Memorial Day Reads

87 thoughts on Memorial Day Reads

1. It really shows our priorities.

   We could be concerned about the fact that we are maintaining a slave class, and so punish the overlords for maintaining such horrid conditions for the workers, and work on regulations to make sure that every worker has fair labor conditions.

   Or we could be concerned about the scary brown foreigners, and so find a way to make their condition even more fucking miserable than it already was. This is fucking disgusting.

2. Rebbecca Walker’s piece was very sad and the pain obviously runs deep. Second wave feminism left many younger women like Rebbecca lost in its wake and if we hope to create a healthier and more diverse feminism we have to include their experiences and not seek to invalidate their stories because they make us (me) uncomfortable. I’ll be the first to say that we made plenty of mistakes and we need to be able to own them. After reading the article twice I felt that it was narcissism not feminism that was Alice’s problem…but maybe that’s just the die hard fem in me.

   Rebecca, though, seems convinced that child-rearing is the best thing for every woman. Every woman? I didn’t see that, what part?

3. Thank you for an interesting post (I’ve only recently discovered your website but I’m a big fan). As a British reader, I’d like to apologise for the specious, woman-hating bollocks published in the Daily Mail. Frankly, whatever the news is, and whomever they interview, they inevitably find a way of blaming working mothers/feminism/asylum seekers. The decline of the British sitcom, rates of cancer, average rainfall, train delays? – apparently it can all be blamed on one single Polish mother in Dagenham. The Alice Walker article is no surprise. I’d recommend reading it only if you enjoy rolling your eyes and feeling infuriated. It’s all feminism’s fault that she didn’t get on with her mother. Feminism probably did for Princess Diana (the DM’s other unhealthy obsession) too.

4. Hate crimes against Latinos are on the rise in this country and people in my community are scared. My husband was born in the southwestern U.S and has an advanced degree in engineering and he
   was asked if he had his green card at a job interview not long ago. My husband said… No, I am from New Mexico and the guy said, oh well don’t they have the same green card as old Mexico? My husbands reply…not yet.

5. Maybe you should read the Rebecca Walker piece again. I did – and still could not find anything to back up your assertion that “Rebecca, though, seems convinced that child-rearing is the best thing for every woman — and odd conclusion, considering her own memories of her childhood.”

   It’s not in there. The article is about Rebecca’s painful relationship with her mother, the choices both have made, and how they have impacted Rebecca.

6. I was infuriated by Rebecca Walker’s public temper tantrum against her mother. It all seemed to come down to her not getting the dollies and toys she wanted, and not being the complete center of her mother’s life, and the tone was so nasty I wanted to smack her.

   I have to ask why she’s angry only at her mother. If Alice Walker really treated her so badly, why isn’t she angry at her father for not protecting her? He had the money for much of her childhood! Where is the anger at her father?

   I also do not believe for one minute that she was sent to preschool at the age of one, let alone forced to walk to school at that age. Preschools in the 1960’s were not day care, and they did not accept children younger than three or (preferably) four. Either she is badly misinformed or she is lying, and either way, she should have checked with other relatives before writing something so questionable.

   Finally…she comes across as a very, very angry woman. I wonder if that’s why her mother was less than happy to find out that she was pregnant? I hope to God that rage doesn’t come out against her son if he fails to live up to herexpectations – and I’m very thankful she doesn’t have a daughter. That girl would be doomed.

7. Oh yes. Here’s Rebecca “I’m at a stay at home Mommy”‘s actual biography, according to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Walker. Not precisely what she presents herself to be in that article, it seems.

8. I can see how Rebecca Walker may have felt neglected by her mother, but she seems to define that neglect in terms of what she thinks a mother should be – I find the appelations “mother” and “father” entirely problematic and gendered. Walker seems to assume that all women/mothers should behave in a certain way, that is, love their children, think those children are the most beautiful things in the world, etc, and I find that entire assumption interesting in light of something that has already been pointed out – her not taking into account her father’s role in her childhood (whater “father” means). Also, I get the message from her article that any woman who is 40 and does not have a child must be in want of a child and that somehow feminism is to blame for why that woman does not yet have a child. Finally, I would say that Rebecca Walker is equally as selfish in her demands as a daughter as a mother might be in her demands of independence.

9. “But does this mean that if I want to be a good environmentalist, I should stop shaving my legs?”

   Man, I just saw one of those Green Channel ads about what you! can do to help the environment. Dudes could stop shaving and just let their stubble run free, or at least use a razor made of post-consumer plastic. Ladies could…stop washing their hair every time they showered, and instead try wearing their hair up in some hip new styles or try investing in sporty hats.

10. The Rebecca Walker article also rubbed me the wrong way. I’m all about giving feminism a good solid critique but it seemed to be less a critique of feminism than a personal attack on her mother. I’m not a huge fan of Alice Walker to be honest, so it was not that I’m trying to defend her on the basis of loyalty.

    But I think she could of done a really solid analysis of feminism and motherhood without mud slinging.

    I also found the part where she discussed her sexuality to be a little bizarre, considering she wrote an article a few years ago (that is used as an important text in the Intro to WS course I have worked with) in which she proudly talks about having had sex at 13 and that more womyn should be free to do so. She talks about how her mother approved and she was happy to have been able to express her sexuality without the constraints of labels (ie: slut). So to see her speak differently in this article was a tad.. odd.

    I realize that people are able to change their minds but she makes no mention of having changed her mind, she just speaks about it as fact.

11. Rebecca Walker’s article was bizarre; she seemed to blame feminism for her mother’s eccentricities, as if all feminists advocated against motherhood. It sounded like something you’d tell your therapist, not an article written for public enlightenment.

12. I was raised to believe that women need men like a fish needs a bicycle. But I strongly feel children need two parents and the thought of raising Tenzin without my partner, Glen, 52, would be terrifying.

    As the child of divorced parents, I know only too well the painful consequences of being brought up in those circumstances. Feminism has much to answer for denigrating men and encouraging women to seek independence whatever the cost to their families.

    Honestly, I personally can’t accept this article as a broad condemnation of the feminist movement. I think there’s a lot of personal bitterness, and parent-daughter relationship stuff going on here, which is presented obliquely as a broad critique of feminism.

    I’ll admit that I’m only vaguely aware of Alice Walker. What she stood for. But, she is an individual. Maybe she had flaws. Maybe she had a bad relationship with her daughter. That’s as much a personal matter, as it is relevant to a broader social movement, like feminism.

