Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Just caught up on this discussion.  Wow!  This kind of clear thinking
is infectious.  Thank you.
  

    
Hi Fawn, not meta at all! The answer is no, I was not thinking of
writing a book at all when I was reporting on the election. I can
actually tell you the exact moment that I thought I might write the
book: it was in late September of 08, just six weeks or so before the
general election. I was watching some pundits talk about what Sarah
Palin means for women, and I was so upset because they were getting it
wrong, in some way I can't even remember. 

That was the moment that I thought "There is a story to tell here --
an important story! about women and politics and power and this history
of the United States! -- and I am going to be so mad when I hear
people telling it wrong in coming years!" And then I thought, "Wait,
maybe I should try to tell my version of it?" And then I wrote a book
proposal VERY quickly. But that was long, long after the primary that
takes up so much of my story was over. 

Also, I should note that when I say people will get it "wrong" I don't
mean it quite literally. Everyone has different perspectives on the
history that was made, and that is still being made, and I'm being sort
of silly in saying that anything was wrong. All I meant is that I felt
very strongly that this was a remarkable chapter for women, and I
wanted to convey that in some larger narrative form than simply through
the reporting and writing I'd been doing at Salon. 
  

    
So that was your "click" moment!
  

    
one thing i really loved about the book was how you combined your personal 
story and feelings about the candidates (particularly hillary) with 
reporting and analysis. i think it's a really tricky combo and you did it 
beautifully.

uh, taht wasn't a question. 
  

    
It's okay! I'll take the compliment! 
  

    
I think that's part of why it was so riveting. (Sorry to use the same word 
twice, but I couldn't put it down.) You kept grounding the narrative in 
your own perceptions and insights as the story unfolded, and they were 
good, so it made people really think. At least it made me think! 
  

    
Responding a bit to these compliments, I should say something: It
wasn't my intention to write a memoir, or anything like it. I have no
problem with first person writing, and do it often in my journalism,
but it's not like I went into the book project thinking that the world
needed to hear about Rebecca Traister's feelings about Hillary Clinton,
Sarah Palin and Michelle Obama! BUT, as I was putting together the
proposal, and then later writing the book, a couple of things kept
occurring to me, leading me to think that perhaps a personal
perspective might be valuable. 

First was the amount of speculation from reporters and pollsters about
how young women felt, or how old women felt, or how working women
felt, or how Democratic women felt, or how thirtysomething women felt
about x, y or z. In every election, it seems like the news media
suddenly becomes curious about how some specialized group of women feel
about politics. And then there's the steady question of "HOW YOUNG
WOMEN FEEL ABOUT FEMINISM." And the thing is, I was perfectly aware
that I am just one woman -- neither young nor old, by media standards
-- but that I was perfectly happy to explain how *I* felt about
politics, candidates and feminism. 

The second thing was that in interviewing so many people about how the
election had an impact on them, I was reminded of how personal and
emotional it was for so many of us. We talk a lot about the personal
being political, and in this case -- a case of underrepresented people
seeing their first glimmers of representation in the presidential
process -- the political often felt really personal! I don't know if
you guys noticed, but pretty much everyone in the book does in fact
cry. Some people cried on the phone with me, some people (like
Geraldine Ferraro) told of crying in the voting booth. Someone told me
a story about Palin getting teary over why Gloria Steinem hated her! 

All this is just to say that I'm glad and very relieved that in your
eyes, the first person thing worked out, since it was not exactly my
first instinct, and I was somewhat self-conscious about the me-ness of
it all. 
  

    
I had NOT noticed the crying! That's interesting -- have other people
noticed?
  

    

Interesting about crying.

Any comments about a male Speaker of the House who cries and a female who
didn't (as far as I know)?
  

    
you could tell as you read the book taht you weren't wanking in your 
first-person usage. it was judicious. as i posted recently elsewhere, i'm 
interested in how widely mileage varies about mary roach, who i think is 
hilarious, but who other people feel inserts herself too much into her 
reporting in lazy ways. i just thought the balance in your book was 
perfect. and i gained clarity on my own tangled  feelings about hillary, 
which changed wildly over the course of the campaign season, because you 
talked about yours. 

i wondered if you'd read gail collins's "when everything changed" book -- 
i can't remember when it came out compared to yours. i read tehm back to 
back and it was fascinating comparing this giant sweeping book to this 
narrow-in-time-period, tightly focused book --you used different lenses to 
look at some of the same stuff. 
  

    
Funnily enough, Wickett, Gail Collins wrote the funniest column about
Boehner crying, asking us to take a moment to imagine Pelosi doing the
same thing. It's so telling that we simply CANNOT IMAGINE Nancy Pelosi
crying. 

