The cultural heroine of my generation... before feminist writing got bogged down in victimisation.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Mary McCarthy is remembered as a cultural hero before feminist writing became focused on victimhood.
- In plain terms
- She was a hero before feminism started focusing on victims.
- What can you take from it?
- Be a hero through action, not just victimhood.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- How has feminist writing changed over time?
- What makes a cultural hero?
Another view
Victim narratives can also be valid and necessary.
More from Mary McCarthy
Intellectual responses are known as opinions and Mary had them and had them. Still she was so little of an ideologue as to be sometimes unsettling in her refus…
Permalink to quote #40 She was a great heroine to many young women of my age. She was a heroine for her independence and her courage in speaking out in defence of lost causes and for…
Permalink to quote #42 I see her in the image of a Valkyrie maiden, riding her steed into the circle, amid thunder and lightning, and out again, bearing the body of some dead hero ac…
Permalink to quote #39
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