This semester, I assigned Jessica Valenti’s Full Frontal Feminism. I reviewed the book back in May, and a few weeks later explained why I would be assigning it to my women’s history class this fall. Yesterday, we had our first in-class discussion about Full Frontal Feminism (FFF, or F3).
If you were reading in the feminist blogosphere last spring, you know that a major quarrel erupted over Jessica’s book. (Click on the third link in the paragraph above for more.) Indeed, some of the most embittered intra-feminist exchanges I’ve ever seen online took place in the responses to FFF, many of them revolving around the perceived “whiteness” of the book’s perspective. To say that the book “struck a nerve” would be to employ an overused cliche that underestimates the intensity of the debate that raged in the blogosphere in May 2007. All the more reason for me to be eager to collect student responses to Valenti’s brand-new offering.
I knew my students would be honest. This class in particular is quite vocal about what it likes and doesn’t. For the last few years, for example, I’ve assigned Flirting with Danger. It’s an immensely valuable study, but the turgid, social science-jargon-laden prose alienates quite a few of the folks in the class. Frankly, it’s a toss-up each semester as to whether or not to keep assigning it, and it may be that at last I dump it for next year. The point is, my students have — as a general rule — no problem telling me what they don’t like about my syllabus, and what they do.
I had hoped that my History 25B (Women in American Society) class would respond well to what Jessica Valenti had written. But yesterday, frankly, I was taken aback by what was nearly unanimous enthusiasm for FFF. No other text I assign (not even Brumberg’s much-loved and much-used The Body Project) has ever gotten such a positive reaction. When I asked the class to share some of the things they liked about the book, more than a dozen different students chimed in, including at least three who had not spoken up a single time all semester. Though a few admitted to having only read the first part of the book, virtually all were effusive — to the point of hooting and hollering — in their praise.
FFF is written in a raw vernacular. It is conversational rather than didactic. It is an impassioned polemic, but Valenti’s passion is tinged with earthy humor. Even some of my students whom I know to be struggling with certain aspects of feminism, who continue to reject the feminist label for themselves, embraced FFF. “She’s not talking down to us”, one said; “I’ve never read and understood a book so easily”, said another. “No offense, Mr. Schwyzer”, another said, “but this brings me even closer to being a feminist than anything you’ve said in class.”
Except for gender ratio (25B is 85% female), the class is as diverse as can be. My students range in age from 17 to their late thirties; at least two are single mothers. The majority are non-white, with Latinas representing the largest contingent and Asians the second. Most of the whites are foreign-born Armenian and Eastern European immigrants, and a majority are first-generation college students. At least three are out (to me, and I presume to their classmates) as lesbians. In other words, this is hardly an upper-middle class, privileged demographic. Any worries that Valenti’s “whiteness” wouldn’t connect with the lives of young urban women of color vanished during yesterday’s discussion.
One woman, one of my older students and a single mother of a fourteen year-old, reported that her daughter had “stolen” the book after seeing the cover and read it before her Mom had a crack at it. My student told me that her daughter loved the book (and was utterly uninterested in the more academic offerings on my syllabus), and had formed a small book group with a few high school friends to discuss it. Another student remarked that she wished she had read it when she was fourteen.
The praise was not entirely universal. One young woman, a very articulate and thoughtful conservative, said she enjoyed the book a great deal, but was troubled by what she felt was the short shrift paid by Valenti to those who, like her, were choosing to “wait” for marriage. This young woman has been very clear that her virginity is precious to her, and that it is her choice — not her parents’ or her pastor’s — to wait. She felt as if Jessica only paid fleeting lip service to the possibility that sexual restraint could be as authentic a feminist choice as enthusiastic indulgence. One other young woman nodded sympathetically as she spoke, and I appreciated what is probably a well-deserved criticism.
Still, the general response was overwhelmingly positive. One of my students who read the book ahead of the rest of the class visited me in office hours last week, and mentioned one passage in particular that had been meaningful for her. In her chapter entitled “Pop Culture Gone Wild”, Jessica takes gentle issue with Ariel Levy’s wonderful (but in some ways very problematic) Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture. Levy’s thesis is that much of today’s hyper-sexualized adolescent society is disempowering (and thoroughly anti-feminist.) There’s much to criticize about contemporary culture, to be sure, but it’s possible to oversell the damage being done. Valenti argues, rightly I think, for a more nuanced understanding.
The bit that my student really identified with was a quote from Jennifer Baumgardner and Jessica’s follow-up. FFF quotes Baumgardner, who talks about some embarrassing episodes of adolescent experimentation:
If all my sexual behavior had to be evolved and reciprocal and totally revolutionary before I had it, I’d never have had sex.
