Hearts and kisses to the fabulous Camille Paglia, who, on second reading is a new favorite writer in my roster. I don’t care what she is talking about, and clearly neither does she, it’s all so fabulously written, punchy, true, lighthearted and fierce all at the same time.
Mike suggested I read her stuff after I quizzically asked him what he thought about feminism. Kate Hutchinson’s posts often present the topic so I’ve been dipping my toe into the online feminist offerings. I still don’t entirely understand the “feminist position."
Feminism seems to range from extremists who have abortions under the guise that they are saving the planet, calling motherhood selfish and babies parasites, which are stupid and tired attempts to shock people; to women who smartly reveal gender inequality in pay, education, or encourage women to eschew perfection presented in magazines, something I can support. Paglia is pegged as a “feminist that other feminists love to hate.” Great, this should be interesting!
At first I thought Paglia was dizzying. Too many words, too abrasive, too much. Today she is just right. Maybe it’s a mood I’m in or maybe it’s that I can respect someone who can make fun of Clinton and McCain in the same breath! How absolutely refreshing! Her cerebral and irreverent musings are just my cup of tea. Do I have a thing for older women? Perhaps. I also recently fell in love with Gina Barreca's writing for The Chronicle Review.
In addition to writing pieces that are both catchy and insightful, geared towards online audiences, these women are published, tenured professors respected in their fields. You don’t hear an older intellectual female voice that doesn't take itself too seriously all that often…or maybe I just don’t know where to look. They remind me of my mother, who I simultaneously adore and cannot comprehend, and they inspire me as women I’d like to be like one day, forceful, funny. They also seem to handle their critics with finesse and a pleasant sort of detachment that belies any sense of personal injury to their egos when attacked as they often are. In short, they don’t seem to care all that much what people think.
I wish grandmothers wrote blogs. I want to know about their lives, I’m weary of hearing rainbow visions of Gen Y. I want to know the crinkled black and white pasts, the failed fairy tales and the unexpected triumphs. Grandmothers I know don’t talk all that much, they often smile, quietly, slyly…as if they finally know life’s grand secret and chuckle to themselves about how worked up the rest of the world is.
Anyways. I feel so undignified snarking about my problems when posed against women like Barreca or Paglia. I feel like I need a big red magic marker to slash through my writing and ideas. I want to take my ideas to the chopping block and see what they are made of. I suppose that is what I'm doing. I read writers that can both inspire or infuriate and whether or not I fit in with them then it’s exciting to figure out why.
