blockade, and my plan was to swim around it.
In April 1974 my first book-length work of feminist
theory,
deal of money to write articles that an editor had already
outlined to me in detail. They were to be about women or
sex or drugs. They were stupid and full of lies. For instance,
I was offered $1500 to write an article on the use of
barbiturates and amphetamines by suburban women. I was
to say that this use of drugs constituted a hedonistic
rebellion against the dull conventions of sterile housewifery,
that women used these drugs to turn on and swing and have
a wonderful new life-style. I told the editor that I suspected
women used amphetamines to get through miserable days
and barbiturates to get through miserable nights. I suggested, amiably I thought, that I ask the women who use the drugs why they use them. I was told flat-out that the article
This sounds like great rebellious fun—telling establishment
types to go fuck themselves with their fistful of dollars—but
when one is very poor, as I was, it is not fun. It is instead
profoundly distressing. Six years later I finally made half
that amount for a magazine piece, the highest I have ever
been paid for an article. I had had my chance to play ball
and I had refused. I was too naive to know that hack writing
is the only paying game in town. I believed in “literature, ”
“principles, ” “politics, ” and “the power of fine writing to
change lives. ” When I refused to do that article and others,
I did so with considerable indignation. The indignation
marked me as a wild woman, a bitch, a reputation reinforced during editorial fights over the content of
my feelings, but hurt my ability to make a living. I am in
fact not a “lady, ” not a “lady writer, ” not a “sweet young
thing. ” What woman is? My ethics, my politics, and my
style merged to make me an untouchable. Girls are supposed to be invitingly touchable, on the surface or just under.
I thought that the publication of
establish me as a writer of recognized talent and that then I
would be able to publish serious work in ostensibly serious
magazines. I was wrong. The publication of
about which I was jubilant, was the beginning of a decline
that continued until 1981 when
I was not supposed to say, for example, “Women are
raped. ” I was supposed to say, “Green-eyed women with
one leg longer than the other, hair between the teeth,
French poodles, and a taste for sauteed vegetables are
raped occasionally on Fridays by persons. ” It was rough. I