(Pace, my conservative friends, who mutter now under your breath “Would that be such a bad thing?”)
And after quoting Baumgardner, Valenti writes:
Ain’t that the truth. I’ve had more than a couple of embarrassing moments in my life and sexual history — but isn’t that what makes us who we are? Do we really have to be on point and thinking politics all the time? Sometimes doing silly, disempowering, sexually vapid things when you’re young is just part of getting to the good stuff.
I’ll admit it: I winced when I read that. I know that some young women grow and thrive in the aftermath of “sexually vapid” choices, but I’ve known others who were genuinely scarred and shame-ridden. And as I’ve written before, I’ve never been fond of the post hoc ergo propter hoc model of human growth, the one that says that experience is invariably the best teacher. (Even though, to be honest, I wouldn’t be able to do half of what I do professionally had I not gone through all the chaos I went through in my own life.)
My student last week was close to tears. She’s one of those young women who was tarred early with the label “slut” for the way she carried herself, for the way she dressed, for the way she developed, and — in time — for the choices she made sexually. Some of those choices brought her pleasure, she says; others brought her humiliation and hurt. But all brought her further along the road towards becoming a feminist. And reading this section in Full Frontal Feminism moved her deeply. She felt validated. Rather than getting another lecture about her complicity in her own exploitation, from Valenti my student got much-needed affirmation that, in her words, “it’s okay to fuck — and it’s okay to fuck up. We can learn from our fuck-ups.” Nothing I could have said meant as much as what she read in Jessica’s book.
When I first noted that I intended to assign FFF, I promised to blog about the responses I got. I had no idea that they would be so overwhelmingly positive, and that this quick, even breezy read could have had such a deep and moving impact on such a large and diverse group of young women.
Thank you for this, I’m assigning the book in the spring, and hope my students take it as well as yours did.
This just made my day, maybe my year. It just means so much to me to hear that the book is resonating with young people. (happy sigh)
I only wish I had read a book like this when I was a teenager or young adult. I’m a big fan of Jessica’s and will be reading this book imminently. Thanks for sharing your students’ thoughts.
Can I find on-line version somewhere? Or at least parts of the book?
Elanor, check out the book’s website: http://fullfrontalfeminism.com/ Scroll down to the bottom, and there’s a link to Amazon’s feature that lets you look inside the book.
May I play devil’s advocate for a moment? (Disclaimer: I love the book, and think your students’ reactions show that it is doing what Valenti wanted it to do for the audience she was writing for.)
I submit that a lot of the criticisms that come around the book’s handling (or not handling?) of issues for women of color, class issues and the like stem from people who have had some experience with feminism in general, and who know that feminism has a history of paying lip service to women of color (for example); these critics wanted Valenti’s book to better reflect the fact that Valenti (of course) knows that feminism has had this history.
So: While her book may be perfectly palatable (and loved!) to most in your class, people of color and otherwise, part of that palatableness may have to do with (some) of your students not yet being familiar enough with feminism’s crappy track record given people of color (and poor people, and men, and…the list goes on). Some of those of us who felt Valenti didn’t give these issues enough time and energy thought this because we know she knows better, even if some of her readers don’t.
That said, having done some teaching, it’s amazing when you find material that energizes people!
I think there’s plenty of time, Jeff, for us to bring up the past shortcomings of white feminists in reaching out to young women of color. But Valenti’s book is radically relevant to their lives right now, irrespective of class and ethnicity. Read in a vacuum, it would be problematic in a women’s studies course — read in conjunction with a variety of other texts, it’s superb.
Hugo,
I love you for assigning this book. I remember reading about it when it first came out, and although I haven’t read the book, most of what I heard about it is positive. Yes, there may be some issues with it not addressing women of color issues enough, but I think that maybe it is difficult to write what you don’t know. It seemed to me that the book is a straight talking feminist primer and very suited to the class you assigned it to.
Everybody’s got to start somewhere.
Valenti and Feministing as a whole appealed to me when I first got into feminism. I now consider it feminism-lite.
The book is indeed workable as a primer and I suppose primers are (perhaps?) necessary for any movement. However, as someone who has dug deep into the trenches of feminism for the past few years it’s difficult for me to celebrate authors/bloggers such as Valenti anymore. At best they only seem to palliate.
Pisaquari, remember the purpose of the book: to introduce feminism to young women who know little or nothing about it, and are suspicious of what little they do know.
Right–I think my post acknowledged that.
