J. Steven Svoboda is a member of TheMensCenter Advisory Council, an Independent attorney active in human rights law and Executive Director of Attorneys for the Rights of the Child (ARC).

Spin Sisters: How the Women of the Media Sell Unhappiness and Liberalism to the Women of America. By Myrna Blyth

Every now and then, it’s fun to try something a little different. Even if it isn’t quite your cup of tea, it keeps life interesting to try walking in the moccasins of someone with whom you might have previously thought you had nothing in common. Myrna Blyth has written a book specifically designed for, and often directly addressed to, politically conservative women. People such as myself who don’t fit into these categories may seemingly have little to gain from reading Spin Sisters. And in fact, Blyth could have written the book differently in a way that would have carried the same essential message while allowing her to speak to a wider audience inclusive of males and non-conservatives.

Yet what the author does well, she does very well. She points up elegantly how feminism has allied itself with narcissism and consumerism. She writes in a style that is (most of the time) wonderfully engaging, irreverent and informal, full of the sort of folksy wisdom and healthy (not whining) skepticism that is becoming regrettably rare in today’s world. She must have burned a lot of bridges in writing this book, in which she offers an intriguing insider’s view of the crazy world of the ultra-rich female media superstars like Diane Sawyer, Barbara Walters, and Katie Couric. She does a good job quickly summarizing and debunking a number of gender-related myths that the media was instrumental in spreading, including the supposed voting gender gap, comparable worth, claims of 150,000 annual anorexia deaths, alleged Super Bowl Sunday male violence, and silicone implants. I particularly appreciated the author’s thoughtful analysis of abortion/choice, in the wake of too much reflexive dogma on both sides of the fence of this divisive issue.

Sometimes Blyth overdoes it, as with her trashing of Rosie O’Donnell. OK, so Rosie isn’t very nice. Personally, I’m not that surprised. And while a gossipy part of myself that I wish didn’t exist might get some prurient gratification out of some of the sordid details Blyth provides, mostly I felt two things: 1. Why should I care about Rosie’s personality flaws, one way or the other, and 2. Blyth’s approach smacked of being a cheap shot.

Blyth lands some good lines, as with her critique of the modern trend of women, particularly highly privileged, wealthy media women, complaining about the slightest inconvenience as if it were a serious problem. Her response to editor Cathi Hanauer’s complaints that, among other things, her cat woke her up, and the Fed Ex man arrived unexpectedly: “Hitler invading Poland, now, that was an unexpected visitor to get stressed about…” Hillary Clinton is hilariously described as “Our Lady of Perpetual Conjugal Suffering.”

Blyth notes that the Lifetime Channel, billed as Television for Women, specializes in onslaughts of anxiety-producing, depressing stories involving kidnapped babies, a teenage girl recovering from comas who is being stalked by her mother’s killer, domestic violence, an all-in-the-family murder plot against Dad, and the like. “Maybe there are things more out of touch with reality than Lifetime—the Victoria’s Secret catalogue and Michael Jackson leap to mind.”

One of the most interesting passages has Blyth debunking the currently almost reverential status accorded to “stress.” The author dryly explains the intriguing origin of the term with some truly bizarre research done in the 1950’s: “After injecting rats with everything from liquefied cow ovaries to toxic formaldehyde, Dr. [Hans] Selye noticed that the rats experienced physiological changes. Very Interesting.” Although originally major stessors were considered to be the death of a spouse, a job loss, or a move to a strange, new place, nowadays almost anything seems to contribute to stress. Moreover, Selye emphasized the existence of good, necessary stress called eustress, a word that somehow didn’t seem to catch on like its famous cousin. Blyth asks, since we have gained nearly an hour a day of free time since 1965, what are we complaining about? Part of the problem, the author notes, may be that leisure time has been redefined from time spent not doing what we had to do and now seems to mean “private time,” by oneself or perhaps with friends but definitely without spouse and kids.

Spin Sisters traces the roots of female-oriented tabloid journalism to the early 1970’s, when British and Australian journalists began targeting female readership to raise the flagging fortunes of their large-circulation national newspapers. The author adroitly points out the schizophrenic state of magazines for young women. Women are encouraged to be as sexually liberated and skilled as possible to attract a man, while being simultaneously warned “that the allure they work so hard and spend so much money trying to achieve can be very dangerous.” A story on how to “get gorgeous” runs alongside a rant by Eve Ensler of the infamous “Vagina Monologues.”

I support Blyth in calling the bluff of the media elite over religion. Apparently 90% of Americans believe in God, yet religion and spirituality are virtually totally absent from women’s magazines. The media seem much more comfortable writing about vibrators and scented candles than they do addressing what is a central part of many people’s lives.

The author closes with a few strong points, some of which have been said before but bear repeating: “America has become a land where its citizens demand rights but forego responsibilities.” She eloquently comments on media’s distance from what really matters most to most women: “What women are really interested in is whether Johnny can actually read Mom’s list of chores, not NOW’s latest pitch letter. They fear the HMO will jack up their co-payment, not the next trip to the nail salon. And they don’t spend their time wondering if the groceries are laced with pesticides or the family home has toxic mold. They’re more worried about paying for them. And in this post-9/11 world, they’re worried, as well, about the safety and security of themselves and their families. Not sexy issues, most of these.” Finally, Blyth writes, we should all bear in mind that this is truly a great time for women, who are doing better than men in education to the point where some colleges are now proactively recruiting that increasingly endangered species, male students.

Spin Sisters isn’t a bad book, and is fairly entertaining. After a while, however, the author starts to take on the taint of those about whom she gossips. She is, after all, one of them. Blyth tries to play it both ways, using her “in” with the media elite to describe tantalizing details about fabulously famous journalists, yet at the same painting herself as being an outsider due to her politics and her asserted rabble-rouser stance. In the end, it doesn’t quite work. Yes, it’s terrible how, in the aftermath of a tragic accident, Katie Couric repeatedly pressed a nine-year-old boy to describe how he had felt as he lost the grip of a friend who drowned in the Merrimack River. But it also reflects on Blyth that she finds it necessary to reiterate these sordid stories and indeed, to presumably profit from them through sales of her book. And her knowing, wink-wink-nudge-nudge address of her book to “you,” meaning conservative women, does eventually start to grate.

Like her topic, Myrna Blyth’s book is a number of different things—at times intriguing, at times annoying, sometimes catty and juvenile, then later wise and judicious. Whether you are male or female and whatever your political views, if you’re anything like me, you definitely won’t be bored.

 J. Steven Svoboda ©2005