The New Yorker Covers Women: March 2, 2009

[rsadelle]

I've now had two email conversations about this week's New Yorker, even while the issue sits on the desk in front of me so I can write about it, so I clearly need to just make a post about it and be done with it.

Ariel Levy's Lesbian Nation (abstract only available online) is one of those articles that I might have read anyway but definitely remembered to read based on the fact that there was a Jezebel post about it. The article is an interesting look at the history of the Van Dykes, lesbian separatists who traveled around the country from Women's Land to Women's Land in the 70s. It reads much like any other similar story: a charismatic leader inspires a revolution, a new idea comes in that divides the community, eventually the community falls apart and people go their separate ways, and the charismatic leader ends up leading a relatively everyday life in the current day. Specific interesting points from this article:

• The first expert she quotes is a man, Todd Gitlin, author of The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage.
• "The feminist Ti-Grace Atkinson went so far as to claim that her brand of celibate 'political lesbianism' was morally superior to the sexually active version practiced in her midst. Atkinson was not alone in this martyred line of reasoning; a 1975 essay by the separatist Barbara Lipschutz entitled 'Nobody Needs to Get Fucked' urged women to 'free the libido from the tyranny of orgasm-seeking. Sometimes hugging is nicer.' This argument was never particularly compelling to the lesbians in the movement who were actually gay."
• Lamar Van Dyke, the charismatic leader in question, says, "If you look at me, there's no question about it: I'm a dyke. I am gay. If you don't think so, there is something really wrong with you." I'm really bothered by this, and I'm not sure exactly how to articulate why. It's something about you can't know that about people just by looking at them. I think it's also part of the generational difference. "'Your generation wants to fit in,' she told me, for the second time. 'Gays in the military and gay marriage? This is what you guys have come up with?' There was no contempt in her voice; it was something else - an almost incredulous maternal disappointment."
• The new idea that divides the community is BDSM. I'm actually surprised The New Yorker went there. I think of them as being fairly staid, but maybe they're not so staid as I think of them being.
• Lamar now works for Speakeasy in Seattle, "and she had just bought the first new car of her life, a black VW bug. Van Dyke also owns her house, but she doesn't use credit cards. That would cross some kind of line. 'I don't want to be a capitalist pig,' she explained."
• The article is an interesting historical counterpoint to a Jezebel post about lesbianism as a political choice from earlier this month. The most striking thing missing from the history lesson that shows up in the modern discussions is the way these kinds of communities look down on and exclude trans folks. The other thing that gets left out that I saw in the Jezebel article and discussion is the idea that men are half the population of the world; any solution to the world's problems needs to include them.

The second interesting woman-focused article is Rebecca Mead's profile of opera singer Natalie Dessay (abstract only available online). I particularly like the way she treats the push and pull between acting and singing in the opera world - increased theatricality bringing in more money versus the wish to keep opera pure to the singing - and her acknowledgment that opera plots are notoriously thin. I also like it that Mead mentions the way Dessay's job keeps her away from her family - "she can sometimes go a couple of days without even talking to her children on the phone" - without going into any kind of hysterics about her being a bad mother, or even, really, much more detail about it. The focus is on Dessay as an artist, not Dessay as an example of motherhood, good or bad.

The third interesting woman-focused article is Nancy Franklin's TV column about Dollhouse and the DTV transition. My mom said the article "adds nothing to the chatter, but Nancy Franklin writes well." She's right on both counts. Franklin says, as the rest of us have been saying, "Only people who are willing to cut Whedon endless slack could find anything much to draw them in to this show . . . at the core of the series is an unpromising performance by Eliza Dushku." She also says of Eliza, in my favorite part, "the primary qualification that Dushku brings to the part is that she graduated with honors from the Royal Academy of Cleavage." Quite frankly, I think Eliza, or at least the folks at NBC Universal, know this; the best part of Eliza's Hulu ad is the part where she says, "eyes glued" just as her movement focuses your attention on her breasts. I also very much liked what Franklin has to say about actresses in general: "In terms of gender studies, it is notable that Dushku's demeanor as a zombie is much the same as the demeanor many actresses her age resort to when trying to project an image of themselves as unthreatening and 'feminine': a slouchy walk, a bobbly head, and ever-parted lips. Would someone please show these actresses a movie starring Katharine Hepburn, Barbara Stanwyck, Irene Dunne, Bette Davis, Cate Blanchett, Meryl Streep, or Judy Davis?" Both norwich36 and I were struck by the inclusion of Cate Blanchett in that list. Like many people, I'm sure, I first saw her in Elizabeth, where she just blew me away. It turns out I've actually seen her in five other things and I have a number of her other movies in my queue. The only bad things about Franklin's column is that it makes the writing in Denby's movie reviews on the next page seem particularly uninspired in comparison.

Comments

[norwich36.livejournal.com]

I thought the lesbian BDSM wars ended in the early 90s! (Of course, I also thought lesbian separatism was an anachronism these days, but this is the second article about its persistence I've read (about) in the past two weeks.) I may have to borrow that issue from you and read it--or else track it down at the library.

[rsadelle]

The article is about the Van Dykes in the 70s, so, yes, the BDSM controversy was much earlier than the 90s. The Jezebel post was about current-day lesbian separatist communities, though. I'm done with the issue, so you're welcome to it!

