Women

No Space in My Alcove of Humility

Tree outside my bedroom windowTree outside my bedroom window; losing leaves everyday.

Sometimes you get confirmation that what you are doing is right and you are strong enough to accept that gift for what it’s worth rather than crawl into your alcove of humility.

The other night, together with two people from my new synagogue, we led a creative writing session with some teenagers, all girls, in a transitional group home. We sat around the kitchen table (always the place to be) and did a free write, and read and discussed a poem, and then watched some music videos that they suggested. We also (shocker) snacked.

My confidence in my teaching ability in a classroom setting propelled me into this new setting with the confidence that I could conduct a lesson, but I was unsure if I could connect to the teens there or if I could get them to care about trying to express themselves in words on paper or out loud. I dreaded the curtness of antagonism and dismissiveness. Neither came. They immediately got to the free write that I used to get things started, and they kept at it long after one of the other leaders transitioned to doodles.

The girl who was sitting to my left was called out. She was taken by the police. The other girls got completely still, then they said something about her not having gone to school. 

Unexpectently, they wanted to share their free writes. One girl wanted to show off her rap, but then they all wanted to share. And they wanted us to share, which transitioned us into a group of people stumbling with expression, rather than a hierarchy of us and them.

Then, the girl sitting to my right left suddenly, overwhelmed, it seemed, with remembrances and feelings brought on by the thoughts she expressed in her free write. After that, the girl who had been so full of her own attitude, sat down next to me, where the other girl who had been overcome had been sitting. Such a little thing, such a powerful feeling of honest connectivity—at least that’s how I interpret it, and I’m sticking to that.

Then, as we read the poem, "Still I Rise," by Maya Angelou, I told them to focus on asking questions that the poem raises rather than to charge forward with finding clarity of meaning. One girl related how one of the stanzas perfectly reflected what she had experienced that day in court, having been made to feel that she had been “cut by eyes.” And for another the phrase, “I dance like I've got diamonds/ At the meeting of my thighs?” made her think of sex abuse. I told them how I thought of that line as empowering women. Just goes to show that we are always students of each other’s minds and experiences. It also reminded her of a singer who sings about the abuse she suffered from her father, and so we segued into listening to those songs. We all acknowledged, without acknowledging, that writing is a powerful way to challenge the victim narrative.  

At the end of the session, each girl was eager to receive a journal and a pen. One girl wanted my pen that said “Trust Women,” and I was so happy to give it to her. I had cherished that pen, but now I cherish the thought of her having it—of her using it. Another girl wanted to keep the purple teacher pen that I had given to her because she likes purple. And so do I and we both smiled at the happiness of purple.

Then we left.

I will definitely be back next month. There will be different teens there dealing with the lives that they have been handed and which they have handed to themselves, and it might not be as fulfilling as this first time was, but that is not the point, the point is to keep showing up and trying to be a drop in a bucket. So I guess it is about humility, but a humility that comes from strength and not unease. 


Single Mother Empty Nester

Monterey Nov 2013

Monterey, California, November 14

One of the joys of living alone is surely that now I can be naked when I make my morning coffee. No longer do I have to fear my daughter, somehow, being awake at 5:35 to see too much of me. I also don’t have to deal with her picky vegan diet. Oh, and since there is no significant other, I don’t have to make breakfast for anyone, so I can be selfish selfish selfish on weekend mornings and get right to the business of preparing eggs just the way I like them or a blueberry pancake and pot of coffee all for me without needing to consider anyone else’s desires or reflections on the day to come, the night that was—or wasn’t. I know, those are significant things, worthy things to find solace in, but in the grand scheme of things (the big picture) I do realize that I am missing out on the beauty of the humdrumness of daily interactions. Now, a conversation on the weekend takes on epic proportions, rather than life as people live it.

I have been told that it takes time to get used to being a single-mother empty-nester, and it has only been three months since my younger daughter went off to college. I guess this is the mother’s version of homesickness, call it childsickness. Never did I think that I would prefer her pervasive negative presence over my ability to put my laundry on her bed. Live and learn.

It is still hard, eight years after the disintegration of my marriage, to come to terms with the terms of my life: the borders that have come to define me are still not me. It is not that I always pictured myself a wife and mother, the matriarch of my clan, but neither did I imagine that the contours of my life would only depend on me. It is an awesome thing, in both senses of the word, positive and negative.

But that’s not true, is it? My daughters still seek me out and I seek them out. My mother calls, and I listen (or I try to in a distracted way) to the minutiae of her life. There is a pattern of interweaving of lives that never seems to cease once there is dependency, for it becomes, inevitably, interdependency. But still, we each have a core that has space for different kinds of love and relationships which give our lives an amorphous dimension that adds depth and perspective. As the physical heart has its various parts, so does the emotional heart need to beat to different tunes.

