Benefits — Review by Chris

I first read Zoe Fairbairns’ novel Benefits when I was in college, only a few years after it had been published. It was riveting, stunning and very much a snapshot of the modern 1970s feminist movement.

Since then, from time to time, I tried to find a copy of the book — which was harder than I anticipated. I finally purchased my own copy this month and was able to re-read it .

My response in the new century was mixed. The story remained as interesting as it did the first time around. However, the character development was more stilted than I remembered.

Don’t get me wrong: it’s a great book and worth reading. In fact, I think every woman should read it if only to understand how precious our bodies are and how little we should trust a government that wants to control them. However, readers must get ready for a static feminism (which in itself is an oxymoron).

The story itself remains compelling. In Benefits, the British government from the 1970s through the new millennium tries to “manage” its women using many of the typical tools of government: money, policy, social stigma. A few strong personalities get involved and bring about chilling changes.

First, women are encouraged to leave their schools and jobs and have children, and the government will pay the women "benefits," money taken out of the general coffers (and ultimately is a tax removed from paychecks to be given to those who do not receive paychecks). Unfortunately, the government thinks the “wrong rats” are having children and steps in again to control and encourage behavior with money and government policy. Finally, the government uses money and policy to require the implanting of permanent birth control devices, which may be removed only by the government. (To do otherwise is to risk one’s life and body, women are told.) Finally, doctors don’t have to rely on women’s bodies anymore to prevent pregnancy — with catastrophic results.

The men in the government making these decision evolve and adapt. The women, on the other hand, do not. In the real world, we can see how women have fought and evolved and kept themselves in "the game," sometimes even evolving "the game." It's not equal, and I don't know if it ever will be. Every time I get a mammogram, I think the procedure would be vastly different if men had to get them — my point being that many things would be different if men experienced them the way women did.

But back to the book. While men in this book grow, women never evolved beyond the mid-1970s. According to the author, feminists are static creatures who cannot rally around a leader, who cannot agree on a single idea, who cannot even have a meeting unless everyone agrees. The women in this tale congregate in an old abandoned high-rise they turn into a commune, and the commune and its people never change. It’s a utopian society in which individuals in massive numbers agree to live by these chaotic rules.

The egalitarian co-op sans leader was very real in my undergraduate years, and I saw it work effectively in my school's women’s studies program. The school required a department head, and while the women didn’t implement a hierarchy, they “appointed” a “leader” who would fulfill that need of the university. This was one of many ways they adapted.

The feminists in Benefits did not evolve or adapt. They continued to do the same things year after year, generation after generation. Young feminists, teenagers young enough to be the first generation’s daughters (or granddaughters, maybe) were exactly the same as their foremothers. This static behavior is unrealistic and detrimental to the cause — not to mention that the next generation always bucks, as was evident in a particular mother-daughter relationship featured in the book. Having every woman agree to a single structure, live harmoniously in a huge commune and have the next generations rise through the ranks without a single iota of change or conflict was even more eerie than the results of the government’s womb control.

I still recommend the book, and I will ask my local library to include a copy or few on the shelves. (They’ve purchased books I’ve suggested in the past, so odds are good there might be a copy for you to borrow soon.) However, some parts of it are dated — and while it might be a regular occurrence of mainstream men’s science fiction, it seems a disappointment for feminist science fiction. I hope to find other fem sci fi that goes against this grain.

Do other readers of science fiction find this a universal issue throughout the genre, where later readings of beloved science fiction stories suffer in modern light?

I Feel Bad About My Neck: and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman—Review by Carole

I appreciate Nora Ephron’s sense of humor. Although my exposure to it has been limited, until now, to the movies she writes, such as When Harry Met Sally or Sleepless in Seattle, she has a sensibility that I find charming.

In her book, she comments on what aging has been like for her and I think she brings to mind what all women go through to some extent or another.

While I disagree with her politics and her views on marriage, her observations on aging were wryly amusing. My sisters-in-law and I discussed this as our book club book in September. Everyone enjoyed reading it, and we had a great time chatting about it.

They laughed at me because I had employed my sticky note method. Do you know this one? You get the skinny strips of Post Its, which come in lots of fun colors, and you tab the pages and write your comments on them. For this book, I picked a sunny yellow color to match the book’s cover. Geeky? Sure. But fun? You bet!

