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participants. Let's look at the sequence of events: Betty Freidan, not
in touch with the specifics of this situation, in a quick, cameo ap–
pearance (she was flying to the coast that night), exhorted women to
demand at the Friday summary meeting decision-making roles for
women in PEN. But as Freidan never has understood democracy,
but does understand power, she doesn't always correctly locate and
name the real problem. PEN generally has had more women than
men in executive and board positions. Its real problem is that it is
cliquey, hierarchical, and undemocratic.
The women's group then mapped out their protest. When I
arrived at the Essex Hotel on Friday morning, where a few women
were gathered, Freidan's general instructions to the women to seize
executive power had gotten turned around into forcing Mailer to
make a public apology to Grace Paley, in full view of the television
cameras. Both she and Cynthia Macdonald, who were presenting the
protest, were board members who themselves had been on panels.
What was really going on was internecine PEN board warfare masked
as ideological conflict. Would Doctorow so bitterly have battled
Mailer if Mailer hadn't chosen Woody Allen instead of Doctorow for
the Royale Theatre fundraising readings by celebrity writers? Mailer
was obviously wrong in acceding to Kenneth Galbraith's suggestion
to invite Shultz to give the opening address without consent of the
board. But he apologized for that, and it appears to have been his
main sin in a year of energetic campaigning for PEN. What was
completely mystifying was the willingness of some board members to
scuttle completely this international congress - couldn't they have
agreed on a channel for protest before Shultz practically was on the
podium? How could Grace Paley and Cynthia Macdonald allow them–
selves the luxury of making quick, private apologies to the women
for their lack of representation, saying they "just hadn't noticed," and
then demand a formal public apology of Mailer? Really, only the base
members of PEN had the right to complain about general goings-on.
In both the Shultz and the women's protest, how could board mem–
bers have thought that it was okay to 1) be on the board in a decision
making position of power; 2) be on panels; 3) and also lead the oppo–
sition
against
the board? What rule book is this? Why should a known
"macho male novelist" like Mailer be held more accountable for
PEN's failure to invite women than declared feminists on the board
like Paley and Sontag? As serious social reform isn't created by pro–
tests against an individual writer, who, precisely, is not a head of
state, the only reason for all of this was to humiliate and for people
