Wonder Women by Debora Spar

It's been a long time since a book annoyed me as much as Wonder Women: Sex, Power and the Quest for Perfection by Debora Spar. It was chosen by one of the members of our feminist book club, so I persevered. Strong feelings make for good discussion, and that was certainly the case here: we all hated it and we talked about it for nearly four hours. (Wine and tasty snacks were also involved.) I had to rush to catch the last bus home.

Why did I dislike it so much? I'll start with this: "At the risk of veering too far into anecdote..." Spar is all about anecdotal evidence. At one point, she says she looked around and everyone she knew had had botox treatments. Also, "every single woman I know worries about her hair." (Maybe she needs to hang out with some different people. Members of my book club, for example.)

"The irony here is that the all-pervasive search for bodily perfection may come, in part, from the feminist movement. Because insofar as feminism liberated women to enjoy their sexuality, it also and simultaneously highlighted the importance of women's physical and sexual attraction." Later, she blames feminism for eating disorders. Because suffragettes threw off their corsets and took to unstructured garments that look best on thin women... or something to that effect. (That was an hour of discussion right there.)

Spar finds young women's sexual freedom - "It's hard for me to render a judgement without sounding and feeling hopelessly middle-aged" - to be misguided, since they are "giving away their power" and young men therefore don't have any reason to marry them. (Another hour of discussion.)

The author states at the beginning that she never used to consider herself a feminist. Her mother was never a "women's libber" either. That viewpoint intrigues me. I have difficulty understanding why smart women would reject feminism. Mostly, it appears to be because of ignorance about what feminism is (and isn't). Wonder Women documents Spar's partial conversion. She wants things to be better for girls and women, but by the end of the book it seems she is still not comfortable calling herself an unqualified feminist:

"we can move to a softer and gentler form of feminism, one less invested in proving women's equality (since that battle has more or less been won) and less upset with men." 

"And feminists, or anyone who seeks to advance the cause of women, can focus on more practical elements of the problems rather than on a protracted battle of the sexes."

I will leave the final words to Darcie, another member of my book club, who commented about Wonder Women on GoodReads: "Feminism, written by someone who is clueless about Feminism, for people who don't like Feminism."

After Delores by Sarah Schulman

I've been going through old copies of Womonspace News for a Canadian lesbian history project. That's where I found this review that I wrote 23 years ago. It brought up a lot of memories: a previous romantic relationship, my younger self, my early attempts at book reviewing, and lesbian life in Alberta a quarter-century ago.
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After Delores, Sarah Schulman. Dutton, NY, 1988. (The following review first appeared in the May/June 1993 edition of Womonspace News in Edmonton.)

I thought this book was great. My partner hated it. 

If you get depressed reading about people who are down in their luck, stay away. On the other hand, if you enjoy reading about emotion, you'll find heaps of it among the working class poor of Lower East Side New York City. This is a side of lesbian life I've not often seen in fiction. It is written with warmth and acute perception.

Delores abruptly leaves the central character for another woman, and this story tells the aftermath. We feel her intense grief, her longing for revenge and her undying obsession for Delores. We never learn the name of the woman who suffers and tells this tale, but we're intimate with her bewilderment, her pain, and her struggle to regain balance in her life. She gets caught up in thrilling events which carry the plot quickly along to a satisfactory end.

I'm looking forward to reading Sarah Schulman's newest book, Empathy.

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I reread After Delores when Arsenal Pulp Press released a new edition of it in 2013. It's a fantastic novel - dark and funny. I'm a huge fan of Sarah Schulman and I think I've read all of her books, including Empathy, which I've read at least twice since mentioning it at the end of this review. Originally published in 1992, Empathy was rereleased in 2006 as a Little Sisters Classic by Arsenal Pulp. Hooray for Arsenal Pulp!