    I myself have seen scant evidence of “man hatred” in the feminist movement, as the writer her implies. Are there some people who are into the whole “man hatred” thing? I guess. I’ve never seen much of it. As far as I’m concerned, feminism has, broadly speaking, benefited men as well as women. Elements of patriarchy can be bad for men too. I don’t think I’ve ever personally met a feminist woman who has some sort of personal grudge against men in general. The sort of bitterness, that is stereotyped daily on the Rush Limbaugh show. Sure, some people are jerks, some people are bitter. It’s part of the human condition. It’s not a symptom, or a trademark of feminism, or any social movement or group of humans.

13. Re Rebecca Walker’s child:

    I have no doubt that Alice Walker was a terrible mother, perhaps in the lowest 5% of all women who have ever reproduced.

    Still, in regards to Tenzin — it must be exhausting to be the offspring of a mother (ie, Rebecca) who needs to publicize her entire maternal experience as one unending spasm of joyful fulfillment, so that she can publicly prove that her mother was terrible, terrible, terrible.

14. I was shocked when I read the article from Rebecca Walker. It was definitely more of an attack on her mother than it was about feminism. It drove me to write a post about motherhood actually. Perhaps the social construction of motherhood had much to do with her disappointment in her childhood. That is something I explored.

15. Wow. Rebecca is certainly biting the hand that feeds (all those feminist organizations that have given her the awards that help get her hired to speak…).

    You know you’ve sunk low when you’re spilling your family’s guts in the Daily Mail.

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18. My husband said… No, I am from New Mexico and the guy said, oh well don’t they have the same green card as old Mexico? My husbands reply…not yet.

    OMFG. This person was actually in a position of responsibility at a business?

19. My husband was born in the southwestern U.S and has an advanced degree in engineering and he
    was asked if he had his green card at a job interview not long ago. My husband said… No, I am from New Mexico and the guy said, oh well don’t they have the same green card as old Mexico? My husbands reply…not yet.

    I love “one of our 50 is missing” stories!

    I used to work in telephone tech support, talking to people all across the country. One woman, when discovering the call center was in New Mexico, complimented me on my english and also mentioned she’s always though Mexican women had the prettiest skin.

    Uh huh. I then understood why she was unable to operate her cellphone without assistance.

20. The Daily Mail is the intellectual equivalent of Fox News.

    The Mail only published Rebecca Walker’s screed as a tool to humiliate Alice Walker and excoriate feminists.

    The piece has little literary or intellectual merit in its own right. If it weren’t for the fact that Alice Walker is a feminist icon, nobody would care about her daughter’s self-pitying screed. Rebecca Walker implies that her mother’s ideology made her a bad parent, but neither she nor the writer who conducted the interview bothers to connect the dots between what her mother’s intellectual positions and her behavior. Instead, the article substitutes outrageous allegations for argument and analysis (i.e., the claim that Alice Walker “despises” mothers).

21. I think Alice Walker far from the saint folks want to pretend her to be was a lousy mother and a very shallow human being. I feel for Rebecca who obviously stills feels the sting of such a dysfunctional (read nutty) upbringing. I’ll take truth any day. I’m not going to go into a recital of the ills some gen fems but some of those women were off the charts.

22. …I meant some 2nd generation fems.

23. I agree Lala…although it’s hard to not get defensive at times.

    Vanessa, the best is when you get mail with a ton of postage and USA written after your address!

    And yes, the man in question worked in HR at a major company in the Northwest.

24. Hey, did 2nd wave feminism involve advocating for large numbers of women shipping their kids back and forth from coast to coast every two years and taking off for writing retreats while leaving their kids alone? My mom was a feminist, and she certainly never mentioned all that. She also worked, and I wasn’t adversely impacted.

    I wish Rebecca Walker would work this stuff out with her parentS and leave feminism out of it. She seems not realize that her story isn’t exactly typical.

25. The Alice walker critique shows how hard line fundamentalists of any type hurt the people around them with their fanatical views.

26. She seems not realize that her story isn’t exactly typical.

    What story is “typical”?

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28. After reading Rebecca Walker’s piece, read this:

    http://blogs.theroot.com/blogs/seeds/archive/2008/05/20/making-sure.aspx

    Such change of heart!

29. I see that I was not the only one saddened by Rebecca Walker’s article. And also not the only one inspired by it too.. (wrote a post about it).

    But my two cents on Rebecca Walker… the wikipedia page certainly gives a very different picture of her. She was feminist of the year? That’s certainly surprising.

    Who knows what her relationship w/ her mother was really really like, but what is clear is that it was a very painful one for Rebecca.

30. That Harrison Ford link is disturbing… not the least because he’s still hella sexy. Even though he’s old enough to be my grandfather.

    *runs, hides*

31. In a criminal justice system as sprawling as ours, it’s no shock that many prisoners are in fact innocent. But truly clearing someone of a crime they didn’t coming takes a lot more than overturning a guilty verdict.

    This is a cultural problem where most of us want to believe that authority figures such as the police, prosecutors, the judge, and/or jury are infallible….even when there is plenty of evidence that this is not the case.

    This also goes well-beyond the courtroom where even if a given person is clearly innocent and exonerated that many people, including many “progressives” will automatically assume that the wrongfully accused must have done something wrong to bring that mistaken/false accusation upon him/herself.

    This mentality among most of the American public is one of the impediments to any genuine exoneration of the wrongfully accused.

    Women in academia are less likely to have children than women in other professions. What’s going on there?

    Academia, especially at institutions with a heavy research emphasis is a seemingly all consuming profession that contrary to popular stereotype forces long hours on faculty, especially those on the tenure-track hoping to publish enough in quantity and quality to gain tenure and/or further promotions afterwards. Those so-called “free summers”, vacations, and weekends are often spent attempting to balance research obligations and teaching responsibilities.

    Even small liberal arts colleges, especially those considered highly ranked have this issue….maybe slightly less research requirements than a research university….but a higher teaching load each semester. Most of my undergrad profs were teaching at least 5 courses per year (3 one semester, 2 the next, or vice-versa) along with their not inconsequential research obligations. Many of them were working hard at their research during any “free” moments between classes/college responsibilities during the semester as well as during the holidays/summers.

