Feminism Issue Consultation Brought to a Male Psychological Consultant

A colleague of mine who works at a Catholic school brought me a copy of Jessica Valenti’s book, “Full Frontal Feminism”(Seal Press, 2007) and asked my opinion about it.  She said that she found this book in girls’ bathroom and was shocked to have found in such a place.  

Well, being a psychological, educational consultant that I am, besides, doing pastoral consulting and teaching religion, I get into this kind of situation more than rarely.  It is nothing strange for me, though I am male, to address women’s issues, which include “feminist” matters. 

So, I went through pages of Valenti’s book to respond to my colleague’s request. 

The book has a lot of misleading views – though she also makes some good points about young women’s issues. And, as a psychotherapist, I often deal with these issues that Valenti passionately writes about as a proud feminist. For example,  an important issue that Valanti raises in her book is how women are still  negatively affected by chauvinistic male oppressive social and psychological factors. But, I realized that Valenti seems to be a frustrated feminist rather than happy and content feminist, who can write prescriptions for solutions rather than listing problems and giving misleading views that may prompts further divisive conflicts.  What seems lacking in Valenti is a balance, and it is due to, perhaps, a lack of maturity in her.  Obviously, she wrote this book straight out of her frustration. Reading her book is like listening to a high school girl or college woman “vomiting” her words of anger, pain and frustration – over her boyfriend or ex-boyfriend or some other kind of male figure in her life. 

I told this colleague of mine my straight opinion.

To be honest, I cannot recommend this book to adolescent and college-age women, unless they have proven maturity to be able to critique Valenti’s radially lopsided view.  It is because, if girls who are not mature enough to exercise critical thinking read such a book, they are  likely to be swayed by such a radical view as hers. So, I suggested that she may use this book to invite her students to discuss or argue, using their critical thinking skills, in contrast to the Catholic moral teaching and other moral principles, as well as scientific principles of developmental psychology. It is also good to encourage high school girls and college women to apply their developing critical skills to compare and contrast Valenti’s 21^st century radical feminist to something like Friedman’s 20^th century feminism, discussing their pros and cons in terms of women’s best interest and society’s best interest. Just because this book may do more harms than good to girls, it is not necessarily good to ban it. In fact, as this book was found in a girl bathroom, it is likely that many high school girls have been already reading this book – even in a Catholic school. So, it is rather better to confront the problem of this book, rather than banning it because of the problem. 

And, may I suggest that Valenti will receive a good psychotherapy from a mature well-balanced authentic feminist therapist to take her own frustrated edge off before she will pan again? Otherwise, so many more girls, who are still psychologically insecure and anxious, could be drawn to lopsided conflict-driven views – only to make more divisions than unity. 

If girls learn about feminism only through radical vies, like Valenti’s, it may do just as much harm to them as learning about women through Playboy magazine can do to boys. 

As educators, mental health clinicians, and ministers, we, the mature adults, who care for the developing mind of the youth, including girls, ensure that the children we serve develop critical thinking so that they can protect their minds from being misled by radical lopsided views. If we failed in this professional and ethical obligation, our society would be more divided and filled with more conflicts of interests. 

I want to see more solution-oriented view toward unity in Valenti’s next book. We do not need another book to potentially promote divisions. 

If you are a parent, educator, counselor, or minister, dealing issues sensitive to adolescent girls or college women, you may wonder or have a second thought about books like Valenti’s “Full Front Feminism”, as my colleague, who teaches at a Catholic school. Then, I suggest that you guide them critique views and thoughts expressed in these books, facilitating their critical thinking skills.  There is no need to ban these books. If we respond to such books in this way, then, those who write these books are more likely to grow hostile toward us, as the motives of the authors of the books seems to be explained with what sociologists call “conflict theory”(as in Marxism) .  Just as the best way to fight communism is to study communism critically so that we can logically dispute it, we can empower adolescent girls and college women to fight against misleading pseudo feminism, by giving them an opportunity to study and critique books like Valenti’s “Full Frontal Feminism”.