Invaluable for book club chats—it sure beats spending what precious time you have to talk about a book thumbing through the book, mumbling, “I really like the part where she says something funny about something…wait, I’ll find it.” Only you can never find it when you want to, by the time you do, the conversation has moved on. I think my book tabs keep the conversation going, and we’ve been able to get more in depth with our chats because we can talk about specifics.

This tab method works especially well with a book that is essentially a chat between the writer and the reader. It’s like I’m contributing to her conversation. Ephron mentions how, early in her married life (her first marriage), she became imaginary friends with all of the great chefs of the day as she tackled one cooking endeavor after another. I could relate as I have been known to daydream about chatting with chefs who tell me that my touch of tarragon really did improve their recipe. I read a quote by her that reveals all you need to know on this topic, “Whenever I get married, I start buying Gourmet magazine.”

Ephron observed trends that I have spoken about at length to girlfriends—one in particular, the sprouting of nail salons in every strip shopping center in America, seemingly overnight. This usually comes up in conversation as we are sitting in one such salon getting our mani/pedis. A few short years ago they didn’t exist, and now we can’t seem to do without them. I’m not sure if that is a good thing or not, but I do love how my French pedicure looks with sandals! Chris has blogged about this herself. We all seem to be conflicted by something that is purely unnecessary in our daily lives, yet so wonderful we don’t want to be without it.

In the book, Ephron also waxes philosophic about waxing and many other beauty regimen essentials. Should you have plastic surgery? What kind? Do you get injections? What kind? From her first assertion that the neck starts to go at 43 (uh oh!), I was fascinated. It’s like reading the exploits of someone who has traveled to a destination you are contemplating. I figure—Ephron has negotiated a few twists and turns on the aging road that I haven’t encountered yet, so if she can provide me a bit of a roadmap, it would be folly for me not to study it a bit.

A quick read of an afternoon, maybe longer if you take the time to use sticky notes, I Feel Bad About My Neck offers some humorous as well as touching insights into what aging is like for women today. It would be a great gift for a girlfriend turning a significant birthday, much better than a gag gift of prunes and Geritol. (Does any woman find that funny, ever? Seriously?)

Banned Book Week: September 29 - October 6

As a child, I was a voracious reader. I left the children's section of the library at a very young age (and am making up for it now by reading youth and juvenile fiction — let that be a lesson to you, young reader!).

My parents never really told me what I could read, although my dad thought I was a little young at age 7 to understand "pregnant lips" in Sonnets from the Portuguese (though I suspect it's because my questions embarrassed him). I always showed my library books to my mom, who, when I was 11, did tell me she thought I should wait until I was older to read Helter Skelter.

Because of that freedom, I cannot imagine someone else telling me what I should be allowed to read.

Public libraries are the great equalizer, giving people access to many books, periodicals — and, through them, ideas. It's not up to the library to police its readers, but up to the readers (or, in the case of young readers, their parents) to determine what they themselves will read.

In short: if you don't like it, don't read it — and don't tell me what I can read. And by banning books from the public library, "concerned citizens" are doing just that.

Intellectual freedom is not something only the wealthy may attain because they can afford to buy the books banned from the libraries. And despite arguments to the contrary, most rational people can tell the difference between Heather Has Two Mommies and Hustler magazine.

The argument that public funds should not be used to purchase "objectionable material" is ludicrous. I've read government budgets. Talk about obscene! Pork barrel projects alone are more objectionable than And Tango Makes Three. A close look at the content of your local government budget or capital improvements program report can shock you more than Are you There, God? It's Me, Margaret.

I'm not even keen on computer filters that prevent people from accessing Web sites. Sensitive filters prevent access to important and perfectly tame materials, kind of like the e-mail filter that "junked" my e-mail to Carole because I used the word "love." (Really.) Library computers should be in a very public place in plain sight of librarians and other library patrons — who, if someone goes somewhere inappropriate and starts watching live, er, "things you wouldn't watch in front of your grandmother," will object and the offender will be stopped.

If you think your fellow patrons will be silent, just remember: these are the same people who have tried to ban Go Ask Alice and everything Harry Potter.

The week of September 29 through October 6 is Banned Book Week, and the American Library Association Office of Intellectual Freedom suggests people all read one or more of the books on the Top 10 Banned Books list.

I read The Chocolate War when I was a young adult, and I was amazed at its power. I also read three books that were bumped from this year's list: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Of Mice and Men and The Catcher in the Rye.

I plan to visit my library tomorrow to check out one of the books on this year's list — or on the list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books 1990-2000. Hopefully I'll have to put the book on hold because it's been checked out already.