My interview with Ariel Gore on women, happiness, and self-determination appears today on The Feminist Review. Gore’s new book BLUEBIRD: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness hits the stands today. Please check it out!
Archive for the 'book review' Category
Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict
by Irene Vilar (www.irenevilar.com)
Other Press, 2009, $15.95
Irene Vilar’s second memoir explores a part of her life that she left out of her first memoir entirely—the fifteen abortions she had over the course of fifteen years.
Twelve of those abortions were pregnancies with the same man, a former professor, a man more than thirty years older, who became her lover when she was still a teenager. 
Ultimately, he became her husband and, as she refers to him, her “master.” She wanted a baby every time she conceived—an average of every 8 months, with the exception of a year and a half when she was working on her first memoir and remembered to take birth control pills—but knew that she had to choose between her life and her love. “Pregnant, my life felt less-sub-human,” she writes. Yet from the beginning, her husband had told her how “women’s desires for children killed each one of his love stories” (p. 51). Vilar knew that if she ever decided not to terminate one of her pregnancies, she would be terminating the relationship instead. “If you are grown up enough to have a child, you are just as fit to be a single mother,” he told her. “But I will not be a victim of your displacement” (83).
She saw each pregnancy as a “death sentence” for the relationship but also “a chance to rise above it, and above him” (79). Yet each time, she chose to end the pregnancy instead of the relationship. Vilar suggests she was addicted to abortion, but I would argue she was addicted to this particular man, a cruel master who cared more for his own comfort than for the woman he spent so many years “loving.” On the other hand, if she was addicted to the man, she never would have jeopardized the relationship so often by becoming pregnant, so perhaps she is on target when she admits that the cycle of pregnancy-and-abortion fed some destructive need. She felt validated, even “aroused,” by each pregnancy, panicked by the possible demise of her relationship, and simultaneously relieved and empty whenever she had an abortion.
Throughout the story, Vilar explores the ways her mother’s suicide when she was 8 left her feeling abandoned and homeless, linking that incident to her own struggles as an adult. She talks about her family’s propensity to addiction—her mother’s addiction to Valium, her father’s addiction to gambling and alcohol, her brothers’ addictions to heroin, and her own to abortion. She explores the damage done to her psyche at a young age but she fails to link her feelings of abandonment to her willingness to submit herself—body, mind, and soul—to a man in his fifties when she was only 17. She fails to acknowledge the betrayal of the feminist movement, which has fought (and continues to fight) for women’s right to an “out” when they find themselves with an untenable pregnancy but which has never provided a sufficient structure for dealing with the psychological and physiological damage of abortion, particularly repeat abortions. And what of the many doctors, family members, and friends who sat back and watched as Vilar tried to destroy her own body? Vilar lets them off the hook without much protest.
Vilar’s story is not one for the faint-hearted, nor is it for adamant pro-life or pro-choice advocates. The questions surrounding Vilar’s multiple pregnancies, her legal right to choose, her recognition of and desire for the many lives conceived within her womb but whose voices were silenced before they were even heard are necessarily messy questions. Vilar’s life is a chaotic, disordered one and she doesn’t shy away from showing just how confused she was for most of her adult life. One of the truths her story demonstrates is that by insisting on the right to “sex on demand” with whomever and whenever we want, protected from all physical consequences like pregnancy, we have forgotten that sex carries with it incredible power, a power which can be abused and a power which can be destructive. Vilar’s husband was guilty of abusing that power. Whether Vilar was ever conscious of abusing that power is hard to say; it’s certainly possible to question whether a 17-year-old girl, suffering from scars related to her mother’s suicide, separated from her surviving parent by thousands of miles, and involved in relationship with a man old enough to be her father, can exercise a completely conscious right to choose.
Ultimately, the line separating Vilar’s belief in her right to choose and her recognition of the life within is very, very thin—almost non-existent. When she is pregnant for the sixteenth time, a pregnancy she carries to term, she describes the ultrasound of her daughter taken eighteen weeks before she was born. “The ultrasound images show clearly a miniature head tilted back, an arm raised up, with the hand pointing back toward the face. It would have been possible and permissible to end her life at this point” (208).
