American writer is no Wolf in sheep's clothing

By MICHELE HEWITSON

Let's get this on the record. Again. The American writer and feminist Naomi Wolf did not teach presidential candidate, Al Gore, to bare his teeth and growl like ... well ... a wolf.

It is quite likely that reading that denial, again, Wolf will bare her teeth and growl with more than little frustration.

It is difficult to imagine Wolf - who is in town for the Auckland Writers' Festival - with her pretty scrubbed face and the much-written-about mane of luxuriant hair actually growling. But it is easy to imagine her getting cross.

Because the woman who shot to fame with The Beauty Myth and 1991 is one of those women who is written about, even by those who admire her, with a sort of grudging respect.

"You mean like 'shock, horror. I'm going to say I agree with Naomi Wolf'." This makes her laugh immoderately.

But she doesn't care to speculate on other people's motivations.

What she will say is that it has more to do with "media discourse.

And if you look back at the history of feminism, the culture allows for a tiny handful of active, vocal advocates for women.

"It's sexier to set up a cat-fight narrative."

Which is another way of saying that she doesn't take it personally: there are so few targets, so much historical bias.

Wolf is most recently famous for that role in the fiasco that was last year's presidential election.

Long before the pregnant chad entered the vocabulary, it was reported with glee (and not a little malice) that a leading feminist had become an image consultant to Gore in his bid to win the White House.

Much was made of such a title for a woman who closed The Beauty Myth with the a plea to reject "political manipulation" based on looks.

It was widely reported that she advised Gore that he was "beta male" who must wrest the "alpha male" position from Bill Clinton in order to emerge top dog.

She is not laughing now. She did not (let's hear this one again) teach her man to growl. Her job title was "adviser on women's issues - one of many."

And the alpha/beta issue was, she sighs quietly, "completely distorted and misreported."

"To put it in context, I basically was making a distinction between the job of Vice-President and the job of presidential candidate. I used a journalist's shorthand because I'm a journalist. It wasn't the time and place to spend a lot of energy correcting it."

If she is irritated that she's spending any energy at all correcting in this place, at this time, she's good at disguising it.

She would much rather, though (and who can blame her) talk about what she's flown in from New York to talk about.

Wolf is the guest speaker at the Buddle Findlay Sargeson dinner tomorrow and joins the Girls' Night Out on the Town debate tonight at 8 pm.

Wolf's latest project - she also has a new book, Misconceptions, on motherhood, due out here soon - is the Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership in upstate New York.

It targets young women with ambitions to take up leadership roles. "There are specific things that young women are not getting that is leading to a specific dearth of leadership among young women."

It is remarkable and depressing "how many remarkable young women cannot speak a strong declarative sentence in an assertive voice in mixed company."

There is nothing new in that observation. That it can still be made is the part which gets to her.

Ask Wolf whether feminism should be a job, and she says she thinks not.

"Ideally the job of feminists should be obsolete."

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