I still take issue with the snagging that can occur in the stages of introducing a movement. Many never get past this part–for reasons I feel have a great deal to do with the apologist language found in said primer texts (i.e. FFF) and the glossed attention mass media pays to it.
I maintain there is a better middle ground than this.
Hugo, do you think the book would have worked as well in a class that was more evenly gender-balanced? You don’t say much about the male students’ responses. I could actually see using this as a supplemental reading in my WMST class “Gender, Race, and Class” (and reading critically across the race issues) but my classes tend to be 50/50, and I wonder how the male students (many of whom are thoughtful and open, but also many of whom are rigidly conservative or thoughtlessly misogynistic) read this kind of female-empowering material.
Good question. I’m stunned you can get 50/50 participation in a WMST class — hurrah for that. That’s unheard of at any place I’ve been at, at least lower-division.
I think it’s because the class meets two separate requirements — a multicultural/diversity requirement or a social science requirement — and is offered in large numbers of sections each semester, so there’s always open spaces (unlike some other requirements). Could be, too, that I’m one of two male profs in a 16-person pool teaching the class, so I draw more male students than other profs. Plus, I’m remarkably easy to get along with and beloved of all :-)
That explains it. Anecdotally, I hear from other colleagues in gender studies that the number of male students is going up in there classes year by year; that has not been the case in my courses at PCC, nor is it true for my fellow faculty members who also teach women’s history here. Of course, calling a course “women in american society” (as we do) may scare off some lads.
Hugo, I’m curious. Does your class include such women as Ayn Rand, Emma Goldman, Midge Decter, Priscilla Buckley, and Phyllis Schlafly? These women have had a profound effect on American society.
Sertorius, my class doesn’t focus on the “great woman” theory of feminism — it focuses on feminist social history rather than on individuals.
It would have been interesting to see a throw down between Ayn Rand and Phyllis Schafly…
Back to the topic at hand. I’ve glossed through FFF. I think it’s a great primer for a lot of younger women. I agree that it’s feminist lite, but damn, many of us have to start somewhere, and I think it’s a positive thing to have a book that people can relate to. I’ve given the book to some of my friends (under 30) and they’ve enjoyed the book immensely. I’m all about making issues and activism accessible for more people, rather than drawing a hard line and rejecting people for not being “pure” enough. Some people take any activism as a form of “I’m special” card and turn it into some kind of members only club. I think the one thing FFF is good at doing for certain demographics- IS to reject the notion of feminism being something inaccessible to many younger women. Is this going to appeal to everyone, even within the demographic it’s meant for? Of course not. nothing can, and nothing ever will.
As a recent college grad who ended her academic life with a feminism seminar (which included this book) we actually debated whether the book should be introduced in the beginning of a course as oppose to the end of one. My professor had chosen to end the semester with it and I agreed, somewhat reluctantly, with this arrangement. My disagreement came because I did personally see it as a great primer and at first thought it would have and could have been amazing as one of the beginning books, however analyzing it a bit deeper realized I could not have had the full appreciation for what she was basically trying to summarize had I not read such books as “feminism is for everybody” by bell hooks as well as “flirting with danger” (which personally touched me from past experiences growing up in harlem) in addition to a few others.
I agree with others though when they state that its great for young women who want to learn more about feminism….this book leaves you with a taste for more and if anyone actually went on Jessica Valenti’s blog http://www.feministing.com you would see its really about much deeper issues and subtle demons we are battling now.
Anyway…blah…loved the book….I still think i would have loved it had I not had a quasi background in feminism but having that background made me appreciate it even more….it was a great way to summarize and wrap up my college career. Made me want to go to law school for human and social rights (which im starting in January). :D
Oh joy! To see this book being taught is fantastic…I just finished it and in the couple of weeks that I had been taking it to college the list of people desperate to borrow it became almost ridiculous…including a great deal of my male friends, and one who, having found feminism ‘amusing’, seems to be coming round to the idea…
…thankfully.
I think FFF is a brilliant introduction to feminism - I personally felt that all my previous beliefs were given substance by it, and more meaning than ever before. It is a book that so many people should be able to identify with, female or male, and is so accessible - we found ourselves sitting around, picking passages and debating for hours…before remembering that we had lessons to go to, of course :)
Hugo,
I was pleased to see this post, as my experience is similar. As I indicated to Jessica on her site, we are slightly behind the eight ball in rates of publication etc in the great white north, so I have only been able to recommend her book as complimentary reading to my students and upper faculty(though hope to eventually change that).