    This heavy workload alone is enough to prevent many faculty from having families, especially women until they are in their 40’s or later.

    Add to this the fact most PhD graduates/profs on the tenure track will be located in isolated locales where finding compatible partners with which to start families is extremely difficult…and many people who are not part of academia/know how it works often do not understand the dynamics of working in such a setting….or are completely turned off by it. I’ve overheard many people outrightly state they won’t date PhD students/academics because of the intense and extreme narrow focus they must have on academic work so esoteric and specialized that few people outside of the specialization can understand…much less of curious interest…along with the need to frequently move for tenure track possibilities…often to isolated locales many potential partners may not want to go for reasons related to career and the personal.

    And I am talking about what I’ve seen and heard about faculty who managed to get on the tenure-track/got tenure…which is considered a mark of success…especially getting tenure. Things are far worse in terms of hours, frequent moves to isolated undesirable locales, and more if one ends up as an non-tenured faculty member.

    As for Rebecca Walker, her bitterness and anger at her mother is quite similar to those of many upper/upper-middle class college classmates who were neglected because by their parents due to their working in all-consuming careers such as university/college faculty, partners in big-city law firms, senior corporate management, board members of various non-profit agencies/NGOs, full-time political activists, etc. As far as some of them were concerned, their parents didn’t really give a damn about them because they prioritized their careers far above their responsibilities as parents. That’s the impression I am getting from her article.

32. The Rebecca Walker story sounds to me, like kiki said, like her mother’s problem was narcissism, or workaholism, or not-really-cut-out-for-motherhoodism, not feminism. My grandma, chronologically speaking, well-predated the second wave feminist movement, but my mom had a lot of the same issues with her that Rebecca seems to have with Alice–her work (also political) came first, she wasn’t an attentive parent, etc. etc.

    My own mother on the other hand came of age during the 70s–younger than the big-name second wavers, but old enough to be aware of what was going on, and very much identifies as a feminist. She was a very attentive parent (who did get divorced, totally for the better) and always came to school events, played with me, etc. AND she always told me that having children was the greatest thing that had happened to her. But, interestingly I grew up feeling much more like Alice Walker–I have no desire for children at all and in fact find the idea sort of repugnant (for myself; I hope others continue to have children since I want to be a teacher and need kids to teach!)

33. The Rebecca Walker piece really bothered me because I see it as both an attack on her mother and a distortion of a lot of feminist values.

    No one would deny that she had a difficult upbringing, but her lack of self awareness when it comes to her privilege is almost breathtaking to me. It really bothers me that she can say things like, “Feminism has betrayed an entire generation of women into childlessness. It is devastating.” and “For feminists to say that abortion carries no consequences is simply wrong.” In addition to just being a gross distortion, she doesn’t acknowledge that having access to birth control and safe abortion meant that she got to choose when she became a mother.

    I think the whole piece reads that way, with her making a gross generalization or just completely misrepresenting what it means to be a feminist while ignoring the ways that she, as a young woman, has benefited from its gains. It honestly reads more to me like some anti feminist screed I’d hear from the Independent Woman’s Forum than a thoughtful meditation on feminism and motherhood. I find the whole “mommy wars” discussion so tiresome because people often take the “one size fits all” position that Jill describes. In a lot of ways she (with her three memoirs at the age of 38) seems to be all about herself and what works for her. (I am also thinking about her comments about adoption not being as meaningful as biological motherhood here)

    She obviously seems very angry with her mother, and from the childhood she describes, I can see why. After having a child herself, her mother’s “hands off” approach seems all the more appalling. I get all that. However, it seems as though she has basically turned her mother into this straw man like symbol for all that is wrong with feminism, and I think that is unfair. I would describe Alice Walker as a feminist icon because she is an absolutely brilliant and amazing writer. That as a human being she is (arguably deeply) flawed doesn’t come as a terrible surprise to me.

    I think the biggest problem I’m having here is that her attempt to turn her mother’s flaws into a larger critique of second wave feminism is unconvincing and shallow. With all of the personal details added in, and with it being such a one sided story, it really does start to feel like she’s just airing dirty laundry.

34. In this (piece-of-crap) article, Walker says, “But the truth was I was very lonely and, with my mother’s knowledge, started having sex at 13.”

    I read her essay “Lusting for Freedom,” which was included in the anthology Listen Up, for an intro WSt class a few years ago, and something struck me as wrong. I looked it up and here is the passage where she talks about losing her virginity:
    “I am ashamed to tell people how young I was, but I am too proud to lie. Eleven. I was eleven, and my mother was away working.” (20)

    The anthology is about ten years old now, so it is understandable that her perspective on sex and relationships may have changed, but this part and others strike me as inconsistent. Her mother is not made out to be the villain, Rebecca fully claims her sexuality, and there is no mention of her pregnancy at 14. I don’t want to accuse her of lying or distortion, but it just seems like her account of events may not be the most reliable.

35. RE: Rebecca Walker

    I think it’s quite unfortunate that this family’s dirty laundry is being aired in such a bitter and public way. Certainly this does get some of feminism’s dirty laundry out in the open, which I view as a good thing. It’s high time for the ‘mommy wars’ to move beyond this either/or dichotomy that it is stuck in, and for parenting to be considered a valuable societal contribution. I’m just not sure this is the best way to do it.

36. Isn’t Rebecca Walker the one who wrote about how she was completely unable to love or parent her girlfriend’s child, and therefore all stepparents secretly hate their stepchildren because she was incapable of caring for a child who was not biologically related to her?

37. Isn’t Rebecca Walker the one who wrote about how she was completely unable to love or parent her girlfriend’s child, and therefore all stepparents secretly hate their stepchildren because she was incapable of caring for a child who was not biologically related to her?

38. Well, now I know what happens when you accidentally double-click on “Submit Comment.” Huh.

39. Rebecca Walker’s article makes me so, so, so uncomfortable. This family needs some kind of therapy; I’m just not sure if it’s “talk therapy” or “intra-cranial high velocity lead therapy.”

40. I see Rebecca as a feminist. I don’t think she is attacking feminism per se. You can call out Hagee and be a good christian. Her and her mom (who refuses to even talk to her) have some serious issues that are sad to see. Alice Walker was a negligent mother who happened to be a fem icon. I think we have to be able to love people and still say when they are wrong. I feel for Rebecca. I come from a very traditional latino family where sometimes they look at me like I’m a space alien. We love our mothers, our forebearers but they sometimes make mistakes.

