There is anecdotal heritage Which is worth it? Vivian Gornick Track your own reflection. The common space of salon conversations served to unite several generations of women during the second feminist wave (60s and 70s) in New York, as if the gathering had been spontaneously established there. However, this commonplace image does not function as a coincidence in this book. There’s something about the collection of writings collected under the title. Why some men hate women (Sexto Piso, translated by Cristina Lizarbe Ruiz) The result Too common sense, It exceeds the expectations that arise from the author’s name.
of Record resources They are used in materials that do not achieve the scope of the test because they are limited to the specific situations described. Although the North American writer and journalist gives some leeway to the analysis by identifying that the perspectives of the women who participated were: bobby’s hair salon (title of the first text) has always focused on the male perspective, This kind of framework may not be sufficient if you want to think in broader terms. Especially the resonance of the feminist movement in women’s lives.
What’s interesting are the moments where Gornick finds moments of reflection that make a difference. Revelation born from relaxed dialogue This story takes place in a space guided by the hairdresser’s suspicions and gossipy spirit, but these stories would have a greater impact in a newspaper or magazine, such as a kind of etching, than in a book, and the format would require more depth.
A small testimony that captures some women expressing something like gender consciousness, They have a journalistic record of that reflection in which a group of women who did not necessarily define themselves as feminists began to reconsider their practices.analyze their life experiences and identify inequalities.
Self-awareness as a technique is a tool presented by Gornick as a mechanism of liberation It is a weapon that can be applied to any situation and situation, both large-scale and intimate, but already showing changes. In Gornick’s story, the vindication of the conference, where women speak and share their impressions and experiences, has a political dimension that stages a kind of awakening. There, psychology is combined with assembly equipment.
This book provides accounts from women who were both witnesses and participants in the second wave of feminism in the United States (the author had begun writing for alternative newspapers). village voice She was then assigned to cover the feminist mobilization that took place in Manhattan in the late 70s in a series of images and scenes. The reconstruction of the conversation between women, the brief profiles of each woman, and the practice of dialogue itself have evidentiary value, but perhaps they are scarce or uninspiring in the context of the current challenges of navigating the fourth feminist wave.
lack of larger theoretical and thoughtful developments; This describes the shortcomings of this book at the time it was compiled. While material published nearly 50 years ago was certainly valuable at the time, references to specific events and anecdotes require something more important than background information: a current perspective.
Reading about the past gains more complexity and dynamism by interacting with the present. The book’s editors could have asked Gornick to add material. To reflect on these episodes, which are in tension with the issues of our time. The book seems vulgar, incomplete, and at times too simplistic, as many of the issues it exposed still persist today. Here we need to draw a kind of balance that allows us to integrate situational analysis with discontinuities due to consequences or over time.
Discussing Henry Miller’s work and reading it in misogynistic terms reinforces the literalness of our time. For Gornick, both Miller and Norman Mailer, it is impossible to separate life and work because masculinity interferes with writing.
One could argue that the problem lies not so much in this separation. This is because, in this sense, it is necessary to analyze each case to see whether personal expression appears in the work. Rather, it is because it is necessary to limit the literary material to anecdotes, without ceasing to point out whether in the process the author strengthens and discusses the construction of the story, creates conditions in which the reader can establish a critical distance.
There is a risk I believe that a work of art is a rulebook.is propaganda material that positions the masses as powerless beings who allow colonization. Art is a space for contemplation and imagination that seeks to travel to places inaccessible in everyday life. If we read them in terms of what is permissible, i.e. acts of social impact as if they occurred in everyday life, rather than at the level of fiction, we end up confusing the nature of their constituent fields.
This does not prevent us from thinking about whether more women should play a more decisive role in the creation of female characters. Or even a desire to invent and propose a more challenging, less martyr-like protagonist, depending on the times. It would be a mistake to ignore the symbolic terrain that leads to identification with particular types of women in fiction and its influence on the construction of the imaginary and one’s own subjectivity. The same thing happens in the living conditions that have supported the dominance of male writers and intellectuals for centuries.
When focusing on the writing of women writers, Gornick considers what’s missing, both in themes that should be covered and in more experimental alternatives. In Joan Didion, Anne Roiphe, Lois Gould, and Margaret Drabble, he sees traces of a defensive attitude. The traces that male dominance has left on each person’s style can be observed in stories where strategies for overcoming hostile situations are lacking. Here, Gornick proposes an area to explore through fiction: an approach to writing as imaginative scenarios in which other realities can be ventured.
Why some men hate womenby Vivian Gornick (6th floor).
About The Author
