Word: quindlen
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...lone woman on the Times op-ed page, Anna Quindlen for years effectively managed to convey a voice that combined elements of the personal with the more public realm. She has been both praised and criticized for her style, one that raises questions about women's writing and its place in traditional male arenas. Was Quindlen's voice a refreshing addition to the Times, or a reinforcement of the stereotype that a woman only writes about the private sphere...
...recent departure from the New York Times spun off a torrent of debate, including Marjorie Williams' less than flattering article in Vanity Fair several weeks before Quindlen's announcement. Is Anna Quindlen selling out by rejecting the gleaming apple of a possible executive editorship, or is she just exercising her own choices as a woman by opting to write novels at home, allowing her to spend more time with her three children...
...answer, it seems, lies in Quindlen's own writing, a style that attempts to entertain readers while striving to enlighten them. For, as Williams so wryly noted in Vanity Fair, a Pulitzer Prize winning writer such as Quindlen has the "journalistic equivalent of tenure at Harvard"--she can say anything she pleases without fear of retribution. Yet her writing is strangely reminiscent of the nineteenth century branch of feminism that preached a woman's role to be that of a social reformer, urging readers to wake up to such issues as the plight of children in the inner cities...
There is, of course, nothing wrong with using a column as a vehicle for social change. And Quindlen's writings have been bitingly sharp, as in one of her September columns when she explained in quite clear terms why Barbie does not endure P.M.S. Before Quindlen, such social commentaries were taboo for the staid Times...
What will happen now that Quindlen has vanished from the pages of the New York Times? It appears that the next editorial slot has been promised to Thomas L. Friedman, a man who, while a brilliant writer in his own right, has none of Quindlen's own personal touch. And with Quindlen gone, it seems clear that there will be no chance of a woman being named executive editor in the near future...