Faux Real

11 Responses to “Katie Roiphe Writes “Dear John” Letter Disguised as Article”

1. 1 foresmac May 1st, 2007 at 8:38 pm

   I am so that person that falls apart when relationships end. I wish people would offer to do my dishes (which I haven’t done since March 18th, the last time I saw my ex-girlfreind before we ostensibly split up (and by split up I mean she stopped talking to me then a month later listed herself as “Single” on MySpace)). But, that’s just me.

2. 2 Thomas May 2nd, 2007 at 6:20 pm

   Wow. Now that she can’t buy off the patriarchy by siding with the boys against the girls, she discovers that patriarchy is bad and rigid, judgmental sex roles are not fair. What is it they say about a liberal who has been mugged and a conservative who has been laid off?

3. 3 Amanda Marcotte May 2nd, 2007 at 8:44 pm

   Katie Roiphe #1:

   We might prefer equal naming practices, but how in a practical sense could they be implemented? How can both people preserve the longevity and tradition of their surnames? The truth is there is something unsatisfying about either the bride or groom giving up their name. There is in the creation of a family a kind of uncomfortable and thrilling blending of identity, a difficult obliteration of the distinct self; in short, it’s one of those nuanced, emotional moments that rarely fit into the categories rigidly set out by the purest forms of feminist ideology.

   Katie #2:

   It’s becoming clear to me that there is some image of the impending divorcée that I am not living up to here: hollow-eyed, bitter, harassed. Some of the more extreme sympathy I receive seems remarkably impersonal; it has less to do with me and anything I am saying than with what other people are hearing. The specifics of my experience vanish into an abstract idea about a woman’s leaving a marriage. And then there seems to be a rigid script to these conversations. If I answered the question “Is it so awful to have dinner alone?” with the honest response—actually, sometimes I make myself a salad, and feel the stretch of the evening opening up, and reach for a book I have been wanting to read, and it is less lonely than other kinds of dinners, and it is, in fact, kind of nice—it would have been almost impolite.

   Guess that blending and melding didn’t work out as well as planned. But rest assured, it was the meanie feminists that had it all wrong when we warned against subsuming your identity into his.

4. 4 Amanda Marcotte May 2nd, 2007 at 8:50 pm

   Dude, I love that she still manages to humiliate herself by calling him her “husband”. Don’t you mean “ex-husband”, Katie?

5. 5 Lauren May 2nd, 2007 at 10:12 pm

   “I LOVE my life. It is SO AWESOME that you aren’t here anymore. PHIL.”

   For some reason I imagine her ex’s name is Phil.

6. 6 Incontinentia Buttocks May 3rd, 2007 at 10:16 am

   I went to grad school with Katie Roiphe at the time she first achieved fame.

   She was really a very sad figure. At some very basic level she didn’t understand the niche that she seemed to have very carefully carved for herself. After her infamous “since my female friends have never told me they’ve been raped, women must not be getting raped” NY Times Magazine article (about which everyone who knew Katie had the same reaction: if you’d been raped, would you dream of talking Katie about it?!?), she began receiving seriously creepy letters of agreement from convicted rapists in prison. She was actually surprised by this.

7. 7 elyzabethe May 3rd, 2007 at 3:47 pm

   i just read that article yesterday, and I kind of liked it. I thought she made some good points about how silly it is that people act all faux-concerned about the kids in divorce proceedings, or the ridiculous comments they can make about it ….

8. 8 Typical Woman May 3rd, 2007 at 9:23 pm

   It’s so much cool to make fun of others when they are going through hard times. It helps keep me from thinking about the massive fuck up I made of my own life.

   Thanks for brightening up my day.

9. 9 Jonquil May 4th, 2007 at 1:57 am

   I remember the parties my parents threw in Nantucket, the grown-ups eating and drinking wine in the house, … Was that environment a little more forgiving of the alternative, of the house, the family that didn’t look quite the same? I imagine it was.

   You imagine many things, dear Ms. Roiphe. I myself imagine a distinguished Baron in an eyepatch who is meeting me with his zeppelin tomorrow. However, if you *remember* instead, you will remember children who were pitied, to their faces, for coming from “a broken home”.

10. 10 Lauren May 4th, 2007 at 7:11 pm

    It’s so much cool to make fun of others when they are going through hard times. It helps keep me from thinking about the massive fuck up I made of my own life.

    Thanks for brightening up my day.

    Katie?

11. 11 Helen May 5th, 2007 at 7:12 am

    I once wrote an entire book about how one shouldn’t reach for easy feminist interpretations of the world. And yet, even to me it seems that there is some residual sexism at work: While a woman outside of marriage is still considered a vulnerable and troubling figure, a man is granted a higher measure of autonomy.

    I think she’s just discovered that there really is a patriarchy.

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