Subject to Debate: Sense and Dissents on Women, Politics, and Culture (review)

Subject to Debate: Sense and Dissents on Women, Politics, and Culture by Katha Pollitt. New York: Modern Library, 2001, 332 pp., $13.95 paper.

"What if, instead of talk show politics, we had politics?" This almost forlorn plea concludes Katha Pollitt's essay assessing the frenetic and misguided energy surrounding the first O.J. Simpson trial. It is a rare but telling moment of wistfulness from Pollitt, one of the sharpest and least sentimental political analysts in the United States today. Her latest work, Subject to Debate: Sense and Dissents on Women, Politics, and Culture, consists of 88 essays Pollitt contributed to The Nation between 1994 and 2000; she finds in these years of O.J. and Newt, Bill and Monica, "welfare reform" and "family values," anti-abortion violence and the rebirth of creationism, provocative opportunities for critical investigation. These essays bear the essence of Pollitt's mission: the clever presentation of biting political analysis designed to provoke, not just careful thinking, but also concerted political action.

Also included in this volume is an excellent introductory essay, "Feminism at the Millennium," where Pollitt offers a trenchant reminder that feminism is--or should be--connected to other progressive movements: quite simply, "Gender equality requires general equality" (xxi). Indeed, Pollitt's essays are at their best when they address the complex relationship between sexism and economic inequality. Accordingly, some of the most pointed essays in this anthology concern poverty and welfare reform, the implications of the shrinking of abortion access for poor women, and the "fantasy" of promoting adoption as a "large-scale alternative to abortion" (118).

As the title of the volume promises, Pollitt provides much for readers to debate. Pollitt's work will undoubtedly energize courses on American politics or Women's Studies, and her brisk style of argumentation will provide invaluable lessons for undergraduates studying expository writing. As should be expected in a collection of six years of editorial columns, the essays are a little uneven, but careful selection is greatly rewarded. Pollitt's essays are generally more acute than groundbreaking; her contribution to contemporary debates lies less in the promotion of revolutionary new ideas than in the illumination of how narrowly political questions are framed. Much of the power behind these essays is found in Pollitt's ability to wittily sharpen the edges of one's own capacity for social analysis. This is no mean achievement, particularly in a social order determined to dull one's sensitivities to the world of politics.

Pollitt's commentary on American politics is consistently marked by a refusal to accept easy answers to complex problems. This sentiment animates her critiques of the nostalgia for a mythical "American family," the admonishment of "personal responsibility" as a solution for poverty, and the over-reliance on feminist identity politics. Such flawed inclinations obscure political reality, Pollitt argues, and insulate unjust institutions and attitudes from proper critical assessment. Pollitt delights in shining the bright light of reason on the absurdities expressed by figures such as Rudy Giuliani, Camille Paglia, Phyllis Schlafly, and Charles Murray.

Refreshingly, Pollitt displays little patience with the lack of courage and conviction demonstrated by those expected to be her political allies. This set of criticisms is often part of a broader argument concerning the dependence of the left on electoral politics. For example, in a 1995 essay, "Where Are the Women We Voted For?" Pollitt is sharply critical of the manner in which the newly elected female Democratic members of Congress rebuked their most ardent supporters by supporting the "Republican-backed welfare bill" (77). "It is good," Pollitt instructs her readers, "to lose your illusions" and thereby confront the limitations of a political strategy that invests so much time and money supporting the Democratic Party. "Why not try something different for a change" (79)? While Pollitt candidly admits that she does not have all the answers needed to revitalize progressive politics, she is clear about two...