41. Yeah, I stopped reading the Walker piece at “rabid feminist”. Just… no.

    On a less negative note, the “Beyond Rape” piece was amazing.

42. I’m with Lindsay Beyerstein on this.

    Rebecca Walker’s piece is super narcissistic. And whiny. And shallow. And wrong.

43. And–yikes!–The Mail?

44. Without reading Ms. Walker’s article I know that she had a difficult childhood, unfortunately I think neither of her parents were really there for her when she was young. I am sure that she has a legitimate gripe with her mother, as to her father I don’t know why he is not mentioned, from what my wife told me of Rebecca’s first book she was raised by her mother and her father had very little impact in her life.

    As to her critiques of femininsm I am sure that her views are colored with her own personal experiences. Without knowing her personally, or without reading her books I think that in some ways she is a very conflicted person, being that she was very much a lesbian before and now is with a man, and also based on what someone mentioned upthread about her views on sex. I do have the impression that she is being trying very hard to be honest with herself and do the best she can for her child.

45. Re Freesia’s link –

    What the hell? That’s quite a wide range of opinion for pieces published three days apart.

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47. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, you can take feminism and use it to justify all sorts of bad behaviour. That alone does not call for a blanket condemnation of feminism. But sometimes, people just get fed up and start screaming.

    Rebecca Walker has obviously had some seriously conflicting feelings in regards to her childhood, her mother, and feminism (do check out Freesia’s link). She’s entitled to have those feelings.

    If I were to speak to Rebecca Walker, I’d encourage her to look at other people who have complicated, even terrible relationships with their mothers. Not all of those mothers call themselves feminists. A conservative homemaker with a fridge full of nutritious food may very well neglect her kids in profound and painful ways. I’ve seen this happen.

    But is Rebecca Walker a simple narcissist? Should we ignore where she’s coming from? No. I think this person had some very rough and some very good times, and she’s dealing with that in the one way she can, by writing about it. Her generalizations should be challenged, but they should also be heard.

48. I agree, Natalia. What I see as the most unfortunate part of Rebecca’s piece is that it will be held up by some as ‘proof’ that feminists are evil people, and even more terrible mothers. Notwithstanding that feminists aren’t a monolithic group. I think/hope that what Rebecca was trying to do is shed some light on the damage that dogmatism can do to the people we love.

49. So, I emailed the Rebecca Walker piece to my mother with the subject line: “aren’t you glad your daughter isn’t a whiny brat?”

    This was her response, which I think is just perfect:
    “..and yet, if Alice Walker wasn’t my mother, no one would give a forum
    to such nonsense. Poor Rebecca, her Mama was busy…I’ll just bet she’s
    the perfect mother.

    Write me back in 20, Rebecca. Let’s see how your kid is doing and how
    he feels about YOU!”

50. I agree with Lindsay, BDL and Isabel. I’ve liked some of Rebecca’s writings and feel sorry for what appears to have been a very difficult childhood. But blaming feminism for bad parenting is abhorrent.

    Feminism has much to answer for denigrating men and encouraging women to seek independence whatever the cost to their families.

    That’s just embarrassing. Denigrating men? Maybe by suggesting they share the spoils of an unfair public power distribution? Maybe by suggesting they take some time off work or change the occasional diaper?

    The ease with which people can get divorced these days doesn’t take into account the toll on children.

    Sound anti-choice to me. So, women should not be able to so easily (and divorce ain’t all that easy, sweetie) leave bad or abusive marriages?

    Then there is the issue of not having children. Even now, I meet women in their 30s who are ambivalent about having a family. They say things like: ‘I’d like a child. If it happens, it happens.’ I tell them: ‘Go home and get on with it because your window of opportunity is very small.’ As I know only too well.

    So it’s impossible to have a child as a working woman? I’ll have to tell my daughter she doesn’t exist.

    Then I meet women in their 40s who are devastated because they spent two decades working on a PhD or becoming a partner in a law firm, and they missed out on having a family. Thanks to the feminist movement, they discounted their biological clocks. They’ve missed the opportunity and they’re bereft. Feminism has betrayed an entire generation of women into childlessness. It is devastating.

    So feminism’s at fault here too? Somehow men have still managed to work and have kids. The challenges for women in this area aren’t feminism’s fault, Rebecca. Instead, they’re signs that it needs to go farther.

    As others have said, as scornful and angry as Rebecca is at her mother, and surely with some good reasons, she’s standing on her back to get this essay and her books published. She’s a good writer, but none of her contributions would have merited their current visibility without AW’s fame.

51. This in one of a few things I have read by Rebecca Walker condemning her mother for the supposed horrible childhood she was subjected to. No one would even listen to Rebecca Walker if her mother were not Alice Walker. She is starting to become the poster mom for conservatives against feminism. I wonder how her child will feel in the future about her negative public rants against her mother. I also don’t hear any mention of her father in any of her writings? I suppose her view is that childrearing is all on women.
    Her writing is getting more angry in tone and I am surprised that she is not handling this with more tact.

    What she is failing to see is that her tone is exactly the same as she accuses her mother, just the opposite opinion.

52. Someone needs to personally tell this woman to get over it already. She is an adult and in control of her own life now. It is a little embarrassing for her to still blame her mother for everything. No one has perfect parents and I know kids that went through more hell than Walker is writing about. Blaming mom or dad is so 1980s. She needs to get over this for the sake of her own child or is she mapping out the directions on how to blame mom.

53. The women in academia article was really telling. Many women choose a career teaching thinking they will have more time to raise a family, but on the college level it is very difficult. I stayed to adjuncting becuase there is so much flexibility, but I see the full-timers are working 40+ hours a week teaching, committees, admissions, etc. The article did mention salary and that is the biggest issue. Doctors and lawyers can afford to have a stay at home spouse or pay for daycare, but college salaries are just not that high. Many of the men professors I work with don’t have kids either.

54. I haven’t always agreed with Rebecca Walker like when she came out with Baby Love and said motherhood was the best thing so her mother was wrong, etc. The great thing about her work is that it reflects most the views of the second and third waves. That’s what happens when your mom is Alice Walker, your godmother is Gloria Steinem, your dad’s a civil rights lawyer, etc.

