Volume 44, Number 16 · October 23, 1997
It Happened in Milwaukee
By Janet Malcolm
Feminist Accused of Sexual Harassment
by Jane Gallop
Duke University Press, 101 pp., $10.95 (paper)
Halfway through this remarkable and peculiar book, the feminist academic Jane Gallop tells a story about two dazzlingly brilliant professors who were on her dissertation committee when she was in graduate school in the mid-Seventies, and whom 'I did my utmost to seduce.' The men were reluctant at first: 'Both of them turned me down, more than once.' However, 'over the years, I did what I could to sway them. Trying not to be too obnoxious, I watched for opportunities that might present themselves, prepared to take advantage and press my suit.' Finally, both men bowed to the fate better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. 'I had sex but once with each of them,' Gallop reports. 'Neither of these became a 'relationship.' It was just what is called 'casual sex.'' She adds, 'To be honest, I think I wanted to get them into bed in order to make them more human, more vulnerable…. I was bowled over by their brilliance; they seemed so superior. I wanted to see them naked, to see them as like other men.' And, most important of all,
Review, 3052 words
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