live your life now or what are you gonna remember?

i found myself fuming today. last week, the belt on our riding lawnmower broke and i went to the local "tractor place" to get a new one. i brought the old one with me and a picture of the lawnmower, in order to ensure that i'd get the right one. the guy googled the model number (damn, why didn't i think of that at home? <insert sarcasm font here>) and then badly read the number on the very worn out belt i brought in. it was nearly rubbed off and i was pretty sure he wasn't reading it correctly. i said so in the moment, but he was sure. two days later, when i picked up the belt he ordered, it looked much shorter than the original, which i took in with me. a new guy who was there, a bit of a young smartass, assured me that the old one was just stretched out. i had my doubts. but what could i say at 4 p.m. on a friday, other than that i'd try it. of course, it was far too short. so i went there again today. there was only one guy tending customers. he was the old owner of the place. after he tended the guy ahead of me, he just didn't bother to come back to talk to me, me being a woman and all. so i waited, and waited. a woman came out of the office and did some fiddling around and then finally asked me if i had gotten any help. i said, "no, just waiting for someone to notice i'm here." she giggled and opened the door to the workshop. some other rube was sent in and he walked past me, then turned and awkwardly asked me if i needed help. i showed him my belt problem and suggested that maybe this time we measure my old one before ordering me a new one. he took the old one and disappeared. he came back with one that was the same length. proving that they had it all along and that i wouldn't have needed to wait a week. i can only conclude that i received shitty service since i was a woman with a foreign accent and i said as much to the woman in the office. she muttered that they were busy on friday and i said i ordered i wednesday. <insert eye roll here>  and meanwhile, the lawn grew half a foot.

why do i tell this petty, stupid story? for one, because it's bugging the hell out of me. and for another because life is too short for this bullshit. women have taken this kind of treatment for too long. and frankly, i'm too old and too experienced to take it anymore. life is too short.

life is too short because my mother has been lost to alzheimer's. i have no idea who the woman is who is left. even her hands, which have always been a source of strength and comfort to me (mostly because i see her strong, capable hands when i look at my own), are unfamiliar, alien even. who is this woman and what did she do with my mother? why can't i remember the good things about my mother when faced with this shell she has become? and will this happen to me too? will my daughter have to go through this? will she lose her good memories of the mom who went to get tattoos with her and traveled with her and and bought her the coolest shoes?

i don't know the answer to that and it scares the shit out of me. but all i can do is live right now. and that means not doing a job that may someday fit if i'm lucky. and that means living right here, right now. planting my garden, enjoying the kittens, reading a good book, learning new things - like spinning and weaving and dyeing. embracing the creative people in my life and hanging on for dear life. what am i going to remember? i don't know, but i hope it's something.

#metoo

the whole harvey weinstein thing has opened the floodgates. i wonder why his was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back? why wasn't it last year's pussy grabbing candidate who instead was elevated to president? was it because we care more about oscar-winning actresses than we do miss universe contestants or slovenian (super?)models?

on monday, i awoke to countless posts in my facebook feed with the #metoo hashtag. the idea was that if all of us who had experienced sexual harassment or discrimination posted that, we would show the world how widespread it was.

i copied, pasted and made the post my own then deleted it, in doubt whether to post. twice. and then i thought, fuck this, we've been made to feel we can't speak for too long and now it's time to finally speak, so i posted it. adding the hashtag #misogynistdinosaurs since my particular version was more sexual discrimination than rape.

at least what i was prepared to admit both to myself and there on facebook, in that moment.

and i saw as the day progressed that my friends had copy/pasted my post, including my #misogynistdinosaurs hashtag, and i was glad i had posted. it made me feel less alone. but at the same time, i was a little shocked at how many #metoo posts were filling my feed. so many women that i know have been sexually harassed in some fashion. it's sobering.

