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Misconceptions by Naomi Wolf

From:     Jav
Category: Books
Date:     24 June 2007
Time:     07:16 PM

Review:



Other cultures and practises are often cited when we need to criticise our own, and these other 
cultures become especially useful when someone wants to put across a reactionary view as some 
how good, natural and right. In Misconceptions, Naomi Wolf is all to keen to do this, and in so doing 
abandoning science and feminism. I found the first part of this book terrible, full of rubbish about 
pregnant women wanting to feel protected crossing the road and have the strong arm of a man to do 
so, as if we haven't all learnt already that a lot of what makes us feel good is what we are used to, 
what we have been trained by society to think of as good and necessary. She goes on to talk of her 
feminist friends who, having kept their own names in marriage, decide that their babies should take 
that of the fathers, but justifies this as an example of natures desire to keep the men around to look 
after them and the baby. This apparently is the woman's way of keeping the family together. Suddenly 
our nature, our animal kicks in, our psychology is affected by the need to have a provider for the 
family, " a fear of carrying our insistence on our rights and belief in equality a shade to far for our 
babies' well being". "How else, other than pleasing your mate an signing over the identity of the 
family, can you ensure that you will have a male to help you raise the brood". I find the very idea 
abhorrent, the idea that a name is the only thing that makes a man stay around, and also a dreadfully 
depressing verdict on the shallow nature of men and their attitude to their off spring, a terrible attitude 
to take towards humans. Could it not be just down to tradition, a tradition that people are comfortable 
with, like they are in their own parents homes, echoing our upbringings. I am not saying that tradition 
is right or good, but tradition is more easily dismissed as phoney than Naomi's pseudo 
biology/psycology/evolution theories. 


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