55. Quoting Exholt:

    I’ve overheard many people outrightly state they won’t date PhD students/academics because of the intense and extreme narrow focus they must have on academic work so esoteric and specialized that few people outside of the specialization can understand…much less of curious interest…

    My girlfriend just finished a Ph.D. and… first thing, yes, it’s as intense as you say. But supporting and helping and taking care of a partner who is doing something difficult is part of the relationship! And now I’m so proud of my brilliant and accomplished Dr. Sweetie that it makes me cry.

    Yeah, I have a thing for smart women.

    But I’m not sure you can draw a cause-and-effect line from academe to childlessness. I see a pattern among her Ph.D. colleagues–not all of them, but a significant minority–who simply don’t want children. I would think that the sorts of women (or people in general) who deeply want children are somewhat distinct from the sorts of women (or people in general) who deeply want an intense academic career.

    Granted, men’s choices in the matter are a bit less stark: we can have children, assume (yes, due to patriarchy) that our partners will take on the bulk of child care, and work on our studies relatively uninhibited. But there’s still something of an inclination, in some men, either to want the children really really badly (and thus not prioritize the academic life) or to want the degree really really badly (and thus not prioritize childrearing). It’s true that men who do want it both ways get more support than similarly situated women, but that doesn’t diminish the reality of women who are completely focused on an academic (or other) career and prefer not to have children anyway.

    My girlfriend has always been certain that motherhood is not for her, period, so it was an easy choice. I wonder women like her account for much of the statistical phenomenon we see in the Inside Higher Ed article.

56. Makes you wonder about the limits of the personal being political…

57. “A good mother is attentive, sets boundaries and makes the world safe for her child. But my mother did none of those things.”

    While perhaps it’s problematic for Rebecca to cast her expectations in terms of what a “good” mother is, I think this quote encapsulates Rebecca’s disappointments with the relationship she had/has with her mother. To become overly defensive because she makes an indictment of her mother’s feminist principles and happens to discuss them under the heading of “Feminism” is extremely harsh, in my opinion. She clearly understands that her environment exhibited some characteristics on behalf of her mother that were inimical to her healthy development. Sure, perhaps such expectations are based on social constructions, but to say she needs to just “get over it” shows a lack of compassion for her attempts to reconcile her experiences through her writing.

    Although she conflates feminism and her mother’s identity/choices, I don’t think she does so without reason. Her writing (from this particular article, and other I have read) seems to indicate that her mother, as her primary example of what feminism is, gave her a very limited perspective. I think that part of Rebecca’s growth has been the realization of multiple opportunities for fulfillment within a feminist framework (ie, joy in motherhood, something that her experiences with her mother had completely foreclosed according to her perception). I don’t see Rebecca’s testimony as a sweeping condemnation of feminism, but an exploration for ways in which feminist thinking can flourish. Yes, there are flaws in her thinking, but I respect what she has to say as part of her own journey and healing process.

    I know that being a feminist has very personal implications for me, and especially how I view my relationship with my mother (although it has taken a more obviously positive role in my life). That’s why I am in no way insulted with how Rebecca weaves her conflicts with certain feminist ideology into her own deeply personal experiences. I beg you to see the issue in a less judgmental, yet still constructively critical, light.

58. The plant that those illegal immigrants were working at is the main subject of the book Postville. It’s actually a really interesting book: it discusses the interface between the Hasidic Jews who moved to town to start the factory, and the usual Christian, Scandinavian/German rural Iowans who were already there.

    I should note that the author has said he thinks he was a little too hard on the Jewish community–he’s Jewish himself and found some companionship there he didn’t have in Iowa City, and in trying to be objective he thinks he erred too far in the other direction; I’m a little curious about that interpretation after reading the accounts of the working conditions.

59. I just had to add in one thing regarding Rebecca Walker. She says that her mother has disowned her. We are supposed to despise Alice for this. Adult children sever their relationships with their parents all the time. I for one decided years ago that my mother is toxic and ended all communication. Is it not the same thing for a mother to decide that her ADULT child is toxic and say enough is enough. No matter what credence society says we are supposed to give to a relationship, sometimes it is just not a healthy on to perpetuate. There is a little thing called self-preservation to think of. If Alice for whatever reason found that the relationship was damaging to her, I personally don’t feel that she should be judged for that.

60. I have more to say but I just want to quibble with this:

    I think that in some ways she is a very conflicted person, being that she was very much a lesbian before and now is with a man, and also based on what someone mentioned upthread about her views on sex.

    She’s bisexual. I don’t think she’s conflicted at all. In her own words: Rebecca: I am bisexual, which means that I am attracted to people irrespective of their anatomy and gender socialization. Insisting on this freedom, in the face of all of the people who would rather I choose one or the other, has been super important to my survival. For young women exploring identity, I say read as much as you can, talk as much as you can, join together in safe spaces as much as you can. Isolation is dangerous, so work hard to find and make and cherish community.

61. But I’m not sure you can draw a cause-and-effect line from academe to childlessness. I see a pattern among her Ph.D. colleagues–not all of them, but a significant minority–who simply don’t want children.

    Many Profs and others I know who are in academia right now would beg to differ. While there are many who do not want children as you say, the ones who do have alluded to the working, environmental, and economic conditions which make it extremely difficult to start and maintain a family, especially at the beginning of one’s academic career or if they adjunct.

    Heck, I’ve came across quite a few grad students, regardless of gender, who are resolved, however reluctantly, to sacrifice the possibility of starting a family or even having a life partner of any kind due to the economic and working conditions they feel they will face down the road. The only people I know who do not have such worries are those who do not want to have a life-partner/have children and/or those who have trust funds to weather the lean economic times they may face.

    In fact, I recall reading articles where authors called for systemic reforms in academia so that so that academics, especially younger ones are not faced with the stark either/or choice of academic career or personal relationships/family.

    Is it not the same thing for a mother to decide that her ADULT child is toxic and say enough is enough. No matter what credence society says we are supposed to give to a relationship, sometimes it is just not a healthy on to perpetuate. There is a little thing called self-preservation to think of.

    This IMO is a flawed comparison due to the inherent power dynamic differences between parent and child. Due to social norms and the socially expectations, parents, with few exceptions, are usually regarded as having more power and say over a child rather than the reverse. Sometimes this extends well past the age of majority. For this reason, a parent disowning a child will often have a greater psychological impact on the child disowned than the reverse situation of the child disowning the parents. In both cases, the common mentality is that the child must be in the wrong and the parents could not possibly have done anything wrong.

