New York -- Katha Pollitt opens the door to her Upper West Side apartment and immediately the warmth of her personality spills out into the tiny hallway. She is barefoot, a short, solid figure wearing loose black pants and a white overblouse. Her pulled-back brown hair is escaping in narrow strands, falling over her wide, expressive eyes and scrubbed face.
"Would you like a cup of tea?" she asks, as she leads you into her cozy, cluttered apartment. It is an apartment that, like its owner, telegraphs a sense of a lived-in life.
Some might say a well-lived-in life.
There's a Christmas tree in the dining room, four cats engaged in various stages of sleeping or prowling, books everywhere, paintings on the wall, musical instruments coexisting side-by-side with a computer and fax machine and, hovering above all this, a pleasant sense of slight disarray. There's also a 7-year-old daughter on her way home from school, a soon-to-be ex-husband living around the corner and a male companion -- a philosophy teacher and art critic -- who's just left for work.
In other words, Katha Pollitt, a 45-year-old award-winning poet, writer and social critic, is a woman whose day-to-day life mirrors the lives of a lot of women. Which may be one of the reasons her columns and essays on women and feminism -- which appear in the Nation, the New Yorker and the New York Times -- have attracted a devoted, if limited, following over the last several years.
Now, however, with the recent publication of "Reasonable Creatures" -- a collection of her wry, original and down-to-earth meditations on the state of women in our society -- Katha Pollitt appears on the verge of emerging as one of feminism's clearest and most popular voices.
Of course, insiders in the publishing world and the feminist community have long recognized the value and originality of Katha Pollitt's voice. But the new book, which is being highly praised, promises to introduce that voice to the millions of women who don't know Camille Paglia from Pagliacci and admit to being confused about what feminism actually means.
For such women, Katha Pollitt's lucid definition of feminism will arrive like a cool breeze in the middle of a desert:
"For me, to be a feminist is to answer the question 'Are women human?' with a yes," she writes in the introduction to her book. "It is not about whether women are better than, worse than or identical with men. . . . It's about justice, fairness and access to the broad range of human experience."
Making connections
Deborah Garrison, a senior editor at the New Yorker, is an ardent admirer of Ms. Pollitt's ability to connect with women at every level.
"Regular women can relate to what she writes," says Ms. Garrison, who commissioned Ms. Pollitt to write a 1993 review (a highly critical review, as it turned out) of Katie Roiphe's book, "The Morning After," which examined sexual politics on college campuses. "But she's also a brilliantly clear writer of her opinions. And for readers who don't know what to believe it's wonderful for them to be able to read something so clear and see what they think about it."
"Katha Pollitt puts the lie to the portrait drawn of feminists by anti-feminists," says Susan Faludi, author of "Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women." "Anti-feminists say feminists are humorless. She's one of the funniest, wittiest writers around. Anti-feminists say feminists are all lock step and tout the same narrow line, whereas Katha Pollitt's work is always original and complex."
"She's wonderful," says Gloria Steinem of Ms. Pollitt. "And I think she has a special contribution to make. She is a voice that is respected within an influential part of the liberal community, one that just won't let them get away without looking at the world as if women mattered."
"She's somebody who really thinks things through," says novelist and Time magazine essayist Barbara Ehrenreich. "And she is one of the sharpest polemicists in the women's movement."
And what does the object of all this affection have to say? At the moment, she is sitting in her living room, feet tucked beneath her, sipping tea, pondering the answer to this question: Why do so many men -- and women, too -- attach a negative connotation to the word "feminism"?
"It's important to see how much of our ideas are constructed for us by the world around us, by the media," Ms. Pollitt says. And when it comes to feminism, she adds, the media has portrayed it inaccurately.
"Feminists are portrayed as man-hating -- in two contrary ways. One is the woman who is sexual the way a man is sexual -- too aggressive and demanding. And then there's the contrary stereotype which is feminism as man-hating lesbian. In the case of Hillary Clinton, for example, we find both of these stereotypes applied to her at the same time."
Katha Pollitt pauses before delivering the punch line between laughs: "I think that saying you are a feminist will not get you dates."
Nowhere is the stereotype of the sexually predatory woman more visible right now than in the wildly popular "Disclosure," a film that centers on a female boss who harasses her male employee.
