Meg Wolitzer’s 12th novel bristles with contemporaneity, despite being set in the recent past; her explorations of campus misogyny a decade ago, for example, or of anti-abortion protesters, now appear on the page in the explosive context of #MeToo and of the wholesale attack on reproductive rights by the Trump administration.
The Female Persuasion is not rendered irrelevant by those developments; rather its subtle, powerfully ambivalent forays into second-wave feminism, the nature and limits of co-operative action and the intersection between the political and the personal function as depth charges whose ripples continue to rock our unstable little boats. It is a significant contribution to Wolitzer’s body of work, which ranges over friendship, academia, creativity, rivalry and the passing of time in novels such as The Ten-Year Nap, The Wife and The Interestings.
The Female Persuasion opens in 2006, at a minor Connecticut college to which ambitious, hard-working Greer Kadetsky has come after her flaky parents failed to fill out the correct paperwork so that she could take up her place at Yale. The unfairness of her situation fuels her, but she is also hampered by her sense of not being heard; bad enough if it’s your stoner mother and father not listening, far worse if you worry about gaining attention in the wider world. When she falls foul of a sexual predator at a frat party, the first person she is able to tell, with a whispered “Someone did something to me”, is a fellow female student who is fast asleep.
Enter Faith Frank, a legendary feminist only “a couple of steps down from Gloria Steinem in fame”, founder of a magazine in the mould of Ms. and author of a hit 80s book that gives the novel its title. In it, she advocates the strengthening of sisterly bonds, and the rejection of the power grab and power suits of corporate America: what is needed is a balance between the rights of individual women to speak on their own behalf, and their obligation to help amplify other women’s voices.
By the time Faith arrives in Greer’s college to deliver a lecture, her star has waned somewhat, but her impact on the freshwoman is instant and profound; the older woman seems immediately to grasp the potentially limiting effects of Greer’s rage, and to intuit her fear of invisibility. But she also counsels being open to other perspectives: “Well, they get a say, don’t they?” she asks when Greer expresses disappointment that other victims of her abuser want to accept his limited punishment and move on.
Greer begins to work for Faith and gradually realises that juggling competing perspectives can often lead to expediency; whether a consequent dilution of ideals is to be challenged or accepted, and whether feminism is capacious enough to withstand such a dilution, are Wolitzer’s most overtly pressing questions. But she also creates a world vivid with other dilemmas and ambiguities, largely through her outstanding ability to establish minor characters. The subplot involving a tragedy that befalls Greer’s boyfriend Cory is compelling, not least because it throws a light on what happens to our concept of a successful life when reality intervenes. Her portrayals of friendship are, as ever, spot on, as are her observations of the minutiae of social life: teenage boys covered in “a body spray called Stadium, which seemed to be half pine sap, half A.1. sauce”; the tense competitiveness of a bonding weekend for youthful employees.
In another thread, Greer – for reasons she can never quite articulate – betrays her college friend Zee, who had hoped to join her in Faith Frank’s circle but goes to work in an educational programme. There the value of her idealism is called into question by an experienced teacher, who remarks of Zee’s staying power in a challenging, low-paid environment: “You’re not here for the duration; no one even thinks you are.”
Sticking it out is sometimes the most important quality of all; but Wolitzer also wants us to think about how endurance can accommodate change. Faith Frank’s brand of feminism begins to be caricatured as #whiteladyfeminism and #fingersandwichfeminism (tellingly, the latter accusation, with its suggestion of a genteel, dilettantish tea party, irritates Faith more than the idea of structural inequality). On one hand, we smart at the unfairness, knowing of her on-the-ground efforts to fight for abortion rights; on the other, we are aghast at the ease with which Faith accepts big bucks from corporations she had professed to reject.
There is an immense generosity to Wolitzer’s even‑handed portrayal of activism subjected to time and exigency; these things are hard, she seems to say, granting her characters a level of latitude not fashionable in today’s shoutfests. But sometimes shouting is needed. The Female Persuasion brings us to Trump’s US, in a slightly hasty fashion, and to a conversation between Greer and a younger woman. “We should all definitely assert ourselves more in the world,” says Kay, “that’s definitely true. But I look at everything that women did and said in recent history, and somehow we still got to a caveman moment. And our responses to it just aren’t enough, because the structures are still in place, right?” To which, alas, the only answer is to rejoin the battle.
• The Female Persuasion is published by Chatto & Windus. To order a copy for £12.74 (RRP £14.99) go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.
