Elizabeth Wurtzel, of Prozac Nation and Bitch fame, has a truly nasty review up at Double XX today about Rachel Simmons' new book, The Curse of the Good Girl. Rachel, as many of you know, blew apart the world of girl bullying with Odd Girl Out and started the Girls Leadership Institute. I was going to write a big ol' review of Rachel's new book after Labor Day, but I couldn't wait to respond a bit to Wurtzel's vitriol.
Wurtzel begins her review with a big classist, racist bang:
Elite institutions are not merely supposed to produce intelligent alumni--they are also supposed to teach rigorous thinking and create beautiful minds. Plainly, this is a mistaken notion on my part. Ever since the fancy schools started recruiting in the shtetl and the hood, elitism as a coherent narrative has declined to meaninglessness. It's now perfectly Princeton to be, say, a fitness-equipment infomercial mogul, clever and determined but also, in some deeper way, crass and wrong.
Crass and wrong? Try assuming that letting in a more diverse student body and/or encouraging diverse passions, points of view, ways of writing and interacting with the world is somehow debasing. Apparently Elizabeth longs for the good ol' days of overtly racist and sexist admissions and dead white men as the only philosophers that anyone thought worth reading. Seriously?
Then Wurtzel goes on to claim that Simmons has missed the boat in identifying what's really wrong with the kids these days:
In some cases the horror is that there is no horror. The good high-schoolers, the ones with Ivy League futures, are positively babied by their overprotective parents, who don't want their sons and daughters to do the things they did. Having gone through herpes-and-cocaine phases of their own, the Boomers and Xers who are rearing Dakota and Madison these days have scheduled them to death with cello lessons and tennis team--or a trip to the Girls Leadership Institute--until they have no time or energy for bad behavior.
Um, that's exactly Simmons' point, actually. She talks at length about the ways in which a girl's quality of life is diminished when she isn't able to take risks, fail and recover, go against the grain (whether it be her parents' or peers'), and speak her truth. She is essentially encouraging "bad behavior"--at least defined as behavior that is growth-producing, independent, scary, and, ultimately, rewarding. Perhaps Simmons prose was so straight forward that Wurtzel's elite-educated brain couldn't even understand the argument.
For me, this stinks of one woman trying to tear another one down out of pure jealousy and snobbery. To Wurtzel, it's only beautiful minds that matter. To me, beautiful hearts are pretty essential as well. (Rachel's got both, for the record.) Wurtzel seems to think that trying to write an accessible book based on tons of experience with real girls and a decade-long dedication to not just postulating or waxing poetic about girls, but really making their lives better, is beneath her and any bonafide authors.
Well, if that's the case, count me among the unbonafides. I'm much more invested in reaching people than sounding smart. That may make me dumb in Wurtzel's book, but come to think of it, I don't think I care. I learned that from Rachel, whose book advocates building a core made of something more solid than Ivy League diplomas, fancy vocabulary, or the approval of haughty intellectuals.
Thanks Rachel.
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Although I have read neither the book nor the review in question, I heart this line:
"Perhaps Simmons prose was so straight forward that Wurtzel's elite-educated brain couldn't even understand the argument." Well done.
It seems like Elizabeth Wurtzel thinks that her mood disorder, past drug addictions, and navel-gazing make her "deep," and that being a nice person who makes a positive contribution to society is boring. I went through this phase for a few years in my 20s, and in retrospect, it was a huge waste of time and energy.
I found Simmons' book "Odd Girl Out" to be insightful and enlightening. I found Wurtzel's book "Prozac Nation" to be self-absorbed and offering no real insight into depression, the book's purported subject.
Also didn't she say something like New Yorkers "overreacted to 9/11" ? Something to that effect?
And just shocking that this tripe was published on Double X, usually such a bastion of meaningful reporting! /snark
I'm so sick of this shit that "women's" websites are doing lately - publishing attack pieces as traffic bait (like that mind-numbingly stupid Rophie article). It's disgusting.
me too.
I've vaguely heard of Prozac Nation, but is the Bitch you're referring to Bitch magazine? I've never read it, but if this is any example of its contents, I'm both astounded it's spoken so highly of and don't have any interest in reading more. I mean, I choked on my gummy fruit snacks when reading the line, "Ever since the fancy schools started recruiting in the shtetl and the hood, elitism as a coherent narrative has declined to meaninglessness" OH REALLY NOW, CAN WE SNOOTY THAT UP A BIT MORE?? MAYBE ONLY IF YOU THROW A BIT MORE MONEY AT IT. (/caps - sorry, I'm flabbergasted)
Nope! Elizabeth Wuertzel's Bitch is the book Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women
http://www.amazon.com/Bitch-Praise-Difficult-Elizabeth-Wurtzel/dp/0385484011/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252088591&sr=1-1
Whereas the magazine Bitch (which I heart) is a "feminist response to pop culture" and totally awesome and not at all like this. I'd highly recommend grabbing a copy of the magazine! :)
NOOOOO. She wrote a book called Bitch! Bitch magazine is excellent.
Thanks for the clarification (to johanna in daityland, too); the magazine was the only one I was aware of and hear it mentioned semi-frequently on this site, so I wasn't sure.
oohhh good. I was shocked and confused at first when Jessica mentioned BITCH... lol
Is it imperfectly Princeton to use Princeton as an adjective?
