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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 36, Number 1. 28th February 1973

[Book Reviews]

page 16

"Sexist Society" is rather a messy piece of work. It comprises a silly cover, 20 odd hard luck stories and seven fairly forgettable essays, all based around the statement that "A sexist society is one which is sexually discriminating and results in immense pain and suffering for both sexes." Thrown in with this assortment are a number of predictable photographs, very obviously posed "by professional models". The binding is terrible, my copy collapsed after only one reading. For Alister Taylor's sake I hope thousands of others who had the same misfortune don't converge on his company's headquarters at 194a Sydney Street West demanding their money back.

"Sexist Society" will probably prove to be a useful work, albeit in a limited way. It catalogues a large number of trials and sufferings arising from the fact that our society is sexist, sufficient in number and variety to point out that the problem definitely exists. It also makes some effort to cover a wide and relevant field of sexist problems, although scarcely any emphasis is put on the class nature of our society. This leads to the most unforgiveable omission of the book. New Zealand is a multiracial, capitalist social democracy. The fact that it is a sexist society is quite irrelevant if it is not squarely placed in this context. The only real attempt to do [unclear: tot] that our whore economic system needs to be changed and made far more responsive to the people who live in it".

This fact may be obvious to Kedgley, Cederman and the "People's Voice" but it is surely important enough to be enlarged on far more explicitly.

The bulk of the book is the collection of anecdotes from "Breadwinner", "Baby Basher", "Pregnant at 16" and the like. These true accounts are no doubt a useful way of putting the problem, but the plea that they be seen as representative of their group should fall on very deaf ears. To present these individuals' personal biographies as a substitute for a social survey is lazy and irresponsible. As a collection of genuine cases of social evil the book may awaken some people to the problem of being male or female in New Zealand.

The failure of "Sexist Society" is a failure to seek the principal contradiction of our society (i.e. the relationship of its economic base to its cultural and political superstructure) and the contradictions of the nuclear family as the economic unit of the society. If it had been in such a context this book might have become a weapon in the hands of the oppressed rather than a platform to moralise from.

It is fitting that Frederick Engels' great work on sexist and capitalist society "Origin of the Family. Private Property and State" is referred to in the reading list. He should be joined in this list by Mao Tsetung, one of history's most successful champions of women's liberation. He commented "Genuine equality of the sexes can only be realised in the process of the socialist transformation of society as a whole".

Drawing of people mixing a pot

The Vietnamese Cookbook

It is doubtful that Alister Taylor's decadent orgy of fish sauce, bamboo shoots, boiled lotus seeds and the like will shatter Kiwi culinary traditions of boiled cabbage and the Sunday Roast. To all but the most adventurous and politically sympathetic, the dishes contained in this book would be indigestible—and even if your politics are the right colour, the Vietnamese Cookbook will never replace Mum's cooking.

The author, reputedly chef to the Vietnamese Peace delegation in Paris, is careful not to reveal the bare bones of his craft to us Kiwi running dogs. The essence of Vietnamese cuisine lies in careful gradations of heat application from slow and time consuming 'clear simmering' to very quick 'stir-frying'—but you won't find even a mention of the theory and basic methods in this book. The Ingredients of the book are an assembled collection of over-familiar black and white photos of Vietnamese peasants, with the addition of a few peckish slice-of-Vietnamese-life hand drawn graphics and blended throughout with savoury poems-all without any hint of sage. So few and poor is the selection of recipes that Comrade Taylor seems to have forgotten that this should be a cookbook and not a literary magazine cum tourist guide. At least the propaganda has been added sparingly.

It seems that that son-of-a-turtle Taylor has ripped the recipes off the original British foreign-devil publishes, and has not bothered to adapt the recipes to New Zealand conditions. Consequently all the fish recipes are useless, because the Northern Sea fish varieties are unobtainable here. The same applies to many of the other ingredients, e.g. 'double cream' which is at least twice as thick as the local crap. The recipes are completely beyond the average student's budget necessitating expensive ingredients such as prawns (about $2 a pound), pork, and chicken. There are virtually no vegetarian dishes using cheaper ingredients such as rice, noodles, pastry, eggs or soya beans—the staples of the Vietnamese proletarian diet.

However, royalties from the sale of the "Vietnamese Cookbook" will go towards the building of a North Vietnamese hospital-so those undiscriminating bourgeois liberals who buy it will at least possess the wrong book for the right reasons —and they probably won't mind.

Prisoners Shanghai 1936

Drawing of a man shining a light on people

Rewi Alley's latest booklet is likely to be one of his more enduring prose pieces for it shows Alley at his best, recording the heroic in the lives of ordinary people. The incidents described are based on actual stories told to the author by people who had been captives of the Kuomintang during the 1930's and is concerned, less with the atrocities committed against them than with the ability of the prisoners to rise above their situation

The story was written during Chiang Kai-shek's Anti-Communist campaign, but was not published at the time because the Anti-Japanese Front was formed and it [unclear: wa:] decided that "Prisoners " would not help united trout's activities. The manuscript had been sent abroad, and Alley didn't get it back until thirty years later. I don't know what its situation is regarding publication within China, but I can imagine the work being immensely popular.

For the Westerner, no matter how sympathetic to the cause for which the prisoners were lighting, there is a culture gap which is only partly mediated by Alley's pen—he has achieved an identification with the Chinese people which mere reading could never give us here in New Zealand. The Stories though are pretty universalistic—the struggles of prisoners lighting in a just cause to escape and heroic deaths and they are told most often through the mouths of the prisoners themselves. But the whole effect is distinctively Chinese.

Now and again a phrase will jar on the western ear a little, often as political conclusions are drawn out from a story or description in an unfamiliar way (unless you read the "People's Voice"or even better a Chinese publication such as "Eastern Horizon". Thus a paragraph describing a prison ends "it was part of the striking fist of the Kuomintang trying to hold its rule over the Chinese people". Which of course, it was, but there is a difference of literary style which many readers might find distracting. Alley's work is always unpretentious as he writes with the simple honesty of purpose which characterizes his subjects -the Chinese people. When we spoke to Rewi (see interview in this issue of Salient) he told us that he was still travelling throughout China meeting the people and sharing their joy just as he shared their sacrifices during the Revolution. Although getting old now he still writes tirelessly about his travels and experiences. After his short New Zealand visit he was on his way to a six-week lecture tour of Australia.

Alley is convinced that New Zealanders have much to learn from the Chinese experience and Prisoners is a valuable presentation of the reality of political struggle. A particularly revealing passage which sheds much light also on the Vietnamese struggle occurs at the end of the book as two young fighters stand and watch Japanese bombers fly overhead. One remarks on how great a number there are, and how difficult they will be to stop.

"'Ai-yah! Such a stupid fellow!' mused the other, looking reflectively down at the hammer and sickle tattooed on his comrade's forearm. 'Now let's do some figuring. Kuo Fo, how many birds do you suppose there are in China?"

Replied Kim Fo, "Now who's the fool! What the hell do you mean by asking a silly question like that! Why there must be millions of birds certainly far too many for anyone to count'"

'And did you ever in your whole life have one shit on your head?' persisted the first."

The moral if finally drawn out "Its the people who count, we'll come out on top all right".

And he was right they did come out on top. "Prisoners" helps explain why.