I’m a current MFA candidate in creative writing, and having a previous graduate degree that allows me to be lead TA in a first year literature / cultural studies course. Though split roughly 65 female, 35 male, primarily white, followed closely by Asian, my students cover all demographic bases, with the one commonality of never having had an exposure to academic feminism per se. I echo your sentiments, as my experience with student feedback is similar. More than a few young women, and some men, have expressed an almost visceral connection to the messages in the book. Often surprising themselves more than anyone.
I think there is merit in stating that the real substantive value one can place on a book would be in that books readability and application to a readers lived reality. By that standard Jessica has more than succeeded.
That is amazing that you assigned it to your class, I would LOVE to be in a class that discusses her book. Her book changed my life, I’m a 19 year old feminist that started getting into feminism earlier this year. I was afraid to call myself one because I thought I didn’t know enough about the history, but Jessica proved to me that it doesn’t fucking matter, because belief in equality is all that really matters. My friend is currently reading this book as well. Jessica will never know how much she has changed us. I love her, and this book, and you for spreading the word. Thank you so much.
I think there’s plenty of time, Jeff, for us to bring up the past shortcomings of white feminists in reaching out to young women of color. But Valenti’s book is radically relevant to their lives right now, irrespective of class and ethnicity. Read in a vacuum, it would be problematic in a women’s studies course — read in conjunction with a variety of other texts, it’s superb.
The intense white male arrogance of this statement makes me actually literally a little nauseous to read.
I should not have come over here from bfp’s to read this post and discussion.
Such ugly-ness at so many levels.
*recoils*
*spends a moment feeling intensely glad that I left academia*
Michelle,
Can you explain in more detail? I think Hugo is only making the point that FFF is so relevant to his students because they’ve told him so - he doesn’t seem to be making it a priori; if he had, then I would see it as white male arrogance as well.
I’m 24 and really loved this book for actually being up to date. Its hard to find books that so clearly lay out the way the Bush administration’s messed up new policies that are having their way with our gender. I’ve been reading loads of other books and blogs on feminism in the last 2 years. But its FFF that I find myself bringing up all the time to explain to girls my age and younger how these issues are effecting us. A lot of people I know are incredibly dispassionate about anything they dub an “issue” and this book has made it way easier to point out how we all need to be way more vocal and attentive.
I sent my 16 year old cousin a copy to hopefully counter balance her crazily republican father. I really wish I’d had a copy at that age. The best part is that it opens up a way of talking to girls about these issues. I wasn’t ready for sex at 16 and so I explained that she doesn’t need to feel bombarded by those chapters, but that its helpful in understanding your options for the kind of woman you can grow to be.
Why shouldn’t students be assigned readings that are written in an academic style (”turgid social science prose”)? I am not arguing in favor of bad writing, but characterizing academic writing as bad strikes me as pretty anti-intellectual. Further, one reason students are in school is to learn to read at a more challenging level. Some ideas cannot be expressed precisely (well) in a comfortable vernacular. I think one reason why women’s studies classes get little respect is because the professors are so concerned about what their students like to read and wish to avoid anything written the way serious thinkers write about complexity. I’m glad students like the book. I wish they were being challenged instead of catered to in courses like this one.
Hugo,
I used to teach at a state college not that different from a community college.
IMO it’s way, WAY past time for you to stop playing these games you’re playing. This is not about you. Your perspective on what is going on is limited and if you are going to be a true teacher you will act like one — let go of whatever games you are playing and step the hell up for real.
You have a responsibility to not distort things like this. Whether you are capable of stepping up to the responsibility I don’t know. I would guess no but please please prove my guess wrong.
IMO You need to directly connect your students to the discussions that have gone on about this on the web.
IMO you need to do this by actively, directly and respectfully collaborating with the actual people who have offered these critiques. You know who they are, yes?
So. Ask them: What specifically would they like your students to read and in what format? Ask them and then assign it. What questions would they like your students to discuss based on this situation? Ask them and have those discussions in your classroom (with respect, not to discredit them and you know what I mean). What kind of follow-up, if any, do they want to see? Ask them and do it.
Hugo, teaching and learning is deep stuff. And in this society with the power dynamics flowing all around this work and the dynamics of the institutions and their connection to upward mobility and the economic system, the one positioned as “teacher” has the capacity to do very serious violence.
Whether you choose to recognize this or not — it is true and it is on YOUR shoulders. This is a heavy responsibility.
Your teaching is not about your ego, or you being right or expert or having the attitude that you know best about how to teach students of color. This is NOT about your ego or expertness. It is NOT. Stop playing these games. You have something to learn and the responsibility to act on that learning.
Hugo, be a real teacher and open this up beyond your biases and approaches. Make this about actual learning, and not your assumptions and perceptions of what is going on.
