Edina Monsoon Syndrome

Marisa Meltzer is a brilliant writer, and a bunch of rich-hippie women (think the "Moon Juice" lady or, if you're not as tragically plugged into these controversies as I am, think GOOP) going into the wilderness to revel in pseudoscience is a wonderful, must-click-now topic. So when the moment in the day came to read something with no (immediate) work-related purpose, I devoured Meltzer's Harper's Bazaar feature on the Spirit Weavers Gathering. At it is even more of a gem-filled extravaganza than one might expect; see the Jezebel aggregation the gem-only version. (Basically, weird stuff involving IUDs and menstrual blood, plus the opportunity to purchase $400 dresses.)

But! There is handwringing. Just after retweeting the piece (which I totally meant it as an endorsement), I came across journalist Annie Lowrey's tweets, criticizing the piece for misogyny and shady ethics. (The rich-hippie women hadn't known Meltzer was a journalist. From Meltzer's article: "There's one woman at camp I've met before; she knows I'm a writer, so I keep hiding behind trees to avoid her, like I'm in a Looney Tunes cartoon.") And this seemed sort of... true, and in keeping with my own squicked-out-ed-ness at the nude photos embedded in the story. Yes, these were - are! - public and on Instagram. But in a specific context. I know it seems absurd to call any part of the internet a safe space for attractive young women to publicly post nude photos of themselves, but in a sense, maybe? Maybe not? Gah!

And yes, absolutely yes, there's a super-specific misogyny that involves (generally well-off, generally white) women (and men) bashing other women for being wealthy and white. More on that... later.

Then, though, there's the counter-qualm case: Would Meltzer get any of this criticism if she were a male journalist? (Upon reflection: Probably!)

Meanwhile, the less-enthusiastic aspects of my own response were mostly of a different nature. Here's the passage that jumped out:

[I]t seems like the vast majority—85 percent or 90 percent—of women here are white. The employees of the camp, the women who clean the toilets, are Hispanic. At some point during the weekend there's a talking circle for Spirit Weavers of color—which seems like a lost opportunity for a larger discussion about race, class, access, carelessness, privilege and probably a lot of other things I'm failing to mention.

Gah! Nonono! The thing you want to do, if you've gathered all the clueless rich hippie white women in one place, is not, definitely not, to have them discuss the social issues of the day. Should they really be encouraged to discuss (and thus Instagram discussions of) "privilege"? Think of Mischa Barton's yacht post! It would all be highly stylized and counterproductive and even if productive would look counterproductive and wind up shaming these women into never caring about the outside world ever again.

And then there's the inevitable problematic nature of rich-hippie dabbling. Meltzer's particularly worked up about the level of "cultural appropriation":

I know that people get up in arms when white girls wear feather headdresses to Coachella. At Spirit Weavers there were many white kids running around dressed like Tiger Lily in Peter Pan, with a single feather attached to a headband and moccasins on their feet. I can't tell if all the good intentions at Spirit Weavers make it any better.

And here's where I'm just not sure. It's not that I don't think symbolic or cultural items can be racist, or that people who aren't themselves members of the group in question can never comment on what counts as bigotry. (That Yale window? Super racist!) But... is anyone other than Meltzer offended by the "hodgepodge of cultures and spirituality: Indian music, Japanese incense, Moroccan rugs, all inside a Mongolian yurt"? Is she offended? Or is this - and I find the "I know that people get up in arms" bit telling - about her knowing that this is the sort of thing that will get people - mainly people who aren't Native American, and who aren't otherwise invested in being allies to that particular demographic - riled up?

Meltzer calls out the festival for hypocrisy: "A back-to-the-land weekend is perfect for resting and socializing. Do we really have to pretend we're changing the world at the same time?" But are they pretending this? How can they be bad, insufficiently intersectional feminists if "feminism" is "not a word [she] heard used more than once or twice at the festival"? That is, if it's not even claiming to be feminist? This seems like a conflation of categories. The rich-hippie earth-mama thing isn't inherently progressive, nor is there much reason to believe a woman, say, homeschooling six kids in the wilderness while raising organic coriander or whatever would be liberal. Are these women hypocrites? Or are they just... engaged in an activity that's kind of hilarious and a worthy candidate of gentle mockery? Is it that it's impossible to call the women out for silliness without arguing there's something politically problematic about their silliness?