I wonder if this time of non-significant attachment is easing me into discovering that a fragmented heart burgeons more than does a whole, directed heart.

On Friday, after I finished reading essays that were submitted by students applying for a prestigious award, a colleague noted that I do so much. I looked at him with a quizzical expression. “This and the elections. Is there anything that you don’t do?” he asked.

At first I downplayed what I do by saying that I am not responsible for this project and I was only an elections officer, it’s not that I ran for office. Then I just said, “I try to do what I can.” And it’s true. Now that no one needs me in the way a young child needs a mother’s physical presence more than her advice, or the way a husband needs to see his wife at the end of the day, I can take on myself and other things that I care about.

As the eternal optimist that I am, I wonder if this reshaping of my heart is more prep work than simply constricting to conform with current reality. Is this a time of internal molting? A woman’s autumn that will bring her back to spring? 

Monterey Garden

Garden in Monterey


Romance: Only Alive in My Mind

Fall Foliage Red
Fall Foliage, Northern Virginia

I am well aware that romance is an illusion with no permanence other than in the mind of the person who desires its lasting truth, yet that hasn’t prevented me from trying to daydream the illusion into my life. It would be lovely, I muse, for the man sitting next to me at this café, where I have come to write alone but to take a break from being by myself, to become overwhelmed by my intelligence that cannot help but emanate from me as I sit here contemplating this essay, although, in actuality, beginning a slow boil as the children playing “Don’t Wake Up Daddy” a couple of tables away keep waking up Daddy who wakes up making a lot of noise, and to be simultaneously overtaken by my Sunday morning peacefulness. Ah, the world could be such a lovely place, but then again, not so much because I have been occupied by this daydream on and off for years with barely a look over except to see if a chair could be taken.

I’m assuming that we are all obsessed, to some degree, with something and my obsession seems to be relationships. It occurred to me, finally (this morning), to stop apologizing to and for myself and just go with it. Is it really worse than a writer obsessed with murder or zombies or the trauma of war? I have decided to let myself luxuriate in my sense of wonder, for at 52 that is what it has morphed into. And, really, what does it say about me that I daydream about someone taking me to the airport and picking me up, with a desperate embrace on each end. Is it really a sign of my weakness as a woman that, although I have a good job and have raised two wonderful daughters and have survived an emotionally abusive marriage, that I have an itsy bitsy bit of emptiness that no class or hobby or volunteer activity will fill. And no one can take away my feminist stripes because I have no desire to hand over my life to anyone, I just want my heart to race when I think of him and I want his heart to race when he thinks of me. Is that a crime?

For a couple of moments there seemed that romance was in the air, but, as these things seem to happen with us people (as in anyone after college), the layers of our lives tend to tie us to the past more than to the future. And so it has dissipated with the residual impact being a re-clarification that I, indeed, am alone and that I, indeed, wish it weren’t so.

Crap.


AIRPORT GREETINGS

A couple in their mid-fifties, he thin with gray hair and beard, she thin with the faux blonde of younger years, embraced outside the arrivals area at Dulles Airport. Their bodies leaned into each other, almost collapsing with longing and relief. As I drove by them, I said to my daughter who I had just picked up, “That will never happen to me.”

“That’s sad,” she said.

And it was.

At a certain point, after a protracted divorce, two failed romances, some dismal dates, and the degradation of the on-line dating search, I gave up. I could appreciate the beauty of love, and companionship, and passion, but I was coming to terms with the fact that those were in my past and that in the future I would be alone, like my mother. Only she was 79 and I was 52; and she had been widowed after 54 years of marriage, and I divorced after 21 years. But the expectation that we would both remain without love was the same. She seemed pleased with the company; I was disheartened, but, nonetheless, satisfied that I was confronting reality.

But it was a lie. I was living within the illusion that if I pretended to accept myself as happy happy happy alone in my now empty nest, I would be rewarded with lasting love, full of respect and passion. It’s damn hard to challenge myths when they are so lovely to behold in spite of the pain and disappointments of past relationships. Or is there still a belief, beyond skin deep, that there doesn’t have to be such a dramatic parting from the initial moments of endless possibility and the ending moments of failure and loss.

 

Not long ago, on a solitary Saturday night, I watched a romantic comedy on my laptop. The story was silly and irrelevant, but the absolute beauty of watching two young people falling in first love was compelling. And, the sensuousness of the first touch of hand on bare arm and then the delicate pull into a kiss and embrace was so poignant that I couldn’t help but cry, nostalgic for moments long lost and a reminder, too, that my time for such innocence has passed. I ached in my unending loneliness, watching the movie to its happy end, saddened in my wisdom that it does not always end that way.

