WSJ:  Margaret Atwood on the Lessons She Learned as a Young Girl

WSJ:  Margaret Atwood on the Lessons She Learned as a Young Girl

Anyone who thinks that females are perfect, that girls are nicer, that every sadistic thing girls and women do is the fault of “the patriarchy,” has either forgotten a lot or never been a 9-year-old girl at school.

My cosmopolitan niece, dressed in lilac in the photo, was once chastised by Margaret Atwood for not being nice enough.

This is how I understand her story, so it’s may not be accurate in the particulars.

My niece is the most presentable person in the family.  She’s fancy, in the literary kind of way.

At a prestigious writer’s workshop at Middlebury College, my niece was participating in a small group session where writers critique each others work.  My niece was constructively uncharitable with one writer’s work.  Margaret Atwood yelled at her to be nicer.

My niece would explain it better.  She’s the literary person. I am fancy in the, innovatively-screw-magnets-to-things kind of way.  My niece objects to characterizing the interaction as ‘being yelled at’.

Also, that photo was taken forty years ago.  My niece wears more black than lilac, and no longer has glasses as big as her head.