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Reader Feedback on "Bridget Jones's Mandate"
Well, yes, exactly. Thank you. I knew things were getting to some ridiculous pass a while back when there were some pop-cultural segments of the FEMINIST movement implying dire things about women who just don't care all that much about home "design" or fashion. I don't look down on all those things, just not interested in much the same way I'm not all that interested in, say, fly fishing or 40s comic books or 1960s commercial aviation trends. No disrespect at all to the people who are: my point is that it's a HUGE, VAST world out there full of things to be interested in, and I rather resent the implication that there are things I "should" give a damn about, at the expense of, say, this book I have right now on Civil War espionage (which happens to have a lot of genuuinely interesting women in it, as it happens). And that those things are, for some reason, the same for all women as they never seem to be for all men.
Feminism to me implies a certain responsibility to dream big. The feminists before my generation certainly did. Dreaming of (and reaching for) as much as possible, recognizing no natural limitations to the "feminine sphere" is an honor and a mandate and really a lot more fun than manically charting every single fluctuation in the weather patterns of some half-assed relationship. Better to train to be an actual metereologist if that kind of detail's your forte.
--MK
06/11 |
I am never one to write feedback...but the button is just chilling there after the article so I decided to write in...Thanks for the article...being a young "girl" myself I am constantly frustrated at the limitations every girl around me puts on themselves...none aspire to be anything more than a loving wife and mother (which is not to put down wifery and motherhood, but that should not be the end of your dreams, must the beginning, middle, end...), even as their own mothers are having nervous breakdowns around them (mostly from empty nest syndrome...b/c all they ever did was build a nest and forgot that maybe kids leave at 18 and then what?)...
thanks for being angry at chick-lit and a society that breeds such pansy writing...
--rr
06/09 |
outstanding. numerous great points, it really is just a product of our society, that culture is unfortunately a reflection of so many people....
--JC
06/08 |
Beauteous. I hate those books so freaking much. My cat writes better lit., and he's morbidly obese.
--ac
06/08 |
Lisa - your article made me laugh! But I have to disagree... Sure there's a lot of really awful chic-lit out there (or contemporary female fiction as they seem to be calling it...) but I have read a few that are great. The Nannies Diary as you mention is fab as is The Bergdorf Blondes. Maybe you should give that one a try...
--JP
06/08 |
Damn, Lisa, you really laid a heavy critique of society on us here. We are barely scratching the surface of awareness of our culture. It creates us and enslaves us. It controls us and sets us free - or is that just an illusion to keep us playing the game? God is not an old bearded white man in heaven - he is the president and members of the board, he is our politicians, religious leaders, he is all of us in so far as we support the institutions that make all this possible and allows us to enjoy the life to which we have become accustomed. Amen.
--JH
06/07 |
More pyschobabble nonsense. So the genre is formulaic. Lots of things are like that. Sandler movies, for example. Stupid Disney chick flick movies which maybe, JUST MAYBE, send the message that one doesn't have to be the best or the most popular and can get through it without 96 body piercings, pseudo goth/Wiccan/whatver stylings, black make-up, and a reputation as a semen receptacle.
Not everyone needs to be off running about wearing black make-up "daring to be different" to be fulfilled. Some of these "girls" just might be self confident enough to take them for what they are rather than needing a preaching, aging counter culture queen to tell them how to think.
Thank god the 15 minutes of fame is quickly passing. An historical footnote comes next.
Adios.
--GW
06/07 |
go Lisa 4ever.
--SI
06/06 |
Yah Lisa! I work in a bookstore, and the only thing that pisses me off more than chick lit (or "the pink books," as we call them) is the princess/fairy drivel marketed to girls. Both have the same problems, and both are insiduously recommended by same sex friends and relatives because they're "fun" or "she's such a girly girl," the latter apparently meaning that the recipient doesn't think, can't fix things, won't do anything that makes them sweaty, and generally isn't interested in anything not pretty. Burn the pink books!
--RB
06/06 |
YES! yesyesyesyesyes.
--ms
06/06 |
Hit the nail on the head. Well done.
--GC
06/06 |
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