Dear Caitlin,
I’m writing to ask that you please stop turning up in all my favorite Internet haunts. Apparently, admitting that I was powerless over the Mommy Wars and my life had become unmanageable wasn’t enough. One day at a time, I told myself, I will not throw needless handgrenades post about anything having to do with mommmys who are doing something wrong. Live and let live–don’t comment when the Times publishes more incendiary pieces about foolish mommys doing foolish things. Don’t Google around cruising for entertainment because it will only take me to mommy bloggers’ dispatches from the front.
Caitlin, as part of my program of recovery, I tried to avoid the publication of your book. I chose to avoid the NY Times Book Review this week because I knew you’d be in it. OK, I fell off the wagon yesterday when I posted the link to the LA Times review, but you were lumped in with a lot of other books, so at least it wasn’t all about you and me and our tango of feminist denial.
But Caitlin, you had absolutely NO BUSINESS turning up at the end of a perfectly valid line of superpower-related distraction. As a woman bound to use the superpowers of her hair for good, I am sworn to follow any and all links regarging hair color, be they from CNN or Gawker. But when a simple Gawker link (” • Is the Times trying to kill feminism with bottles of peroxide and books about binge drinking? [Broadsheet]“) leads to a Salon blog that should send a happy tingle of recognition up my spine but instead leads me DIRECTLY BACK TO YOU AND THE NEW YORK TIMES, well, it’s yet another sip of the Kool Aid for me.
Who is this balanced reviewer in the New York Times, this Pamela Paul? Does she not know that you are the Enigma Machine of the Mommy Wars? If we don’t crack you, it’s pearls at pick up time and floor wax that’s also a dessert topping. Please please stop, Caitlin.
I can’t stand your subtle combination of satire, self-delusion, and success. It’s enough to land a jealous feminist mommy/writer in a room of yellow wallpaper.
Sincerely,
prematurely grey
P.S.: I guess the only good thing about falling off the wagon was clicking on your name at the end of Broadsheet and finding this fantastic review of your book, nailing you just the way I would, were I a successful feminist mommy/writer instead of the one I am.
Comments 4
Uh, call me irresponsible, but isn’t feminism about the ability to choose?
Why war then? You do your thing, I’ll do my thing, and we can all be happy, right? Maybe even support each other in our sisterly solidarity, no?
And where the HELL have I been? I thought this mommy war stuff was so 1980s. Even then I thought it was irrevelent hype.
So this Catilin chick is just keeping a non-existent (on the level of community reality) struggle going just to make a few more bucks to underpay her (probably) ethnic staff?!
Well, she can nurse on my left one.
Sincerely,
Posted 18 Apr 2006 at 6:07 pm ¶Former stay-at-home mom, cancer surviver, currently working, person of alternative sexual orientation, and mom of twins and singleton.
I agree with Ruth. I think.
I get that Caitlin Flanagan has written some patently ridiculous, offensive, and more than anything else clearly hypocritical things, but I think the outrage over those things is a little overstated. (I’m sure someone could argue that’s because I don’t have kids, but not so…because I desperately want them, and have to consider every day how I would ever be able to afford one on my own, and whether I would be cheating that child out of a lot right off the bat because there is no way in hell I COULD afford one without a big fat job) Obviously the conversation itself is one only a very privileged few have the luxury of even participating in, much less dramatically engaging through published ‘pieces’ in the Nation’s most esteemed magazines. This chick is certainly not the root of feminism’s decline in public consciousness and if anything might remind a couple of generations what has been lost (and arguably, also what has been gained).
Lastly, I can promise you that no one actually gets a writing career based on where they’re seated at dinner. Even in NYC, even if that’s how they eventually spin the tale on the donkey.
Posted 19 Apr 2006 at 2:38 am ¶Since leaving my last comment I happened to watch CF on The Colbert Report (God I love that show) and I must say I have rarely seen someone so unabashedly acknowledge that she will say pretty much anything to sell her book. No matter how absurd or how contradictory. I find that pathetic. Imagine not really having any intellectual integrity. That would suck. And what is it exactly about our cultural zeitgeist that allows these literary media inventions who turn out to be completely bankrupt as people to be so wildly successful. I have a feeling it has to do with our President being a functional retard, but am not positive.
Posted 20 Apr 2006 at 6:29 am ¶Absolutely! Although I’m not sure the president reflects the majority who votes for him or that the irresponsible attitude has oozed downhill from the naked emporer and his tailors.
In no way do I mean to give this CF person any slack. She is a shameless panderer along with all those other media ho-types who make up fake hyped up categories (Boomer! GenX!) that have no other real societal meaning other than to generate conflict, self-importance, and consequently, revenue.
In the “Mommy Wars,” real or imagined, what matters is how we treat each other everyday, individual by individual. Treating each other’s choices and life situations with respect is (to me) what feminism is about–empowering the females we are and the females we know by allowing them the dignity of being exactly who they are.
Integrity. Exactly.
Posted 21 Apr 2006 at 5:00 pm ¶Post a Comment