All posts by Sarah Marian Seltzer

 
Reviews

One Soldier, Many Stories

Best of In The Fray 2009. A look at two books written about one man: Mary Tillman’s Boots on the Ground by Dusk and Jon Krakauer’s Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman.


The life and death of Pat Tillman has a symbolic resonance that continues to echo far and wide. In a country rife with anxious masculinity, he was a powerful example of a certain American ideal: a strong, independent-minded man with both brawn and shrewd intellect, a taste for challenge, and a compassionate, questioning soul.

Tillman — an NFL player, amateur philosopher, volunteer soldier, and freethinker who believed the Iraq War was wrong — was killed accidentally by his fellow soldiers in Afghanistan. Because he died during a war-mongering era that represented the worst aspects of American masculinity — and because his friendly-fire death in April, 2004, was subsequently packaged by the Bush administration as a heroic death in combat — the public hasn’t lost interest in his story. He’s been the subject of countless articles and TV news specials, and his mother Mary wrote a memoir, Boots on the Ground by Dusk, about him and her family’s search for the truth about his death. Now journalist Jon Krakauer, author of the best-selling adventure yarns Into Thin Air and Into the Wild, has added to the body of knowledge with his book Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman.

Both books portray Tillman as a young man whose joie de vivre and need to delve further into life was insatiable — and led to his fateful army enlistment. His mother writes about him repeatedly hurling himself out of the crib as a baby, while Krakauer describes him leaping over and over again from a cliff to a tree branch as a young man.

Mary Tillman writes in straightforward prose, a mixture of present and past tense, telling an agonizing, step-by-step story of her journey from grieving mom to crusader for the truth, intertwined with memories of her son. Boots on the Ground is filled with tiny, tangible moments that carry personal weight: “I looked up at the eucalyptus tree where Pat would so often sit when he was young. The light shining through the leaves and shredded bark was so bright, my vision blurred and I diverted my eyes,” she writes of a day when people had come to pay respects to her deceased son.

“We all look around uncomfortably at each other. Something isn’t right about this,” she says when describing her family’s meeting with an army official. “At the close of the meeting we agree to disagree, but I promise them we are not going away,” she says of the end of another unsatisfying summit.

But while Mary Tillman’s story is of a family driven nearly mad by the army’s lack of empathy for its pain, Krakauer has a different purpose. Where Men Win Glory depicts a government driven senseless by the need to justify its aggression. War is an inherently dark and messy thing, he reminds us in a book that ranges from intimate personal excerpts taken from Pat Tillman’s diary to a history of foreign engagement in Afghanistan. What made the wars of the Bush administration so singular — and senseless — was a culture in which the appearance of “mission accomplished” mattered more than the reality.

As Krakauer shows, Tillman didn’t die simply because a group of soliders fired wildly and indiscriminately at its own comrades. It was also because, in order to make it seem as though they were getting something done in the “War on Terror,” desk commanders insisted on splitting Tillman’s unit up, disregarding the ground officers’ orders, and on rushing the soldiers through a dangerous area during the daytime when they were vulnerable to insurgents. The desk commanders wanted, quite simply, “boots on the ground by dusk.”

Perhaps even more chillingly, the effort to keep up the appearance of success by masking the ugly truth of Tillman’s death from the public and his family went far up the chain of command. The evidence, says Krakauer, indicates that Tillman’s regiment “engaged in an elaborate conspiracy to deliberately mislead the family, and high-ranking officials at the White House and the Pentagon abetted the deception.”

Where Men Win Glory is also an interesting counterpoint to The Terror Dream, in which author Susan Faludi focuses on the story of Jessica Lynch, who was “rescued” from a hospital in Iraq and, like Tillman, falsely branded as a hero to boost wartime propaganda. Krakauer notes the similarities between the two cases — as did the congressional hearings that examined both of them.

Ultimately, the Tillman books complement each other: Mary Tillman’s is personal and detailed, Krakauer’s is tightly written with a wide scope. The story is so compelling that many will want to read both, although those with no previous knowledge will find Krakauer provides the clearer introduction to the story.

 

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Reviews

Sisters of fate

Lisa See’s Shanghai Girls tells the piercingly painful tale of two sisters’ odyssey from Shanghai to San Francisco.


 

To dismiss Shanghai Girls, with its flowery, pink-tinged cover, as “women’s fiction” or even as a light summer read belies the very serious nature of author Lisa See’s ambitious novel. What starts as an amusing tale about two young women — sisters Pearl and May — frolicking through bohemian Shanghai, posing for paintings in their new silk gowns and wondering which of them is prettiest, turns sinister quite quickly. The violence that engulfs China with the advent of World War II parallels the violence that they experience when they truly begin to understand their status as women. They are bargaining chips for their father, who has traded them away in arranged marriages to pay off his debts. They are targets for prowling Japanese soldiers. And when they come through these struggles with the scars to prove it, they become workhorses and, hopefully, son-producers for their shared father-in-law in America (they’re paired off with brothers in arranged marriages), although eventually, they form real family ties with the husbands they’ve been bound to on paper.