I just looked at the semester calender for Pasadena City College where you teach. There is still time for you to do the right thing here. Not a lot of time, only two weeks left of classes, but you can do it. If you choose to do it. I don’t care how crucial and important your syllabus as-is to you, I know that syllabi can change if the teacher is willing and determines that it is necessary for real learning. It takes work. Are you willing to do that work?
It is not too late to correct for the mistakes you’re making. It is not too late to respond as a real teacher. It is totally possible for you to do this.
Step up, Hugo. Stop with the slippery words and step the hell up. You are a teacher but you need to be able to learn also — because this responsibility is on your shoulders whether you admit it or not — and from what I can see, it is way past time.
And by the way, I don’t normally bother engaging people who seem as closed as you are, but the fact that you are in the teacher role in relation to students of color is scaring the shit out of me, and so I am trying, trying to get through your wall of ego and me-me-me expert craziness in case there is ANY part of you that knows that teaching and learning is deep work and you are shirking a deep and real responsibility in how you are doing this.
And, if I can be of any practical help with the logistics of changing your syllabus and moving on this, please feel free to call on me (in public, or you have my email address from my comments — in fact if you do want to do this in public please send me an email with the link, so I know where it is and can respond quickly, I check email more reglularly than blogs).
I don’t want to do this because I am not in academia anymore and it will hurt me to do — but I feel like it is my responsibility to help if I ask you to do this and if I can be of assistance with the process.
I agree with what Jeff said, except I’m not remotely apologetic about it. Ignoring the discriminatory history of feminism and not including more material about women of color is wrong, especially in a book call “Full Frontal Feminism.”
“I think there’s plenty of time, Jeff, for us to bring up the past shortcomings of white feminists in reaching out to young women of color. But Valenti’s book is radically relevant to their lives right now, irrespective of class and ethnicity. Read in a vacuum, it would be problematic in a women’s studies course — read in conjunction with a variety of other texts, it’s superb.”
Hugo, there always seems to be “plenty of time” to talk about the colored folks. But it never seems like the time is “now.” This is exactly the kind of attitude that annoyed the original critics of Jessica’s book. It’s not that we don’t appreciate her desire to introduce feminism to a new audience. We don’t appreciate her whitewashing an entire movement by omitting the unique struggles of nonwhite women.
Hugo-
Great job assigning this book…I’m also happy to hear that there was such a positive response from your students. Being a young feminist blogger, and activist for women’s rights it feels good to see that people took so well to Jessica’s book. She inspirers me and I’m glad she could do the same for others, especially young women (because I think a lot of us need it!)
As for the criticism on FFF being too “white”…well duhh! Jessica is a white middle class woman, that’s the perspective she has. She’s not trying to take on a role that she doesn’t know. As a man doesn’t know what it is like to have a vagina in our patriarchal society, the same goes for Jessica—she doesn’t know what it feels like to have black skin or be Latino etc, in a dominate white society. However, she is aware of this and doesn’t try to be what she is not. Being aware is having the knowledge to act responsibly. I believe Jessica acted intelligently, and responsible in her choices. She acknowledges the differences in different ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds; however she didn’t voice specific insight into those matters, because she doesn’t have the knowledge to do so.
Anyway—cheers and continue enlightening today’s youth—it’s a difficult job but it seems as though you’re doing quite a good job at it.
“I think there’s plenty of time, Jeff, for us to bring up the past shortcomings of white feminists in reaching out to young women of color.”
Always plenty of time until we all realize we haven’t done a damn thing about how white feminists continue to short change women of color. Michelle brings up great points.
“One young woman, a very articulate and thoughtful conservative…”
This sounds like all those white people who are so impressed Obama is an articulate speaker. An articulate young woman (and a conservative to boot)? No! /sarcasm
Michelle brings up great points.
Well, there’s apparently no point that I could bring up that Hugo can’t twist and distort and use for his purposes:
The “Full Frontal Feminism” controversy again, and a call for suggestions
And there’s nothing that Hugo could say or do that would make you not continue to dog him. From what I gather from your posts, there is nothing he actually. can do, you know, bein white and all.
I’m sure that it makes you quite angry that not everything is this big old world revolves around racism. But it doesn’t. Feminism doesn’t. Jessica’s book didn’t. And nothing Jessica can say or do will make any difference to people like you. Not because she can’t or won’t try, not because her heart isn’t in the right place, but like Hugo, simply because she’s white.
I teach a facilitator session as part of a main session WS class, I assigned FFF to my students as well and really appreciate you posting your students responses, I looooooooved the book and now Im confident my student will as well.