The Book ‘Directions to Myself’: A Stunning Example of Feminist Self-Delusion

A Book About a Mother’s Love for Her Son is Actually a Book About Hating Males

(Article author’s note: I felt it necessary to include long passages from the reviewed book to effectively illuminate its feminist-inspired hatred of males.)

Last month I read a book review in The Washington Post by writer Jessica Ferri about a mother’s son growing up, and was surprised to see the following paragraph:

“On the campus of Columbia, where [the book’s author] teaches, a female student carries her mattress to and from class every day as a protest against the university not punishing her rapist. In his statement, the accused says: “My mother raised me as a feminist, and I’m someone who would like to think of myself as being supportive of equal rights for women.”

I found it peculiar that a book about a mother’s love for her young son would include a description of the Columbia University rape accusation controversy from a decade ago, where a female student had dragged a mattress across the university — and her graduation stage — after both Columbia and the NY City police department declined to take action against the male student that she had accused of a violent rape.

I also found it troubling that Ferri didn’t name either the female student, Emma Sulkowicz (also known as “mattress girl”) or the accused male student, Paul Nungesser. Even more troubling, she completely failed to mention that Nungesser, after filing a lawsuit against Columbia, had been found “not responsible” by the university.¹

Had Ferri misstated or over summarized what the book actually said? I had a strong suspicion that she had not and that the book itself would contain even more gender bias, so I took a trip to my neighborhood Barnes & Noble and paid $27 to buy the book.

My suspicion was richly rewarded.

The book, Directions to Myself – A Memoir of Four Years, by author Heidi Julavits is a stunning example of the power of 60+ years of hateful feminist political and cultural indoctrination and the massive damage that this subversive indoctrination has done — even to women.

It is also a story of one mother who has been so thoroughly brainwashed by feminism that she is unable to see how her feminist-inspired, man-hating worldview harms her own son.

Let’s start with the (partial) source of the paragraph from Ferri’s review:

“Tonight, my father asks about the university where I teach, because it’s been in the news a lot. A female student accused a male student of raping her, and when the university didn’t expel the male student, she vowed to carry her mattress, for an entire year, to class.

“Before retirement, my father worked as legal counsel to the state hospital association. He’s interested in the university’s process for handling allegations between students. By what channels was the accusation lodged? Who sits on the committee that weighs the evidence and makes the ruling?

“Around my parents I worry that my frequency is too strong, and so I decide to change the subject before their faces turn into mirrors that, when I look into them, I don’t like what I see.”

I could be wrong, but it seems to me that Julavits’ father is questioning the validity and fairness of Columbia’s process of handling sexual assault accusations, perhaps even doubting Sulkowicz’s allegation. Moreover, the third paragraph hints that Julavits subconsciously understands that her own view is wrong — I decide to change the subject before their faces turn into mirrors that, when I look into them, I don’t like what I see — that is, her own bias against males.

This bias is also evident by a lengthy analysis of the still-unnamed accused student, starting with:

“What interested me, at least more recently, was how long the male student stayed out of the mainstream media.”

But Julavits completely overlooks that Nungesser had his name spread all over the Columbia campus (“rapist!”) and internationally throughout the media. She also apparently forgets that feminists had long ago managed to pass laws that prevented the public naming of women who accused men of rape or sexual assault. Why, then, does she question why Nungesser might want to have “stayed out of the mainstream media”?

She then continues with a long discussion that questions Nungesser’s devotion to feminism and whether his parents raised him in a proper feminist way:

“Clearly, I say, this man had been taught what he should think but he didn’t yet think it. His mother raised him as a feminist, which might imply that his father either was not a feminist or was a feminist but did not raise him to be one, or that, as a feminist in a family of two feminists, he ceded the job of teaching their son to his mother. Unfortunately, her teachings were not enough for him to simply be supportive of equal rights for women, itself a legalistic and quaintly ’70s way to speak of feminism—no offense implied, I say to my mother, to your ERA involvement—also, in my experience people could quite seamlessly believe in equal rights for women while still demanding that those women have sex with them.

“As a consequence of his mother’s teachings, or so her son seems to suggest, I say, since everything he learned about women and how to treat them came from her, he could only state his belief through a double act of disembodiment, by using language that safely detached him from his claims, or rather indicated the degree of distance “he”—the “he” that has a name and is not a generic and conditional “someone”—understood to exist between his actual self and his mother’s ideal version of him. Finally, “as being supportive of” was, at best, a noncommittal atmospheric assertion inspiring very little faith that any support might actually occur, or would occur only under perfect circumstances, and would be as unlikely to happen as the sudden appearance, in our solar system, of a brand-new, life-supporting planet.”

And all this in a book about a mother’s son growing up!

