Penis Politics by Karen Hinton
The wobbly balance of power between men and women has been the stuff of smoldering resentments and outright debate for millennia, all over the world, in cultures far-flung and in our own backyards. In her immensely readable memoir, Penis Politics (Sartoris Literary Group), journalist and political consultant Karen Hinton shares stories of shame, sorrow, successes, surprises and egos. Touted as “a memoir of women, men and power,” it is so much more, starting with Hinton’s teenaged years in a dirt-poor Southern town in Mississippi.
Hinton has served as advisor and press secretary for some of the nation’s most powerful politicians, but “penis politics” starts long before Hinton gets to Washington D.C. In fact, the entire first half of the book is Hinton’s coming-of-age stories — when high school girlfriends pledged loyalty till death, kept secrets, learned about sex, endured betrayals and dreamed of their futures. Hinton, along with her clutch of friends — Maggie, Janice and Libby — were dubbed “the coterie” by their favorite English teacher, probably before they even knew what the word meant.
But a “coterie” they were, and the secret they must keep for Janice is scary and dirty — and the beginning of Karen Hinton’s education about “women, men and power.”
ACCOMPLISHED WRITER, AMBITIOUS WOMAN
Hinton is an accomplished and entertaining writer, juxtaposing bad and good, sorrow and hope. The girls are vibrant, healthy and full of small-town dreams. For anyone who was a teenager growing up in the South in the ‘70s, especially women, this will conjure up warm memories. For those who did not, it’s an education. How Hinton managed to escape her small-town expectations is nothing short of a miracle.
By Part Two of the book, Hinton has acknowledged the roles the men around her play in her life. It’s a delicate minefield, both positive and negative, and readers will be rooting for this starry-eyed but cautious young woman. With a journalism degree from Ole Miss and an accomplished stack of bylines in her briefcase, she enters the political fray of D.C. and New York.
Hinton’s ambitious and outspoken, but by this time she’s learned some hard lessons. She handles unwanted affectionate advances as best she can, she soothes male egos, she does her job — and her talent for getting things done serves her well. She has access to some of the most powerful men in the country, including then-Housing Secretary Andrew Cuomo and NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio, under both of whom she served as press secretary.
CONFRONTING THE ABUSE OF MEN IN POWER
But Penis Politics is not just a juicy tell-all. In her own words, Hinton says, “The focus of the book is on women and how they deal with men who abuse their authority over women, as told through my experiences in mostly political environments. … I struggled to master strategies for dealing with men of power that many women will recognize from their own lives.”
Readers may fall in love with Hinton and root for her and her hometown friends, but the book can also be a handbook for any woman negotiating a world where misogyny, sex and discrimination can still shape how girls and women view themselves and their options.
You can find BookTrib’s Q&A with Karen Hinton here.
