about it?”
“I don’t know,” she said, pushing her stringy beige hair out of her pinched little face. “I don’t know what I’m doing, just walking around. Do you realize that this is the first time I’ve been in Seattle? Loie and I were together eight years and this is the first time I’ve ever seen where she grew up. It’s so typical somehow.”
“You two must have gotten together fairly soon after Loie left Seattle.”
“We did,” said Pauline and for a moment she permitted herself a small smile. “I met her right after she’d moved, at the first Boston Women Against Pornography meeting she came to. She swept me off my feet… She had so much conviction .”
Pauline sighed nasally. “Loie immediately became our main speaker. I helped her write her talks and speeches. She was nervous at first, she said she was a better performer than a writer—she used to be able to joke about it. Then people said she should write articles. I helped her with them too. Then an agent came long and asked if she’d ever thought of writing a book. Up to then we hadn’t thought—I hadn’t thought—of ‘mine’ and ‘yours.’ It was for the cause of women against violence against women, it didn’t matter who said it first.
“That was my idealism—then. I knew better than anyone that Loie’s thinking was muddled, that she couldn’t organize her thoughts, that her logic was faulty. She was naturally dramatic, though, and she could be so… moving. Me, on the other hand—I’m a clear, rational thinker. I did the rewording, the rewriting, the polishing. They were all, the articles and the speeches, joint efforts. When the book was suggested, Loie asked for my help. The way she explained it was that it really didn’t matter whose name was on the cover, that the agent had only come to Loie after hearing her speak, that everyone would know my ideas were equally valid and that naturally we’d split the royalty income from the book.” Pauline grimaced. “Naive, wasn’t I?”
“Did you split the royalties?”
“Well, we lived together and shared expenses. Meaning, Loie lived with me and I supported her on my teacher’s salary—I used to teach English at a private girls’ school. We had a joint checking account anyway—so the advance and the first couple of years of royalties went right into that account. At first it was wonderful. We bought a house and I quit my job to manage Loie’s career. I knew it was Loie’s name that sold the book—as well as the fact she went on the talk shows and did so well. I could never have been interviewed on TV. I would have died of nervousness. But I still got to travel with Loie and meet people and participate in the movement.”
Pauline lifted the lid of the teapot and stared at the sodden Earl Grey dregs. “I didn’t realize the extent to which the feminist movement is a product of the media. Lots of movement women claim not to be part of the patriarchal, capitalist structure—to have developed alternative values. Bullshit! Feminism is a word and image based construction like anything else—it thrives on symbols—it makes people into symbols and people make themselves into symbols to accommodate it.
“Once Loie had her name on The Silenced Heart she was automatically a more valuable person than I was. Once Loie had been on the Phil Donahue Show or asked to be a keynote speaker at the National Women’s Studies Conference she was a star. She was asked again. And again. I became known as Loie’s manager—not her lover, not publicly—while Loie became known as one of the founders of the anti-pornography movement. Once she’d said that everyone would know how much I’d contributed to the book. How the hell were they going to know that? In the beginning, the very beginning, she used to mention me in her interviews and talks and say, ‘I couldn’t have done it without Pauline Corot.’ ‘Pauline Corot’s ideas are an essential part of my book.’ But
“I don’t know,” she said, pushing her stringy beige hair out of her pinched little face. “I don’t know what I’m doing, just walking around. Do you realize that this is the first time I’ve been in Seattle? Loie and I were together eight years and this is the first time I’ve ever seen where she grew up. It’s so typical somehow.”
“You two must have gotten together fairly soon after Loie left Seattle.”
“We did,” said Pauline and for a moment she permitted herself a small smile. “I met her right after she’d moved, at the first Boston Women Against Pornography meeting she came to. She swept me off my feet… She had so much conviction .”
Pauline sighed nasally. “Loie immediately became our main speaker. I helped her write her talks and speeches. She was nervous at first, she said she was a better performer than a writer—she used to be able to joke about it. Then people said she should write articles. I helped her with them too. Then an agent came long and asked if she’d ever thought of writing a book. Up to then we hadn’t thought—I hadn’t thought—of ‘mine’ and ‘yours.’ It was for the cause of women against violence against women, it didn’t matter who said it first.
“That was my idealism—then. I knew better than anyone that Loie’s thinking was muddled, that she couldn’t organize her thoughts, that her logic was faulty. She was naturally dramatic, though, and she could be so… moving. Me, on the other hand—I’m a clear, rational thinker. I did the rewording, the rewriting, the polishing. They were all, the articles and the speeches, joint efforts. When the book was suggested, Loie asked for my help. The way she explained it was that it really didn’t matter whose name was on the cover, that the agent had only come to Loie after hearing her speak, that everyone would know my ideas were equally valid and that naturally we’d split the royalty income from the book.” Pauline grimaced. “Naive, wasn’t I?”
“Did you split the royalties?”
“Well, we lived together and shared expenses. Meaning, Loie lived with me and I supported her on my teacher’s salary—I used to teach English at a private girls’ school. We had a joint checking account anyway—so the advance and the first couple of years of royalties went right into that account. At first it was wonderful. We bought a house and I quit my job to manage Loie’s career. I knew it was Loie’s name that sold the book—as well as the fact she went on the talk shows and did so well. I could never have been interviewed on TV. I would have died of nervousness. But I still got to travel with Loie and meet people and participate in the movement.”
Pauline lifted the lid of the teapot and stared at the sodden Earl Grey dregs. “I didn’t realize the extent to which the feminist movement is a product of the media. Lots of movement women claim not to be part of the patriarchal, capitalist structure—to have developed alternative values. Bullshit! Feminism is a word and image based construction like anything else—it thrives on symbols—it makes people into symbols and people make themselves into symbols to accommodate it.
“Once Loie had her name on The Silenced Heart she was automatically a more valuable person than I was. Once Loie had been on the Phil Donahue Show or asked to be a keynote speaker at the National Women’s Studies Conference she was a star. She was asked again. And again. I became known as Loie’s manager—not her lover, not publicly—while Loie became known as one of the founders of the anti-pornography movement. Once she’d said that everyone would know how much I’d contributed to the book. How the hell were they going to know that? In the beginning, the very beginning, she used to mention me in her interviews and talks and say, ‘I couldn’t have done it without Pauline Corot.’ ‘Pauline Corot’s ideas are an essential part of my book.’ But
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