We keep reinventing forms of oppression and think because we are making a choice it won't actually be oppressive. There are all kinds of ways to coerce someone, though.
I tried to read the blog that tries to line-by-line dismantle Sehgal's review and gave up. Its not even that I'd have to dedicate more time to understanding the particular slang of this online community to really understand it, its that there's an inherent infantilization in words like "schmoopie" I find archetypical of a lot of of nonsense aimed at women these days. The idea that every unhappy marriage is the result of "patriarchal coercion" - I mean, do women experience sexual desire or not? Why are only male characters allowed to be complex victims of their own desire? Why are women only the victims of a "schmoopie" or a "fuckwit"?
(I really don't think its a credit to women, even if this is only aimed at heterosexual women, to claim that they're constantly just being "chumped" by fuckwits & schmoopies. Why is this such an appealing idea? I know a lot of people generally like hearing that they aren't responsible for their own personal failures, but it can't also feel good to hear that the "fuckwits" and "schmoopies" are just so much more wily than you, can it?)
Particularly if the dragon (bad husbands/boyfriends) is slain by a Saint Georgina and not a Saint George, it seems, which is how this stuff is justified under a quasi-"feminist" umbrella. But since most of this seems aimed at heterosexual women (the "Chump Lady" repeatedly conflates "infidelity" with "hetero-normative relationships" - as if all heterosexual relationships are plagued by it, or as if no LGBT relationships are) - it comes off like a heterosexual woman's fantasy of what a queer or lesbian relationship might be like as an alternative? Its all just a cozy Xena and Gabrielle fantasy, apparently, its never the reality of an Ellen and Anne Heche or Melissa Etheridge and Tammy Lynn Michaels.
I once had a coworker who grew up partially in Crown Heights, having moved there from Trinidad when she was 9. She admired the Chabad community from an outsider’s perspective because, as she put it, the black community doesn’t stick together (she stressed this was for multiple reasons) and they did.
I never did tell her the ugly flip side, that conformity is a must and they’ll kick you out if you try to get too much of a taste for the outside. Also, if you’re a woman, tough shit. And even if you do escape, integration into the real world is hard.
Having read Liars, I’d say that Sehgal’s review is fairly accurate. Manguso captured a sense of isolation and mind-numbing boredom very well; it was frustrating to read but, at the same time, had a lot of forward momentum. It’s well-crafted.
But the protagonist is deliberately pathetic. There is really nothing to compel her into the marriage. She sees and names the red flags, she spells out the inevitable disasters waiting for her. She just…wastes her life on a loser because it’s the path of least resistance. His cheating isn’t even the main problem in their marriage.
If straight women are identifying with that, fine, we should unpack what is in the water that’s rotted all our brains.
But the traumas being unleashed in the Schmoopie comments have nothing to do with *this* specific plot.
I like Manguso's writing, but I haven't read Liars because I simply could not get through another divorce book right now. They are everywhere. And every time I see a new one, I think, maybe this one is the satire of this whole biological essentialism taking over women's media, but it never is.
We keep reinventing forms of oppression and think because we are making a choice it won't actually be oppressive. There are all kinds of ways to coerce someone, though.
I tried to read the blog that tries to line-by-line dismantle Sehgal's review and gave up. Its not even that I'd have to dedicate more time to understanding the particular slang of this online community to really understand it, its that there's an inherent infantilization in words like "schmoopie" I find archetypical of a lot of of nonsense aimed at women these days. The idea that every unhappy marriage is the result of "patriarchal coercion" - I mean, do women experience sexual desire or not? Why are only male characters allowed to be complex victims of their own desire? Why are women only the victims of a "schmoopie" or a "fuckwit"?
(I really don't think its a credit to women, even if this is only aimed at heterosexual women, to claim that they're constantly just being "chumped" by fuckwits & schmoopies. Why is this such an appealing idea? I know a lot of people generally like hearing that they aren't responsible for their own personal failures, but it can't also feel good to hear that the "fuckwits" and "schmoopies" are just so much more wily than you, can it?)
the damsel in distress routine is really hard to shake off, it seems.
Particularly if the dragon (bad husbands/boyfriends) is slain by a Saint Georgina and not a Saint George, it seems, which is how this stuff is justified under a quasi-"feminist" umbrella. But since most of this seems aimed at heterosexual women (the "Chump Lady" repeatedly conflates "infidelity" with "hetero-normative relationships" - as if all heterosexual relationships are plagued by it, or as if no LGBT relationships are) - it comes off like a heterosexual woman's fantasy of what a queer or lesbian relationship might be like as an alternative? Its all just a cozy Xena and Gabrielle fantasy, apparently, its never the reality of an Ellen and Anne Heche or Melissa Etheridge and Tammy Lynn Michaels.
I once had a coworker who grew up partially in Crown Heights, having moved there from Trinidad when she was 9. She admired the Chabad community from an outsider’s perspective because, as she put it, the black community doesn’t stick together (she stressed this was for multiple reasons) and they did.
I never did tell her the ugly flip side, that conformity is a must and they’ll kick you out if you try to get too much of a taste for the outside. Also, if you’re a woman, tough shit. And even if you do escape, integration into the real world is hard.
Having read Liars, I’d say that Sehgal’s review is fairly accurate. Manguso captured a sense of isolation and mind-numbing boredom very well; it was frustrating to read but, at the same time, had a lot of forward momentum. It’s well-crafted.
But the protagonist is deliberately pathetic. There is really nothing to compel her into the marriage. She sees and names the red flags, she spells out the inevitable disasters waiting for her. She just…wastes her life on a loser because it’s the path of least resistance. His cheating isn’t even the main problem in their marriage.
If straight women are identifying with that, fine, we should unpack what is in the water that’s rotted all our brains.
But the traumas being unleashed in the Schmoopie comments have nothing to do with *this* specific plot.
I like Manguso's writing, but I haven't read Liars because I simply could not get through another divorce book right now. They are everywhere. And every time I see a new one, I think, maybe this one is the satire of this whole biological essentialism taking over women's media, but it never is.