i pondered it all day and eventually felt that i had to admit that i had hesitated to post it myself. both because i wasn't sure i wanted to admit it so publicly and because i was finding it hard to respond with an emoji to the posts that were in my feed. thumbs up seemed wrong. crying seemed too depressing and a heart emoji seemed to convey that i loved that they'd been abused. what i wanted was an emoji that would express women standing in a circle, holding one another (and i'm not a hugger, so this is big for me), in deep solidarity and sorrow over a shared experience. but facebook gives us a limited range of emoticons (and possibly emotions (undoubtedly the stuff of a different blog post)). eventually, i did settle on the heart emoji, because i felt it could also stand in for the love and support i felt towards my fellow women (there were no men in my feed admitting sexual abuse/harassment, but i do recognize that they can also be sexually abused and i would feel for them as well)).

and of course, i thought about my own instances of sexual discrimination and harassment. the first that sprang to mind was that misogynist dinosaur that i encountered in DNV, as well as the troglodyte who was both misogynist and xenophobic towards me on the local board on which i served. close behind was the mansplaining i've experienced over the past couple of years (and my whole life, actually, but it's only in the past year or so that we (women) began to put that name to it).

but the sexual harassment aspect of it also crept into my memories...that creepy asshole at the university of iowa library who was masturbating in the stacks and who made sure that i saw him. his disgusting trail of cum on the floor, dried as white droplets, visible for months afterwards in the PG section, ensuring that i couldn't forget. i reported him immediately to campus police, but they came too late to find him in his dirty old sweats and ratty hoodie. he was never caught to my knowledge, but there were multiple reports of him, i knew this because part of my college job at the local newspaper was to go to the courthouse and get the police reports. and actually, i thought of that asshole recently, when i saw dried white droplets (admittedly probably yogurt) in our stairwell at work, so i never quite shake him off. i wonder where that creep is today?

meanwhile, very good friends were openly admitting on facebook that they had been sexually abused as children, raped as young women, and harassed throughout their otherwise very successful careers. it was sickening, how much we women had endured in silence, feeling somehow guilty for what had been done to us.

sobering, i say. again.

and then i recalled how my relationship with the man who eventually became my first husband started out with an unwanted sexual situation. and i went on to date him for 7 years and yes, even marry him. and sex continued to be fraught with him throughout. and yet i must have thought that was normal, acceptable. what the fuck was i thinking? and where did i get that idea? even tho' he had forced himself on me and then wooed me with hangdog apologies, he also actually said to me that he "couldn't reconcile the good girl he wanted to see me as with a bad girl who would want to have sex." and i married that asshole? what was i thinking? how on earth did i ever think that was ok?

i'm not to the bottom of this yet, but i think it's a very good and therapeutic can of worms this #metoo hashtag has opened. #silverlining

monday musings

i have a love-hate (hate, mostly) relationship with the work of lena dunham, but her fierce, feminist lenny letter is growing on me. it's a gathering of smart, honest, courageous, strong women, writing about politics, culture, the workplace and even menopause. i highly recommend subscribing, especially if you're a woman, but also if you know any women. 

in one of the many excellent podcast newsletters i get, (this one from gimlet's reply all) i learned about the vibration cooking cookbook, by vertamae smart-grosvenor. i found it available as an eBook through my library and i was paging through. it's only part cookbook (including recipes for racoon and squirrel), but mostly memoir. and in it i came across this lovely notion on the upside of being tribal. i'll admit i didn't think tribal behavior had an upside, what with the state of the world today, but this passage made me reconsider:

"when you are tribal you don't have slots for loving--you love. you can find a different kind of love for everyone. you love cousin blanche because she was your granddaddy's sister's child; "aunt" belle, even though she ain't really your blood aunt, because you feel just like she was kin to you. what i mean is, it (being tribal) gives you a big heart."

and it strikes me that these days, we are in need of bigger hearts.

* * *

it was about time we started to openly discuss the lies.
and you know it's bad when the wsj calls him on it. 

