Hugo Schwyzer

UPDATE:

As of April 25, I am suspending my endorsement of this book until a new edition appears. I read this book without more than a cursory glance at the comic images used to illustrate it, images that were deeply offensive and unmistakably racist. Though Amanda Marcotte did not select these images herself, she and the publisher share responsibility for a very unfortunate lapse in judgment. As a result, I cannot in good conscience support the sale of the currently available edition. When a new edition appears — may it be soon — without these indefensible images within its pages, my endorsement will stand.

It took others to point out what I could not see. I am ashamed of that. This review stands in its entirety, with this disclaimer attached.

Last week, It’s a Jungle Out There: The Feminist Survival Guide to Politically Inhospitable Environments arrived on my desk. Amanda Marcotte’s new book from Seal Press is indeed available now, and over the course of the Easter weekend, I made my way through its brief and breezy 235 pages.

Amanda was a leading figure in the feminist blogosphere before she and Melissa McEwan were involved, over a year ago, in the now-infamous John Edwards blogging drama. (Details in this Salon article.) I’ve been reading Amanda since 2004, when she blogged at the now-defunct Mouse Words; since moving to the widely-read Pandagon, she’s become one of the most prolific and best-known of feminist bloggers. She’s also become one of the most controversial, not least for her fierce and occasionally profane perspectives. Despite her rising fame and her book deal(s), Amanda remains legendary for her willingness to comment frequently and thoughtfully on an extraordinary number of lesser-known blogs. I can’t think of many bloggers as well-known as she who do so much to nurture and encourage good feminist writing from all corners and all comers.

“Jungle” is listed (on the back jacket) as “Politics/Humor.” It goes without saying that writing and performing political humor is a tricky business; what one reader finds hilarious another will invariably find offensive or dull. I can’t imagine many people being bored by Amanda’s rapier wit, but I do know her capacity to alienate is formidable. Those already hostile to feminism, or those who are “on the fence” about women’s equality, are not the ideal audience for this rambunctious tour through the minefields that confront young American women today. In any movement, you need great satirists — and winsome apologists. Amanda Marcotte is definitely in the former category. She’s not winsome, she’s not irenic, and her writing isn’t going to make your misogynistic brother-in-law suddenly start donating to Planned Parenthood and start sharing the housework burden for the first time in his life. But for the right reader, “Jungle” will prove an inspiration and a delight.

In the space of 235 pages, “Jungle” covers an astonishing mix of subjects. With scathing humor and insight, Amanda touches on everything from the abstinence movement to the right’s obsession with the Clintons, from vibrators to PETA to the issue of last names post-marriage. It’s unlikely that any reader, even one familiar with and sympathetic to contemporary feminist struggles, will agree with everything Amanda says. But whether you find yourself laughing out loud or cringing at what seems to be rhetorical overkill, her writing never fails to accomplish its true purpose: making you think, and think deeply, about vital issues.

I especially enjoyed her short section on the Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs), a group with which I am all too familiar. Referring to the noxious penchant of the MRAs to insist — against all evidence and reason — that men are victimized as often as women in spousal abuse cases, Amanda writes:

The evidence that women are “just as bad’ comes from the theory that if a guy bruises his knuckles on your face, you’ve both sustained a domestic violence injury. Therefore, they argue that shelters for women should let in men, which would be a great help to men seeking out their wives who are trying to flee them.

Good stuff.

In the blogosphere, and now with this book, Amanda has positioned herself in the grand tradition of sharp American satire. Like all great satirists, she is keenly familiar with the nuances of popular culture, and she exploits the depth and breadth of that knowledge with devastating effect. Like all great satirists, she never tries to hide the fact that beneath the razor-sharp humor lies a passionate commitment to justice. The best humor, after all, is rooted in anger, in pain, and in truth; the job of the satirist is to take all of that hurt and that righteous rage and to package it in a way that gets people to see, to think, and in the end, to act.

This book is a clever, spirited, and impassioned call to action. It will alienate many; if you don’t like Amanda Marcotte’s blogging, you probably aren’t going to be much of a fan of “Jungle.” But for the right readers, it’s a godsend. Who will love this book? I think of high-school and college-age readers, particularly those who find wit and ironic detachment to be excellent defenses against an often crushingly disappointing adult world. Those who are already genuinely cynical, or even more likely, those who merely cultivate the outer affect of cynicism, will love this book.

One of the many reasons why so many young women responded so well to the movie “Juno” was because the title character (created by Oscar-winner Diablo Cody) always had such remarkably clever things to say. There was an element of envious admiration along the lines of “Gosh, I wish I could think of something that smart to say to my (fill in the blank: boyfriend, parents, teachers, doctors, best friends.)” Amanda Marcotte, like Diablo Cody, offers the unsure and the occasionally tongue-tied an encylopedia of insights and witty rejoinders that will soothe, amuse, and — from my standpoint, most importantly — arm young feminists to fight the good fight in the very real anti-feminist jungle of contemporary American society.

This is a book clearly aimed at young women, at the same audience who have already enthusiastically embraced Jessica Valenti’s Full Frontal Feminism (also from Seal Press.) Yes, Marcotte’s tone is often angry, though her anger is always enriched by her trenchant humor. But she writes for an audience made up of young women (and some young men) who are angry — and with good reason. There’s a time and place for feminist theory, and a time and place for carefully tailored feminist apologetics. There’s also a time and place for anger, and for music, and for cats. No one in the feminist blogosphere blends together pop culture and politics better than Amanda Marcotte. She does so because she’s interested in both, but also — I think — because she knows that all good revolutions need more than a commitment to justice and to transformation: they need a good soundtrack and some fun, funky diversions along the way. “It’s a Jungle Out There” is for those smart enough to know that listening to Bikini Kill and buying your own sex toys isn’t all there is to being a revolutionary, but that righteously good music and righteously good guilt-free orgasms do, in a very real way, have the power to strengthen, revive, and inspire revolutionaries young — and not-so-young.

It is indeed a “jungle out there.” And with Amanda’s new book, we have a raucous, rebellious, sharp, and passionate manual to get us through it.