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November 1, 2015

How a Feminist Icon Fell From Grace or Vagina: A Book Review

Vagina: A New BiographyVagina: A New Biography by Naomi Wolf

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


Oh dear … in short: this book did not just fail to live up to my expectations, it made me very angry. That is because it is one of these frustrating texts that, while they claim to present an objective – even scientific – argument, are actually all about some personal issue of the author. In this case we have some weird hybrid of evangelist text, (pseudo-)scientific pamphlet and polemic against second wave feminism. What? Why? Huh? Well, when Wolf had a sexual crisis, she prayed to whatever god would listen, modern medicine answered her call, and revealed to her the poorly understood connections between the female sexual organs and the brain via pelvic nerve structures which she hence forth believed to be THE answer to all of female sexuality and suppression. As I said, oh dear!

So like a proper chosen one she brings it upon herself to preach this gospel. Not appealing to belief of course – we're not in the dark ages – but to science. The Scientific method, however, seems to be a foreign concept to her. Science in her book is apparently a mere tool to hammer home your own preconceived ideas. To this end she utilizes every tool in the box of bad scientific argument: cherry picking evidence, misrepresenting facts, gross oversimplification, broad generalization, confirmation bias, putting words in to people's mouths ...

Let's stay with the putting words into people's mouth thing for a moment, because that was where she really got me angry. I was still unsure about whether or not to give her the benefit of the doubt when she introduced her claims about women's creative and assertive potential or lack thereof being tied to orgasmic dopamine release. What about other things that cause dopamine release? What about, say, asexual women? It sounds a lot like she would tell them they are not really asexual, there is just something wrong with their pelvic nerve.

Anyway, when she then went on to claim that men of all cultures had 'unconsciously' conspired to suppress this potential by violating women's vaginas and restricting knowledge about female sexual organs, the last shreds of credibility went out the window. There is simply a much less ludicrous explanation for this: the androcentric world view, ignorance, and objectification of women that come with patriarchy as we know it.

Especially the patronizing way she talks about the experience of survivors of sexual violence quite frankly drives me up the wall. Not once does she cite their views. From the arguments she makes I can not deduce whether she ever even bothered to discuss her claims with them personally. All we get are her own observations about their behaviour and the conversations about them she had with helpers, medical professionals and shady gurus – conversations that are very much manipulative in the sense that she makes excessive use of driving questions and rephrases answers to fit her hypothesis.

And the thing is, here too we already have conditions like PTSD and Chronic Pain Syndrome that adequately explain the phenomena she describes. And since PTSD would also account for the very similar experiences that male survivors of sexual violence have, it is the far likelier explanation. Of course Wolf conveniently ignores these males for the sake of her argument. Call me crazy, but when sufferer's own experiences are systematically disregarded like this, my alarm bells go off. Because that is the same type of rhetoric that the patriarchy (for lack of better term) employs: Let me tell you. I know best.

The other thing that especially riled me up was Wolf's inevitable excursion into history. Particularly this following sentence: 'No historian has conclusively explained how women lost status in the transition from the earliest civilizations to those of classical antiquity.' - Nobody has conclusively proven that women ever had this supposed higher status in the earliest civilizations in the first place. The evidence that is generally cited to support this argument consists merely of cultic images, figurines and fragmentary myths. A body of evidence that is very much open to and reliant upon interpretation. And the interpretation Wolf references does not hold up to scrutiny once you factor in other clues about these cultures – especially those that descent from the early indo-europeans who were evidently already patriarchal before the different branches split off. Not that you would get this impression from her jumbled foray into (pseudo-)linguistics where she will happily throw every word she can use from whatever branch of the indo-european language family into one pot and add the odd piece from the afro-asian family to taste. Why discriminate?

Well, of course she wouldn't want to ruin her carefully crafted picture of a mythical matriarchal past. Feminism's own garden of Eden that for some people – including Wolf – seems to fulfil a function similar to Dumbo's feather. A phenomenon I did encounter particularly among feminist theologians when I wrote my thesis on women in early Christianity. I for my part do not think we need to appeal to a matriarchal precedent in order to achieve gender equality and it does not serve anyone to foster delusions about the past. As a historian I am appalled at the disregard such co-option shows for the cultures in question.

As for the other parts of her argument, I would agree that female anatomy and sexual experience are far too little understood and communicated probably due to that fact that female experience is generally regarded as a lesser field of inquiry which all too often earns men ridicule and women the stigma of the 'crazy men hater'. Everything else about her argument though … I do not even know where to start with this mumbo jumbo. If you have no clue whatsoever and still feel the need to communicate your thoughts in book form, you would probably be better off writing a memoir or fiction. You do not go and try to sell this as universal, scientifically sound truth.

I particularly take issue with Wolf's insistence that a lack of 'high' or multiple orgasms – apparently only achievable in monogamous heterosexual relationships between a cisgender man and woman – impedes the realization of a woman's full human potential. In fact, according to Wolf a healthy fully realized women needs to stop taking the pill, find herself a nice traditional man who can take care of her and her womanly needs (= cliché romance involving vagina flowers???) and proceed to have lots of transcendental sex. Sex that is mere play and not a path to some kind of spiritual poetic transcendence on the other hand is somehow wrong. Apparently we and the men in our lives need some kind of semi-religious attitude towards the vagina in order to lead fulfilling lives!? Also I think I might puke if I hear the term 'goddess array' one more time.

In the end, if there is one thing I would want to say to Naomi Wolf it would be this: Speak for yourself and leave me out of your sex life! Thanks, but no thanks.



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