* * *

and because we need to think about something else:

why not about design, AI and future cities?

or the future of photography?
speaking of feminism, the british library is making material from spare rib available online.
maggie may is always able to write beautifully, even about the pain of life.
look what you can find if you go dumpster diving in denmark - enough to feed an army!
and how about a writing assignment from the vinyl cafe?
this animation by kristen lepore is profound and sad.
and this one is just plain weird.

mental tricks and mind games

i had to take a logic assessment this morning. it was timed and i knew i had to be in the right frame of mind for it. the results are important to a potential job i'd like to have. i'm good at this sort of test - the kind of questions where you're presented with a series of figures and asked to choose the next one in the sequence or where you're asked to display your knowledge of shades of meaning by choosing opposites from a list of abstract words. so, fortified with a cup of tea and sitting up straight in my chair, hair pulled back neatly, i donned a pair of pretty high heels and took the test. yes, you read that correctly. and yes, i believe it helped me. my inner feminist would like to say such measures aren't necessary, but i believe they are. dressing the part - smart, businesslike, put together - is important to setting the right frame of mind, getting in the zone. and if it takes a pair of heels? so be it.

* * *

speaking of mind games, what's going on in greece, with their resounding rejection of EU terms for restructuring their debt and this morning's resignation of finance minister yanis varoufakis is a fascinating game of cat and mouse. or perhaps it's more like the roadrunner and wile e. coyote - with the anvil crashing down on merkel's head as greece races free and looks back with a grin. maybe it's just that i tend to admire the underdog, but i can't help but think greece was right to push back. 

nearly two decades ago i spent a lot of time in greece as the euro prepared to launch. even then, on the streets of thessaloniki, it was an open secret that they had fudged their numbers to make the cut. everyone knew, including and especially the powers that be in the european union, but they let them join anyway. what's happening today is just the natural progression of those early decisions, for which germany and the greater EU bear as much responsibility as greece does. it will be interesting to see how the mind games unfold, tho' if the bullied resignation of the truth-telling varoufakis is any indication, it's going to get ugly before it's over. he was the only one of the whole lot of them who actually had an education in economics.  for more, go read krugman's analysis. i also liked this piece about him in the guardian.

* * *

have you seen my latest post on #stuckinplastic?

it seems like every time i write for them, i take a trip down memory lane.

we've come a long way, baby

yes, that is one of wonder woman's fabulous boots on the couch beside her.
it snapped off my wonder woman christmas ornament and it has a kind of morbid hold on me.
so i included it in my photo. and this wonder woman comes in this set with her invisible jet. 

i'm reading jill lepore's the secret history of wonder woman. there's a whole lot more to wonder woman than just a comic book heroine (as if that wouldn't be enough). and although my love of her comes from the 70s television series starring lynda carter, i just love her even more now that i know she finds her roots in the whole suffrage movement and the attendant fight for birth control and general women's rights that women waged at around that same time.

here in denmark, this year is the 100th anniversary of women gaining the vote (that was why we had our wonder woman salon a couple of weeks ago), so that's part of why the topic has surfaced on my radar. and it's funny how once it's on your radar, you keep coming across things that are related to it. like these horrendous anti-suffrage posters that circulated 100 years ago. i don't think i'd fully appreciated how far we women had come and how much those early feminists did for us so that we have the rights and norms that we, quite frankly, take for granted today.

the jill lepore book is one of those where i find myself staying up late to read it and simultaneously feeling eager to turn to the next page to drink in the story (and this is actual history) and wanting to slow down and not come to the end of the book too quickly.

the inventor of wonder woman was a very strange man named william moulton marston. he was a harvard educated psychologist and the original inventor of the lie detector test (hence wonder woman's truth lasso) and generally a rather weird and possibly perverted guy. he lived in a very strange relationship with his wife and his mistress and their four children under one roof. because he was a polemic figure, he had a hard time keeping a job and his wife was the main breadwinner of the family, with the mistress playing nanny to all four children, despite only 2 of them being hers. and yet he was also quite a compelling figure - charismatic in a way and quite a prolific ideas man. and he believed that women were powerful forces to be reckoned with, so he couldn't have been all bad.