    In fact, this dynamic is playing out on this very comment section with several commenters automatically assuming Alice Walker is wronged through this “airing the family’s dirty laundry” and being dismissive of Rebecca Walker’s accounts of a terrible childhood.

    Whether her account is true or not, this plays right into the hands of those who want to maintain the commonplace social orthodoxy that parents can do no wrong and that their children’s accounts of being wronged should not be believed unless another similarly aged adult or authority figure corroborates them. This dynamic is troubling because it causes children who have experienced poor parenting and especially serious abuses to be more reluctant to reveal their painful and traumatic experiences to others. I will echo those who are calling for more compassion and consideration rather than outright dismissal and contempt.

62. Exholt, I think many of us have voiced compassion for RW’s sadness during childhood and, while acknowledging there may be two sides to the coin, granting that it does sound as if there was significant neglect.

    But this does not conflict with the strong contempt I have, and others have voiced, for blaming feminism for these issues. Bad parents come in both genders. When men are bad parents, and this happens!, men’s rights don’t get blamed. Nor do men who have careers get blamed. Feminism means that women have equal rights to pursue active, economically valued pursuits. And if challenges remain, both outside and inside the family, for them to balance as easily as men are able to, then that’s a mark of the distance feminism needs to travel, not any flaws in what it’s accomplished to date.

63. Alice Walker is not a saint. She was a terrible mother even abusive mother and the ultimate narcissist. Just because she is the reigning Queen of of black feminism to many is no reason to rationalize her behavior away. Just like bad things were done in the name of religion some were done in the name of feminism.

64. I wrote a post about the Walkers mere et fille here. Very sad, and the Daily Mail is having a field day in their usual disgusting fashion.

65. Alice Walker is not a saint. She was a terrible mother even abusive mother and the ultimate narcissist. Just because she is the reigning Queen of of black feminism to many is no reason to rationalize her behavior away. Just like bad things were done in the name of religion some were done in the name of feminism.

    I don’t think most of us are rationalizing Walker’s behavior. She sounds like she was a terrible parent and a narcissist. What we’re objecting to is her daughter’s argument that feminism is at fault, as opposed to just having a crappy mother.

66. Catfood —

    Yes, the academy might be populated with women who do not want children. That makes sense. Not all women want children.

    But the study suggests that a disproportionate number of female academics don’t have children. If all of these female academics didn’t want children, then we would still need to explain why an academic career disproportionately attracts women who don’t want children. It seems plausible that the disproportion would be because women who DID want children understood how hard it would be to have an academic career and children, so they pursued another career path.

    We’re not using all of the brain-resources in the population very well if women who want to raise children self-select out of the academy.

67. This is, I’m sure, very mean of me, but I really don’t care that Rebecca Walker had a crappy childhood. Doesn’t everyone? At some point or another while they were growing up, everyone had a bad go of it. Some were worse than others, but everyone has been there. Wallowing in the past, however, doesn’t help. Get over it, use it to make you stronger, stand on your feet and stop blaming others.

    I don’t blame my mom for supporting the patriarchy (she’s getting better. 🙂 We kinda learned the whole feminism thing together) and I think it’s silly for Walker to blame her mom for being a feminist. Parents aren’t perfect and I think it’s silly to think they are.

    Learn, grow, make things better…get over it already.

    🙂 My opinion, natch.

68. But I’m not sure you can draw a cause-and-effect line from academe to childlessness.

    I had a friend who got pregnant while she was working on her PhD in linguistics. She was told to her face that she had just permanently ruined her career in academia, and that her career would never recover from her taking a few months off to care for her infant. This was in 2002, so not exactly from the Bad Old Times.

    I think you’re underestimating the very direct pressure that is exerted on women in academia to not have children and assuming that everyone voluntarily chose to remain childless. You might want to talk to your colleagues about their choices instead of assuming they made the choice freely.

69. his is, I’m sure, very mean of me, but I really don’t care that Rebecca Walker had a crappy childhood. Doesn’t everyone? At some point or another while they were growing up, everyone had a bad go of it. Some were worse than others, but everyone has been there. Wallowing in the past, however, doesn’t help. Get over it, use it to make you stronger, stand on your feet and stop blaming others.

    Even assuming everyone has had a crappy childhood does not necessitate the automatic cavalier dismissal of such accounts when they come out. More disturbingly, such attitudes are one reason why we are socialized to believe parents can do no wrong and that any claims by children/adult children that is not corroborated by an authority figure are to be brusquely dismissed out of hand. In their minds, “Those kids/adult children are probably lying ingrates anyways.”

    Attitudes such as yours are one reason why so many victims of child abuse, molestation, and abject neglect are often reluctant to tell anyone else about their experiences. If anything, it is this very attitude which has allowed individual and institutional abuses of children such as religious clergy pedophilia to continue for years…even decades.

70. I had a friend who got pregnant while she was working on her PhD in linguistics. She was told to her face that she had just permanently ruined her career in academia, and that her career would never recover from her taking a few months off to care for her infant. This was in 2002, so not exactly from the Bad Old Times.

    Mnemosyne,

    Your friend’s experience is similar to countless other accounts I’ve heard from academics and grad students. There’s still this mentality that if a grad student or a young tenure-track/Post-Doc who is not 100%+ dedicated to his/her research, especially at a research university….then s(he)’s to be regarded as “undedicated” and “lacking in seriousness” with all the dire career consequences such impressions can bring upon one who is so labeled.

    There was an older acquaintance of an undergrad classmate who was in a bio-PhD program at a West coast university during the late 80’s early 90’s. He was effectively forced out by his advisor merely for taking a couple of hours out of each week to partake in a sport he enjoyed to relax. Despite excellent recommendations, grades, and publication record in grad school, they were all discounted because the adviser felt that any time taken away from research shows a “lack of seriousness/commitment” to the program/field.

    If senior Profs with such attitudes felt this way about a casual hobby/sport that only takes a few hours per week, I can easily imagine how much more harshly they would treat grad students who have substantial family/outside commitments.

71. I don’t think most of us are rationalizing Walker’s behavior. She sounds like she was a terrible parent and a narcissist. What we’re objecting to is her daughter’s argument that feminism is at fault, as opposed to just having a crappy mother.