Thus Vilar ends the final chapter of her book, completely blurring the line between pro-life and pro-choice politics as she recognizes her daughter’s existence and acknowledges the many times she had, in the past, exercised her right to choose.
Gore, Ariel. Bluebird: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, January 2010. $24.00.
The final scene of the 2008 indie flick Happy-Go-Lucky encapsulates one of the core problems presented in Ariel Gore’s new book, Bluebird: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness.
Poppy and her roommate Zoe are rowing a boat in the middle of a pond. Poppy has just spent a harrowing afternoon with her psycho driving instructor, who blames Poppy for the complete and utter ruination of his potential love life, quite possibly his career.
“I think I should give up smoking,” Zoe says.
“That’s a good idea,” Poppy says, with her trademark giggle. “What can I give up?”
“You can give up being too nice,” Zoe says, slightly exasperated.
Poppy laughs.
“Seriously!” Zoe insists. “You can’t make everyone happy!”
“There’s no harm in trying, though, is there?” Poppy asks.
Poppy clearly hasn’t learned her lesson. Throughout the course of the movie, this happy-go-lucky woman meets miserable person after miserable person, who try to convince her that there’s something wrong with her life because she’s, well, happy. And her best efforts to cheer them up, to help them see that life ain’t all that bad, are wasted. But thankfully, though she’s brought low for a few hours each time, she’s always able to bounce back up.
Poppy is one of the truly fortunate: she’s happy with the life she’s got. As she explains to her sister, “I love my life. Yeah, it can be tough at times, but that’s part of it, isn’t it? I’ve got a great job, brilliant kids [referring to the children she teaches], lovely flat, I’ve got her to look at [pointing at her pretty roommate], I’ve got amazing friends. I love my freedom. I’m a very lucky lady, I know that.”
There are two themes presented in this scene. One theme is Poppy’s eternal good-will, her own happiness, undeterred by the suffering around her. Though she is touched by it, and even experiences sorrow at times, she is able to move through the moments of misery and back into her status quo of blessed satisfaction with life. Most of us only wish we could achieve Poppy’s sense of equilibrium. The second theme is Poppy’s profound need to help others achieve happiness, and her utter inability to help.
Both themes have a great deal to say about this idea of “happiness” in western culture, particularly as experienced by women, according to Ariel Gore, whose new book, Bluebird: women and the psychology of happiness, explores the question, “Can women be smart, empowered, and happy?” In the U.S., the pursuit of happiness has become enshrined as a political right. And in the 20th century, happiness has become big business-a business, as Gore discovered, dominated by men and symbolized by the father of happiness, Martin Seligman himself. Women writers and psychologists, by contrast, have responded negatively to the new happiness movement. Why? Gore wanted to know. Don’t women want to be happy?
As Gore set out on her search to explore the source of happiness for women, she discovered, to her chagrin, that the things she thought would make her happy were not, in fact, her happiest moments. What’s going on? she wondered. Shouldn’t her many accomplishments-editor, writer, mother-make her happier? When the research Gore did suggested that the “happiest women” were wives and homemakers, she wondered if that truly equated happiness and, more importantly, whether it was possible to make other choices, to go against the social grain, and still be happy?
“We are told what will make us happy as if we were all the same woman, as if we all share a single heart, as if we can’t all be right when we realize our disparate desires: another child, an intellectual life, more than contentment, a giant squid” (23).
Part of the problem, she noted, is that “women’s notions about personal happiness are all tangled up with our ideas about privilege, selfishness, and social responsibility” (27).
Why do so many women believe that they are responsible for helping others to find happiness, even if it means neglecting or erasing their own happiness?