wonder woman came to life just as the US was entering WWII and thus there were many themes with a patriotic tinge to them. once she was allowed to join the justice league, things got a little less feminist for her, as another writer took over from marston and relegated her to secretary status, while the other justice league members went off to fight. not to make excuses, but that reflected the times as well, the men went off to war and the women stayed at home to handle the everyday duties.

it's also pretty fascinating, the insight into the early days of comic books and how they arose both out of the film and pulp fiction industries. all of the creative artists and storytellers and maverick publishers that did battle with censorship make you wish you had lived in a more dynamic time.

i'm only a little more than halfway through the book, so i'll wind down for now. i'm sure i'll be back with more thoughts on it once i'm finished. but suffice it to say, wonder woman is even more awesome than i ever knew.

the formative years - on wonder woman and barbie

i've always loved wonder woman. especially in the form of lynda carter's portrayal of her during my formative years. she was so brave and true and tough and beautiful, all at once. and man, those wonder woman jumps. i practiced those by getting the swing at the park going as high as i could and then leaping off. i'm sure i was very graceful and strong, just like wonder woman, tho' i'm glad that video mobile phones were not ubiquitous then, so that i don't have to sacrifice that memory. i too wanted bracelets that could deflect bullets, a lasso that could make people tell the truth and an invisible jet of my very own. wonder woman inspired me to greatness. i've probably let her down, but she was inspiring to me just the same.

charlie's angels were around in that same era and with their beauty and bravery, they inspired me as well. i know charlie ultimately took care of them, but they seemed so strong and capable by themselves. they were tough and beautiful and they had great hair and clothes and they always caught the bad guy in the end - what more could you ask?

speaking of great hair and wardrobe, i'll admit that i loved barbie as well. she also had great hair and clothes and those shoes, they were awesome. my cousin had a fabulous barbie collection that burned up in a fire and i missed those lost barbies for years afterwards. they'd never been promised to me and i'd only been allowed to look at them, not touch them (being much younger and probably much stickier), but i adored them anyway and lamented their passing. of course, i had barbies of my own, but her collection was something special.

i read this morning about a very thin study suggesting that playing with barbie limits girls' career opportunities. at least in their own minds. and i have to say i think that's crap. barbie always had way more going on than ken and we all knew it. she was the brains and she had her own car and house and he was a mere accessory, who she didn't even really need (my barbie personally liked johnny west way more and in fact, she taught him a swear word or two (goddamn son of a bitch, jesus christ almighty was her go-to swear phrase of choice). yes, her feet were forever stuck in high heeled position and her waist is abnormally tiny, but she was fabulous. like wonder woman and charlie's angels, she was strong and capable and the leader of her pack. i don't feel at all that my love for her has held me back or made me not pursue a career in science or math. what kept me from that was the fact that i spent most of my time reading dostoevsky during physics class in high school.

woman, know your strength

there's a lot of talk in denmark recently on the subject of feminism. it's been in connection with the anniversary of a danish feminist landmark book - woman, know your body. much of the talk has centered on whether or not there is still a need for feminism and young women's reluctance to identify themselves as feminist. i've blogged before about whether i identify as feminist or not.

the sunday evening talk show actually featured an interview of three stark naked ordinary (as in not famous) women, talking about their very real bodies. i thought it was a little weird that all three had completely shaved (or waxed) their pubic hair and were bald down there. but perhaps i'm a little behind on pube fashion. i admired them for being relaxed and seemingly comfortable carrying on a normal interview on national television. it was pretty brave in this age where we're surrounded by photoshopped perfection at every turn.

i am grateful for the strides made on my behalf by the feminists who came before me. i haven't had to struggle to be a woman in a workplace and haven't felt held back by my gender in terms of career. i've had my moments of encounters with misogynist dinosaurs, but they were slightly different than actually being kept from getting a job or a promotion.

