Who-Stole-Feminism.-How-Women-Have-Betrayed-Women

40 WHO STOLE FEMINISM?one of the founding mothers of the New Feminism, could no longercontain herself. She warned of a "new totalitarianism" and said that workingmothers could not be blamed for runaways and delinquency: the stateshould find a solution. Domna Stanton, a Michigan women's studiesprofessor who had organized the conference, warned of the perils of"white male morality."A young novelist, Valerya Narbikova, took the microphone and spokeabout her writers' group, the New Amazons. The American feminists werebeginning to hope they could finally make contact when Ms. Narbikovaannounced, "It is just a name. We have nothing to do with feminism.""Nothing at all?" the disbelieving critic Hortense Spiller asked. Gurevichdescribes the scene: "Wine glass in hand, Valerya was pure artiste.'Nope.'. . . Ladylike pretenses were dropped. The women were tearingthe mike from each other's hand. . . . Stanton was soon left alone—herfaction, including Stimpson, had fled quietly—and she was actuallywringing her hands." Tatyana Tolstaya, a writer whose short stories hadbeen recently acclaimed by American critics, thundered: "You . . . keepcoming to Russia and we keep telling you these things! Why do you neverlisten to us? Why do you think you know more about our life than wedo?"Undoubtedly, the gender feminists left the conference pitying the benightedRussian writers for being so retrograde in their attitudes to gender.To me, those Russian women are the hope of feminism—a newavant-garde. I wish they would all emigrate to the United States. Theyknow firsthand about the terrible consequences of group loyalty based ongroupthink; they are utterly immune to ideological blandishments.Since reading Gurevich's account of the New York University encounter,I have been attending feminist meetings in a more hopeful frame ofmind. When some gender feminist is in the middle of yet another mindnumbingexposé of the evils of male culture, I find myself looking aboutfor some innocent or intrepid soul who looks as if she might speak upand say what I, as an observer, must often refrain from saying. It hasn'thappened yet, but now I know it is not out of the question.