Feminist Critic Ellen Willis

Terry has a discussion about the politics of identity, the strengths and limitations of social and political movements that define themselves by ethnicity, religion, gender, and sexual orientation. She talks with Ellen Willis, professor of journalism at NYU; Edward Said, professor of literature at Columbia; and Gayle Pemberton, associate director of African American studies at Princeton.

Ellen Willis is a writer for the the New Yorker. Her collection of essays, "Beginning to See the Light: Pieces of a Decade," covers many of the social and political issues of the last ten years. Feminism, rock music, 60s counter-culture and the backlash against it, the changing definitions of "family" amongst the left, religion, and abortion are covered. She also discovers her reconsidering of Judaism and God in general, after a her brother became Orthodox. She joins the show to discuss the book and its subjects.

Feminist scholar Barbara Katz Rothman says that feminists must confront the cultural shift toward privileging the unborn fetus over the pregnant women. New technologies and the rise of paid surrogacy, Rothman argues, have contributed to this change.