the danish book is centered on the woman's body, so i guess that's where the focus on naked women comes from in all of the recent discussions of feminism. but should feminism be so fixated on the body? what about the things that women can do as people? things disconnected from the gender of their bodies - things like using their hands or their muscles or their brains? my cooking and sewing and making and creating and thinking and talking and philosophizing all have very little to do with my naked body.

i find deliberate attempts to connect making and the body (like that woman who knits with yarn she's stuffed up her vagina (sorry, having trouble getting past that one)) to be somehow grasping at something artificial and constructed. is that really necessary? do we have to be so extreme to be one with our womanliness? can't we just be women, without doing something extra (or grotesque) to embrace it? is that what it takes to be a feminist now?

i hope not. i hope feminism is just under our skins. that it's there in our ability to raise strong, smart, capable, innovative girls into strong, smart, capable, innovative women. that it's there in our feeling that being a woman is a power in its own right and it entitles us to take our place in the world - the place best suited to our abilities and ambitions and strengths. to know that our brains are where it's at, not our bodies, even as we love and accept and embrace our special, unique bodies (without needing to resort to running the yarn we knit through them). to be happy and comfortable in being humans who also happen to be women.

what is an ideal family anyway?

this was the front page of our newspaper on friday. the headline says "career society's new ideal family" - and i "read" the photo as one of a filipino nanny seeing to the children and family dog, with absent parents.  but the article itself turned out to be far more cynical than that.

it seems that of the 5,149 fertility treatments in denmark in 2010, 3,249 were women who were not in a relationship with a man. that means 2/3 of the fertility treatments in this country are performed on single or lesbian women. 13% of these treatments result in a child, so some 400 children were born to single or lesbian mothers. the article didn't dig down into how many of these were in a lesbian relationship and how many were just women whose biological clock was ticking with no partner in sight. it also didn't include those who might have been inseminated abroad or without the help of a clinic. but the numbers are interesting.

leaving aside the question of lesbian couples who are having children (which i am totally cool with and which wasn't the focus of the article), it seems that there are increasing numbers of women in denmark who are choosing to have a child on their own. the article indicated that they are often well-established career women who simply feel they don't have time for career, relationship and children, so they are choosing children and career and making a conscious decision to forego a relationship with the child's father, or to even bother to find a father for their child other than in a test tube.

in fact, there are actually people selling coaching services and so-called decision workshops and donor sperm workshops and networking groups for this type of woman. it seems that for many of these women, their biggest worry isn't that the child will grow up without two parents, but that having a child will devalue them in the workplace. really? this is seriously the most cynical view on the world i've read in a long time. it frightens me to think of what the individualistic, me-me-me, egotistical way of living today is doing to our world. i realize this sounds rather anti-feminist of me, but i cannot believe that not a word of an article that stretched over two full pages of my newspaper, questioned whether or not it's the best thing for the child to grow up with a single parent? especially one that the article cites as particularly career-minded.

the good news is that today's workplace and way of working allows for a single parent model - no one in denmark (except foreigners) will look askance at you for leaving at 3 to pick up your child. it's assumed that you'll get back online in the evening and tend your mails after you've put the child to bed, so single mothers can make it work to have both career and child. both the technology and the view on work support this model.  and that undoubtedly helps two-parent families just as much, so i'm good with that.

however, the article actually says outright that many women are choosing to divorce because they feel they only have time for their child and their job, but not the husband. that way, they also can work very hard every other week, when the partner has the kids. according to one mercuri urval recruitment consultant interviewed for the article, employers look upon this type of dedicated-every-other-week employee very favorably.

i'm not sure whether the article was meant as a provocation, but i feel provoked by it. i'm not against anyone who has the means - economically and mentally - having children, whether they're in a relationship or not, but that the impact on the child itself is not even covered in the article provokes me. there wasn't a single reason to do so outlined in the article that wasn't incredibly self-absorbed on the part of the single woman.