"I saw it," she says, "and it's the world's silliest movie. But it was fun while I watched it."
White men and power
As for the subtext of the movie -- that white men have no power anymore -- Ms. Pollitt has a few choice words. "They still have all the power. Or at least 90 percent of it. You can look anywhere you want and you'll see white men over-represented in every desirable position in society. And even these little inroads by women and blacks and minorities has them running very scared."
And angry, too. In fact, 1995 may well turn out to be the Year of the Angry White Man. Seems like only yesterday when it was 1992 and everyone was talking about the Year of the Woman. Now, only three years after that heady Year of the Woman, some people are claiming that feminism is dead. Conservative commentator William F. Buckley Jr. argued recently on "Firing Line" that feminism has been a disaster. Ms. Pollitt gives a more mixed assessment of feminism's impact.
"I would say there are areas in which feminism has been extremely successful," she says. "I think that it's been quite a socially revolutionary force at the individual level -- even for women who don't think of themselves as feminists. It's raised women's expectation of the amount of respect they're due in life, both from other women and from men. And it's raised their sights in terms of what they can accomplish in the world of work."
She is less enthusiastic, however, about feminism's influence on electoral politics. It's a somewhat surprising assessment given the popular view that women have made enormous strides in this area.
"The fact is, it's pretty amazing how few women there are even now in elected offices," she says. "And it's also kind of amazing if you actually look at the women who are in office. A lot of them are not so feminist . . ." She stops and laughs. "There's a lot of packaging of people who are out to get the women's vote but who are not particularly gung-ho about any of this."
Anyone in particular come to mind?
She pauses and thinks, a habit she has before answering a question. "Oh, I would say Dianne Feinstein comes to mind," she says, laughing again. "I would say there's not a whole lot of energy and focus being placed on the problems and needs of American women, especially those outside the social classes to which the politicians themselves belong. But all of politics is like this in America. If it doesn't affect the middle class or upper middle class, it doesn't get talked about."
In her book, Ms. Pollitt writes of "women's raised expectations of marriage" resulting from feminism's gains. Are men now in the position of expecting less from marriage, she is asked?
"What do you mean by 'less?' " she asks back.
Less separation from the daily life of housework and child-care, for one thing, and less deferring by women to their wishes and opinions for another.
"I think women have changed more than men as a result of feminism," she says slowly, picking her words carefully. "And while both sexes have a lot to gain from more equality, women have more to gain than men do."
Men gain, too
As for what men have to gain, Ms. Pollitt says three things spring to mind instantly. "One of them is that to be the single breadwinner is a very stressful, really dangerous place to be. It's just a whole different world when you don't have to go out and earn all the money."
Spending more time with one's children, she says, is another important gain for men. "The more you are involved with them in a daily way the more they love you. And to be loved by your children and to know them is one of the most wonderful experiences in life."
The third big gain for men, as she sees it, is that equality improves their relations with women. "They'll have women who they can actually talk to about their real-life problems. And they can get through life together instead of in these kinds of hostile preservations of privilege that some men end up invested in."
Of course, equality for women is what Katha Pollitt is all about. The title for her book, in fact, is taken from Mary Wollstonecraft, who wrote in the 18th century: "I wish to see women neither heroines nor brutes but reasonable creatures." To which Ms. Pollitt adds: "Human beings, in other words. No more, no less."
"I think Katha Pollitt represents what she might call 'equality' feminism," says Barbara Ehrenreich. "She represents a point of view, which I share, that mentally, intellectually, emotionally there's not that much difference between the sexes. This distinguishes her from the difference feminists who say women are intellectually different, think a different way and have a superior emotional or moral sensibility."
As much as anything else, it is this humanist philosophy that separates Ms. Pollitt's ideas from the ideas of other feminists: from the anti-porn feminists such as lawyer Catherine MacKinnon; from the current and trendy "feminists have got to stop whining" faction as exemplified by Camille Paglia, Naomi Wolf and Katie Roiphe; and from the so-called "difference feminists" such as Carol Gilligan, author of the much-admired book, "In a Different Voice," and Deborah Tannen, author of the best-selling "You Just Don't Understand: Men and Women in Conversation."
