radical sanity: contradictory fluff by clueless woman

[joryuu]

When other readers comment that Wurtzel is spoiled, I really want to shake them-- the aforementioned "do not do the dishes" portion is is the only part of the book I can find that would (mistakenly) lead one to that conclusion. In any case, I'd hope that the chapters about being self-sufficient and not dumping your problems on friends & family

Comments

[myredself]

I hated Prozac Nation and wrote an essay about
why I hated it in high school. I wish I still had it.

Did you read Bitch? (are you talking about that one?)
yuck.

xo

[thistle]

that's ironic. in high school, i chose prozac nation off the shelf at random and turned it into a one-girl-play for my english class. it took a lot of effort, and 3/4s of the way through, i realized i didn't like the book at all.

strangely, the only parts that stuck with me were the part in the post-script about a cat on lithium, and the part where she mentions living in my hometown for a summer with her relatives. the rest of the story line has already been superimposed with christina ricci in it.

[myredself]

oh no! I didn't realise she had written yet another one!

[joryuu]

Re:

[myredself]

oh god, is that the 'hey look at me i'm addicted to ritalin' one? there was a LONG exerpt from that in the Guardian Weekend last year and I almost puked all over myself. It starts out like 'i was hanging around in some artist's loft with rich hippie chic kids doing deep meaningful young beautiful people things, blahblahblah'.

[joryuu]

She's like .. our generation's best unintentional satirist. Blegh.

[lallabelle]

if there were no need for maids, then those women would have to find something else to do to make money. which for some could mean something better. physical labor is the easy way out, and a way to keep yourself from getting into a better position.

and at the end of the day, the dishes still need to be done... i don't know. i think people are better when they do shit for themselves. no matter what their stature is.

[ex_mimic736]

Sure there is always a need for physical labour, but it's not coincidence (or lack of motivation/effort on their part) that results in the majority of western domestic workers being women of colour from poor developing nations, or western women from poor and working backgrounds. Is it the 'easy way out' when their choices and opportunities are so limited? There are often few to no opportunities for work or career development in their home countries, and domestic work is one way to speed up the highly unequal immigration process (where a Brit might wait 18 months to immigrate to North America and a Chinese person, 8 years). I'm sure some domestic workers from these backgrounds are very happy with the work they do, and are not rushing to leave the system. But that isn't necessarily because they are lazy or unmotivated -- they might not have ever been taught that they had (or deserved to have) other choices

[joryuu]

rather than working on finding ways to change it for the better.

Not to mention refusing to believe it is valid work that deserves such "benefits" as health insurance or excess income that can be saved and invested so as to make greater oppurtunity for the next generation.

[ex_mimic736]

Yeah, and live-in domestic workers also risk having their workers' rights abused. They originally agree to a work week of a certain length, and certain duties, but if they live with their employers, they are often expected to be constantly on-call, and to do extra duties, like say babysitting when they were only hired to do housekeeping.

Sarah and Michelle, tag team domestic work advocacy. :oP

[slit]

Thank you. My thoughts exactly. (On this and many other strains of me-first 'feminism'.)

The latest insult?

[higherscience]

Wurtzel's never really suffered from depression so much as that word that keeps rolling off my lips dripping with acid as of late: malaise. Oh dear me, I've just blown off an Ivy League education because the burden of boredom and lack of attention drove me to mindless, soulless hedonism as some sort of quasi-political statement, I think. Honey, everyone contemplates suicide, in today's world, everybody considers suicide to be a rational act at least once in awhile. The difference is that most people don't bore the world with the details of how they arrived at this conclusion. In the meanwhile, you're living better than ever with a post-punk haircut (Gang of Four and Guy Dubord would be, like, soooooooo proud!), post-feminist dishscrubber, and I suppose, post-wetback carpet cleaner, paid for by

Re: The latest insult?

[joryuu]

Somehow tapping into the collective unconscious of bored rich girls in effort to "reach" them merely by cleverly voicing their own fuckedupness back at them became heroic. Do not offer up rational viable solutions to those things that drive girls with seemingly perfect lives to destruction or nothen -- simply make thousands of those laquered perfumed and cossetted bobble-head bitches from the burbs nod emphatically and the all is well!

Re: The latest insult?

[higherscience]

Or couching it in terms that glorify the failures, stripping it of any claim to a cautionary tale, since the only way to be genuine is to repeat her mistakes. Which is, of course, why it's an instruction manual instead.
On a side note, I started reading Barbara Ehrenriech's Nickel and Dimed the day after I posted that comment and contemplated sending Ms. Wurtzel a copy. The irony is just a little too delicious.

Re: The latest insult?

[joryuu]

She wouldn't get it.
Nickel and Dimed is really good until she calls her dermatologist.