i think having children is really hard. at times i'm overwhelmed by the sense of responsibility i feel and the energy it takes and the state of world we've brought our child into. i would definitely not want to be doing it on my own. but it's also extremely rewarding and some of my happiest moments are spent with the amazing child that we're raising. but again, i wouldn't want not to share that with her father. i just don't think it's meant to be something we do alone, for our own selfish reasons.

maybe i'm just not a feminist.

husband's theories, evolutionary psychology and feminism

over morning tea, husband remarked that he felt that intuition was a realm that women had appropriated as their exclusive domain. his theory is that this is quite unfair from an evolutionary standpoint. if women were home in the camp, minding the hearth and keeping things organized, that required greater organizational skills - they became adept at packing and arranging and moving and setting up and unpacking and well, generally being organized. men, on the other hand, were hunters - ranging far out on the savannas, tracking animals and using their intuition to help guide them to when and where the best hunt might be. men should have honed their intuition skills to a much greater degree than women did.

i didn't have much argument for this because this morning, i woke up wrong. not on the wrong side of the bed, just wrong - do you know what i mean? the alarm went off at the wrong point in my sleep cycle and i was jarred awake at the wrong point, leaving me feeling heavy and a bit dull. so i just thought, "whoa, good argument, husband, but hey, SCORE for women to finally appropriate something that rightfully belongs to men."

then i had a great craic with judith about it (yay for gmail video chat) and she brought up the very interesting point that women actually did a lot of small game hunting around the camp and therefore had quite a developed sense of intuition - also as related to plants and what to eat and what not to eat. we concluded that the main problem was a tendency of evolutionary psychology (i never had a name for it before, but many of husband's theories are of this school of thought) to try to tidily chalk our behavior all up to biology, but that ultimately intuition and emotions are really quite thin in the archeological record, so it was pretty much impossible to guess at the intentionality of many things. most of all human behaviors. if it were up to the archeologists, everything would be chalked up to some kind of primitive ritual, when in actuality, maybe there have been a lot of people through the ages who just woke up wrong.

ok, i'm aware that got a little weird there at the end. but honestly, when you wake up wrong, it sets the tone for the whole day.

happy monday one and all.

*  *  *

p.s. i managed to get rid of that stupid new difficult captcha word verification thingie on the comments, but the new blogger interface doesn't make it easy. in fact, it's impossible in the new blogger interface - you have to revert to the old one to get rid of it. now that's a pain in the ass, wouldn't you say? (what were you thinking blogger?) but it should make it easier to comment again now. 

the good wife

i don't think this photo has anything to do with this post.

we discussed extensively this past weekend what it is that makes a "good wife."  there was a lot of laughter and sarcasm in our discussion, but i've been thinking about it ever since. about where notions of what makes a good wife come from. and how constricting they are, despite all of women's so-called liberation. and how nobody really talks about them (being too busy (in the blogosphere anyway) talking about what it is to be a good mother). and just generally how much pressure there is on wives to do it all and be awesome.

many of the traditional good wife things, i utterly fail at...keeping the house spotless, doing the dishes immediately after the meal, sweeping the kitchen floor, dusting, getting rid of cobwebs (there are way more spiders than me, so i can't win), cleaning and vacuuming the car. i could go on. and you notice how much it's a list of domestic chores. at the same time, in today's society, i'm expected to work full time at a fulfilling career (because a job just won't do), be a good mom (e.g. drive my child to countless activities and bake her birthday cake) and keep myself looking young, thin and stunning. it's exhausting, if you think about it.

i do some wifely things...i'm generally the main cook in the house and we eat at what could be reasonably called dinnertime, tho' dinner is seldom waiting on the table when husband comes home.  we tend to sit down together and eat, only occasionally in front of the television (generally because i have some project or other taking up the dining table). i'm good at keeping the laundry done around here, tho' i'm less good at putting it away and people sometimes have to paw through baskets, looking for socks and clean underwear and that favorite pink sweatshirt. i bake bread 2-3 times a week. i spend time in the garden (tho' that is again primarily a husband activity) and will be doing lots of canning and preserving as soon as the garden starts to produce.

