Erica Jongs' "Fear of Flying" was a book I read several times over the years since in came out on the heels of the 1970's feminist movement. The first read, amazingly perhaps for a woman who is not Jewish, a New Yorker, married, rich, or especially literary at the time, was a story I could relate to. Marketed for the sexuality (which is barely explicit) and considered controversial, I recall one marketing blurb that suggested that we (Americans? people? men?) didn't know women "Thought Like That." Like what? Exactly how distanced from our own bodies were we thought to be? Like saints, like ghosts...
I remember I had a male friend that saw me carrying the paperback around and said, "Oh that's that book by that crazy woman about a crazy woman." Hmm. The same male friend said I was "too liberated." (His wife wasn't. She knew her place as a stay at home mom and I came to find out he cheated on her.)
Over the years I've found Erica's Jongs nonfiction, in particular her essays about what it is to be a writer - a "woman writer," more interesting to me and inspirational than her fiction. This is a YouTube video about the punishment for success and celebrity in our culture...
Is it more difficult to be accepted as a "woman writer" than a "man writer?" I suppose yes in that we find "woman writer" is not silly to say and "man writer" is silly to say.
(Video down and removed summer 2016)