Different approaches
Because few people really understand exactly what Catherine MacKinnon or Camille Paglia are about, it is Ms. Pollitt's differences with the "difference" feminists that have drawn the most attention. Unlike Carol Gilligan, she does not believe that women by nature possess particular virtues -- such as compassion, patience, common sense, nonviolence -- while men not. And that these virtues cause women to speak in a different (read: morally superior) voice.
Ms. Pollitt answers such a claim with an observation and a question: "It is as though women don't really believe they are entitled to full citizenship unless they can make a special claim to virtue," she writes. "Why isn't being human enough?"
Still, Carol Gilligan has her own riposte to Ms. Pollitt's lunge.
"There really is a difference between equality feminism and difference feminism," says Ms. Gilligan. "And the difference is that equality feminism tends to want as the 'human standard' what, up to now, has been to be like men. . . . Equality feminism says women have been left out and deserve to be fully human -- which is like men. Difference feminism says that to bring women in is to reopen the question of what it means to be human."
Katha Pollitt acknowledges that Ms. Gilligan's ideas have been helpful to many women. "There's no question that her ideas have helped some women claim more space, claim more respect and take themselves more seriously. As I said in my book, speaking in a different voice is a big step up from silence."
Taking herself seriously and speaking out has never been a problem for Katha Pollitt, who grew up in Brooklyn. Her father, a lawyer, was Protestant; her mother, a real estate agent, was Jewish. Neither of them, she says, practiced any religion. As for herself: "I'm a militant atheist," she says.
From the beginning her parents encouraged her to think for herself. "They never gave me the message that you grow up, you get married, that you have to get a man by pretending to be less intelligent than you are -- which was a very common idea in young girls then and, I'm sure, still is in many cases now," she says. "So I think I had some freedom to think about what I would want in life that wasn't so determined by fitting into some role."
Her heroes when she was growing up? She laughs. "Let's see. Who did I admire? Well, I admired Byron, Keats, Emma Goldman and Emily Bronte." The first feminist figure she was aware of was Kate Millet. "I read 'Sexual Politics' in 1970 and it put into a framework of ideas all the feelings I had."
In 1972 she graduated from Radcliffe with a degree in philosophy and moved back to New York. For several years she worked at a series of publishing and writing jobs during the day and at night pursued what mattered most to her: writing poetry. In 1983 her collection of poems, "Antarctic Traveller," won the National Book Critics Circle Award.
"I haven't written a poem in a couple of years," she says now. "Which is sad for me. I have to get back to that."
She has been asked to write another book -- "I'm waiting for an idea to come to me," she says -- and plans to continue her biweekly column in the Nation. Her focus, as always, will be on women. Her motive, as always, her passion for social justice.
"People become feminists because they feel there's a need for ** justice, for change, for experimentation in their personal life," she says. "It isn't just a matter of 'Oh, I wish it were easier to find a baby sitter.' I think the practical needs women have in terms of combining work and child-care, in terms of fairness after divorce, in terms of equal pay and equal access to better jobs -- I think that's a lot of what feminism is all about."
THE AUTHOR SPEAKS
Author Katha Pollitt speaks out on . . .
* Women and careers: "In a society committed to sexual equality, single professional women would be applauded as pioneers. . . . In the current climate of anti-feminist backlash, however, they are loose cannons on the deck. Clearly, the hope in many quarters is that they will give up this careers nonsense if it is made sufficiently arduous, and get back under male 'protection' where they belong -- even though that protection, in terms of a guarantee of lifelong support, no longer exists."
* Male violence toward women: "A good guy who makes a mistake may seem poles apart from a monster, but at bottom both categories have the same effect -- they distance violence against women from the fabric of daily experience by making it seem unfathomable, bizarre and rare when really it is none of
those things. . . . What we should be asking is not how the most sensational crimes against women are different . . . but how they are the same."
* Family values and divorced parents: "I am still waiting for someone to explain why it would be better for my daughter to grow up in a joyless household than to live as she does now, with two reasonably cheerful parents living around the corner from each other, both committed to her support and cooperating in her care. We may not love each other, but we both love her. Maybe that's as much as parents can do for their children and all that should be asked of them."
* On motherhood: "We should not be surprised that motherhood does not produce uniform beliefs and behaviors: It is, after all, not a job; it has no standard of admission, and almost nobody gets fired."