My current beef with Boehner and the tears has to do with the fact
that Mr. Waterworks didn't manage to muster even a bit of dampness when
issuing statements about the 19 people shot in Arizona some weeks ago.
He cries over the drama of himself, his own moving story, and somehow
can't manage a tear for those injured and killed in an assassination
attempt on one of his own colleagues? For some reason, this really
drives me insane. 

Anyway! On the subject of Gail Collins: The first book I went out and
bought when I got my contract to write Big Girls was America's Women:
Four Hundred Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines, which is
a history of women in the US until mid-twentieth century. When
Everything Changed was published in the last months of me finishing up
my book, and I confess that in that haze of stress and anxiety, I
picked it up, thumbed through it longingly, but didn't have the time or
ability to break my concentration by reading it. As soon as I was done
with my own book, I tore through hers.

Here is what I aspire to have in common with Gail Collins. Her work
seems to reflect her belief that if you're going to lodge complaints
about the state of affairs -- especially with regard to gender
injustice --  it's imperative that you also acknowledge the distances
we've traveled. A lot of people seem to believe that accounting for
both the good and the bad somehow weakens an argument, whereas I think
it makes it much stronger and more plausible, and more honest. 

I would LOVE to think that on the very small, narrow scale (compared
to the 60 years GC covers in When Everything Changed, or the 400 years
in America's women) the story I tell in Big Girls does a version of
what GC does: show that progress happens even amidst the regress, that
the story of moving forward is also one of moving backward, that the
good and the bad can be simultaneous, intertwined even. But again,
obviously, the story I tell is a very brief and specific one. She does
this for all of American history! She is a wonder, and one of my
writing heroes. 
  

    
I haven't yet read your book (though I will!) but I want to bring up a
slightly different issue: Michelle Obama. So far as I'm concerned, she
walks a razor's edge as the first black First Lady, and her balancing
act has been admirable.

But a friend, a strong Hillary supporter, who has never forgiven Obama
for winning the primary, is particularly contemptuous of her. Gardens!
Nutrition! Why isn't she doing a fraction of what she did as a
brilliant lawyer? Where will women be if all Michelle Obama does is
fall into the same old role?

What's your take on the politics of this?
  

    
This is great discussion and I look forward to getting the book. 

It has set me to wondering, though, how people might receive comments
from a man about another man not toeing the line as to how men should
be or vote or work or behave or succeed or do the spouse role or take a
supporting role or etc. etc..  

Perhaps a time will come when everyone is liberated enough so they can
just be human and not be expected to fulfill the stereotype or
anti-stereotypes we all seem to hold so dear.
  

    
Pamela, re: Michelle Obama. An excellent question! I actually do deal
with her story in some depth in the book, addressing it better than
I'll be able to here. I would say two things in response to your
friend's comments about Michelle: 

First, as to the contempt for "Gardens! Nutrition!" I understand (will
get to it in a second) but want to point out that these things are, at
their heart, actually radical in their own way, though granted it's a
way we never ever ever hear about. The focus on childhood obesity and
food politics gets at the heart of class and racial divides in this
country -- who has geographic, economic, and educational access to what
kinds of food is a question that is at the very heart of a lot of the
health inequity plaguing the country. So there is an argument to be
made, and I think a very valid one, that Michelle is actually tackling
a spectacularly difficult and crucial socio-political divide here
perhaps more aggressively and progressively than a lot of the other
things her husband's administration comes under fire for. 

But yes, there is no denying that the way these projects have been
sold to us have nothing to do with anything radical OR progressive --
gardens! nutrition! kids! We're actively being encouraged to see this
work as very traditional, and very traditionally first-wifely. 

I write a lot in the book about Michelle's path. She started out as
pretty much my favorite person on the campaign trail -- brilliant,
outspoken, independent, electrifying on the stump. But she was
addressing a country that -- no matter how much we like to tell
ourselves otherwise -- still reacts in fundamentally racist and sexist
ways to women who break molds. She bore the brunt of so much prejudice,
was characterized widely, and not subtly, as an entitled black
princess and then as an angry black woman. By the time her husband was
through the primary, she was undergoing a major image reworking -- in
her convention speech, she was all about being a wife, a mother, a
sister a daughter, and nothing else! It's not that she's not truly,
authentically, a devoted mother and wife, it's just that the
independence, the opinions, the excitement and brilliance and star
power were all stripped away. 

But I don't hold Michelle in contempt for any of that. I hold our
country and its standards for women in contempt. It makes me very sad
that this is the only way her popularity ratings could stay high. It's
like we had made such a big step forward in electing her husband
president, that she had to move several steps backward (way behind
where Hillary had been able to go as First Lady, not that she had a
smooth path) into very old expectations for First Ladyhood in order for
us to embrace her. 