Although Americans have enshrined the pursuit of happiness as a right that should be protected by the constitution, they’ve done so for men only, suggests Gore. Society still emphasizes the feminine role as one of helping others pursue happiness. “There’s a hierarchy of happiness,” one woman told Gore. “First comes the kids, then my husband, and then me. I’m stronger than they are. I don’t need to be happy” (33.) Gore argues that women have historically become the cheerleaders because we’ve been dependent on men economically and one way of justifying that dependence was to do “extra emotional work” (41).
Gore suggests that many women are stuck at one level of emotional wholeness. If the first level is letting go of selfishness, of putting me first, the second level is acting only out of a sense of responsibility towards others. This is where most women get stuck, forgetting that they, too, have needs. There’s a third level of morality, one where we don’t slight others but we also take care of ourselves. “Connection and relationship involve more than one of us, after all,” Gore writes, “and if anyone is slighted-ourselves included-the relationship is harmed and something immoral has taken place” (29).
So the first step is recognizing that we can seek our own personal welfare without being selfish. If that’s the case, what does it mean to be happy? The key to happiness, Gore suggests, is the freedom to recognize what we want in life and to move towards those goals.
But what do we do when our desires can’t mesh with reality? For example, if our desire is to have a child, and we struggle with infertility? Or if we’ve invested our identities in a job or a marriage, and we experience unemployment or divorce? Is happiness incompatible with heartbreak, with sadness?
The answer, according to Gore, is “no.” Happiness is also the choice to respond productively and proactively to the negative stimuli in our lives, to “rejoice in the midst of suffering” (p. 14). Psychologists who study happiness have noted that only about 60% of our happiness is attributable to life circumstances and/or our basic personalities. Another 40% is “under our control and depends on ‘intentional activities’” (80). In other words, despite the circumstances we find ourselves in, we can practice happiness. This doesn’t mean faking it or putting on a cheerful face despite sadness. Rather, it means doing certain things that can move us away from discontent and heartbreak and towards happiness.
Gore researched the various suggestions for achieving happiness and put some of them to the test. Among the activities she tried, and which worked, were practicing gratitude; allowing herself to be get absorbed in the tasks at hand, that is, experiencing flow in her work; recognizing that the challenge of juggling her work and her relationships (with her children, her partner, and others) was part of the joy in her life-that work didn’t have to get in the way of relationships and vice versa, but that they worked together in tandem; working with a life coach to better define her wants and desires in life, and then setting goals to help achieve them; and, finally, recognizing that she can find happiness in even the most menial of tasks when she doesn’t feel trapped by them, that is, doesn’t feel obligated or controlled by them.
“In nature, with our friends or children, working or reading, we are happy when we are dynamically engaged with our lives. We are happy when we’re following threads of thought and activity we’re curious about-unconcerned where those threads will lead….I am consistently happy when I experience a particular synthesis of the intellectual and the domestic. I like geeky academic texts and I like berry pie” (171-172).
Women find happiness, Gore says, when they reject the prescriptions for happiness that have been written for them-by church, society, spouses and partners-and have the courage to find their own path (173-174). In short, she’s arguing that women feel happiest when they have choices.
But making some choices limits other choices. And what do we do if we lack choices-if our choices are limited by circumstances we can’t change? There’s no easy answer to that one.
As I read Bluebird, I thought about my mother and the career sacrifices she made to put her family first-sacrifices she’s still making today, by taking care of her 100-year-old mother-in-law. Growing up, despite the sure knowledge that my mother loved me unconditionally and would always do what was in my best interests, I sensed that she yearned for some imagined future that she’d given up in order to put her husband and children first. It wasn’t that I believed my mother to be unhappy. It’s just that she didn’t seem exactly happy, either.
If I were to press Mom on whether she wished she had “achieved” more, I suspect she would say she’s achieved the most important thing-raising children who are functioning members of society. I once told her that the book she’s been writing for the past 25 years is her “grand opus.” She hesitated, then said, “Actually, I consider you and your brothers my ‘grand opus.’”
But even though my mother is pleased with her grown-up children, is glad she’s married to my dad, and loves her grandchildren, is she happy? Did she sacrifice joy in order to do what she was “supposed” to do? Even if she doesn’t regret the decisions she made, does she still secretly long for that other Future That Might Have Been?
