In the seismic aftermath of #MeToo, conversations among women shifted, intensely and irrevocably. The usual dialogues gave way to discussions centered on male behavior, casting past experiences in a stark new light. “Remember that boss? That boyfriend? That professor?” became common refrains, fueled by anger yet broadened by empathy, reflection, and disagreement. Central to these discussions were fundamental questions: Why now? What constitutes justice? Are women, especially those in relationships with men, truly exercising their sexual agency? This cultural reckoning has permeated art and literature, most notably in two recent novels: Miranda Popkey’s debut, Topics of Conversation, and Women Talking by Miriam Toews, a celebrated Canadian author. Though set in vastly different worlds – Popkey’s among educated, white American women, and Toews’ within a conservative Mennonite colony in Bolivia – both novels converge on a crucial question: What Women Want.
These books offer distinct, sometimes opposing, perspectives, illuminating critical issues brought to the forefront by the #MeToo movement. They underscore the urgent need to reaffirm the foundational, yet still unrealized, feminist goals: political, economic, and social equality between the sexes. However, while Women Talking provides a potential roadmap towards a more just future, Topics of Conversation highlights the dangers of losing sight of these essential objectives. Toews’s powerful narrative reminds us of women’s enduring need for freedom from violence and basic autonomy, making Popkey’s emphasis on women’s supposed desire for subjugation seem, at best, misguided and, at worst, a reactionary stance.
The #MeToo movement has spawned a wave of cultural responses across various media, from documentaries like Surviving R. Kelly and Bombshell to television series like The Morning Show and podcasts like Catch and Kill. These works have not only reignited outrage over past abuses but have also deepened our understanding of the ingrained power imbalances between genders.
Within literature, a growing canon of “#MeToo novels” has emerged, including Susan Choi’s Trust Exercise, Kate Walbert’s His Favorites, and Kate Elizabeth Russell’s My Dark Vanessa. These novels distinguish themselves from earlier works addressing sex, power, and sexual violence by centering women’s perspectives. They take male misconduct as a starting point, but pivot to explore the profound emotional aftermath for women. These are narratives of introspection and re-evaluation, where women reconsider past decisions, reassess relationships, and challenge previously held beliefs, ultimately reaffirming the vital importance of female freedom and agency. They are, at their core, feminist novels grappling with what women want in the wake of societal upheaval.
Literary critic Parul Sehgal has argued that fiction uniquely navigates the complex ethical terrain of #MeToo with necessary nuance. In contrast to the often didactic nature of nonfiction accounts, novels (and other fictional forms) can delve into the intricacies of individual relationships. While avoiding simplistic, universal judgments, they help clarify our own convictions. Critics like Sehgal have celebrated fiction’s capacity for ambiguity, especially in the face of the often stark pronouncements of nonfiction. This holds largely true, yet Topics of Conversation reveals that without a grounding in fundamental feminist principles, this equivocation can be limiting, obscuring the core question of what women want and how to achieve it.
The Perverse Allure of Subjugation in Topics of Conversation
Popkey’s Topics of Conversation follows an unnamed narrator through various phases of life, from her early twenties to late thirties, encompassing graduate studies, marriage, divorce, and single motherhood. Structured as a series of vignettes, each chapter, marked by location and year, revolves around a woman recounting a story about a man, with the narrator often primarily listening. Thematic links, rather than plot progression, connect these chapters, dominated by dialogue and sparse on traditional narrative arcs. Popkey herself has acknowledged the novel’s debt to Rachel Cusk’s style.
Similar to other #MeToo novels, Popkey’s characters grapple with past relationships and the pervasive presence of violence against women. These range from an Argentinian psychoanalyst’s account of marital rape to a graduate student’s recollection of a serial predator, and the narrator’s own ambiguous, yet violent, hotel encounter. The novel confronts themes of sex and power, but Popkey’s central focus is on female desire, particularly the desire to surrender agency. In this light, Topics of Conversation can be seen as a challenge to the prevailing narratives of the #MeToo movement, questioning what women truly want beyond the immediate condemnation of male misconduct.
Instead of dwelling on the trauma inflicted by these encounters, Popkey probes the unsettling allure they might hold for women. The psychoanalyst, speaking of her ex-husband’s violence, confesses, “What I felt was relief. Relief and also excitement.” The narrator, recalling an affair with a married professor where control was entirely his, reflects, “I liked not having to decide.” After hearing a story about a campus rape, she finds herself strangely drawn to the victim’s complete lack of agency. This leads to a disturbing stream of consciousness:
but also wasn’t there, beneath the details, something—to be overwhelmed, to have no choice in the matter, wasn’t there something—Obviously not if you were drunk. Obviously not your first time. Obviously not if you didn’t, somewhere deeper, somewhere—less acceptable and so less accessible, really want it. But no, that was what they said, what rapists said, that the girl, the woman, had really wanted it. So no, in addition, there would—I mean there would have to be some kind of understanding, it couldn’t be just the man’s—But if there was. I mean, mightn’t it, couldn’t it—To be in someone else’s power, not to have to make decisions, to be in fact prevented from making all decisions except where to move your—in fact maybe those decisions also were being made for you so that … Something to do with being chosen, something to do with release of responsibility. Could what the graduate student did be wrong and what I sometimes felt I wanted also be right.
