{"id":757,"date":"2018-08-15T11:32:43","date_gmt":"2018-08-15T15:32:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/landishouse\/?p=757"},"modified":"2018-08-15T11:34:37","modified_gmt":"2018-08-15T15:34:37","slug":"book-review-penis-envy-and-other-bad-feelings-the-emotional-costs-of-everyday-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/officeofequityandinclusivity\/2018\/08\/15\/book-review-penis-envy-and-other-bad-feelings-the-emotional-costs-of-everyday-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Penis Envy and Other Bad Feelings: The Emotional Costs of Everyday Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

Penis Envy and Other Bad Feelings<\/a>: <\/em>it\u2019s a cheeky title for an elegant book. The latest contribution from Mari Ruti<\/a> includes a blend of \u201ctheoretical reflection, cultural critique, and political commentary with personal anecdotes\u201d (xxx). This combination makes for an illuminating perspective on gender, bad feelings, the consequences of consumer capitalism and neoliberalism, and the contemporary cultural moment. And, as Tajja Isen and Philip Sayers note in Ideas to Live by: A Conversation with Mari Ruti<\/a> in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Ruti writes with \u201c<\/em>disarming lucidity.\u201d <\/em>In fact, this book includes the most accessible explanation of Jacques Lacan<\/a>\u2019s work that I have ever read, as well as referencing Freud, Foucault, Barthes, and other gods of high theory.<\/p>\n

Ruti begins by demystifying the notion of \u201cpenis envy\u201d (x) by observing that it\u2019s not the actual penis itself that women envy but the \u201csocial prestige\u201d (xi) that attends the penis in its function \u201cas a socially valorized emblem of phallic\u201d power (x). In other words, the penis symbolizes the power of the heteropatriarchy and it\u2019s that power that is desirable. Ruti wonders \u201cwho cares what the equipment between your legs looks like?\u201d <\/em>(emphasis in original, xix), but notes that the world \u201ccontinues to allow social power to accrue to the possessor of the penis\u201d (xx). Ruti also asserts that men might feel penis envy as well if they \u201cfeel like they aren\u2019t able to exercise\u201d the power of the phallus, e.g. poor men, men of color (x, xxxiv).<\/p>\n

In the attempt to address our lack (of power, of the phallus), we employ coping mechanisms \u2013 the distraction of Netflix, the lure of instant gratification by shopping, for example. But the \u201cfinal coping mechanism\u201d Ruti identifies is \u201can individualist and positivity-centered social ethos that valorizes good performance, high productivity, constant self-improvement, and relentless cheerfulness\u201d (xxv). These characteristics \u00a0\u201chave one thing in common: they keep us moving\u201d (202), which is good for neoliberal consumer capitalism. We are promised that if we accede to this ethos, we will be rewarded with a good life and it is our \u201cfantasies of the good life that motivate our actions\u201d (xxxvi), even if the promise of good life doesn\u2019t actually or ever materialize. That results in the \u201cbad feelings\u201d mentioned in the title.<\/p>\n

Ruti is clear that she is talking about \u201csocially generated bad feelings,\u201d and especially \u201cones that arise from gender inequality\u201d \u2013 not \u201cbad feelings that arise from chemical imbalances or other physical factors and that consequently require medical intervention\u201d (xxxix).<\/p>\n

But, what keeps us on the hamster wheel of striving for the good life? For Ruti, one answer is Foucault\u2019s notion of biopolitics, which \u201cconsists of subtle control mechanisms that allow us to believe we\u2019re free to choose how we live when in face our choices have been largely predetermined by the political and economic needs of our society\u201d (2). This largely invisible \u201cideological apparatus\u201d directs us to thoughts, beliefs and behaviors that benefit neoliberal society, mostly without resorting to tyranny or anti-democratic repression (1-2).<\/p>\n

The book\u2019s wide-ranging topics include discussions of \u201cdominant happiness narratives\u201d (xlvi), gender obsession and the gender binary, the ways women are taught \u201cto eroticize their sexual objectification\u201d (xlviii), heteroporn, desire, anxiety, and \u201cthe paradoxes of neoliberalism\u201d (xlviii).<\/p>\n

Ruti acknowledges that she is, as we all are, complicit in the system. She \u201cwould not mourn the collapse of heteropatriarchy\u201d but \u201cwould definitely mourn the collapse of my DVD player\u201d (xxix), something that feels slightly hypocritical to her. Yet, she asserts \u2013 rightly, in my opinion \u2013 that \u201cparticipation in an unequal social order doesn\u2019t–and shouldn\u2019t–neutralize one\u2019s ability to condemn it\u201d (xxx). We can\u2019t help but participate in inequality because our society is constructed to produce inequality. But, we can try to resist or interrupt it by finding ways not to participate in the expected social ethos or behaviors. Our bad feelings might result in us “looking for ways to break patterns of living that are causing our dissatisfaction” (203).<\/p>\n

If you are interested in reading a smartly written, incisive, accessible, theoretically-informed, feminist take on the contemporary world with an emphasis on gender inequality, this is the book for you.<\/p>\n

Written by Donna M. Bickford, Ph.D., Director, Women\u2019s and Gender Resource Center
\nAugust 15, 2018<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Penis Envy and Other Bad Feelings: it\u2019s a cheeky title for an elegant book. The latest contribution from Mari Ruti includes a blend of \u201ctheoretical reflection, cultural critique, and political commentary with personal anecdotes\u201d (xxx). This combination makes for an illuminating perspective on gender, bad feelings, the consequences of consumer capitalism and neoliberalism, and the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2971,"featured_media":773,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[126327,77460,126312,126304],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gender-and-sexuality-studies","category-gender-equality","category-gender-parity","category-wgrc","alt-left"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/officeofequityandinclusivity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/officeofequityandinclusivity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/officeofequityandinclusivity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/officeofequityandinclusivity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2971"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/officeofequityandinclusivity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/officeofequityandinclusivity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/officeofequityandinclusivity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/officeofequityandinclusivity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/officeofequityandinclusivity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/officeofequityandinclusivity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}