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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Naomi Wolf

75 replies

BombusBombus · 03/09/2012 23:09

She's completely self promoting and a bit nuts isn't she? I just saw her on Newsnight and I wanted to throw thing at the screen. Why talk about defined consent when we can talk about your book?

OP posts:
FrancesFarmer · 03/09/2012 23:12

She's just going on about her own sex life really, from what I've seen of the book. I fail to see what is interesting about that.

LineRunner · 03/09/2012 23:15

Susan Faludi's Backlash was defining, well written and stunning.

Naomi Wolf's Beauty Myth was derivative, tedious and self-obsessed.

AbigailAdams · 03/09/2012 23:49

No Naomi. It is not ideal to say no when a man has put his dick in you while you were sleeping. It is ideal that he gets your permission first.

Really are these men so crap in bed they have never heard of foreplay?

Huff Post article on bad sex

TheDoctrineofEnnis · 04/09/2012 00:40

Thanks abigail. I love Kate S!

DoctorGilbertson · 04/09/2012 18:05

Did you see she's doing a mumsnet webchat this Thurs?

LineRunner · 04/09/2012 18:07

I think we should ask some questions on that.

MiniTheMinx · 04/09/2012 19:21

If anyone is in any doubt about where she left her marbles, this is worth a watch. Most strange. Maybe she is getting too involved in the conspiracy theories and hung up on the idea that "they are out to get you"

or perhaps there is some truth in what she says?

TunipTheVegemal · 04/09/2012 19:23

I don't know what to ask on the webchat, there are just so many things. Mainly I just want to shake my head and say 'Oh Naomi' very sadly.

I might suggest she should get re-radicalised and admit she was wrong like Natasha Walter did....

PlentyOfPubeGardens · 04/09/2012 21:03

I'd like to ask her how a woman is supposed to say no if she's asleep.

MooncupGoddess · 04/09/2012 23:02

I admire Naomi Wolf's involvement with the Occupy movement and civil liberties generally.

But what on earth is she on with this Vagina book - from the extracts and reviews I've read, it's all about her genitalia, with a side order of how important men's armpits are (it's the pheromones, apparently) and an interview with some dodgy guy in North London who offers expensive genital massage to women with sexual issues. WTF?

Margerykemp · 05/09/2012 10:11

She's on women's hour just now.

Margerykemp · 05/09/2012 10:16

Well Jenni Murray's not a fan!

NicknameTaken · 05/09/2012 10:47

If the book is anything like the Sunday Times extract, I despair. Women need to regularly smell men's armpits to be calm, and lots of male-inspired orgasms to be properly creative.

PretzelTime · 05/09/2012 15:14

WTAF wasn't this a "feminist" author?
Does it say if men need to regularly smell women's hairy armpits to be calm?

MooncupGoddess · 05/09/2012 16:26

I've just been reading a few reviews of the book, and spotted the following in The Times. The reviewer is Sarah Vine, also known as Mrs Michael Gove.

"Wolf has looked, without prejudice and in unsparing detail, at brain patterns, endocrinology, neurology and every area of medicine conceivably relevant to women?s sexual well-being and has established that the most modern science backs up the most traditional of instincts. Women are more likely ? much more likely ? to enjoy sex and feel heightened confidence and security if the men (and yes it seems it has to be men) they are with bring flowers, dim lights, gaze into their eyes, dance close, tell them they are beautiful and then deploy ?a slow hand?. Oh, and it helps enormously if afterwards they stay awake long enough for a chat.

"Wolf?s findings may not seem that radical if you are, say, Charles Aznavour or Clark Gable. But if you are one of those School of Cosmo feminists who has been arguing for decades that women should be more like men sexually ? available, assertive, a technical virtuoso with vibrating gizmos and ready in later life to become a panting cougar keen to devour men ? then Wolf?s take is genuinely revolutionary.

"She argues, with really quite commendable courage, that being fulfilled as a woman means being treated like a lady. And if that isn?t a radical feminist message I don?t know what is."

PretzelTime · 05/09/2012 17:18

Wow very revolutionary stuff Mooncup.
I hope the regulars of this board will have a lot of interesting questions for Ms Wolf during the chat tomorrow!

