I picked up Elizabeth Wurtzel’s Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women after reading a recent article she wrote in Harper’s Bazaar. It was kind of a silly article about how looking good makes you feel good, and apparently it really pissed off the staff of Bitch Magazine. But it reminded me that I always meant to read this book she had written in 1998. It reads like a strange 90’s pop culture time capsule. If you’re in the mood to read lengthy essays about how Amy Fisher deserved sympathy or how Hillary Clinton failed us by not doing much except being Bill’s wife, then this is your book! It’s fun to speculate about how EW’s opinions have changed about these women since ’98. Does she think the Secretary of State has redeemed herself by finally creating her own political career? Did she watch Amy Fisher on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew? Poor Amy hasn’t fared that well in the intermittent years. I believe Dr. Drew was helping her with sex addiction and substance abuse and various other issues. Her problems go way back before she met that dude in an auto shop.
But how many people still remember who Amy Fisher is? In the introduction alone, EW drops so many 90’s pop culture references that I doubt anyone younger than me would know what the f she was talking about. Laura Palmer? Tonya Harding? That Lorena Bobbitt lady who cut of her husband’s penis? Anyone would have nodded their heads during my high school and college years, but in 2012, this stuff is ancient history. So while reading her essays I could hear the writing instructors of my Columbia College days warning us not to rely on a pop culture reference to make a point. It dates your writing like nothing else will. And even though fashion designers are currently trying to bring back combat boots and all of the grunge nonsense, most of this stuff doesn’t look so great the second time around.
For better or worse, EW loves pop culture, and she also loves throwing in 50 cent vocabulary words to prove how smart she is. And she is smart and understands a lot about the history of feminism. I enjoyed her writing, although she rambles quite a lot. But if the point of this book was indeed to “praise” the “difficult women” of the time, it was a big fail. She writes about Ms. Fisher, who as I mentioned already, is not doing so hot. And she bashes Hillary Clinton for about fifty pages for reasons I couldn’t quite understand. Basically, she wishes Hillary would have been president, but knows that a woman won’t be elected in the U.S. anytime soon. But she really admires how the Clintons have kept their marriage together. Okay. I don’t even know what to say about that.
But Hillary has fared way better in the world than the other subjects of these essays. EW goes on for a long while about how badass Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton were, and I agree. But you see, they both killed themselves, via kitchen oven and car fumes, respectively. So, that’s a big bummer. Edie Sedgwick is another one that didn’t get a fairy tale ending, as those of us who saw the film about her starring new mum and British It Girl Sienna Miller can tell you. At least Edie created some lasting fashion trends in the process of her self-destruction, I guess.
And the last essay rehashes the relationship between O.J. and Nicole Brown Simpson in all of its grizzly details. No offense to the deceased, but she’s not what one would call a feminist icon or even a “difficult woman.” She got stuck in an abusive relationship from the time she was 17 years old and could never quite escape it. It’s really sad, but I’m not sure their story fit in with the rest of this book. I admire EW’s efforts to explore the reasons why women get trapped in these types of relationships. I can relate to her descriptions of trying to help friends out of such relationships, and the immense feelings of frustration when a friend keeps going back to the abuser. After awhile you realize that they’ll never leave until they’re ready, no matter what you say to them. And sometimes they never leave.
So yeah, even though EW seems to have had a fantasy life where she imitates the behavior of 90’s superstars like Courtney Love and Sharon Stone, it’s clear that acting like a B in real life doesn’t really get you very far. Courtney and Sharon are two more “difficult women” who haven’t fared that well over the years. They’ve both basically gone insane and faded off the radar of pop culture, except when they appear as a punch line to a comedian’s joke every once in a while.
These are not the women I aspire to be, personally. I want my children to speak to me when they’re grown. Ask Frances Bean what it was like growing up with Courtney as a mom. I bet she’d tell you that mental illness, drug addiction, and completely selfish, confrontational behavior really aren’t that cool. Even though everyone in the 90’s seemed to think that acting depressed or angsty or “alternative” to something or other made you interesting, it really just meant that you needed to get your shit together, stop whining and grow up. Some of us learned that in the 00’s, but obviously there were a lot of casualties along the way.
Despite these depressing tales of bad girls gone bad, I do think women are now capable of living fulfilling, independent lives as single women without ending up like any of the above. EW questions whether it’s possible to remain a single girl and live happily ever after. But why the hell not, if that’s what you really want? You can be a strong and live on your own and carve your own path and not be a bitch. Why is that so hard to imagine? I did it for many years, and now I see that you can still be a strong, independent non-bitchy woman as a wife and (almost) mum. Wowee zowee. What a concept.
A Modern Librarian Reads the Classics 