    I think that one of the things that may cause confusion is that there are a lot of women of my generation (not all) who will proudly proclaim that they were lousy mothers and tie this to being great feminists. For their daughters it sounds like, I care deeply about all women…except you. I can understand that some of the younger women want to see feminism as at fault since it’s easier than seeing your mother at fault. But the truth is that by using feminism as an excuse for our narcissism we’ve tarred feminism in the eyes of these younger women. You can see this play out in 3rd wave writings. I don’t think that calling younger women names like whiny or telling them to get over it is going to heal this divide and I think that as long as older women don’t own up to our mistakes we appear hypocritical and overly self absorbed. The very critique the younger women put forward. I also think that younger women need to realize we were wading into untested waters and most of us did our best with the quickly changing conditions and at times confounding ambiguity. We are not perfect…not because we are feminist but because we are human.

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73. I don’t think that calling younger women names like whiny or telling them to get over it is going to heal this divide and I think that as long as older women don’t own up to our mistakes we appear hypocritical and overly self absorbed.

    kiki, I agree that catcalls of “whinyness” or “get over it already” aren’t helpful to anyone, much less to a person who is still dealing with the emotional fallout of a dysfunctional home. However—-what mistakes have older feminists committed in regard to their children? Seriously! As a class, what mistakes have older feminists committed that could be considered a part of the Walker family dynamic?

    I seriously urge anyone comtemplating the idea that older feminists pushed too hard or too fast to visit Daisy’s excellent post on what second wave feminism brought forward. My only criticism of second wave feminism is that so much work is left unfinished—then again, that’s why we’re here.

    Again, what happened to Rebecca Walker has nothing to do with feminism, and everything to do with Alice Walker. The reason this received a forum is to lead the reader to conclude that certain gains of feminism—access to higher education, access to better employment, access to one’s own money—-are harmful to women and society, and not part of the “natural” order of things. That Alice Walker’s behavior toward her daughter stemmed from her opportunities, and not her own flaws. And that the solution to dysfunctional parenting is to curtail women’s opportunities (presumably while fathers can be as dysfunctional as they wanna be).

74. Sent that article on academia to my daughter – the academic. and she made a great point: WE ALREADY KNOW THIS. Academia and many other fields are not friendly for women with children. The article aggravated her a bit. And it is true; Why not put more effort into solving the issue – at least as much as we put into talking about it?

75. La Labu I am an older feminist (and a WoC) and so I am quite aware of our triumphs and our failures. No one on this thread as far as I can see is suggesting curtailing women’s opportunities…that is a red herring. I didn’t see anyone suggesting that Alice Walker’s behavior stemmed from her opportunities, either. Perhaps you could provide a quote? Also where someone stated that education, employment and money are harmful to women and society and not part of the “natural” order of things. Sounds like a big ol strawman.

    From what I can see, no one is suggesting that self interest is unhealthy, it is narcissistic self-absorption that is pathological. A BIG difference. Her intolerance of her daughter’s perspectives, insensitivity to her needs, her total lack of empathy and her indifference to the effects of her egocentric behaviors points to a very narcissistic personality…this is true whether the traits are exhibited by a man or woman. I was suggesting, from my many years dealing with my peers and our offspring, that within the movement we ignored or enabled rampant narcissism and that this has become wrongly associated with feminism in the minds of younger women. Many women of my generation (and those are the only ones I speak for) used the label “feminist” to excuse and normalize what was really unhealthy narcissism. When younger women want me to defend our choices and lives so much of what they have a beef isn’t really feminism but narcissism. Of course, any critique is met with a response similar to yours…oh, you’re just tryin to keep women down. As if.

    As for the failures of my generation they are as varied and personal as the women involved. I hate that it’s some scared cow that can’t be touched.

76. “sacred cow”,rofl….oh man.

77. Hate crimes against Latinos are on the rise in this country and people in my community are scared. My husband was born in the southwestern U.S and has an advanced degree in engineering and he
    was asked if he had his green card at a job interview not long ago. My husband said… No, I am from New Mexico and the guy said, oh well don’t they have the same green card as old Mexico? My husbands reply…not yet.

    Good response by him to a bad question, but no this isn’t all that unusual and Latino hate crimes are common in California too and probably very underreported given the current climate. Immigrant bashing is a big thing in one of my area’s local elections which is bad enough, but it’s bizarre because neither candidate ever spoke much on the issue. But they know if they just stoke the bigotry that they certainly believe and probably is out there, one of them can actually get the most votes without talking about the issues that do impact the district.

    As far as Rebecca Walker, don’t know her, read some of her essays. But know nothing about her personal life. She’s writing about it because she writes and I think criticizing her writing on feminism is valid, but what makes me uncomfortable (not that her statements didn’t do this) is as someone said, these catcalls and not just here. Some by people who appear to think b/c she and her mother are public figures, they know their lives but they don’t. I think the access that the media gives us to public figures and often the access those public figures provide gives us the illusion.

    I read the Mail article I think it was, and that’s worth discussing if to criticize as are points raised by a woman some place else about conflicts between second and third wave feminism.

78. kiki, perhaps I need to clarify. The backlash problem isn’t coming from the people on this thread. The Daily Mail published this because there is an audience more than willing to blame feminism for damn near everything under the sun. I have no idea where I fit on the “waves”; I’m 41 and remember the segregated employment ads (and girls not studying industrial ed, or even wearing pants to school), but at the same time some things have changed and I’ve been the beneficiary of that—being able to enter a previously all-male jobsite, and buying my own house without a male co-signer.

    I see and experience the backlash every day, living in central Illinois. There are still plenty of people around who resent the intrusion of feminist gains into what was for them, a pretty good life. That their happily-never-after wasn’t part of the life experience for the rest of us is just too damn bad. Why don’t we know and accept our place?

    I can’t say I’ve ever seen narcissism labeled as “feminist”. I have seen normal, adult independence exhibited by women labeled as narcissism, with the blame placed on the feminist movement. The ol’ “she never woulda left me if it wasn’t for Feminism” argument. That’s the real red herring.

    To be clear: no, no one here (on this or any other Feministe thread) seeks to turn back the clock. But right outside my door there is a whole shitload of people who would like to turn back the clock, or at least stop its forward motion. Most of those people hold positions of real power—like the Supreme Court. That’s what gets my back up when I hear about “feminism’s” excesses. I think of the ex-foreman I had who railed against his wife leaving him due to “feminism”, when it really had to do him. Feminism just gave her the opportunity for the escape valve, y’know?