Doesn’t questioning the devotion to feminist theory of the family of a young man falsely accused of sexual battery suggest that Julavits has another, perhaps unrecognized, motive for writing this book?²

The frightening extent of Julavits’ feminist indoctrination can also be seen where she recalls telling her two young children – about 5 and 10 years old as best as I can estimate – about the men in her childhood neighborhood:

“When I was a little girl, I say, my neighborhood was often visited by three types of lonely men. The first type of man sat in the cemetery after dark to drink wine and read pornographic novels. The second type of man hung out with other men in the park gazebo and played music from a portable radio and got into fights and sometimes stabbed people. The third type of man exposed his penis to women while they were out walking, or to girls like me waiting to be picked up from basketball practice.”

Let me offer two alternatives to explain this bizarre, extreme description of Julavits’ old neighborhood:

• She lived in America’s darkest and remarkably unsafe neighborhood, filled with “lonely”, dangerous, strange, violent, and sexually deviant men   — or —

• Her entire worldview has been completely warped by the misandrist messages propagated by more than 60 years of feminist gospel: the hatred of men.

Which is more likely?

Either way, does anyone else think that by describing this to her very young children Julavits might be guilty of child abuse? What if a father had told his children about his childhood neighborhood being filled with “liars, hookers, and gold diggers”?

Finally, Julavits’ provides a multi-page recitation of how she (over) reacted to her son – about 5 years old at the time – saying the word “sluts”:

“The next day, I’d asked my son to sit next to me on the couch. About yesterday, I said. I want to talk about the story you told me about the brother.

“I asked him if he knew what the word sluts meant. He either didn’t know, or figured it was better to pretend that he didn’t.

“Let’s look it up, I said.

“According to my phone, I said, a slut is “a woman who has many casual sex partners.”

“So, I said. This definition implies a lot that isn’t stated. Conventionally, when a female is called a slut, it’s an insult meant to suggest that, based on antique notions of female sexuality, she has “low morals” and is “easy,” thus cheapening her value in the marriage economy and exposing her to other dangers, such as being blamed for crimes when she is, in fact, their victim. Males, when they are called sluts, are more conventionally being congratulated, because their ability to have sex with many people is seen as proof of their irresistibility, vigor, and skill. To be fair, a male slut might also limit his options in the relationship economy. His potential mates might be wisely warned away. But he can always change, and his past will not follow him into the future, and whoever presides over his change will be seen as powerful. The reformed male slut, in other words, confers value on the reformer, as well as on himself, and poses no ongoing reputational risk to any person who bravely dares to love him.

“Are you following me so far? I asked.

“He nodded.

“However, I said, the situation with your friend’s brother seems even a bit more complicated. That the boy was only friends with girls, and not boys, and was obsessed by musicals, meant that he wasn’t, perhaps, conforming to the brother’s idea of how a male his age should behave and what should matter to him. For whatever reason, the boy’s difference was something the brother needed to belittle him for, and given he clearly understood that “sluts” was an insult, he thus assumed that to accuse a person of hanging out with them was also an insult, even if it was highly unlikely for these nine-year-old girls to be sluts, if a slut was defined as “a woman who has many casual sex partners.” Regardless, I said, what concerns me is how, without really knowing how to use the word sluts correctly, by which I mean in the “conventionally offensive” manner, the brother was communicating what he believed, or what he believed he should believe, about males who weren’t acting in a way he understood as acceptable, and thus the boy needed to be teased, or corrected, and this was best accomplished by also demeaning females, whose taint, in his understanding, was contagious.

Does that make sense to you?”

Does anyone else think that there’s something wrong with this overwrought reaction to her son’s uttering an “incorrect” word?

Julavits completely misses the significance of the ending of her “mother-to-son talk”:

“My son seemed smaller than when we began this conversation. He’d started to sink into the space between the couch cushions that hides crumbs and money. Am I in trouble? he asked.”

Only in a world where the hatred of males is so common that it is no longer noticed:

More Accurately, it Should Read “Why Can’t We Hate Men and Boys?”

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To see the damage that their blindness to misandry is doing to boys, both reviewer Jessica Ferri and book author Heidi Julavits should read a book, The War Against Boys: How Misguided Policies are Harming Our Young Men:

“We have turned against boys and forgotten a simple truth: the energy, competitiveness, and corporal daring of normal males are responsible for much of what is right in the world. No one denies that boys’ aggressive tendencies must be mitigated and channeled toward constructive ends. Boys need (and crave) discipline, respect, and moral guidance. Boys need love and tolerant understanding. But being a boy is not a social disease.”

1. For more about Columbia University rape accusation controversy, see Discredited, the Legend of Mattress Girl Just Won't Go Away (Reason magazine, 2017) and Columbia Settles With Student Cast as a Rapist in Mattress Art Project (NY Times, 2017)

2. Julavits’ book also overlooks Sulkowicz’s “reconsideration” of her past actions. In Did Emma Sulkowicz Get Redpilled? Sulkowicz admits to her past feminist beliefs: “As I became more and more feminist, I think I got to a point where I was literally just straight up hating men. I just hated men, I wished all men would die.”