the ch!cktionary

30 Jul 2010
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Anonymous asked: I discovered who you were (ie, your Wikipedia page and then, your blogs) after I read and looked up Chloe Does Yale. Have you ever read that?

Yes, I have, and though I enjoyed Natalie Krinsky’s columns for The Yale Daily News (which I read in high school), I was pretty disappointed by Chloe Does Yale, her novel. Krinsky got a book deal because her writing was honest and funny in a really genuine way. But the book she wrote was fiction, not memoir (though clearly inspired by her own experiences), and merely regurgitated all the tropes of chick lit without any of the authenticity that made her columns so compelling in the first place. The “love story”, for example, comes off as totally implausible and seems to exist only to serve as a happy ending.

This is precisely what I don’t want to do if I write a book. There’s no point in making up a fictional heroine to distance myself from my own mistakes, and there’s even less of a point in writing a story that conforms to some Sex and the City-esque vision of the single gal’s life. It is not all Manolos and cocktails. Sometimes, it’s just Maddens and a handle of Gordon’s. And as glamorous as the former might seem, I’d be more likely to pick up a book on the latter.

29 Jul 2010
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Thoughts On Memoir Writing & Some Women’s Literature Recs

Since I’ve begun working on my sample memoir chapters, I’ve made a concerted effort to start getting through a body of literature that could help inspire the type of writing I hope to do. (Regular readers of this blog may already know that I am obsessed with fiction by old British dudes, namely Patrick McGrath and Ian McEwan. But as much as Gothic contemporary tickles my literary pickle, the story of Sex and the Ivy did not take place in a decaying Victorian mansion, so I’m going to have to put the kabosh on further leisure reads as long as I’m trying to complete a book chapter.) I’m lucky because my self-employed (though largely unpaid) work entails a lot of reading, albeit with a narrow focus and not always for pleasure. To that end, I’m refamiliarizing myself with some of my feminist literary heroines and getting to know new ones.

I want to write a memoir that isn’t just about myself and my personal journey. My blog and its aftermath are interesting enough that media outlets view them as worthy of mention, but really, my life as an individual woman in America is pretty inconsequential given the grand scheme of things. In other words, I have no aspirations to pen the next Eat, Pray, Love and I don’t want to write without any regard as to whether my experiences or opinions have any resonance with women who aren’t like me. As I told an agent yesterday:

Though [the book] will be largely focused on my blog and the impact it had on my college experiences, I’d like for the book to incorporate social critiques of class and gender. I don’t know how familiar you are with my background but I come from a lower middle class immigrant family and Harvard was in many ways quite a culture shock at times. Have you read Fear of Flying by Erica Jong? That’s the kind of book I’d like to write — one that isn’t just about what happens to the heroine but about what this story means for women as a whole.

Some of the following are books I’ve read many times over from cover-to-cover, and others are ones that I’ve just gotten a hold of. None are chick lit, some aren’t even memoir, but plenty are part of feminist canon. Here are my recs:

The Women’s Room, Marilyn French
Braided Lives, Marge Piercy
Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen, Alix Kates Shulman
Oryx and Crate, Margaret Atwood
Fear of Flying, Erica Jong
We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order To Live: Collected Nonfiction, Joan Didion*
Prozac Nation, Elizabeth Wurtzel
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
Lady Chatterley’s Lover, D.H. Lawrence

* I know that Didion is rather dismissive of second-wave feminism and also kind of an elitist, but I’m giving the rest of her non-fiction a chance given how much I liked Slouching Towards Bethlehem. Forgive me for once valuing style over substance.

If you have recommendations for well-written books that critically interrogate Western assumptions about gender, class, and sexuality, please add them in the comments.

29 Jul 2010
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This is what a feminist looks like when she’s gazing over her right shoulder.

29 Jul 2010
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“As a queer, femme, sometimes female trans* person, as a disabled person, as a mentally ill person, as a poor person, I can state with utter certainty that feminism as a movement has done fucking nothing to help me. Has in fact harmed me directly and personally. I have seen how feminism treats women like me and non-white women and various women whose lives do not fit a very narrow definition of woman and oppression. Non-white women are expected to be grateful — and to display appropriate gratitude — for a movement that failed to consider their lives and experiences and needs and did nothing much for them. Trans* feminine folk are ejected from women’s spaces because we make real women uncomfortable; trans* masculine folk are welcomed into those spaces because their genders aren’t considered real either and there’s a wildly objectivising fetishism of their identities and bodies in certain circles. Sex workers and illegal substance users are, ah, strongly discouraged from participating in feminist events (You can support us from over there. In the dark. Where no one can see you. Where there will be no expectation of reciprocal support.). Disabled people find community meetings and events inaccessible and are shamed for not participating as currently non-disabled folk do — going to meetings and street protests is real activism; writing blogs and being present on-line is not.