but how did all of these good wife things remain so domestic, even after the revolution? what about being well-read and interesting, so that your husband can and wants to have an intelligent conversation with you?  what about mutual dreams shared with your husband? that's definitely good wifely-ness. what about still desiring your husband and him desiring you? that's a good trait in a wife. what about knowing when to give space and knowing when you need space? why are all of the things that we're judged by to do with keeping up appearances in some sense?

i think my conclusion on all of the weekend's discussions and my own pondering it since, is that i want to reject all those societal, cultural notions of what it means to be a good wife. and just continue to be one. because i am. even if there is crap all over the kitchen floor and dishes in the sink and dust on the dashboard of the car. i'm a great wife in all of the ways that really matter. so i think i'll stop worrying about it now.

on intellectualism and feminism

i admit it, i can't stay away from the huffington post, even though the election is over. this morning, it was bob cesca's article on the madness of the far right in cyberspace. although some pretty wacky stuff is being said out there...he cites "impeach obama" groups on facebook (ahem, guys, can't really impeach a guy who hasn't taken office yet...) and some far out far right blogger who is actually claiming that bush made no verbal gaffes in the past eight years...we would do well not to ignore it, as beneath argument as it would seem to be. i think that's what got us into that anti-intellectual space in the first place. tho' it does seem pretty absurd to have to go head-to-head on issues like whether africa is a continent or a country or which countries are part of north america.

* * *

debi's comment on my quick michelle obama post yesterday has me thinking about feminism and what it means, at least to me. and although i posted the article link light-heartedly and more as a justification for my love of middle-of-the-road/pocketbook fashion, debi brings up a valid point about what feminism means today. i'm not sure that i really know because it's a word that gets bandied around quite a lot and used and abused by all sides.

when i was in college, i studied lots of feminist literary theorists--bell hooks, camille paglia, julia kristeva, to name but a few. i was, for a time, interested in the whole notion of "the gaze" and how it often objectifies women, especially on film. i read naomi wolf's the beauty myth and the classics by betty friedan and simone de beauvoir. but i had to admit that i was still hesitant to call myself a feminist. yes, i thought women should have equal pay for equal work, the same opportunities as men, control of their own bodies, but feminists just seemed so angry and strident and righteous. and i'm just not really cool with righteous.

i had this feeling that to be feminist, you had to forsake makeup and beaded cocktail dresses and i simply wasn't prepared to do that. i love high heels and eyelashes and mac paint pots and sparkly clothes. so, instead i embraced a strong woman like madonna, who is arguably a feminist, but one who someone like me could believe in. she was sexy, strong, determined, capable and successful. with her sex book in the early 90s, i felt she took that "gaze" by the horns and in embracing it, subverted it and made it hers, wresting it away from the male who would objectify her. i'm not sure now that it really worked, but for me, it worked at the time--i felt that was a feminism i could identify with.  frankly, madonna at 50 represents a feminism i can still live with (even if i wouldn't personally go there on the plastic surgery)...she's still sexy, feisty, successful and going strong. 

i was a little dismayed to read last summer that camille paglia was coming out as anti-madonna on her 50th birthday. although she's a bit of bitch (something a feminist is also free to be, so i mean it in a good way), i always kinda liked camille for her daring. it just feels a bit wrong for her to abandon madonna on the feminist front. 

i guess what i'm trying to say is that the label "feminist" has always been a bit problematic for me. it is a little too equated with bitch (in a bad way) and perhaps a bit too anti-man in its formulation for me to fully identify. i like men and i like being able to use my femininity in the very male world in which i find myself making a career. would a feminist do that? i'm not sure. they would probably castigate me for indulging in feminine maneuvering to accomplish my goals--like wearing my "audit dress," a grey suit with a short skirt, and sexy black wolford tights--on days when there's an audit. but isn't using your feminine side to be strong and achieve the upper hand also a form of feminism? or shouldn't it be? enjoying one's ability, even at 40-something, to possess a room full of men just by walking into it wearing the right clothes and makeup and then having the further satisfaction of sealing it when you open your mouth and they find out that you're smart on top of it! that's feminine power if not feminist power. and as i see it, the only way to achieve equality in paychecks and career opportunities.