That first Wurtzel paragraph you quoted makes my head hurt. WTF is she talking about?
I think we might be missing the point of the review a little bit.
Granted, it's incredibly sarcastic and downright nasty, but she does have a point. At least the point I'm getting is the idea that an Ivy League education does not automatically equal brilliance (she points out that Lou Dobbs and Pat Robertson have them in her first paragraph) and that Ms. Simmons' book is flawed, both from a research standpoint as well as a stylistic one.
She points out that most of Simmons' evidence is anecdotal and from an institution that hasn't been vetted by her peers (her own institution, incidentally) and that she's completely ignoring a large part of the population that she's writing about. I thought the entire article was pretty spot on, actually. Sure it's scathing and sarcastic, but that doesn't mean that Wurtzel's "jealous".
But from the author's response in the comments section of the review, it sounds like Wurtzel is criticizing the book for not being something that the author never intended it to be?
And this is the first time a reviewer missed the point of a book?
Sorry, that was snarky.
I'm lukewarm about Wurtzel (hated Prozac Nation, but loved Bitch) and while I haven't read the newest book, I have read Simmons' Odd Girl Out. Frankly I don't think she's a very good writer and while she's done a lot of good works--in a social action sense-- that shouldn't make her immune to criticism.
If this book isn't supposed to be a study, which is how Wurtzel is treating it, then maybe Simmons should talk to her marketing team because that's exactly how it's being taken.
Just because it isn't the first time a reviewer has done that doesn't make it OK.
"[T]he shtetl and the hood"? G-d forbid universities admit non-WASPs. Why not bitch about the barrio and Chinatown while we're at it? Next thing you know, they'll be admitting women and gays.
This is freaking 2009. White men aren't the only ones with beautiful brains. Get over yourself.
That's what really just felt like a punch in the stomach for me. I'm a Jew of eastern European descent; hearing someone say that recruiting in the shtetls is a BAD thing makes me sick. It's personal (not that I'm saying the "hood" comment is any better, but since I'm white, it's a less personal attack on my ethnicity."
Yeah, clearly we Jews and blacks are messing up her ivy-league. I wonder if it's just Jewish and minority students that she despises or if she would like to get rid of all non-white professors as well.
On a side note, this is one of those reminders that even though Jews may prefer not to think of themselves as a racial, as well as a religious, minority. to a large number of people, we'll never be Caucasian. Of course those are the only people who usually care about identifying other people's racial identity anyways. When people ask me if I'm white, latina, or black, as a dark-skinned Jew, I think my most accurate answer is "off-white."
None of her attacks make any sense. If you're going to take an antagonistic stance, at least provide a coherent, compelling counter-argument.
I stand by this point of Wurtzel's review:
"The era when even the nice kids could go to Woodstock on Saturday and drop acid with their friends and watch the grass grow while Hendrix strummed out the 'Star-Spangled Banner,' and then show up to Sunday dinner with the parents in tattered bellbottoms bound to cause a mild household ruckus, is over. Teenagers are either growing up too fast or too slow. They exist as a marketing concept, as the people you sell to at Urban Outfitters or advertise to on Facebook, but as human beings they are either stuck online or stuck studying—or else they are babies having babies."
The first page of the original view also raises valid points if accurate.
http://www.doublex.com/section/life/elizabeth-wurtzel-takes-curse-good-girl?page=0,1
I like to see data or results from peer reviewed academic research myself when a writer makes certain generalizations. In the comments section, the author Simmons responds,
"I should add that this book was never intended or advertised as a work of academic research. It is based on my experience as an educator. My interviews are anecdotal and my opinions are expressed in this context."
The author herself apparently holds "academic research" to a higher standard than popular reading.
courtney, i agree that wurtzel's critique is nasty and rachel is brilliant (looking forward to reading this book in fact), but to me wurtzel is not typical of all "intellectuals" out there. of course there are the "haughty" types, but some intellectuals could give a damn about the kind of things that wurtzel is going on about. in fact, some of them even care about reaching people outside the ivory tower, and consider the opportunities created by their 'fancy' diplomas as one of the (a myriad) ways to get their message out there.
i'm sure you might even know a few people interested in things like that :)
Yeah, clearly we Jews and blacks are messing up her ivy-league. I wonder if it's just Jewish and minority students that she despises or if she would like to get rid of all non-white professors as well.
On a side note, this is one of those reminders that even though Jews may prefer not to think of themselves as a racial, as well as a religious, minority. to a large number of people, we'll never be Caucasian. Of course those are the only people who usually care about racial identity anyways. When people ask me if I'm white, latina, or black, as a dark-skinned Jew, I think my most accurate answer is "off-white."
"Then a professor at the School of Education at Harvard, Gilligan was documenting a real problem at the time, and her book rang true to an awful lot of us."
Where's Wurtzel "proof" that this isn't a problem today??
Wurtzel claims this book is redunant....but honey, dontcha know that a book published in 1982 is over 25 years old??? Yes, you hear me right over 25 years. It's probably about time a new book came out.
And a bit off topic, I find Wurtzel's writing style amazingly complicated and unnecessary which buries any insightful thoughts she has.
I stopped taking Elizabeth Wurtzel seriousy after I read her book of advice for women. Certain words of wisdom she gave were to not wear short skirts if you were heavy, and to never leave the house without wearing at least a little bit of makeup. She wasn't being facetious.