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Sonia Johnsons way is an elitist vision, plausible for
women with marketable skills, resources, national
renown and grown children
BY
ANNDEE
HOCHMAN
down to a kind of “power of positive
thinking” on the large scale. How large?
Johnson
never states exactly what “critical
Wildfire: Igniting the She/Volution. By
mass” of women will need to change their
Sonia Johnson. Wildfire Books, 1989. 282
. beliefs before worldwide transformation can
pages. $10.95
occur; she only implies that we’re getting
closer to the necessary number.
nce upon a time, Sonia Johnson was
Certainly the notion of transformative
happily married, a mother of four
children, an earnest member of the Mormon belief has value. Thinking can have a
Church. Then her support of feminism and the tremendously liberating effect But I question
whether thought alone — without education,
ERA collided head-on with church doctrine.
without changes in laws, without economic
Johnson was excommunicated from the
upheaval — can effect the kinds of broad
church in 1979 and lived not only to tell about
global change Johnson describes.
it, but to document the event in a book titled
The book does contain a cogent analysis of
From Housewife to Heretic.
12-Step programs and New Age philosophies,
demonstrating how each is based on a
template of patriarchy. And at its most
concrete, her advice makes sense. Live today
as you would like to live, she says, suggesting
Then Johnson went further. She came out
that
we shun acquisitiveness, recycle,
as a lesbian. She got spiritual in ways the
conserve resources, walk and bicycle more,
church fathers never considered. She
listen to other women, eat correctly, laugh
published her second book. Going Out of Our
often and break our addictions to destructive
Minds: The Metaphysics of Liberation. Her
substances.
latest book picks up where that volume left
But when applied on the large scale,
off and carried its theories to their passionate
Johnson’s urging to live as we would like to
extreme.
live seems simplistic and politically naive.
The thrust of Wildfire: Igniting the She!
“If we want a future world in which
Volution is an argument for women to
women
are not afraid — of rape and poverty
“disengage psychically and emotionally from
and humiliation and other male violence —
patriarchy and all its institutions.” Johnson
there
is only one way to create it and that is by
means this literally, arguing that resistance
being unafraid now,” she writes. To suggest
only strengthens and lends credence to the
that violence against women can be solved by
system one is trying to resist.
“being unafraid now” removes responsibility
Her theory rests on two premises. First,
from the perpetrators of that violence. The
she tells us, reality is an internal construct.
onus rests just where patriarchy placed it —
We create and perpetuate what is real by
on the victims.
believing in it Second, when enough of us
Suppose, though, that we do not argue
(women, that is) begin to believe differently,
reality will change. Just like that.
with Johnson’s premises, that we accept her
notion of a free and loving world created by
Those notions aren’t new to feminism or
our fervent belief in it? If we agree to follow
other types of progressive thought (the
her argument, where will it take us?
Hundredth-Monkey theory has long been used
as an analogy for peace work), and they’re
In the final chapters of Wildfire, Johnson
certainly arguable, but readers must swallow
does answer this question. Johnson’s vision
consists of small communities, without
them without flinching if they want to follow
money, without barter, even — communities
Johnson on her heady new path.
in which everyone “does what they want to do
What she advocates is no less than a
all the time” and freely offers their talents and
wholesale withdrawal from society as most of
services to others as gifts. In the end, Johnson
us know it. Stop buying things, she urges.
reveals herself as the most rosy-eyed of
Stop voting. Stop subscribing to Time
idealists. ‘This society works,” she writes,
Magazine. Stop lobbying, writing to
“Because everyone respects everyone else,
Congress, demonstrating for abortion rights,
everyone cares about everyone else, everyone
attending PTA meetings. Don’t reinforce the
desires everyone else’s happiness and health
patriarchy by fighting it
as much as they desire their own and everyone
The she/volution heralded in Wildfire boils
O
* ' -
Photos courtesy of RSVP Cruises
Feb. 18 & 25 - C aribbean with
Diane Schuur.
Mar. 10 - Y ucatan with Joan
R ivers, H e le n R e d d y a n d
Wiseguys. Hurry! Limited space.
Mar. 24 - M e x ic a n Riviera.
G otham with Sharon McNight.
M any more entertainers to be
a nnounced for the other cruises
in the weeks to com e. Call m e
for d e ta ile d inform ation a n d
brochures.
If you've never been on a cruise
before, this is the one you don 't
w a n t to miss.
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»
understands the interconnectedness of their
well-being with that of others and of all living
things.”
My objection, finally, is not just that
Johnson’s bottom line is so squishy. It’s that
her argument is so rigid as to condemn any
woman who can’t follow along. If you’re still
lobbying the school board and protesting aid
to the Contras, you’re wasting your time, she
preaches. Forget all that and come do it my
way.
Her way — what worked for Sonia
Johnson — is really what this book is about.
And it’s an elitist vision, plausible for a
woman with marketable skills, resources,
national renown and grown children. Some
women can afford to pack up and move to
small communities where they freely donate
their talents and goods to each other. But most
can’t.
Even Johnson must contradict her own
advice by putting her theory between two
covers and peddling it for $10.95 a copy. (Not
to mention her taped speeches for $9.95 and a
Sonia Speaks video for $29.95. So much for
gift-giving.)
Johnson delivers some provocative
thoughts in Wildfire. We can learn from
examining our beliefs about patriarchy,
challenging our own thoughts about what is
“natural” and what is constructed to benefit
men. But the book’s tone — both dogmatic
and full of breathless hyperbole — left me
less willing to hear the message.
Johnson’s passion is evident, but it’s the
passion of thoughts that flash across your
mind at 1:30 am, in the middle of a great
conversation with your best friend. In that
flash, you truly believe you Have the Answer;
you’re intoxicated with your own beliefs. That
kind of experience feels wonderful, but
doesn’t always translate.
The power of Johnson’s first book lay in
its ability to make other women identify —
women who might not call themselves
feminists, but who could understand the clash
between integrity and church doctrine and,
like Johnson, opt for the former. With this
book, she risks losing that audience of women
who could see themselves in her experience.
Indeed, Johnson has come a long way.
From housewife to heretic to an idiosyncratic
and risky vision, spoken from way out on a
limb. “Let us command the fierce powers of
earth and ocean, sky and fire to be with each
brave band of us as we become one more
flame in the wildfire of femaleness that is
blazing through the universe,” she concludes.
At times, the picture Johnson creates in
Wildfire sounds beautiful, even poetic. But it
may leave most of her intended audience
standing in the middle of their daily lives,
scratching their heads and wondering just
what it all means.
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