From escaping the shelling of a fashionable Shanghai street, to crouching in abandoned shacks as they listen to soldiers on the march committing murder, to tossing and turning on their long trans-Pacific journey, to sitting stoically through endless interrogation as they try to enter this country, the sisters endure atrocities and privation. But perhaps the most compelling aspect of their story is its deviation from the “immigrant-family-makes-good” cliché. Try as they might — and they do try — Pearl, May, their husbands, and even a college-bound daughter, are never quite accepted into mainstream American society. In fact, as the story draws to a close, they’re being interrogated by the FBI for alleged communist ties, with calamitous results.

See, the daughter of novelist Carolyn See, is a Chinese American herself who has devoted much of her work — including Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (2005) and Peony in Love (2007) — to exploring Chinese culture and history. As we follow Pearl and May’s journey in Shanghai Girls, See tells dozens of historical stories that illuminate the struggles of her characters. One of these stories captures the glamor and excitement of prewar, pre-Communist Shanghai, full of smoky cafés, artists, radicals, and beautiful women. There are also incredibly dark stories about the Japanese invasion of China, the fate of immigrants stalled in limbo at California’s notorious Angel Island, the endless striving of immigrant families once they reached these shores, and the endless discrimination that met them here. There’s even a story about the way Hollywood treated Asian characters and actors (not very well, needless to say).

But the sweeping narrative is anchored by the intimacy of the two women. Together throughout all their trials and tribulations, Pearl and May are classic fictional sisters — both unimaginably close and fearfully jealous. “She’s funny; I’m criticized for being too serious. She has an adorable fleshiness to her; I’m tall and thin,” Pearl, the narrator, explains in her staccato, singsong tone.

She’s convinced that she’s the sister everyone thinks is inferior, the sister who has borne the most burdens over time. After their family suffers a horrific wartime trauma on the road out of Shanghai, Pearl’s resentment of her sister simmers beneath the surface for decades, even if she and May continue to stick together and even adore each other. But in the course of several knockdown, drag-out fights between the sisters, See suddenly, like a flash of light, switches to May’s point of view. “You’ve always been jealous and envious of me, but you were the one who was cherished by [our parents],” May shouts to her sister in one of the novel’s final scenes. When she speaks, it’s sure to put a wrinkle or three in Pearl’s version of the truth.

Even though May’s final revelation of a long-kept secret is ultimately predictable, the sisters’ dueling outlooks create tension when the plot slows down, and their ability to reconcile and forge on together provides a ray of hope. “Parents die, daughters grow up and marry out, but sisters are for life,” Pearl explains.

See — whose copious acknowledgments at the end of the book confirm her considerable research — arrives at an uncomfortable truth about the American past. America, she shows, hasn’t simply laid out its golden-hued dream at the feet hardworking newcomers. Those who work double shifts and play by the rules don’t (and didn’t) necessarily end up in the house with the white picket fence, particularly if they look too different or are plagued by cruel stereotypes. But to her credit, See also infuses Shanghai Girls with a positive message about forgiveness and the way friendship and family can help us pick ourselves back up even after the worst has happened.

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Interviews

Sex in Pakistan

Best of In The Fray 2008. A new magazine is breaking down local taboos and entering the global feminist fray.


Kyla Pasha and Sarah Suhail have stirred up the blogosphere with the launch of Chay magazine — a publication about sex in Pakistani society, from a feminist and gender-inclusive perspective. “We at Chay magazine endeavor to bring to the Pakistani reading public a place to converse about those things we are most shy of,” reads the magazine’s mission statement. ITF chatted with Pasha about taboos, international feminism, and the reclaiming of pejorative words (“chay” is a polite euphemism for “chootia,” an equivalent to “cunt”).

Interviewer: Sarah Seltzer
Interviewee: Kyla Pasha

Tell me a little bit about the personal journey or set of beliefs that led you to found Chay. Has this been something you’ve wanted to do for a while?

Not as such. I’ve always wanted to have a magazine or a writing concern of some kind. I met Sarah Suhail about a year ago, and in the time that we’ve known each other, a lot of things have happened in Pakistan: there’s conflict around the sacking of the judiciary last year by the president; there have been media freedom issues and protests; the marriage between a transgender man and a woman was dissolved and reviled in the press.

Sarah introduced me to the protest circuit, and I found myself getting a little more politically active than I’d originally planned. A couple of months ago, we were having a conversation about what we thought was missing from public discourse. We came up with Chay.

How do you envision a magazine like this can change the public discourse in Pakistani communities? Does it come down to the fact that for women worldwide, the “personal is political”?