I don’t know. You’d have to ask her. But what about me? Am I happy?
Although the American pursuit of happiness is legendary, my religious family didn’t consider personal happiness to be the main goal in life-or even a goal at all. It may be closer to the truth to say that personal happiness, or the pursuit of it, was rendered completely irrelevant to the grand pursuit of the truths of God and discovering his will for our lives.
My parents never stated it directly, but I picked up on and adopted the underlying belief that happiness was all well and good, but it was also a little selfish. The point of life wasn’t happiness. The point of life was salvation-finding God and then helping others find God. The point of life was doing what God called you to do. That was where true joy resided. If you resisted his calling, you’d be miserable. Presumably, if God had called me to do something, it would also be my heart’s desire. But if my heart’s desire was not what God intended for me, there would always be a tension between what I wanted to do and what God wanted me to do-and I’d never be happy until I gave in and was obedient. Happiness was obedience to God’s will, in other words.
I left religion behind when I left home, but I realized when I read this book that I haven’t left most of those ideas behind. There’s a secular version of this same belief. Happiness is a luxury, goes this version. Rather than pursuing personal happiness, we should be pursuing social justice, the elimination of hunger and poverty, the eradication of racism, sexism, homophobia, and all those other bad “isms.” Happiness has no place in this vision of the world. That’s not to say happiness is wrong-only that it has no purpose. Happiness, according to this view, doesn’t help you change the injustice in the world. Instead, passion and righteous anger are the tools you need.
Is it possible to pursue peace and justice-and be happy? It certainly should be! Part of the problem, I realize, is that there is something wrong with my definition of happiness.
I’ve fallen into the American trap of believing that the pursuit of happiness is the pursuit of material and financial success. But I know myself well enough that I wouldn’t be happy if I was constantly in pursuit of the purse. Worse than being pointless, the pursuit of “wealth as happiness” contributes to the economic injustices in the world.
To be honest, the inner me still feels guilty at the thought of pursuing happiness at all. I still sort of believe that personal happiness is a lucky byproduct of these other things-pursuing your calling, helping others, making the world a more just and humane place. If you only pursue happiness, this inner me says, you risk never achieving it. Instead, pursue your calling, peace and justice, and loving relationships-then you’ll find your happiness. And if you don’t, this inner me insists, maybe it’s not your fault. And maybe it’s okay.
Perhaps Gore would agree with me. Happiness, she argues, isn’t a static condition. It isn’t a state we find ourselves in-it’s something we experience as we reach towards those things we really want in life (172-174). It’s almost like we experience it without knowing it. We only notice unhappiness.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be questioning whether my mother was or is happy-or whether I should or should not pursue happiness. That there are circumstances we can’t control-it isn’t easy for my mother to take care of my grandmother, for example, and I sure as hell would like to be a more famous and better paid writer-doesn’t change the basic fact that we are both living lives of our own choosing, reaching towards our highest values and our largest dreams.
In the end, we can’t ask much else of ourselves.
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms-to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
-Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
qtd. in Gore, p. 181
As a young adult writer, I should have read Twilight a long time ago. But I admit, I resisted the urge. The literary snob in me sort of believes that any novel on the New York Times bestseller list can’t possibly be a work of art (yes, I know, I need to maim and kill that literary snob inside of me)…Also my friend Amanda had called it a “bodice ripper” so once again I was deterred…I never read romance novels, just like I don’t watch soap operas, and only rarely go to the movies to watch a love story.
