, law courts, movies, were in works of these writers that had nothing of a body from a child before she or he Persian. The language of literature and to do with their periods in history, or even gets started in life. • poetry was also Persian. The mother even the countries in which they lived. tongue deserved only humiliation and This kind of exile goes beyond ideo- Martha Coventry is currently writing a subjugation, like my mother herself in logical, philosophical, and political book about childhood genital surgery in relation to my father, who always domi- boundaries. In exile, you exit the norms America. She lives and works in nated her. Linguistic exile is the linguis- and conventions of thinking and imagin- Minneapolis. tic schizophrenia of all individuals and ing. It is the desire to see beyond, to go peoples who are subjected to language "on exile," as Dante did when he traveled domination. through the imagined stages of imagina- The process of love and hatred tion itself. WHERE TO GO FOR INFORMATION begins. It is something that was always While I was learning Persian, I also Parents of babies born with atypical geni- there in relation to my father, but never began studying English, my window to tals feel overwhelmed and afraid. They in relation to my mother. The love of the Shakespeare, Joyce, Virginia Woolf, need to talk with other parents who have mother is total. Without my mother, I Gertrude Stein. When my mother was shared the same situation, and they need would not have been the person I am: dying of Alzheimer's disease in a retire- to talk to grown children like their own who can give them some perspective. poet and novelist. In order to appreciate ment home in Tehran in 1995, I had There are several organizations that can something, I had to look for the mother- already begun writing a novel in give them that help, and can also help ly element in it. Imagination means the English, which in my mind I planned to their child as she or he grows up: discovery of the mother in everything we call "Our Lady of Scribes." It was a poet touch. But more than anything else in sharing his food with others. An hour 1. Intersex Society of North America, PO the world, it is language that is mother- before her death, I took the seed out of a Box 31791, San Francisco, CA 94131. e- ly. The mother played at language with date and raised it to my mother's lips. mail: [email protected], web: www.isna.org. us. It was through her that generous She lifted her frail arm, took the date, ISNA is a peer- support and advocacy love became the poetic capacity of lan- divided it into two halves, and handed group operated by and for individuals born guage. Poetry is a language in which me one half. She raised the second half with anatomy or physiology that differs words fall in love with each other; they to her lips, slowly kissed it, but did not from cultural ideals of male and female. stop having external, non-affectionate eat it. She died half an hour later, with use. A poet writing poetry in a chosen her half of the date held between her 2. HELP (Hermaphrodite Education and language will not be a great poet unless fingers. My novel was banned from pub- Listening Post), PO Box 26292, he discovers the mother-child relation- lication in Iran. In the third month of my Jacksonville, FL 32226 ship in that language. most recent journey into exile, it was e-mail: [email protected]. published in Sweden. I am writing now Founded by a mother frustrated by the - xile in literature takes different from Canada, of continents past rising to lack of available information about her claim the future. • child's condition, HELP is a support group forms. It was Samuel Beckett's for parents, family, friends, and persons E own choice that he wrote most of affected by sex differentiation disorders, his plays and fiction in French. It would Reza Baraheni is the author of 45 books and a source of medical information, lit- have been impossible for me to write my of poetry, fiction, theory, and literary crit- erature, and personal experiences. poetry and fiction in Azari Turkish. It icism. For the last 35 years, he has been was Vladimir Nabokov's choice that he in the forefront of the struggle for democ- 3. Ambiguous Genitalia Support Network, wrote most of his later fiction in English. racy and human rights in Iran, and was PO Box 313, Clements, CA 95227. A par- Looking for the other in language, tradi- jailed under both the Shah's regime and ents' support group. tion and the poetics of fiction, James Islamic Republic of Iran. Today he lives Joyce experimented with the devices of in Toronto, Canada. on the issues — 61 BELLA ABZUG 1920 - 1998

Pioneer, visionary, feminist, mentor, revolutionary, woman of the people, principled politician. She had a great heart and extraor- dinary energy—and the courage always to speak truth to power. Comrade and friend, she was always right ON THE ISSUES: "I am not elevating women to sainthood, nor am I sug- gesting that all women are good and all men are bad. Women have screamed for war. Women, like men, have stoned black children going to integrated schools. . . . Some women. They, of course, have a right to vote and a right to run for office. I will defend that right, but I will not support them or vote for them."

On abortion laws: "/ think women will not give up this right, nor will men who pro- mote the right of choice... no matter what any court says, or any government or any church."

"We don't so much want to see a female Einstein become an assistant professor. We want a woman schlemiel to get promoted as quickly as a male schlemiel." Give 'em hell in heaven, Bella!

62 - summer 1998 HIGH SCHOOL CHEMISTRY LED HER TO A LIFE OF CRIME. As Director of the Delaware State Police Crime Lab, forensic microscopist Julie Willey catches murderers, rapists and thieves by analyzing hair and fiber specimens. It's a job she has today because, in high school, she didn't think it was uncool to take chemistry. There's a whole world of interesting jobs in science out there. Find out how you can turn your daughter on to them. Call 1-800-WCC-4-GIRLS. Or visit us on the Internet at http://www.academic.org.

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