To Robert Flink, regarding the question of turning this stuff around
for men: another excellent query! I would argue, though, that the
hypothetical reversal doesn't quite translate, because we have to
remember that the reason we have such a microscope on how women vote
and what they believe is because we have so few of them in power, so
few of them to represent us. It's an entirely different equation when
you're talking about men, both because there are so many more of them,
and always have been -- so that  the whole rainbow variety of good, bad
and ugly doesn't surprise us, it's just the norm. 

But also, women have been treated as a power minority is treated. A
stand on reproductive rights is so fundamental to how we judge the
women who represent us because women's reproductive rights are
curtailed in part because women have historically not been represented
equally. I realize it seems like I'm talking in circles, wish I were
being clearer. But the fundamental fact is that men -- as a gender --
do not have the same kinds of issues of political, social, sexual
imparity. 

That doesn't mean that there aren't men who are treated badly,
individually or in groups, especially men who fall into
non-straight-white racial, religious, sexual, ethnic and class
categories. It just means that broadly, based on their gender alone,
men do not have a history and present that means that political issues
revolves around issues like unequal pay, unequal physical or mental
ability, damaging sexual stigma, unjust domestic expectations, a
curtailment of the ability to control their own bodies, health care,
and the shape of their families. All these things foreground a
discussion of gender in politics for women, even though female
politicians of course also represent us when it comes to things we
don't think of as gendered issues so much as issues -- war, peace,
infrastructure, diplomacy, the environment, etc.. 

Does any of that make sense?
  

    
Re your answer on Michelle: it not only makes sense, I find it
brilliant! Thank you for making me think about issues I hadn't thought
about, because I'd bought into the press spin of "Gardens! Nutrition!"
in the most simplistic way.

I was dismayed to open my hometown newspaper today and read how the
GOP is all excited about the anti-abortion legislation they now feel
they're in a position to pass easily. I see this not as a pro-life
issue--else why not preserve the life that's born with decent medical
care?--but as an anti-woman issue. But sorry--this takes us away from
your book.
  

    
>Does any of that make sense?<

It does indeed. I see your comments as giving important context to the
subject.  
  

    

Michelle Obama has taken on the purveyors of processed food, junk food, the
corn lobby--some of the biggest special interest groups in the USA.  I
have nothing but respect and admiration for what she is doing in her low-key
way and under the cloak of traditional womanly concerns.
  

    
What I keep wondering is whether Michelle could pull a Hillary and one 
day run for Pres. 
  

    
i hope so!
  

    
fom and Madgalen: I understand the desire, but based on everything I
know or read about Michelle, it seems like there is nothing she wants
less than her own political career. My impressions are that she is a
woman of vast personal, intellectual, professional ambition, but that
politics is not a business she has ever held in very high regard. The
comparison to Hillary is apt in many ways, but Hillary always loved and
wanted to be involved in politics.
  

    
On literally the penultimate page of your book, you refer to Hillary
as being "in a state of diminished power" after having "lost the big
prize" and getting a certain amount of approval for what some people
perceived as humbling herself in order to be named Secretary of State
in the administration of her former rival. But at the same time, you
make it clear that Secretary of State certainly isn't a position that
gets handed out as a consolation prize! And while she's not the first
woman in the job, she's the second. So I'd love to hear more about your
thoughts on Hillary the diplomat, especially now that she's spent a
little more time in the job.
  

    
WARNING -mini rant

I had what I think is a deep reflection which was generated from this
conversation, during my morning soak in a hot tub, which I hope you
will appreciate. (I don't do candles or bubbles or duckies - my
Metrosexual score is quite low).

So I'll throw this idea out and see how it floats.

It occurred to me that there is a whole new dynamic in cyberspace that
effects everything you are talking about. Culturally and
sociologically, prior to now, our histories have been shaped by the
hunter-gatherer/domestication breakdowns which have had a determining
factor in gender roles, especially affecting women.

But digital culture is not defined by gender. We now collaborate,
network and interact with one another w/o respect to one's gender (for
the most part, of course there is some bias, but nothing like in
Flatland). And I think that all of that dynamic is going to play back
in a forceful and powerful way in respect to the issues you have been
discussing. You probably have already thought of ways to use all the
social medias available to spread your messages. Hope everyone is
following @rtraister on Twitter, eg.

Perhaps I'm overly optimistic here, but I think this dynamic will
hasten the day when we are all treated with respect simply for who we
are everything else being incidental.

I realize this is a simplistic and possibly naive meta-view, but I
like the possibilities.

What do you all think?
  

    
I don't want to sidetrack the conversation with this, just wanted to
offer some empowerment.
  

    
And we're supposed to take a guy with no duckies seriously?
  

    
oh, ted, ted, ted. 

fawn, excellent question -- would love to hear about rebecca's take on 
hillary and diminished power now.