“Personal is political” informs a great deal of our approach here. We’re both products of feminist education in one way or another. But more than that, we realized when the Shamail and Shahzina case happened [the transgender man and his wife who were imprisoned] that Pakistani don’t have a way in which to talk about sex that is not derogatory, abusive, or silencing. Far from sex ed [sex education] in school or even the home, straight, young people aren’t even comfortable talking about being in relationships.

The perils of that kind of silence are great. We’re hoping that Chay will provide a platform on which people can talk about their experiences and concerns, and listen in to what others are saying.

Do you worry about being pigeonholed as either a fluffy women’s magazine or alternately, a radical feminist magazine?

We anticipate being pigeonholed as something sinful.

But you feel the power of your collective voices can help break down some of these notions of sin and taboo?

Can help, yes. “Help break down” is sort of the key here. It’s an uphill battle at best, and we’re aware of the unpopularity of the idea — we have been made aware by folks writing in and by conversations on other sites discussing Chay. Mostly, we’d just like to have the conversation.

Can you elaborate on some of the positive and negative responses you’ve been getting so far?

We’ve received a lot of encouraging responses from people who are interested in writing for us. They call it “a breath of fresh air” and just what was needed, which is very gratifying. We’re particularly hearing from queer women and some queer men on how much they’re looking forward to the forum.

We’ve had negative responses on the title of the magazine. The letter “chay” in Urdu stands for a curse word, chootia, which means something close to “dumb ass,” but by calling it “cunty.” “Chay” is used as a euphemism among polite folk who don’t want to say the whole word, but mean it. We’re reclaiming “chay” to mean all the things that we’re supposedly not allowed to say. The negative feedback in one particular case was that we’re not reclaiming it successfully and are being derogatory toward women.

In your mission statement, you note that while the magazine is primarily aimed at the Pakistani community, the online aspect will help bring you into the global feminist conversation as well.

That’s the idea. We’ve been researching major feminist blogs as well as sexual and queer rights issues in our neighboring countries. India is particularly interesting in that regard, and we’ve had some contributions from there already.

As you research global feminism, does it frustrate you to continually see ignorant western journalists throw up their hands and moan about “where are the Muslim feminists?”

Firstly, if I got frustrated by ignorance in the media, of anywhere, I’d have died of [an] aneurism by now. Secondly, for me, the conversation is not really with people who can’t see past the end of their noses.

There are lot of people who say “Where are the Muslim feminists?” who haven’t looked very hard. And there are a lot of people for whom feminism does not include veiling yourself voluntarily or taking your clothes off for Playboy if you want to, or exercising your choice and agency in other ways. If I start a conversation, invite everybody, and 10 people don’t come because they think I’m not feminist enough, or Muslim enough, or straight enough, or gay enough, then they missed out.

For us, this is about conversations in Pakistan. Other people can talk about us as objects if they want, but it’s of limited relevance. I’d rather they talked to us. But, you know …

What about western feminists, who can also be ignorant about global feminism? Do you hope that Chay can be part of a new movement to make the face of feminism more inclusive and worldwide?

The idea of inclusivity to me is a bit false. It suggests that I, as a Pakistani Muslim Feminist — which is not an identity I carry around all time, but just for the example — would like a seat at some bigger United Nations of Feminism table.

There’s a table right here. There’s a lot of us already sitting at it. Moreover, there are a bunch of other tables. And people wander from conversation to conversation. That’s my ideal. There is, out there, a certain capital “F” feminism that has achieved that status because it’s white-skinned and “mainstream” US. But it has that status from a particular privilege. It does not reflect everyone’s reality.

Are you planning to be an online-only magazine, or are you going to have print issues as well?

For now, we’re online-only. We’ll see if there’s a market for print in due course and maybe go into print as well.

You have a poetic and artistic background as well as a literary journalistic one, right? You’re going to be publishing creative work as well as journalism?

Yeah, I’m a poet myself. And we’re open to fiction, nonfiction, poetry — all kinds of work. Creative expression is cathartic and part of political work, so we didn’t want to just do journalism and commentary.

Can you elaborate on how you think creative expression can help achieve political ends? Are there any examples of creative work that have inspired you politically, or political moments that have inspired you as a poet?

Visual art in the Pakistan in and since the ’80s has been extremely political and feminist. It responded to the brutal dictatorship of Zia-ul-Haq, who promulgated many misogynist and bigoted laws in the name of Islam. Many artists, mostly women, responded in their work, and it has served as one of the major avenues of empowerment and feminist expression in Pakistan.

So you’re working within an established tradition?

Absolutely. That tradition has not touched on sexuality in quite the way we would like, but we are in no way reinventing the wheel here. We’re taking our cue from our parents’ generation.

Are there any articles in the first issue that you’re particularly excited about?