Popkey’s exploration suggests that female desire is complex and potentially troubling. She posits that women may, at times, want to relinquish control and choice. While some of Popkey’s observations on individual psychology might be considered provocative, even insightful, they are not entirely original. As Sarah Resnick noted in The New Yorker, representations of privileged white women desiring submission are currently prevalent. However, the critical flaw in Topics of Conversation lies in its attempt to extrapolate a universal theory of female desire from the experiences of a limited group of women, all within the same cultural and class context. This leads the novel to feel less like nuanced fiction and more like underdeveloped philosophical musings, failing to adequately address what women want in a broader societal context.
The novel’s stylistic uniformity further undermines its exploration of diverse female experiences. The narrator’s distinctive verbal tics and sentence structures are echoed in almost every character’s dialogue, creating a sense of homogeneity that flattens individual voices. The women in Topics of Conversation become indistinguishable members of a collective, all seemingly driven by the same desires: to relinquish control, to be attracted to cruel men, to recoil from kindness, and to crave violence. Ultimately, they appear to resent the burden of choice, offering a narrow and potentially skewed perspective on what women want.
Relativism vs. Feminist Politics: The Danger of Misinterpreting Desire
Many reviewers have lauded Topics of Conversation for its supposed bravery in examining “transgressive” female sexuality. This reception suggests a concerning trend: not merely acknowledging, but seemingly endorsing, the “perversity” of female desire. This viewpoint argues for a woman’s right to want whatever she desires, even submission, and that such desires should be defended.
However, this stance risks being misconstrued as feminism. Philosopher Amia Srinivasan reminds us that true feminist politics must critically examine desire. Simply acknowledging the spectrum of desires, or even understanding their formation, is insufficient. We must differentiate between desires that are constructive and those that should be challenged and extinguished, particularly when considering what women want in a just society. Some desires, Srinivasan argues, are not conducive to building a more equitable world. Topics of Conversation reveals the limitations of celebrating “heresies” in narratives of sexual violence without a firm ethical framework. While challenging dogma is crucial, conflating freedom with submission risks undermining the fundamental goals of feminism and distorting our understanding of what women want.
Solidarity and Agency: Women Talking as a Feminist Blueprint
In stark contrast, Miriam Toews’s Women Talking also delves into power, agency, and sexual violence through women’s conversations, but offers a profoundly different perspective on what women want. Based on the horrific true events in a Bolivian Mennonite colony, the novel imagines the discussions among women following the revelation of mass rapes committed by men within their community. The women are faced with a critical decision: stay and fight, or leave and seek a new future.
Unlike the homogenous characters of Topics of Conversation, the Mennonite women in Women Talking are vividly distinct individuals. Salome embodies a defiant spirit, grappling with homicidal rage after her daughter’s assault. Metje and Netje engage in small acts of teenage rebellion. Greta Loewen, a grandmother, rejects her Mennonite identity. Mariche, marked by internalized misogyny, is both volatile and resilient. And Ona, perhaps the most compelling, possesses extraordinary empathy, even extending compassion to her rapist. Through these diverse voices, Toews paints a rich tapestry of female experience and explores what women want in the face of unimaginable trauma.
In their intense deliberations, the women grapple with profound questions: Should crimes be punished? Who has the right to forgive? What constitutes true forgiveness? What does faith mean in the face of such betrayal? What are they fighting for? What kind of world do they envision for their daughters? And crucially, what are their rights? In response, Ona articulates a revolutionary vision:
Men and women will make decisions collectively. Women will be allowed to think. Girls will be taught to read and write. The schoolhouse must display a map of the world so that we can begin to understand our place in it. A new religion, extrapolated from the old but focused on love, will be created by the women of Molotshcna.
These women, in their collective wisdom, articulate a clear desire for freedom, safety, and agency. They want the fundamental dignity of choice, a powerful statement of what women want.
In contrast to the emotional landscape of Topics of Conversation, where female interactions are often characterized by negativity and competition, Women Talking highlights the power of female solidarity, a crucial element in achieving what women want. Friendship, empathy, and mutual support are central to the women’s interactions. The narrator, August Epp, a male schoolteacher and outsider, further enriches the narrative. Toews’s choice of a male narrator is insightful, underscoring the women’s historical subjugation while offering a sympathetic male perspective, recognizing that understanding what women want is a societal, not just a female, endeavor.
Beyond Demonization: Towards a Generative Feminist Future
Women Talking avoids demonizing even the perpetrators of the horrific crimes. When Salome generalizes about men preventing women’s freedom, Mejal corrects her: “But not all men.” Ona offers a more nuanced perspective, attributing the violence to “a pernicious ideology that has been allowed to take hold of men’s hearts and minds.” The novel suggests that men, too, are victims of patriarchy, their actions distorted by societal structures. This offers a crucial lesson, often obscured by the righteous anger of #MeToo: even perpetrators of heinous acts are products of their environment, shaped by ideology, not inherently evil. This nuanced understanding is a radical vision in today’s often polarized discourse on gender and what women want.
Ultimately, Women Talking offers a generative vision of women’s lives within patriarchy, centered on solidarity and collective action to achieve what women want. The women engage in fierce debates, but their disagreements are underpinned by compassion and a shared goal. Moments of physical tenderness and emotional support are interwoven throughout the narrative, highlighting their deep bonds. Even the most contentious women unite in times of crisis. Toews presents a vision of feminist solidarity as a powerful force, capable of weathering internal disagreements and driving collective action towards a future where what women want – freedom, safety, agency, and dignity – becomes a reality. This is the feminist future we should strive for, a future built on understanding, empathy, and the unwavering pursuit of equality.
