T A B L E_ T A L K

Guess what? You're going to have a new baby brother/sister! How do you tell the kids you're expecting? Share advice in the Mothers area of Table Talk

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R E C E N T L Y

Bed rest sucks
By Kristin Wiederholt
Excessive vomiting, boredom and the other joys of bed rest
(10/05/98)

Falling for Tiger Woods
By Erin J. Aubry
Sportscasters may have abandoned this young wonder, but I'm still by his side
(10/01/98)

A mother's guide to gunk
By Lisa Moskowitz
Help! I've got Silly Putty stuck in my eyebrows and it won't come out!
(09/30/98)

Her siren thong
By Shelley Youngblut
Eve had her apple. Monica had her thong
(09/29/98)

Uh-oh, Spaghettios
By Danny Miller
Health food junkie: A single dad's obsession
(09/28/98)

BROWSE THE MOTHERS WHO THINK FEATURE ARCHIVES

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Mamafesto
By Camille Peri
Why it's time
for Mothers Who Think

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_______p r i n c e s s_M o n i c a

WHY THE STARR REPORT
AND THE TRIPP TAPES
MAKE JEWISH WOMEN
CRINGE.

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BY LORI LEIBOVICH

I've spent my whole adult life running from that label, the one bequeathed me in adolescence just because I wore designer jeans and hung out with very rich girls, had strong opinions and voiced them, was overeducated and well-traveled. And just because I was all those things and I was Jewish. To this day, I'd rather be called any number of four-letter words than "JAP," that biting, sarcastic, pejorative acronym for "Jewish American Princess." It took me years to shake it off, years to sever its insidious hold, years of arguing with people that it was a dirty, misguided, anti-feminist moniker that was applied too freely and, in my case, I insisted, inappropriately. A Zionist-feminist friend of mine used to scold those who used the term in casual conversation, saying, "If you want to get across the idea that someone is spoiled, then call them an AP," she seethed. "Don't make their religion part of it." Her polemic got her nowhere; most people laughed it off, told her she was too sensitive and then started right in again tossing the term back and forth as an all-inclusive description for suburban Jewish girls like me.

The term is haunting me again -- in the person of a former intern. Admit it -- you think Monica is a JAP. Since the beginning of the scandal, Monica's ethnicity has defined part of her persona. First, her name is conspicuous. There's no denying your roots with a mouthful of Eastern European Jewish etymology like Lewinsky (or Leibovich). The ethnic stereotype is bolstered by the fact that her father is a wealthy, politically liberal Beverly Hills doctor and her mother is a flashy woman of means with whom she has shared a no-boundaries relationship.

By any standards, Monica lives a life of luxury, lunching at the Ritz-Carlton, residing at one of the toniest Washington, D.C., addresses, the famed Watergate building. Her immaculate designer suits, manicured hands and remarkably bouncy and shiny hair (think Alicia Silverstone in "Clueless") only crystallize her JAP image. When the famed semen-stained dress made the news, a friend of mine quipped, "I bet she was psyched that the dress was from the Gap and not Neiman Marcus." When her former lawyer, William Ginsburg, announced to the press that, after being sequestered, Monica was anxious to get to a hairdresser, the princess persona was publicly unveiled. And in the infamous Vanity Fair photo spread, Monica was suggestively served up as a Yentl-Lolita, with an enormous diamond ring gracing her stubby finger. As she stood at the center of a national crisis, all the girl wanted was a makeover. Her glam shots, allegedly taken to bolster her self-esteem, only made her look like a spoiled, well-kept bimbo.

N E X T_ P A G E: She's entitled