i guess i don't think feminism has that much to do with the abortion issue. i can imagine that feminists think that women should have control of what happens in and around their bodies. and to believe that just because you believe in free choice means that you think everyone SHOULD get an abortion is naive. it's called pro-choice, because we think that people should have the choice to decide for their own body and their own life. although i used to provoke my mother by saying i wished i needed an abortion whenever we passed those clinics in wichita with all the protesters outside of them, i'm really glad that i never needed one. i'm certain it's a heart-wrenching choice for those who choose it. however, i would fight to the end for their right to do so and never imagine that i could make that decision for them (not unless i had already donated the kidney that i'm not using, in which case i could really argue that i 'm pro life...but i digress). 

i objected to sarah palin's citing to katie couric that hunting moose was a form of feminism, but if i reflect on it, perhaps it is. because it's about making your way on equal footing in a man's world--and hopefully transforming it to a more human world, without gender distinction. hunting moose is just her way of doing it and wearing my audit dress on audit days is mine...perhaps that's the beauty of feminism, it's what we make of it.

and me, i'm gotta go put on some of my new eyelashes because husband and me have a date night tonight..we're gonna go see the new james bond!

mediocrity rules

well, it looks increasingly like mediocrity will not in fact rule, which is quite a relief, but of course, it's never over 'til it's over.  judith warner has a very interesting piece in today's NYT on that ever-worrying topic of sarah palin as the ultimate feminist. she suggests that palin and not hillary clinton offered the political breakthrough moment for women in this year--because "mediocrity is the privilege of those who have arrived." hillary is and always was the consummate over-achiever--sarah palin, a person who happened to be in the right place at the right time and now apparently even has the right wardrobe. (because if you have a look at this, you'll see she definitely DIDN'T have the right wardrobe before.)

and there ARE just people who you shake your head at and wonder how they've attained the position they've attained. i worked with one in my previous job. the boy was nice enough, but quite simply rubbish at his job. he's still in that job and i just heard that he's getting another promotion. it's a fact that everyone around him--his employees, his peers, his customers--everyone but his boss--sees him for what he is--an utter and complete mediocrity. but, because he's mostly harmless, he ends up rising. if you're a weak manager, it's easy to promote other weaklings and fun to hold down the strong and those weak sucks totally benefit from that.

but, i do have faith and i think that sarah palin is evidence, that those mediocrities eventually rise too far and then they crash and crash hard. it's really quite nice of sarah palin to take down mccain, who likely would have continued along the bush trajectory. because i've said for years that mccain was the one republican i could think of who i could vote for. thanks to her, that is no longer true.

perhaps this whole thing will give the republicans pause. they'll have to think about whether the direction they've gone in over the past 8 years is the right one. they'll have to think about whether it's ok that those right of the right loonies who used to be their fringe have now become their center. and that introspection can no doubt only be good for everyone (assuming republicans are capable of introspection--which is currently taking the form of the "blame game," big and bad and the election isn't even over). because regardless of which answer they come up with--we are a bunch of religious, right-wing, shoot-to-kill lunatics or we are fiscal conservatives who believe government should stay out of the people's way (a lot of good that did recently)--the democrats can only look good these days.

but now, i'm going back to my sewing projects, because i have to do something constructive in these times that feel so full of destructive rhetoric.

hope you all had a fabulous weekend.

p.s. i have a new political blogsite to add to my list of regular visits which include the huffington post and andrew sullivan's daily dish, it's called the daily beast and you all probably knew about it, but i didn't until today (thanks sis!).