Epiphanic Moments

UNLIKE SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR or Gerda Lerner, Jane O'Reilly will probably not go down in history as one of feminism's pioneering thinkers. But she has certainly done a lot to popularize the cause. Since her contribution to Ms. magazine's first issue in 1970, the free-lance journalist has broadcasted the validity of the women's movement in Time, Atlantic Monthly and New York magazines. Her first book, The Girl I Left Behind: The Housewife's Moment of Truth and Other Feminist Ravings, is a collection of some of O'Reilly's wittiest and most perceptive essays and articles about being feminist in a man's world, about her evolution from a '50s "girl" who said she was going to Radcliffe to become a better wife and mother to a '70s successful professional who has trained her family to cook and clean while she types.

Scattered within O'Reilly's personal anecdotes are articulate discussions of practically every issue relevant to the women's movement: sexual harassment, ERA, affirmative action, abortion rights, pornography. Although O'Reilly says nothing Susan Brounmiller did not already say about rape, provides no new insights into the "Feminine Mystique" that Betty Friedan wrote about, and offers no new statistics on the evils of Nestle's Baby Formula, she eloquently describes the contradictions and confusions that beset a "liberated" feminist weaned on post-war values. Among O'Reilly's more bewildering regressions are the compulsion to make her house "look as though no one lived there"; preparing coffee for men who are willing to make their won; masochistically choosing lovers who humiliate her; and believing that "if I pick up the phone and dial a man, my hands will grow warts and I may even go blink or insane."

O'Reilly is also honestly ambivalent about the trade-offs her emotional and economic independence presents: the guilt of making her work a priority over her children; the difficulties of finding men who respect her feminism; the loneliness of being single; and the pressure to be a superwoman--good mother, worker, lover, and feminist.

The strongest and best-know essay of the lot, "Click! The Housewife's Moment of Truth," provides a primer for the housewife who has recently become aware she is oppressed. ("Decide what housework needs to be done. Then cut the list in half... Do not feel guilty.") It also lists various epiphanic moments when women realized their traditional role was absurd (at a consciousness-raising group exercise, the women discover they envision themselves as domesticated cats; a husband praises himself for helping his working wife with housework on his vacation).

O'REILLY'S OWN "Clicks!" have resulted in a cynicism towards men and marriage, about which she writes, "...falling in love is a risk. You might marry. No one should seek to navigate the rocky shoals of matrimony these days without first consulting prayerfully with a lawyer, an accountant, and an analyst." This distrust and dismal view of men is on of The Girl I left Behind's greatest flaws. In her tendency to blame them alone for society's ills, O'Reilly fulfills the caricature of the man-hating, strident feminist. Although her personal and statistical evidence of discrimination and sexism render her anger justifiable, O'Reilly's belief in female superiority is weakened by her own descriptions of opportunistic women who objectify men.

Another flaw of The Girl I Left Behind is its definitively white, educated, upper-class outlook. Reilly comes from the world of a second house in the country, Seven Sister schools, and parties with Leonard Bernstein on Manhattan's Upper East Side. She assumes her readership will be able to relate to her multi-divorce, psychiatrist-guided life. But whether the majority of American women find O'Reilly's world view easy to identify with, she at least tries hard to reach them. She has attempted and still strikes to make mainstream and familiar a movement that is often threatening--to both men and women. In this attempt to gain a larger audience for feminism, however, O'Reilly avoids the more uncomfortable issues of the women's movement: lesbianism, "Managerial Women" who are as power-hungry as the male corporate executives who oppress them, and the failure of the U.S. feminist movement to develop national and international solidarity with Third World and lower-income women.

O'REILLY IS OPTIMISTIC that women will succeed in changing their social position. She believes they can outlaw pornography, win state funding for day-care denters and implement the ERA by gaining access to power and money. And how will they achieve these elusive ends? With initiative and good education.

It is this lack of fatalism that makes The Girl I Left Behind an inspirational work. O'Reilly herself testifies that the feminist struggle is not easy, but passionately believes it can be won. Despite the psychic disarray the lifestyle she has deliberately chosen causes her, she believes it was the best--and only--course to be taken. O'Reilly asserts that the movement for a less sexist society will be easier for the generations of American women ahead of her, and that her generation--a transitional one brought up on the myths of stable marriages and clean kitchens--is suffering the worst confusion. Reflecting on her path, O'Reilly affirms, "Of course I was happy being a feminist. After all, consider the alternatives." And she paints a most dismal and starkly honest picture of those alternatives.