Virginity or Death!: And Other Social and Political Issues of Our Time

I'm rather conservative but something about the reviews for this book made me want to buy it. Even though I'm opinionated, I still like to sample opposing points of view just for some variety.Well, I guess I should have bought a real book rather than just a collection of newspaper columns collected in book form. There's something totally unsatisfying and very tedious about reading through the last several years of now-old news and hearing a dyed-in-the-wool political partisan write to a certain audience about now all-too-well known events.It's the same old predictable "progressive" stuff. Don't fly the flag, even after 9/11, because the American Flag stands for "jingoism" (whatever that is). Our flag doesn't stand for our ideals, but rather our worst sins, and until we are a perfect country that always does perfect, we can't have a flag. Bla bla bla. The Taliban were bad, and Bush defeated them, but we are still bad bacause back during the cold war we helped them against the Soviets. Hindsight is always 20/20, isn't it?But what's really tedious about this book is not the opinions expressed, it's that it really isn't a book at all, but just a collection of unreferenced and reasonably well written rants from a magazine. I don't think I'll every buy another "book" like this again, whether by a liberal or a conservative.

interesting essays

Katha Pollitt's columns in the Nation show some of the best writing in the country. This book is a collection of some of her columns over the last few years. Thoughtful, coming from a unique perspective, the columns focus on both political and social matters. Her insights often cast new light on issues.

This review comes from the great feminist blog, Echidne of the Snakes[...]Tuesday, June 20, 2006Virginity or Death - A Book ReviewVirginity or Death! And Other Social and Political Issues of Our Time is the new collection of Katha Pollitt's columns from the Nation magazine, spanning the time period from 2001 to early 2006. Go and buy it now. I did, though I asked the sales clerk at the local bookstore to "give me virginity or give me death" and his eyes bulged out a little.I'm not an unbiased reviewer of Pollitt's work, because I love her writing. I wrap myself in it as if it were a silk blanket, I gorge on it as if it were the best chocolate in the whole world, I inhale it as if all the secret and luxurious spices were found it it. That last sentence shows that, alas, I'm no Pollitt myself. The idea I wanted to reach was that for me reading Katha's writing is such a sensual experience that it wouldn't matter very much what she writes.But she writes good stuff, mostly, and stuff that very few other commenters in the mainstream print media cover. Not only is she one of the few out-of-closet feminists out there but she is also one of the few writers who takes women seriously as a topic. Of course, these two things are pretty much the same.You should buy this new collection even if you have read every one of the columns before, because of two things: First, the Introduction alone is worth the price of $13.95. Here Pollitt writes about the current regime:The fecklessness of the current regime astonishes me, I admit. Hurricane Katrina displayed to the whole world the inability of the administration to do the bedrock job of government, which is to ensure public safety and protect people from catastrophe, while simultaneously revealing what should definitely not come as a surprise but somehow did to many: the deep poverty of the Gulf region and its racial nature. Surely -- after botching the rescue in full view of the whole world, after Bush's unfortunate use of Trent Lott's beach house as the synecdoche for the towns and neighborhoods destroyed by storm and flood, and his mother's even more clueless remark that living in the Houston Astrodome was "working well" for the displaced, who were "underprivileged anyway" -- surely, I thought, the Administration would pour on steam to show what a good job it would do to get the evacuees back on their feet. I forgot for a moment that this was the same administration that had shown nothing but contempt for professional expertise, whose answers to every question of public policy was tax cuts, and whose response to every crisis has been to leave people to their own devices, down to expecting soldiers on active duty in Iraq to supply their own body armor, like medieval knights.And here she writes about the media treatment of feminism:And speaking of babies, what about feminism? If you follow the media, the women's movement is well into the third decade of the longest funeral in history ("Is Women's Lib a Passing Fad?" New York Times, 1972). A torrent of books, articles, and popular entertainment tells women they don't really want equality, and if they get it they will only be miserable, because what makes women happy is nurturing men and children, or even, as a recent New York Times front-page story suggested, quitting their jobs -- their empty, materialistic, meaningless jobs -- to move back into their childhood bedrooms and tend their aging parents ("Forget the Career. My Parents Need Me at Home," November 24, 2005). When was the last time you saw a mass-market film with a "career woman" character who wasn't a bitch on wheels? In which the diamond-in-the-rough working-class beauty was a genius who needed a scholarship, not a stripper who needed a husband? As for sex, any number of writers, from right-wing Harvard political scientist Harvey Mansfield and novelist Tom Wolfe on down, are eager to warn young women of the horrors of the hookup. (Why young women should care what these septuagenerians think about their sex lives is a question not easily answered.)This discussion gets even more interesting, but I'm not going to give it all away.Second, it's fascinating to see the columns in time order, starting from the earliest pre-911 ones and reading through to almost the current time. We can observe the impact of the softly-creeping veiled fundamentalism on our lives much more clearly in a context like this. It's a little similar to those films which speed up the opening of a flower.I almost feel like an infomercial here. Must add something critical. Well, for one thing, I had to pay for the book to review it, though I didn't ask for a free copy, either. And sometimes I disagree with Pollitt because I'm more middle-of-the-road in some political areas and less capable of appreciating irony in others. I also suspect that she'd kick my butt quite admirably if I ever really angered her. Which isn't really a criticism.

The collection of 86 essays in "Virginity of Death!" is breathtaking in its scope. No one can match Katha Pollitt's incisive cut-to-the-core ability to see through the rhetoric of both right-wingers and hypocrites of all stripes.What really impresses me is the way that Pollitt captures the country in the George W. Bush years, combining a catalog of calamities on a social and political level. Pollitt is able to connect the big picture with the average person, the personal story with the propaganda-driven policy. She articulates clear, and unmuddled perceptions that pop truth in every turn of phrase.I have two favorites. In one, Pollitt takes on the sudden use of "framing" by Democrats. "Perhaps I'm naïve," she writes, "but I keep thinking that reframing misses the point, which is to speak clearly from a moral center - precisely not to mince words and change the subject and turn the tables." Every essay by Pollitt mirrors that demand.Another personal "best" -- and it's hard to choose - is when Pollitt takes on opinionator William Saleton, who considers himself pro-choice, but wags his finger at pro-choice women for abortion and not practicing "contraceptive diligence." Pollitt points out that it is the anti-abortion movement that opposes contraception. And she notes, "Nobody's proposing the walk of shame for men who don't or won't use condoms."Pollitt writes in her intro that we need to think about our world in a bigger way. Her special ability is to help break down that world and find its touch points in our lives. After all, she writes, "The requirements of real life count for something, no matter what ideology says.""Virginity or Death!" is exciting and invigorating. It should be a coursework staple in sociology, anthropology, political science -- and logic. And it is wonderful reading for all who care about the direction of our country. Highly recommended!