CoL49 (5) Two or Three Things About Her

[Monte Davis]

 Michael Bailey sez:
 
> the whole piece is a well-executed spoof of the sort of 
> readymade backward glance one saw all thru the 70s...

That's strongest in the quoted passage, yes. The article as a whole
("Sharing, Caring, Relating: the Man-Woman Trend of Today") lampoons an
entire genre of lazy pop pseudo-sociology -- at least as old as Reader's
Digest, and well represented today, but flourishing especially in the 1970s
to the extent it coould pass for "New Journalism."  I quote again as it
turns self-referential:

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Nowhere was the new freedom felt more keenly than among magazine writers,
who turned their attention to the precise documenting of trends in "personal
growth" and in male-female relationships-- a doubly difficult task since,
before being documented, the trends had to be fabricated, often on the basis
of a single incident in the life of the writer or a friend. The birth of the
subgenre of "confessional journalism" was "an enormously fortunate thing for
writers," says book critic Bigby Deal, whose "How My Catharsis Made Me an
Even Greater and Famouser Sort of Person" appeared recently in Exchoir ("The
Magazine for Men Whose Voices Changed Some Time Ago"). "We discovered," says
Deal, "that we were free to carry on about our marriages, our divorces, our
affairs, as if people waiting to have porcelain jackets put on their back
molars were genuinely, passionately, urgently interested."

[One of those pilloried is Barbara Grizzuti Harrison ["Harrassing"], a
purveyor of the day to _New York_ and the _NY Times Magazine_ as well as
many other publications:]

... Harrassing rejects the suggestion that her brand of journalism trades
heavily in cliches. "Cliches just don't play an important role," she says.
"You see, I think we're really only beginning to understand some of the
things that have happened. In the '70s, after the peace movement and so on,
there was a kind of branching out, a seizing of possibilities. An
opportunity to go in some new directions. A freeing up, if you will. It was
an exciting period, because a lot of the old formulas simply didn't apply
anymore, and people almost needed to invent a new language in order to
address what was happening. I think it affected the way we all saw
ourselves. Women, in particular, began to understand their power differently
and to draw strength from each other. There was a great desire to create
alternative structures. Now, of course, I think you see a lot of people
turning inward. A kind of retrenching is taking place, especially at the
community level. But, no, I don't think cliches have very much to do with
it."

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