This is just one example of the truly incessant hypocrisy of this book, which would seem nothing but one long neurotic act of projection were its aims of self-promotion not so evident. Power claims lack of interest in vile female flesh, promising loftily abstract “political” thoughts about higher, daring impersonal projects of an immortal disembodied (male) intellect, but then rants about the “anxiety” she personally feels in “not knowing which model to look like”. This anxiety, she claims, causes feebleminded, irrational women to erupt in a “shopping frenzy” that resembles a elephant must set in a H’wood romcom Gucci sample sale brawl. And while declaring after all this, nonsensically, she will eschew the merely pettily personal and dare to dismiss with contempt “the holy body” (odd for a Marxist feminist, since Marxist feminism is grounded in the recognition that the origin of capital is labour, first and foremost that of women) she devotes the longest section of her book to a feverish, delirious expression of an unseemly obsession with Sarah Palin’s supposedly “castrated” female body and the arousal it causes some (dubiously) presumed- genuine facebook fans. Her bizarre fascination with Palin’s fleshly form and image of “womanhood” leaves her evidently time neither to mention the political, financial, religious and military institutions in which Palin is enmeshed, nor to recognise and examine their role in the destruction of the egalitarian projects crumbling to bits around her as she remains rapt before Palin’s vagina.

The body, (other women’s bodies, not holy but horrifyingly attractive to men) dominates Power’s book in fact, which is almost completely destitute of any other topic. There are the breasts she reminds us God gave women for feeding offspring not holding up wet t-shirts at the American ritual of Spring Break she learned about on tv; there are the bodies in old nudie movies which she finds less disquieting than those in contemporary porn; there is her own body and the bodies of models whose bodies she feels hers must emulate but whose variety of shapes and colours offends and confuses her; there is Jessica Valenti’s body which she condemns as insatiably sensual and too important to Valenti, and of course there is the body down whose throat she pictures some emission of Valenti’s sliding, like a friendly bacteria yoghurt….

However, I encounter all too many women, particularly women in their 20s today, who have this notion that all feminists are the hairy-legged butch variety (i.e., they’ve bought into the patriarchal portrayal of feminists), and they don’t want to be like *those* women, so they reflexively reject feminism without ever realizing what it’s really about. I even see this within my corner of the Ivory Tower; I’m in a PhD program in Biology. There are young (mid-20s) women in my department who believe in feminist ideas such as equal rights and equal work for equal pay, but yet they adamantly deny being feminists because they want to be femme and want to be accepted by men and think they couldn’t be either as feminists.

This is why I’m a supporter of Jessica Valenti et al’s ideas of so-called “gateway” feminism. Because you have to get those women’s attention and get them to listen before you can help them break their patriarchal mode of thinking and realize that “hey, what’s so bad about having hairy legs, anyway?”

On her criticisms of Valenti, though – as I see it, there’s pop feminism, and then there’s pop feminism. There’s the Cosmopolitan/Sex & The City/Spice Girls type “feminism” which positions female empowerment as something that can be attained through a cocktail and a pair of high heels (it drives me crazy how many women’s business organisations are marketed this way). I don’t think Valenti, or most other mainstream feminist types, do this at all.

Then there’s pop feminism as manifested in mainstream books, newspaper opinion editorials, blogs and the like (several of which I personally partake in). What this feminism is often guilty of is not shiny pink wrapping paper per se, but an incredible simplification and repetition of issues that have been thrown around for a good 20-40 years.

There’s good reason this – said issues still haven’t been resolved, and I think sites like Feministing play an important role as both of a source of feminist news and as a gateway for new feminists – but as someone who reads and writes a lot in this area, I often wish pop feminism would advance the debate a little, instead of going around in the same old circles*. So in that sense, I was grateful to see Power’s argument, even if I think her analysis of Valenti – and contemporary feminism more generally – is largely incorrect.

* This, incidentally, is one of the things I like so much about Harpiness. It covers some of the less obvious issues, and with nuance and intelligence.

I’m constantly baffled when two groups with the same goal, but with opposing viewpoints, think they need to trounce the other. Like “it’s my way or the highway.”But why does it have to be that way?

For example, why does Power spend a chunk of her book complaining that Valenti’s “brand” of feminism is (as you wrote) “lacking a serious critique of systemic (especially capitalist) oppression” when she could have spent the effort doing that herself?

Both women and the blogosphere have dithered away time we could have spend doing something much more productive. You know, like actually fighting for feminism.

What this all-or-nothing battle seems to forget is that we, as feminists, are able to make up our own minds about things. And we can do that better if we have as much info as possible – if we have both the personal and the political analysis available to us, like philosophyerin says in her post. To limit information in either direction is, essentially, to limit choice. And I’m glad that I can be in agreement with some of Power and some of Valenti and some of Sady, etc etc – rather than being limited to one woman’s opinion.