OatyBeatie · 05/09/2012 17:28

The Guardian review of the book certainly made it seem like total and utter tosh. It's very disappointing. I've never read any Naomi Wolf, but unless that review is very misleading it seems that ether she has suffered a recent severe drop in intelligence or she has been somewhat oversold in the past.

TheLightPassenger · 05/09/2012 18:14

I think the Beauty Myth has its place, it did influence me in my late teens, when I wasn't exactly familiar with feminist thinking. Only other book of hers I have read is the one about pg/childbirth, Misconceptions, which I thought was a bit dull and whiney. Can't say I fancy the sound of this one, it was well reviewed in Metro of all places...

NicknameTaken · 05/09/2012 18:15

Oversold in the past. I thought The Beauty Myth was okay, but didn't like Fire with Fire.

Fwiw, I think there's something to be said for an examination of women's physiological responses. In one extract, there was something about women's genitals being wired differently from individual to individual (can't think of the proper terminology right now. "Plumbed" differently sounds worse), with much more variance than found amongst men. I think this quite a good point - she says you should pay attention to what you actually like, not what you're told you should like.

OatyBeatie · 05/09/2012 18:18

You put it very well, NicknameTaken, and this does sound like a good point at the core of the overwritten stuff that the Guardian was satirising. Perhaps the difficulty is in extending it to fill a whole book.

TunipTheVegemal · 05/09/2012 18:19

Oversold in the past by a media that wants a slightly-risque-but-not-too-challenging 'feminist' to sell. She could probably be described as a non-feminist's feminist....

TunipTheVegemal · 05/09/2012 18:21

if indeed, you think she is a feminist at all, which a lot of feminists don't after the awful things she said about Assange's victims.

OatyBeatie · 05/09/2012 18:23

I do remember that when the Beauty Myth came out much play was made in the press of the fact that she was beautiful, which was simultaneously an awful subversion of her and an aid to sales. There were and are probably many better thinkers and popularisers out there than her, but the media needs its pretty women and who are we to question that.

Greythorne · 05/09/2012 18:38

oh, Linerunner, I disagree, I did think The Beauty Myth was good. Certainly, in my teens it made the scales fall from my eyes regarding beauty advertising and marketing.

Fire with Fire was just dire. There was no overarching theme, it was badly written, it was loads of odd anecdotes cobbled together, there was not one memorable or salient point in it. It was very anti-women, in a way, because it just gave the anti-feminist crew a load of fuel to burn: "this is what the nutjob feminists think!" etc. I have a signed copy somewhere. I was delighted to get my hands on it when it was published. Not so much once I had read the thing!

Misconceptions was good in ways, but very naive (yes! natural childbirth without pain relief is not easy! shock! that's why lots of women opt for pain relief! advance prep and meditation are often not enough to ward off the intense pain! who knew!) and very idealistic.

I think the biggest problem with her writing is that she personalises everything. For example, she was pro-choice until she got pregnant and realised that life is a miracle and then suddenly became a bit less pro-choice, based on her own personal experience of pregnancy.

I think she is missing the big issues (issue of consent, pornification of modern life, the imbalance between men's and women's roles; women have made huge inroads into the professional world, ut men have not done the same with regard to homemaking and child rearing, why is that) and this latest book seems to be very esoteric and conservative.

TunipTheVegemal · 05/09/2012 19:01

The Beauty Myth was good though it was not hugely original - Friedan and Greer and others had said a lot of it before. But she said it well and engagingly enough that it is still worth recommending.
She couldn't win with her appearance - if she'd been less attractive she'd have been accused of only writing the book for that reason.

I think you are exactly right, Greythorne - she starts from her own experience, which is fine, but isn't good at working out how it differs from everybody else's. I remember the disappointment of Fire With Fire. The thesis of that book was 'women already have power, all they need to do is reach out and grasp it!' - because SHE had power at that point, stemming from the success of The Beauty Myth. It was a horrible book, stigmatising as 'victim feminism' the feminism that acknowledges the bad things that happen to women.

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