[queenofhell.livejournal.com]

Lamar Van Dyke, the charismatic leader in question, says, "If you look at me, there's no question about it: I'm a dyke. I am gay. If you don't think so, there is something really wrong with you." I'm really bothered by this, and I'm not sure exactly how to articulate why. It's something about you can't know that about people just by looking at them.

I don't know. I understand why people are bothered by the idea that you can tell someone is gay by looking at them, especially because the "indicators" for queerness are often stereotypical, but I do think that it's true to a certain extent and with some people. I mean, my little sister can pass as straight even when she's wearing boy's clothes at a gay bar, but put her ex-girlfriend in a dress anywhere and she just looks like a butch dyke in a dress, you know?

You're probably right about it being...not necessarily generational, but a matter of politics, though, because I'm a lot more influenced by "we're different and that's awesome, take us as we are" queer politics than "we're just like straight people, so that's why we deserve rights" queer politics.

[rsadelle]

I think my objection is something along the lines of: The implication of what she's saying is that a straight woman couldn't look like that, and isn't it part of the feminist ideal that every person, no matter what gender or sexual orientation, should be able to express themselves however they choose?

[allegram.livejournal.com]

Well the feminist ideal should be about the right to self-determination, but then the socialist ideal should be about freedom from want, and yet somehow the real world and particularly the violent reaction to and rebellion against the more dominant ideology tends to produce something short of the ideal which people are fanatically attached to...
In this example we have a woman who is conforming to a stereotype created by a system she despises. Perhaps she does it as a means of rebellion but the fact remains she is still playing with the old rules, and I find it sad. Rather than searching for who she wants to be, she is letting herself be trapped in the idea that a woman is knowable through her surface appearance, as if she's no deeper than that. She may be trying to advertise and shock, but all I can see is that she and thus by extension her movement, isn't finding itself, it's defining itself by other people's rules and ideas...

[rsadelle]

I think you and Dave miss academia!

For me, what stood out about the article in general is how much it's like every other similar article where the end result is that people in the end lead fairly normal, mainstream lives.

[dedalvs.livejournal.com]

Abstracting a bit (I'm not sure actually which to reply to here, so I'll just plunk it down), I've always been interested and troubled by the idea of appearance, and how it relates to inner qualities. First, the movie business, at least, obviously takes this to be true, in some way. Forgetting sexuality for a moment, how often have we seen a portrayal of a scientist or professor who can't be bothered to make sure their hair is combed, they're shaved, their shirt is tucked in, they're wearing make-up, etc.? They use these cues to tell us something about what type of person they are and how they live, and we use them to fill in part of their backstory, their character (especially important if we're only going to see them for about five minutes, and we don't have time to have their character filled in).

This, of course, is really just isolating stereotypes or traits a majority of viewers will recognize and then reproducing them. In the real world, though, a couple things remain true:

• If one dresses oneself (and chooses one's hairstyle, clothing, etc.), that, at the very least, says something about how that person wants to present themselves to the world, and this is non-trivial.


• If one does not decide on one's own appearance, then this says something about their attitude towards appearance, or their station in life. For example, it's pretty obvious why a two year-old isn't dressing themself. What about a thirteen year-old whose parents still pick out clothing everyday? What about someone who "just doesn't care", and puts on whatever? Does the fact that they don't care say something important about them (and can it be determined just by looking)? What about those that are reacting to some phenomenon, be it a fad or trend, or a political movement, etc.?

Specifically, the problem to me seems to be that there is, in fact, non-trivial information one can determine based solely on appearance. All the same, of course, one shouldn't judge based on appearance. So...where do we draw the line? It's something I've thought about a lot, but I haven't come up with any definite answers.

[rsadelle]

I think you and Erin miss academia! I also think it's interesting how much this is interesting but not particularly related to what I was saying. Anyway, let me refer you to Wikibooks' Writing Adolescent Fiction/Describing physical characteristics which says, at least in part, "But you should definitely make a mention of such things as facial hair, jewelry, piercings, tattoos, nail paint, face paint or bindis if your character has them. Things like the firmness of a character's chin or how close together his eyes are don't tell you anything about your character's personality, except through stereotypes that may not have any basis in reality. But a person consciously chooses to grow a goatee, or to wear an ankh necklace, or to get a tattoo (and chooses what the tattoo should be of). If nothing else, points of style will always tell you about a character's taste." (I have this on the top of my head because I used it in a handout on physical description of characters for my writing group.)

[dedalvs.livejournal.com]

Sidenote: I just learned that a friend of my mom's (a teacher's) daughter is, I guess, co-starring in tonight's Dollhouse. Her name is Kim Cole, though I don't know if she goes by a stage name now... Holy smoke, how trippy: Here she is interview at Fancast (http://www.fancast.com/blogs/dollhouse/kimberly-cole-plays-with-dollhouse/). That's totally her, with a bunch of make-up on. My friend and I used to call her Estella (inside reference to Great Expectations (http://dedalvs.conlang.org/read/search_key.php?cid=176) we got some mileage out of). She was actually a nationally-recognized roller skater (basically it was like the ice skating you see at the Olympics, except on roller skates). I was wondering if she was still skating. I guess not...

[rsadelle]

Huh. IMDb hasn't figured out that she's in the episode yet. I'll have to watch for her!