In any case, it was (clearly) a thought-provoking read. So much so that I could go on, but maybe better to just suggest others read it for themselves.

Southwest Williamsburg

-Williamsburg - sorry, North Williamsburg - is being ruined by visitors from New Jersey. Guilty as charged. For some of us car-possessing interlopers from what I will now start calling Southwest Williamsburg, it's just cheaper and easier to get there than to lower Manhattan.

-Thank you, Gawker, for bringing this story to our attention. A Canadian professor insists on teaching only "serious" literature, which by his definition must come from straight, white, middle-aged men. And he hasn't, it seems, been misquoted (although, condensed and edited...), nor, more surprisingly, is he some creation of the left. It's actually more interesting than the gaffe-ness of it all may first seem. If nothing else, he more or less confirms what everyone suspects, namely that the reason for diversity among professors is precisely that people do gravitate towards writers/stories they identify with for boring demographic reasons. And thus that there isn't something objectively superior about the literary production of this one demographic category.

-It is my hope/prediction that "Into The Gloss" will have a Lena Dunham "Top Shelf" in the near future. (They've profiled the fashion designer who's her boyfriend's sister. We're getting there.) Until then, a slideshow of an unknown actress named Gwyneth somethingorother. Who now smokes one cigarette a day, or whoever wrote that post didn't do proper fact-checking on this most important matter.

Gwyneth Paltrow's fitness guru smokes one cigarette a lifetime

Dear Her-Gwynethness,

You are officially the patron saint of women who don't need to lose any weight going on diets all the same because it's somehow more feminine to be hungry all the time. But I suppose we can't really hold you accountable for the words of your colleague/friend/body-morpher (a positive role model, this one, on account of having smoked precisely one cigarette in her life, as vs. you, naughty Gwyneth) Tracy Anderson:

I agreed to meet with Gwyneth, and she said, ‘I’ve got this movie coming up where I have to be a superhero.’ It was the very first Iron Man. She said, ‘I know you have a son—I just had Moses—and I can’t get this weight off. I’ve never had a problem like this in my life.’ She had 35 extra pounds on her. Her butt was long and she had outer thigh problems. Gwyneth is lucky because she’s really tall, so she can hide it really well in clothes, but she had significant problem areas. I felt so badly for her, and thought I could really help.

Journalists are already at work investigating what this "long butt" problem consists of. This is an altogether new complaint about the female body, so Anderson wins points for inventing an insecurity none of us would have thought up on our own. Not knowing what "long butt" entails (tails?), how can any of us know if right this very moment, we've got this flaw? The safest bet would be to sign up for Anderson's butt-shortening guruship.

"Outer thigh problems," though, is less mysterious. It just means "a post-adolescent woman with legs."

"Slimming secrets"

Gwyneth Paltrow. Did you know that she smokes one cigarette a week? Why yes you did, but she was worried you may have forgotten about her charming quirk, or her self-control humblebrag, or whatever that tidbit is supposed to convey.

Whichever contingent of celeb-watchers concern-trolls Paltrow's health might want to focus more on her "cleansing." But more to the point, as impacts people other than this mysterious-yet-ubiquitous famous person: why is Gwyneth Paltrow giving diet advice? "Actress and lifestyle guru Gwyneth Paltrow shares her slimming secrets." How can one have "slimming secrets" if one has never, in one's well-documented life thus far, been fat?

But this seems to be Paltrow's niche: advising already-thin women (who are not celebrities, and whose careers in no way require this) how to lose weight. What's surprising, in this latest installment, is that the pretense of 'health' seems just about abandoned. "A detox is a great place to start before a diet," she writes (or 'writes,' whatever), and while she has found a doctor to spout this nonsense, it's clear enough where the priorities lie.