Thank you for the thank yous! #TellAFeministThankYou

Published: February 13th, 2013
Author: admin
3 Comments

Thank you for the thank yous!

Something interesting and kind of sad happens when you become a public person — all day long people ask you for things, which is reasonable under the circumstances, and often they are good things to support or encourage. But for reasons I don’t fully understand — maybe it is a general decline in civility and good manners training in childhood or maybe it has to do with the strange kinds of distortion in thinking people often have about fame or notoriety, ie that people who are well known are not really people with ordinary human needs for mutuality and kindness — nine times out of ten or really thirty nine times out of forty, once the favor is done there is no thank you. (And my Grandma Faye would have said: a WRITTEN NOTE SENT THROUGH THE MAIL! And she is right of course.)

This can be quite demoralizing when you are on the receiving end of it — you start to feel like a commodity or a blurb/endorsement machine. Dehumanized.

So thank you for the thank yous! I will try for my part to express my gratitude for all those who help me, make the world better, work on behalf of all of us…they all do need it wherever they are!

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Christina Dillmann says:

February 24, 2013 at 2:19 am

Dear Naomi Wolf,

Your book Vagina: A New Biography gave me so very much and empowered me. I was hurt that people still respond to the title and the word “Vagina” in such a shocked manner. I am a staunch supporter of the elegance, dignity and respect in which you shared your private journey so beautifully and took us — your public, and yes, women — along for the discovery, to emerge empowered from reading your book. I did not grow up in a feminist household, I am learning to empower myself, and your book helped me in that process…

Thank You!

Eleanor Cathleen O'Brien says:

April 17, 2013 at 8:24 pm

I am very much enjoying Naomi Wolf’s book, and am a little confused as to why this interviewer is so hostile. I think she’s adding a great deal to the picture of female sexuality (for all women, and men – gay, straight, etc). I’ve read Mary Roach, I’ve seen lots of TED talks about sex, I’ve seen the Vagina Monologues a million times – and I found there was a lot about the vagina I still didn’t know. I really appreciated the connection she made between sex and creativity, the information about dopamine, etc. So thanks, Naomi. Sorry you’re having to defend your creative impulses. Lame.

Glen Jankowski says:

May 8, 2013 at 7:50 am

I loved The Beauty Myth. I’m a researcher on body image and feel your book was very polemic and timely. I particular am inspired by your redefinition of beauty (appearance can be fun but it shouldn’t be everything!)
Thank you.