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    Reasonable Creatures

    Essays on Women and Feminism

    Author Katha Pollitt
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    Paperback
    $15.00 US
    Knopf | Vintage
    On sale Aug 01, 1995 | 208 Pages | 9780679762782
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    At a time when date rape has been declared nonexistent and feminism a dirty word, thank heaven for Katha Pollitt.  In this provocative, unerringly astute book of essays she proves to be our most articulate exponent of the idea that women are "neither heroines nor brutes, but reasonable creatures." Reasonable Creatures collects the best of Pollitt's essays from The Nation, The New Yorker, and The New York Times, on subjects that range from abortion to the media and violence. She offers sparkling and sometimes searing observations:

    SEXUAL VIOLENCE: "We need to stop thinking of male violence as some kind of freak of nature, like a tornado. Because the thing about tornadoes is, you can't do anything about them."
    SURROGATE MOTHERING: "Goods can be distributed according to ability to pay or not. People shouldn't be."
    ABORTION: "The fact is, when your back is against the wall of unwanted pregnancy, it doesn't matter whether or not you think the fetus is a person. That's why in this country, Roman Catholic women...have a higher abortion rate than Jews or Protestants."


    "Katha Pollitt's essays are fine, fierce, well-informed and mind-changing.  Anyone would be proud to have her good head and good heart on their side."--Gloria Steinem
    © Christina Pabst
    Katha Pollitt is the author of the essay collections Learning to Drive, Virginity or Death!, Subject to Debate, and Reasonable Creatures, and is a poet, essayist, and columnist for The Nation. She has won many prizes and awards for her work, including the National Book Critics Circle Award for her first collection of poems, Antarctic Traveller, and two National Magazine Awards for essays and criticism. She lives in New York City. View titles by Katha Pollitt
    "Katha Pollitt writes the liveliest, smartest general essays on women's issues today. (They're awfully good on America, too.) Relief -- that someone is finally saying it -- is one of the many pleasures that Pollitt invariably gives me. Brave. funny, commonsensical, morally right on, she's almost always right." -- Susan Sontag

    "Katha Pollitt's essays are so brilliant that I had to rub my eves from time to time as I read them. When she finishes with a subject, there really isn't anything more to say -- except, 'Thanks, Katha, for clearing that up!'"

    -- Barbara Ehrenreich

    She asks "Who's Afraid of Hillary Clinton?," considers the Smurfette Principle and explains why she hates "Family Values." She takes aim at nineteen targets in all. Her pieces delight by their language -- the mastery that won a National Book Critics Circle Award for her first book of poem -- and her refusal, ever, to be ponderous.

    "A thoughtful and brilliant woman ... These essays are a joy to read." -- alice Adams

    "It is a great pleasure to have this gathering oF' Katha Pollitt's work. Her intelligence is always relentless, always bracing, while always; maintaining a wonderful lightness. She is the gin-and-Campari of the women's movement." -- Mary Gordon

    "Lucid, gutsy, funny and just, Katha Pollitt is easily my favorite essayist at work today. I read everything she writes and consider this collection a treasure." -- Phyllis Rose

    "Katha Pollitt's essays are fine, fierce, well-informed and mind-changing. Anyone would be proud to have her good head and good heart on their side."

    -- Gloria Steinem

    About

    At a time when date rape has been declared nonexistent and feminism a dirty word, thank heaven for Katha Pollitt.  In this provocative, unerringly astute book of essays she proves to be our most articulate exponent of the idea that women are "neither heroines nor brutes, but reasonable creatures." Reasonable Creatures collects the best of Pollitt's essays from The Nation, The New Yorker, and The New York Times, on subjects that range from abortion to the media and violence. She offers sparkling and sometimes searing observations:

    SEXUAL VIOLENCE: "We need to stop thinking of male violence as some kind of freak of nature, like a tornado. Because the thing about tornadoes is, you can't do anything about them."
    SURROGATE MOTHERING: "Goods can be distributed according to ability to pay or not. People shouldn't be."
    ABORTION: "The fact is, when your back is against the wall of unwanted pregnancy, it doesn't matter whether or not you think the fetus is a person. That's why in this country, Roman Catholic women...have a higher abortion rate than Jews or Protestants."


    "Katha Pollitt's essays are fine, fierce, well-informed and mind-changing.  Anyone would be proud to have her good head and good heart on their side."--Gloria Steinem

    Author

    © Christina Pabst
    Katha Pollitt is the author of the essay collections Learning to Drive, Virginity or Death!, Subject to Debate, and Reasonable Creatures, and is a poet, essayist, and columnist for The Nation. She has won many prizes and awards for her work, including the National Book Critics Circle Award for her first collection of poems, Antarctic Traveller, and two National Magazine Awards for essays and criticism. She lives in New York City. View titles by Katha Pollitt

    Praise

    "Katha Pollitt writes the liveliest, smartest general essays on women's issues today. (They're awfully good on America, too.) Relief -- that someone is finally saying it -- is one of the many pleasures that Pollitt invariably gives me. Brave. funny, commonsensical, morally right on, she's almost always right." -- Susan Sontag

    "Katha Pollitt's essays are so brilliant that I had to rub my eves from time to time as I read them. When she finishes with a subject, there really isn't anything more to say -- except, 'Thanks, Katha, for clearing that up!'"

    -- Barbara Ehrenreich

    She asks "Who's Afraid of Hillary Clinton?," considers the Smurfette Principle and explains why she hates "Family Values." She takes aim at nineteen targets in all. Her pieces delight by their language -- the mastery that won a National Book Critics Circle Award for her first book of poem -- and her refusal, ever, to be ponderous.

    "A thoughtful and brilliant woman ... These essays are a joy to read." -- alice Adams

    "It is a great pleasure to have this gathering oF' Katha Pollitt's work. Her intelligence is always relentless, always bracing, while always; maintaining a wonderful lightness. She is the gin-and-Campari of the women's movement." -- Mary Gordon

    "Lucid, gutsy, funny and just, Katha Pollitt is easily my favorite essayist at work today. I read everything she writes and consider this collection a treasure." -- Phyllis Rose

    "Katha Pollitt's essays are fine, fierce, well-informed and mind-changing. Anyone would be proud to have her good head and good heart on their side."

    -- Gloria Steinem

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