But yesterday, in a spurt of “I just want something mindless to read and maybe it’s about time I find out what every 17-year-old in America is reading these days,” Continue reading ‘Obsession…Dying for Love’
From Midwest Book Review: “Maternity is more than putting on a little weight and having a baby show up nine months later. “Labor Pains and Birth Stories” is a collection of anecdotes covering the adventure and misadventure that is oncoming motherhood – as well as oncoming fatherhood. Maternity is a nine month span of joy and worry; joy because of the arrival of a new soul to the world, and worry that every little thing you do during this time could screw them up for life. “Labor Pains and Birth Stories” is a fine choice for future mothers, and should not be ignored by future fathers either. ”
From Ralph Magazine: Kind of an odd review, and thoroughly disagree that the best writing is at the front of the book, but here’s one quote: “We are reminded in a couple of these stories that — in a single twenty-four hour period — there are 300,000 children being born into the world. If there are two words to describe the truth of becoming a mother, one is pain; the other is waiting.”
Check out Bookslut’s provocative discussion of childbirth after reading Labor Pains and Birth Stories. A thoughtful review, not necessarily positive, and I’m certainly appreciative of the time and effort put into this one, though I disagree with the assumption that I had a political agenda and was pushing midwifery/home birth/ natural births and am opposed to cesarean sections, since well ovver half of the contributors (almost 2/3) had hospital births. But it’s true, I didn’t include a cesarean section story–nobody contributed a cesarean section story, so I had none to offer.
And here’s one from MetroActive, one of the Bay Area’s many small newspapers. (Thank you, Tania, for securing this one!) “My hope is that our child’s birth will be simple and smooth. Labor Pains and Birth Stories assures me that this is a delusional fantasy. Labor Pains and Birth Stories reminds me about pelvic exams and pitocin and epidurals and slowed heart rates and complications and death and arrrggghhh. Elisabeth Aron turns in a tear-jerking story of a stillbirth; Ann Angel writes about her teenage daughter giving a child up for adoption; and Sebastopol author Tania Pryputniewicz shows that no matter how carefully one plans for a natural, simple birth, there’s always the possibility of the dreadfully unexpected. Can’t it just be easy? Please?”
The Feminist Review has given LABOR PAINS AND BIRTH STORIES a very positive review here.
Thank you, Feminist Review, and thank you to my wonderful writers for all their hard work and for making this such a great book.
Here’s a couple of short excerpts from the review:
“With twenty-nine compelling essays of pain and strength, each glimpse these writers provide validates the awesomeness and depth of the process of pregnancy. Written from mostly women authors, Powers weaves together a tapestry of debate, conflict, joy, and uncertainty all through the common practice of story-telling our lives….Not only are the individual literary essays gifts for those seeking comfort and company in their own birthing experience; the collection as a whole can be used for critical analysis as to how the world not only accepts children, but how we treat and care for mothers as well.”
The El Paso Times did a write-up about Labor Pains and Birth Stories, which you can read here.
Still updating the website. Look for more blog posts soon….
My article on “Bilingual Books for Kids” was just published in New Pages. You can read it here.
Recently, I wrote an article for El Paso Magazine and interviewed Claudia Guadalupe Martinez, whose new young adult book Smell of Old Lady Perfume, is due out from Cinco Puntos Press in July. I’m republishing the interview in its entirety here, since most of it couldn’t be used for the short article.
Q. What inspired you to write Smell of Old Lady Perfume?
Martinez Answer: My dad passed away when I was eleven. Back then, we didn’t really talk about it. We were kind of expected to be strong and not to burden my mom any further. When you grow up in a community where you have a lot of older brothers and sisters, they affect how you should act and carry yourself, and I remember them telling us to be mature about it and not be a burden to her and try to be strong, which is not very realistic for a kid that age. We just dealt with it internally, so when I started writing about it, it was an opportunity to deal with it externally. Continue reading ‘Smell of Old Lady Perfume–Interview with Claudia Guadalupe Martinez’
I’m pleased to report that The Confessional is getting some accolades. My editor at Knopf writes, “Those smart librarians at the NYPL have selected THE CONFESSIONAL to be included on the New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age 2008 list!  Now in its 79th year of publication, this group selects what they deem to be the best of the the previous year’s publishing for teenagers 12 to 18-years-old.  The list will be printed in a booklet that will be available at all the city’s public libraries, and mailed out to area educators.  Congratulations, Jessica!”
Yay!
