Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast

I would like this podcast to start a conversation with women of all ages, convictions and styles of life – wherever situated on the gamut of experience. In principle, there is no bar to men joining in, since how one defines women has a lot to do with what it means to be a man. But it is women I invite to pull up a chair at this virtual café table and put their questions and views into the conversation. Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy, Brooklyn College of The City University of New York. She is the author of A Good Look at Evil, a Pulitzer Prize nominee, now appearing in an expanded second edition and as audiobooks. Dr. Rosenthal writes a weekly column for “Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column,” (www.dearabbie-nonadvice.com) where she explores the situation of women. She thinks women’s lives are highly interesting. She’s the editor of The Consolations of Philosophy: Hobbes’s Secret; Spinoza’s Way by her father, Henry M. Rosenthal. She’s written numerous articles that can be accessed at Academia.edu .

All Episodes

Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast

Submission

October 22, 2021 • Abigail L. Rosenthal • Season 1 • Episode 6

0:00 | 5:23

It's walking a tightrope, or anyway a delicate business. . .

What kind of hand have we been dealt as women today and how can we best play it? It's a large question that's always lurking in the background and since the answers aren't obvious, I find women's lives to immediately be suspenseful and interesting, don't you?

Wait a minute? Who am I? I am Abigail L. Rosenthal, Professor of Philosophy emerita of the Brooklyn College of the City University of New York and while my advice has always been not to take my advice, I do write a weekly blog I call Dear-Abbie the Non-Advice Column.

And so, dear listener, I invite you to pull up a chair at this virtual cafe table no matter your gender, age, convictions, or style of life.

James Baldwin wrote a novel, Giovanni's Room, ostensibly about the coming out of a gay man and how he disappoints the woman in his life. Baldwin said the book was really about "the crucial lack of sexual authority in the American male." The character cannot line up his erotic nature and harness it to his identity and the tasks of his life. To encounter that implosion is profoundly frustrating for a woman. If, on the other hand, she finds herself wanting and able--in conscience and with trust--to support his sexual authority, this is a blessing, for a man.

At the same time, her acceptance of him is really an activity, not a passivity. So it has to come from a woman who lives from her own center of authority.

It's walking a tightrope, or anyway a delicate business. If it comes down to a power struggle, men have advantages (aggression, freedom from childbirth and menstruation, physical strength) that allow them to seize the upper hand without appeal, if the culture permits. One saw this happen overnight in Iran, and there submission entailed a massive surrender of feminine authority. With the coercive demand to "cover," with FGM (female genital mutilation), the feminine itself is erased. The woman enters The Land of Invisible Women (to quote the title of a book by Qanta A. Ahmed, a female doctor reporting from Saudi Arabia).

To submit to a male bully is useless and hopeless. But bullying comes in many guises and genders. For example, about party-line-femininst-ideologues, I have said to my students, "If I want to get pushed around, I can find a man to do it."

Thanks so much dear listener, if this added value to your life, I'd be happy if you subscribed. You can find me at www.abigailrosenthal.com. I've written a book called a Good Look at Evil. and if that's not too scary for you, you can buy it on Amazon. Another book is called Confessions of a Young Philosopher, and this is forthcoming soon, with Illustrations.