We have very different needs. We tend to need things rather low on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: food, water, shelter, security of body and family and health. The fraction of women in the population of CEOs of Fortune 500 companies is of very low importance to me. I need help to stay alive — as does everyone else I’m just more obvious about it — and the feminist movement isn’t going to get me that. The disability rights movement is and a good portion of feminism doesn’t give a shit about disability rights. Nice words maybe but not to the point of, y’know, doing shit. We’re still bitter about the disability tent at the Beijing women’s conference being inaccessible.

So yeah. If y’all still haven’t worked out the connections here, we say “fuck feminism” because feminism has been saying “fuck you” to us for a long, long time.

You want to flounce? Flounce. Take your wounded privilege and good riddance.”

— kaninchenzero at the aforementioned Feministe thread (via withnoapology:chelle-shock:dorianisms:thecurvature)

29 Jul 2010
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What My Feminist Agenda Looks Like

After wading through the 300+ comments on yesterday’s controversial Feministe post, I did some thinking about what my own feminist agenda consists of. When you identify so strongly with movement, it can be very hurtful to hear someone say “Fuck it!” in response. But I didn’t get offended because I saw where the writer, Maia, was coming from. Mainstream feminism, particularly the second-wave, has a tendency to treat women as a class in themselves without any regard for the fact that they are differentiated by race, class, sexual orientation, ethnic and national origin, etc. Take for example the issue of the glass ceiling, which has dominated mainstream feminist discourse for decades. What do poor women care about an extra woman CEO or two? Doesn’t that just mean that now there’s a woman in charge of organizing the exploitation of those less well-off? Gender equality does not always equate to progress, not when it serves only to benefit those who are already at the top.

One of you guys commented on my follow-up entry (“Why Saying ‘Fuck Feminism’ Can Be Productive”) with this:

You have no proof that our feminist sisters in history were “racist, classist, and ethnocentric.” They simply couldn’t - and shouldn’t have been expected to - fight every single battle. They fought on behalf of WOMEN, without any attempt to exclude particular groups of women. They can’t fight for women AND for all socioeconomic ills at the same time. You can only tackle one agenda at a time. A good life lesson in general.

I’m not going to regurgitate all of Women’s Studies 101 here, but the third-wave arose from the fact that many women felt excluded or even thrown under the bus by second-wavers. The struggle for contraception and reproductive rights allowed White women to choose to not have babies, while their minority counterparts found themselves having to defend their right to motherhood (see: forced sterilization, the purposeful placement of abortion clinics in “urban” neighborhoods, etc.). Mainstream feminists were considerably less concerned with the racist implications of arguments like, “Abortion reduces crime and encourages social stability.” The history of homophobia within feminism is pretty well accounted for (see: Lavender Menace and everything Germaine Greer has ever written about transwomen). And let’s not even get into issues like female genital circumcision, which Western feminists can cry outrage at, all while ignoring the part we play in causing poverty abroad — a far more pressing issue confronting women in the Third World.

I reject the argument that feminists can’t fight for women and for poor, queer, disabled, and non-White people. Because guess what? Many women are poor, queer, disabled, and non-White. For them, being part of the latter means many more disadvantages and much more discrimination than just being a woman. A feminist agenda has to recognize that women are not simply all oppressed in the exact same way because they share a gender. A feminist agenda has to recognize that some women are oppressors themselves, that the advancement of some women may come at others’ expense, that gender oppression is particularly damaging for women who are already disadvantaged in other ways, that these disadvantages are not side concerns but of primary importance. A feminist agenda only concerned with “women” as an abstract class of people is not a feminist agenda I can stand behind.

29 Jul 2010
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Anonymous asked: I read your blog almost every day. You've covered almost everything that I've ever had questions about--health, college, sexuality, etc. It's been a great comfort. Please know that you've made a difference in at least one teenage girl's life.

This comment almost made me cry. Not to get all sappy on y’all here, but when I started Sex and the Ivy, “making a difference”, so to speak, isn’t what I expected to happen. I originally blogged only for myself — in the sense that I wanted a space for my thoughts and writing and opinions. And even after I garnered an “audience”, it was still a project for and about Lena (and Lena’s life and Lena’s friends and Lena’s often poor decisions). I like to think that I’ve grown up a little since, that I’ve been able to recognize that having a platform is a supreme privilege, one that I shouldn’t waste on a mere vanity project. That’s why over the past couple years, I’ve started to concentrate on writing about more than my own life. That’s why when I do write about my life, I try to do so in a way that is illuminating to other people.

I have no idea how much or how little difference I make. I don’t know how many people read me as a case study on what not to do. I don’t know how many people actually agree with what I have to say. I don’t know how many minds I change at the end of the day. But even if I post an entry that gets zero comments, I know there are tons of you out there reading. (Thanks to Big Brother, ahem, I mean, Google Analytics.) So I can only hope that you’re getting something out of my writing. Perhaps I challenge your view of relationships by writing about how I conduct my own. Or maybe I expose some unexamined biases you might hold. Or I answer a burning question that you can’t ask anyone else. If I’ve prevented a single girl from turning to Cosmopolitan in a time of need, then I’ve succeeded.

