Responses: Replies
Bronstein, Zelda
I end my article by calling for a better feminist conversation. Joanne Barkan's response is what I have in mind, not because I agree with everything she says—I don't—but because she meets the...
...At the same time, Rosen not only recognizes that feminists have made mistakes but admits to some complicity in those errors...
...Here are some of the other assumptions that inform my argument: Health care reform is a profoundly democratic issue...
...Barkan persuades me that my premises need clarification, and, in one instance, a significant edit...
...Contrary to Barkan's claim, I consider not only when and how many feminists assessed Hillary Clinton's career in health care reform, but also how they went about it...
...Having now read her Mirabella piece, I retract any aspersions I cast on her for having hung back in her criticism...
...We need to go further and ask why those efforts turned out "such few numbers" and what tactics promise greater success...
...In fact, I expect American feminists to be—not leftists, but democrats (so strike "the rest of from the foregoing citation...
...She thinks I regard all feminists as leftists—a false impression that I partly attribute to my reference to "the women's movement and the rest of the left...
...It's the wish for such an exchange rather than the quest for a single-minded feminism that moved me to write "Feminist Pundits...
...A vigorous women's movement could have helped mobilize a campaign for publicly funded universal health care, with a host of feminist pundits helping to lead the way.* Feminist critics' treatment of Hillary Clinton offers lessons as to why such leadership didn't materialize in the last round, and what needs to change if it is to emerge in the next...
...A final note: Hillary Clinton wrote off singlepayer because, as Barkan observes, she's not a SUMMER • 1997 • 103 Arguments leftist, but also—and of greater significance— because she and her husband came under negligible political pressure to support it...
...with it, we take partial responsibility for our current predicament and thereby open the possibility of moving beyond it...
...Pollitt insinuates that I simply pan her appraisals of Rodham Clinton, when actually I give them an emphatically mixed review...
...Given these common goals, it would have been more interesting if she had responded to my suggestions for revitalizing feminist politics...
...Along the same lines, what's missing from both Rosen's and Jong's accounts of the politics of health care reform is any consideration of how feminists may have abetted the victory won by "Harry and Louise" and their corporate sponsors...
...thus I expect it to interest feminists...
...Rosen's comments about feminists' efforts in behalf of poor women and children are well-taken—as far as they go...
...In other words, I'm looking for an all-out debate over feminist politics...
...I'll echo it again, in paraphrased form, as a query for Pollitt herself: why not try a more collaborative approach to (feminist) discourse...
...Among other things, I approvingly echo her request that feminists "try something different" from the adulation of pro-choice dignitaries...
...Political nepotism threatens democratic accountability...
...Rosen and Jong, moreover, make far too many excuses for Hillary Clinton...
...The question whose answer could make a political difference is: how do we fight back...
...As Ehrenreich realizes, we share some major political commitments...
...Single-payer is the most equitable model of health insurance available...
...therefore I expect feminists to question it...
...104 • DISSENT...
...Without such an acknowledgment, we remain stuck in a morass of self-righteousness...
...On the other hand, it's hard to see how the political dialogue is advanced by the quibbling, acutely personal replies of Katha Pollitt and Barbara Ehrenreich...
...The problem wasn't only that most feminist commentators said "too little, too late...
...Of course, as Rosen and Jong contend, the insurance industry marshaled a formidable opposition—what else would we expect...
...Joanne Barkan's response is what I have in mind, not because I agree with everything she says—I don't—but because she meets the issues, and does so in a manner that invites real dialogue...
...Barkan's rejoinder is a welcome, regrettably rare exception...
...therefore I expect feminists to endorse it...
...If feminists aren't democrats and/or don't support single-payer and/or resign themselves to official nepotism, especially the marital variety, I want to know why...
...By contrast, Erica Jong and Ruth Rosen, with whom I have some major differences, do address broader issues of rhetoric and political strategy...
...I put the same question to Ehrenreich...
...While they were at it, they could have helped formulate an argument that spoke in an American idiom, pointing out, for example, that in a corporatized medical economy, patients' freedom of choice requires government protection...
...It turns out that her "grave misgivings" about me pertain to my having seen only one of her numerous attacks on Hillary Clinton and hence having concluded that she has been too generous to the First Lady...
...The fact is, however, that I also laud both her mordant characterization of the Clinton plan and her critique of feminist truckling to the White House...
...it was their unwillingness to confront hard questions...
Vol. 44 • July 1997 • No. 3
