Monday, February 22, 2010

"Settling" and feminism (4)

The first line of attack, and there is even more of it before we get to the bit I have excerpted, is that Gottlieb's arguments are not widely representative of women in general. And they're not but so what?

Gottlieb's point is personal not political. She is not writing about the state of women in general. It might be summed up as, this happened to me and to quite a few others. There don't have to be enough of those others to constitute a social trend; there just has to be enough to sell a lot of books.

And it is not a terribly shocking thing that this book and those of Caitlin Flanagan are based on the experiences of women from middle and upper-middle class women. That's who buys the most books!

And that's the question: Do you think this book is going to sell well? I thought so. Me too! I suspect that Emily Bazelon and Dana Goldstein are also convinced it is going to sell rather well. I also suspect they wish it wouldn't.

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