No More Nice Girls: Countercultural Essays

305 Pages·2012·13.462 MB·English

by  Ellen Willis

No More Nice Girls
Other Books by Ellen Willis
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
"Beginning to See the Light: Sex, Hope, and Rock-and-Roll
Out of the Vinyl Deeps: Ellen Willis on Rock Music
NO MORE
NICE GIRLS
Countercultural Essays
ELLEN WILLIS
M
IN
NE
SO
TA
University of Minnesota Press
Minneapolis
London
Originally published in 1992. by Wesleyan University Press
First University of Minnesota Press edition, 2.012.
Permissions to reprint previously published material in this book are on page 2,75.
Copyright 1992. by Ellen Willis
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
T i T Third Avenue South, Suite 290
Minneapolis, MN 55401-2.52.0
http://www.upress.umn.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Willis, Ellen.
No more nice girls : countercultural essays / Ellen Willis.
Originally published: Hanover : Published by University Press of New England
[for | Wesleyan University Press, «992,.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-8166-8079-5 (pb : alk. paper)
i. Feminism. ¿. Subculture. 3. Radicalism. 4. Democracy. I. Title.
HQi.i54.W54 2.01.2.
305.42. dc2.^ 2.012.0152.78
Printed in the United States of America on acid free paper
The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer.
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 lo 9 8 7 6' 5 4 3 2 i
For Stanley
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Contents
Acknowledgmentsix ix
Introduction: Identity Crisis xi
Part 1 : No More Nice Girls
Lust Horizons: Is the Women's Movement Pro-Sex? 3
Nature's Revenge 15
Toward a Feminist Sexual Revolution 19
The Last Unmarried Person in America 51
Peace in Our Time? The Greening of Betty Friedan 56
Marriage on the Rocks 64
Putting Women Back in the Abortion Debate 75
Looking for Mr. Good Dad 84
From Forced Pregnancy to Forced Surgery 90
Sisters Under the Skin? Confronting Race and Sex 101
Radical Feminism and Feminist Radicalism 117
Feminism Without Freedom 151
Rebel Girl: What De Beauvoir Left Us 159
Part 2: Exile on Main Street
Escape from New York 167
The People's Picasso 194
Sins of Confession 2.00
Ministries of Fear 2.06
Exile on Main Street: What the Pollard Case Means to Jews 2.11
The End of Fatherhood: Family Plots 219
Andy Warhol, ^-1987 2.2.7
In Defense of Offense: Salman Rushdie's Religious Problem 230
Beyond Pluralism 235
Now, Voyager 240
The Drug War: From Vision to Vice 2.44
The Drug War: Hell No, I Won't Go 249
Coming Down Again 255
Epilogue: The Neo-Guilt Trip 271
Permissions 275
Index 277
Acknowledgments
Thanks to:
Stanley Aronowitz, critic, sounding-board, and intellectual compan-
ion par excellence;
Karen Durbin, who edited some of the pieces in this book and in-
spired others;
my abortion rights zap group No More Nice Girls, the infamous
Barnard Conference Planning Committee, and other advocates of
feminist sexual revolution whose ideas about sex, gender, and femi-
nism have influenced and challenged my own, with special apprecia-
tion to Ann Snitow, C. Carr, Carole Vance, and Alice Echols;
Janet Gallagher and Lynn Paltrow, whose research on fetal rights law
informs "From Forced Pregnancy to Forced Surgery";
Jim Miller, who asked me to write an essay on "excess" for Salma-
¿fundi'ss special issue on the '6os, an idea with my name on it but one
I hadn't thought of;
Charlotte Sheedy and Regula Noetzli, my agents, who take an expan-
sive view of their job.