79. Extraordinarily said Kiki

80. Good response by him to a bad question, but no this isn’t all that unusual and Latino hate crimes are common in California too and probably very underreported given the current climate.

    Part of the problem (at least in LA) is that it’s often reported as “gang violence” even when it means gang members are attacking innocent members of the public. That lets people shrug it off — “Oh, it’s only gang violence, why should I care if bad people kill each other off?” It turns into “caught in the cross-fire of a gang war” instead of being labeled what it is, racially motivated violence.

81. You can see this play out in 3rd wave writings. I don’t think that calling younger women names like whiny or telling them to get over it is going to heal this divide

    You, uh, you know Rebecca Walker’s 38, rght? It’s easy to miss because she writes about her mother like a bitter teenager, but she’s not a younger woman.

    Please knock it off with the implications that this is some kind of old-young generational warfare. I’m a good ten years younger than Rebecca Walker, and by most people’s standards I’m already too old to be a voice of young feminism.

    and that this has become wrongly associated with feminism in the minds of younger women. Many women of my generation (and those are the only ones I speak for)

    If you get to speak for women of your generation, I get to speak for mine. We think that narcissism is the biggest cliche of the entire baby boom generation and as such has nothing whatever to do with feminism as a political philosophy or as a social movement. Sorry!

82. I wonder what kind of childhood Rebecca Walker would have had without feminism. Her parents would have stayed together and fought, or they would have divorced anyway, and she would have had to endure the social stigma that came along with it (my grandmother’s parents divorced in the late thirties, and my great-grandmother was pretty much an outcast for the rest of her life). Her mother would have not magically transformed into a deeply attentive woman.

    She seems so bitterly angry. I hope she doesn’t end up transferring it on to her own child (who she has trouble letting go for a play date– yikes), especially when he reminds her of his grandmother (as children inevitably do).

83. Oh, and if anyone’s still reading, here she is on adoption:

    I don’t care how close you are to your adopted son or beloved stepdaughter, the love you have for your non-biological child isn’t the same as the love you have for your own flesh and blood.

    And after being heavily criticized for that:

    “The adoptive parents who are so fixated on wanting this sameness, I just think it’s unhealthy. As a biological parent, I feel like it’s a kind of erasure of the specificity of a biological experience. It’s OK for the adoptive experience to be what it is, different, and with its own terrain.”

    Ew.

84. Part of the problem (at least in LA) is that it’s often reported as “gang violence” even when it means gang members are attacking innocent members of the public. That lets people shrug it off — “Oh, it’s only gang violence, why should I care if bad people kill each other off?” It turns into “caught in the cross-fire of a gang war” instead of being labeled what it is, racially motivated violence.

    Here, I think it’s multi-fold. Guatamalan immigrants not wanting to risk deportation for reporting attacks on them. Especially as LE agencies involve themselves more and more in working with ICE or in policing in ways against immigrants. This is especially prevalent in Orange County and now San Benardino Counties with even LE unions (who often oppose their department’s stances on not doing what they call ICE’s work) going out and hiring “outreach” consultants tied to the SOS.

    I know in L.A. there’s been measures to chip away at Special Order 40 including a lawsuit.

    But also like you said, there’s racial violence that’s often referred to as being gang violence. Whereas at least here, if gangs fought, they sought out other gang members to attack. Now, they’ll shoot people who aren’t in gangs. It’s more racial than turf and some blame that on the influence of prison gangs (given how racially divided most men’s prisons and to a lessor extent women’s prisons are).

    A lot of hate crime enhancements are added onto cases involving Latino gang members who target African-Americans and vice versa. Gang enhancements, you don’t have to be a gang member to get one. I think too that the reality might be changing faster than the language. “Cross-fire” situations were more close to being that than they are now at least in Southern California but I suspect other places as well.

85. I think a lot of what Rebecca went thru comes from that rabid form of feminist practiced by people like her mother and Gloria Steinem that angry bitter men-bad/women-good that yes younger women nike me are put off by. A super-narcissistic sense of self-entitlement above all others including her child. And I as probably the younger person here do see it as generational.

86. Maybe we as feminists should listen to her, as someone else suggested. She needs to vent. We don’t have to agree with her conclusions, (I definitely don’t)but listening,– we can do that. Certainly if we don’t listen to her anti-feminists will, and already are. Google it, they are having the biggest gloat fest over this article she has written.
    People will go where they are heard.
    Simultaneously it’s *always* good to remember that there are many sides to the same story, and not judge Alice either. Alot of times people remember the same things differently, or forget crucial things which totally change the story.

    I think that artists, especially single parent artists, will often make negligent parents. But a dad who leaves any food in the cupboard is a great dad, whereas w/the mom it’s all, “junk food! What a bad mom!” (I wonder what is considered junk food anyway –TV Dinners? Mac and Cheese…?)
    Also, thousands (millions?) of kids stay with realtives during the summer. That is not neglect. It’s old school “takes a village” practiced all over the globe and the US, and it has to do with kids developing lifelong relationships with their extended kinfolk too. I think Rebecca’s just upset her mom went to Greece, I guess, instead of being home?

    The irony is that Alice Walker’s determination to write “The Color Purple” during Rebecca’s years of 8-13 gave Rebecca the opportunity she had,and which she took, to become a good writer herself. Life’s so wierd.
    I also think her dad is making off scot free in her analysis of everything –which is typical. Her dad remarried and set up a cozy stable nest –well, as often happens, right? The dad makes a new family and has more money and the kid gets annoyed with the harried, less-moneyed, depressed and distracted mom? I’ve read Alice Walker say her divorce was bad because unlike many people she really loved her husband. So…shoot.
    I think alot of this is Rebecca mourning her pre-divorce childhood which she has described as happy, and then afterward her dad self medicates by remarrying a woman, her mom self medicates by writing, and she felt lost in that. And she is now self medicating by writing too. Because in general, shit happens.
    One thing? I think it is strange Rebecca is talking about older feminists being upset about younger feminists who want Obama. Her mom is stumping for Obama, in fact. I think this shows the wide brush she is using in her pain and anger, to paint feminists as all this way or that. Her mom’s stuping for Obama and her god mom (Steinem) is stumping for Hillary.

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