Subject to Debate Sense and Dissents on Women, Politics, and Culture [Paperback]

Subject to Debate, Katha Pollitt's column inThe Nation, has offered readers clear-eyed yet provocative observations on women, politics, and culture for more than seven years. Bringing together eighty-eight of her most astute essays on hot-button topics like abortion, affirmative action, and school vouchers, this selection displays the full range of her indefatigable wit and brilliance. Her stirring new Introduction offers a seasoned critique of feminism at the millennium and is a clarion call for renewed activism against social injustice."There isn't a hotly debated sociopolitical issue that Pollitt hasn't taken on with conviction and blazing originality...She is an astonishingly gifted writer."Katha Pollittwrites the bimonthly column, "Subject to Debate" forThe Nation. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim and Whiting Foundations, a grant from the NEA, a National Magazine Award in Essays and Criticism and a National Book Critics Circle Award. She lives in New York City.Clara Zetkin Avenue


Scurrying around Manhattan on a blustery morning a few weeks ago, I
happened to glance up while waiting for the light to change in front of the
public library. Beneath the green and white sign reading Fifth Avenue was
another, also green and white, and printed in exactly the same lettering:
Clara Zetkin Avenue. Gee, I thought for a split second, if Rudy Giuliani is
naming a street for the grande dame of German socialism, he can't be as bad
as I thought. But will New Yorkers really start telling taxi drivers to
make a right on Zetkin? Then I saw the bent wires fastening the sign to the
post, and realized what was going on: Some lefty prankster was reminding us
that the next day, March 8, was International Women's Day.


Well, the great day came and went with barely a ripple of attention here in
the United States?although I understand that, over at the United Nations,
Sel³$