“To me the piece was a stunning example of journalistic malpractice, the kind that reinforces the public perception that deep down journalists think every story or major news event is somehow really all about them.
“McClelland, who covered Haiti for Mother Jones, has provided us with yet another clichéd, egocentric article about documenting unimaginably terrible things experienced by powerless, broken, poor people who are victimized on a regular basis. But here’s the rub, we get a mere few lines about the pain experienced by a Haitian rape victim named ‘Sybille’ but a long screed about McClelland’s pain, albeit with the provocative spin of needing violent sex to cure her of all that ails her. Sybille’s violent rape feeds McClelland’s need to feel victimized.”
— Marjorie Valbrun, Slate, “Mac McClelland: What’s Happening in Haiti Is Not About You”
“[W]hen other women speak out, our first reason shouldn’t be to punish or criticize our own. . . . When men write about their personal experiences and their observations and their roads to recovery and self-discovery, it’s a great American novel or a shining example of journalistic bravery. When women do it it’s narcissistic and selfish.”
— Jill Filipovic, Feministe, “But sometimes it is about you”
Well, let’s you and her fight, huh? It’s probably not necessary to say that I agree with Valbrun’s criticism of Mac McClelland and despise Filipovic’s girls-gotta-stick-together cheerleading. Implicit in Filipovic’s argument is not merely gynocentric tribalism — where all women must support the criticized woman, merely because she is a woman being criticized — but also feminism’s telltale gesture, an insistence that victimhood is the essence of the female experience.
My own reaction to McClelland’s article (other than sarcastic contempt) was a profound skepticism of her veracity as a reporter, inspired by an instinctive distrust of her dramatic “just-so story.” Rigoberto Menchu, Misha Defonseca, James Frey, “JT LeRoy,” Herman Rosenblat, Greg Mortenson — how many times do people have to see the fake-memoir saga re-enacted before they learn to recognize the aroma of bovine excrement? Continue reading Feminism, Victimhood, Therapy →