There’s an article about homoeroticism and masculinity in the public spaces of Lahore that I’m excited about. There’s some great poetry and artwork. And there’s an article in the pipeline about sex work and HIV [the AIDS virus]. It’s going to be fantastic. I’m totally psyched.

Do you think it’s difficult for people to see a magazine about sex as informative rather than titillating?

I think it might be. It’s definitely a danger. But I’m confident that we’ll clear the bar with room to spare. Again, if someone looks at it, sees that we’re talking about sexual rights and marginalization, education, and the law, and still feels we’re here to titillate, then we’re not sitting at the same table. That’s fine, so long as no one throws stuff at us over it.

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Commentary

Knocking the weight

200706_interact.jpgSudden weight loss doesn’t make life as a woman any less heavy.


Halfway through my senior year in college, I came down with the flu twice along with pneumonia. For several weeks, I swallowed only Thai chicken soup and soy smoothies that were brought to me while I lay on my dorm room bed, coughing my lungs out. When the illness left, it had done what no amount of dieting or exercising had ever accomplished. I had lost every pound I’d gained since high school — not just the fabled “freshman 15” (okay, more like seven), but also the “sophomore four,” the “study abroad six,” and the “new boyfriend three.”

My lack of waif-like features had been an anomaly at my perfectionist Ivy school, but I coped. A proud feminist, I made a point of carrying my extra weight confidently. I felt as though my dress size separated me from the girls who played into sexist ideals and mournfully poured vinegar over their dinner carrots. Of course, negative body image drove me to distraction in private, but I could never wholeheartedly tackle the gargantuan — and in my mind, hypocritical — task of getting more than a few pounds skinnier.
 
And now I was sure I’d never have to. Back home for the holidays, I tried on my old clothes. My red dress from “sweet 16” parties fit perfectly. My embroidered cowgirl jeans fit, with room to spare. It didn’t matter that I would never have occasion to wear these ridiculous things again.
   
I was infinitely relieved. A chapter of my life spent feeling fat — and then feeling guilty for caring about my jean size when there was so much else to worry about — had melted away.

But it was naïve to think that all the emotional weight had left with the pounds. In our society, particularly in hypercompetitive niches like my college, size is crucial to our identities, reaching nearly as important a status as race and gender.

You can’t just sneak from fat to thin, or thin to fat.

The first comment I got after my recovery was from a friend whom I bumped into at a late-night campus joint. I was wearing a bulky ski parka, but this girl, who was particularly diet-conscious, saw right through my winter layers. “Oh my god,” she said accusingly from across the restaurant. “You got so ridiculously skinny. You must have lost 10 pounds in a week. Or was it 15?”

I was shocked. When I had been on the chubbier side, people didn’t comment on my body in front of others like that. An unspoken rule says that small bodies of various degrees are okay to moan over (“I’m so fat!”) and compliment (“You’re so not!”). But people who aren’t diminutive face a damning public silence. I was flummoxed. To revel in my friend’s scrutiny would have been impossible: “Thanks, girlfriend. That mucus in my chest really helped create a new me!” But I had been psyched to fit back into that red dress. I felt unusually speechless.

The attention came in a steady parade — some positive, some envious, some suspicious. “You look emaciated,” a close friend told me at a party that spring with a disapproving tone that was sounding like a familiar refrain. Again, my body — not my improving health — was being parsed in a critical way.

While once I was concerned about girth, I was now paranoid about girlfriends. I feared that my new size had thrown some secret pecking order off balance — that my friends had counted on my fuller figure and my feigned comfort with it to make them feel better.  Despite my idealistic aspiration toward a “we are all sisters” kind of feminism, my inner voice warned that I might have to get more stupid now that I was thin, or at least act more self-deprecating. I felt like a walking, talking threat to all the women I knew.

Back when other women had championed the South Beach Diet last year, I had scorned their agonizingly achieved slimness. Now their pissy attitudes about my change in size were forcing me to see that our bodies are always battlegrounds.

So I celebrated the “new me” by joining in a chorus of self-effacing comments. I would never have called attention to myself by stuffing a doughnut in my mouth and saying, “I suck,” when I was 15 pounds heavier. Now I could do exactly that, and I felt like I was joining a heretofore members-only club. And yes, I felt guilty about it.

But whether my self-criticism was silent or tellingly open, it was still there. Unlike the success stories trumped by women’s magazines, we women on all parts of the body-size spectrum still don’t think we’re good enough. And instead of turning against the society that makes us feel this way, we often turn against the woman who eats an extra slice of pizza or refuses dessert, shops one size up, or is a slave to the treadmill.

Engaging in this perverse group exercise of wailing about our waist sizes doesn’t do us any favors. Until we women stop being complicit in our obsession with weight, our relationships will be strained by the relentless need to measure ourselves, literally, against each other.

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