To all the teenage girls out there: I’m not perfect by any means and I don’t have all the answers, so please don’t think of me as a role model. (Unless I decide to start a cult, in which case you can shower me with endless accolades.) Think of me as someone who learned some very valuable lessons and is simply passing them down. One day, you’ll do that too.

And if it weren’t for my readers, I wouldn’t be who I am either. So thanks for that. I’m glad that my blogging has evolved into something that is as much about the people reading as it is about the person writing.

28 Jul 2010
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Why Saying "Fuck Feminism" Can Be Productive

I’m a feminist and I often think “Fuck Feminism”. I’m glad Maia is gutsy enough to say it out loud (in this latest Feministe post), even though her point seems to be lost on the outraged commenters.

Feminism, like many progressive social movements (LGBT rights included), is not always concerned with the issues affecting poor women, women of color, disabled women, queer women, the list goes on. And the list includes, to some extent, women like me.

I say this as a woman of color born to working class immigrants, neither of whom know anything of the feminism I embraced during my years at an Ivy League university where I felt like the odd girl out because of the money I didn’t come from. I can call myself a feminist and accept at the same time that mainstream feminism didn’t and still doesn’t represent women like my mother. I can call myself a feminist and sometimes think myself “Fuck feminism!” because I don’t agree with its elitist brand of progress. Sometimes, I feel like I’m drowning in privilege because of who I associate with, where I live, what I do for fun. But though I went to Harvard and fulfilled the supposedly obtainable American Dream, I’m not under any illusions that this is because of feminism. Feminism made it possible for women to go to college, but the women they were concerned with were not women like me. The second-wave sold us the idea that little girls can do anything boys can do, but the only people who can do anything they want in this country are the people with money.

“Fuck feminism!” doesn’t mean that gender equality isn’t important, but it does mean that society and even progressive movements value some people more than others. It means that those with the luxury of time and the luxury of capital can set the agenda that women like my mother don’t even have time to read. This is a fact that has gone unacknowledged for far too long within the Feminist Establishment. And if it takes someone shouting “Fuck feminism!” for everyone to wake up to it, then I’ll be there shouting it with them.

28 Jul 2010
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Anonymous asked: Have you and Patrick talked about long term plans as a couple? I know you don't necessarily believe in marriage but do you see yourself with him for a while?

You think I’m staying in frigid-ass Boston for the next two years just for shits and giggles? The Roomie is definitely a major factor in how I’ve decided upon my future plans. Part of the reason why we moved into our current apartment (less than a year ago) is because I started living with him and Hamlet, which necessitated much more room than our then-one-bedroom. Now that I’ve graduated, I’m not going to the ditch the dude and dog and leave them with extra closet space while I seek my fortune in warmer climates. And besides, I would miss the two boys terribly. So I’ll be in Boston the next couple years as Patrick finishes his PhD and where we go afterward remains a topic of discussion but I can really only speculate at this point.

This is the reason why I’ve never understood the supposed “magic” of marriage. I don’t need a ring on my finger to make a commitment to someone (and this goes for friends as well as lovers). In my relationship, not being married or ever aspiring to be married doesn’t get in the way of making long-term plans with each other.

28 Jul 2010
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I talk like a valley girl.

As one recent commenter pointed out, I talk like a valley girl. I can’t help it! I tell people that it’s because I grew up in Southern California, but actually, I don’t know anyone in Southern California who actually speaks this way.

Maybe this is because I grew up on too much Buffy, Clueless, and Legally Blonde?

I did speech and debate in high school and I’ve had a lot of public speaking experience, but somehow, I’ve never shed this unfortunate accent. When I was a child, I even had remedial speech classes because I used to talk with a lisp, which I’ve *almost* completely eliminated. (Except it comes out when I’m drunk and/or salivating.)

It can be handy, however, to be mistaken for nasally 14-year-old white girl. For example, when telemarketers call the house, there is always a moment’s hesitation before they ask, “Is your daddy home?”

Why yes, he is. But I’m afraid he really can’t be bothered at the moment, and my allowance is insufficient for the requested donation.

27 Jul 2010
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I should give credit where it’s due. Though I came to many conclusions about weight loss and body image on my own, Patrick was a great source of support and knowledge when I started exercising and some of that borrowed knowledge is in the previous post. Like me, he doesn’t have any medical expertise, but he picked up a lot of health-related knowledge from rowing crew competitively in Germany and at Yale. And given that I’ve had plenty of wacked-out ideas about diets in the past, I’m glad that he was a voice of reason and taught me that moderation (rather than deprivation) is the best path.

Related: Competitive athletes are also subject to all kinds of ridiculous body requirements. The Roomie, for example, used to only weigh 165 pounds (he’s 6’ 2”) because he had to meet the weight limit for the lightweight team. Which is insane because he’s twenty pounds heavier now. Though the last post focused mostly on women’s beauty ideals, they’re not the only ones who are susceptible to unhealthy ideas about their bodies; men are too. Another reason why a strict criteria for how we look doesn’t serve anyone’s best interests.