 

It’s not that I am continually confronted by my aloneness or that it continually bothers me, for I have embraced my quiet weekends and the absolute lack of necessity to coordinate anything with anyone. Yet, this luxury at times feels more like a stillness than a celebration. And I miss being able to express my love, whether for a child or a lover. Perhaps the aloneness is not just for a passionate shiver, but is from that intrinsic part of me that needs to care for others. Or is it that I need to be absorbed into another person’s life for my life, the motions of one woman, is not enough to evoke my fullness—has never been enough.

When I became a teacher nine years ago, I didn’t think I could do it because I didn’t know enough of anything to teach, and I wouldn’t be able to remember so many names. Those issues, I quickly understood, are easy to deal with, but it was the capacity for compassion that I never realized I had and which seems to have come out (though, surely, some students don’t see it when they only think of me as strict). Was this confusion based on my being an introvert? Are we lead to believe that an introvert only lives within the self, when, in reality, it is that our interactions need to be meaningful and fundamental, rather than a shower of words and laughter at a party? Have I not been able to fully comprehend who I am because I have enabled a societal norm to derail an honest appraisal of self? Am I an introverted people-person who needs both the engagement and the silence? Do I need love, in all its forms, and feel the lack of all. And so the longed for quiet has its flipside lack of intense interweaving of life with life.

A friend who has been divorced for many years says that it takes time to grow into solitude. Now that I realize how integral those relationships are to who I am, and not that they were roles to play that broke up the continuum of self, I realize that there will be no honest comfort if I am not giving comfort. I am that women who needs to lean into and be leaned onto; I am that woman who needs to heed the hearts of others.

What to do? There are the facts of two daughters who moved away for college: one who stayed away even after graduation, and the other who has only just begun her freshman year, and there is, too, no arrival to anticipate at the end of the day with a mental and physical embrace. I will forever miss the everyday presence of loved ones which has been an integral part of my presence.

But if the ache will not be soothed by solitude, then it is up to me to create relationships, in some form, for solitary solace will not suffice. 


This Week in the War on Women (October 26)

This is cross-posted at DailyKos.

 

WOMAN AS VESSEL DEPARTMENT

“Case Explores Rights of Fetus Versus Mother”

I get that the authorities really really really care about fetuses, because, God, but how come we women don’t get the God protection? You know, I’m fed up with trying to understand these bullies because there is nothing honorable about them and no bible thumping with prove otherwise (besides, my bible is a scroll). Honestly, Get Your Compassion Out Of Our Wombs!

“JACKSON, Wis. — Alicia Beltran cried with fear and disbelief when county sheriffs surrounded her home on July 18 and took her in handcuffs to a holding cell.

“She was 14 weeks pregnant and thought she had done the right thing when, at a prenatal checkup, she described a pill addiction the previous year and said she had ended it on her own — something later verified by a urine test. But now an apparently skeptical doctor and a social worker accused her of endangering her unborn child because she had refused to accept their order to start on an anti-addiction drug.

“Ms. Beltran, 28, was taken in shackles before a family court commissioner who, she says, brushed aside her pleas for a lawyer. To her astonishment, the court had already appointed a legal guardian for the fetus.” (highlighting mine)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/24/us/case-explores-rights-of-fetus-versus-mother.html?hp&_r=0

 

WOMEN WHO ARE TOO OLD TO BE PERT AND BOUNCY DEPARTMENT

San Diego, which brought us creepy Mayor Bob Filner, now offers Matthew Tucker, who fires the ladies who he doesn’t enjoy looking at because they’re too darn old.

“SAN DIEGO — A former employee of the North County Transit District has sued the public transportation agency, claiming its executive director, Matthew Tucker, illegally targeted employees -- specifically, older female employees -- for layoffs, then retaliated when his decisions were questioned.”

“Heidi Rockey, a former grants specialist who resigned from NCTD in July 2012, told inewsourceTucker made a habit of firing, laying off or demoting women over 40.”

And there you have it: “According to sources who were either the subject of the statements or witnessed the actions firsthand, Tucker frequently referred to older female employees as “grandma”; asked if they had enough energy to do their jobs; suggested they dye their hair to look younger; and repeatedly said younger women were “easier on the eyes” than their predecessors.”

http://www.kpbs.org/news/2013/oct/23/war-women-over-40-lawsuit-claims-sex-gender-bias-n/

http://inewsource.org/war-on-women-over-40-linked/

 

WOMEN BEING PUSHED BACK INTO THE KITCHEN DEPARTMENT

“The war on voting is a war on women” in Texas and Beyond

“The assault on voting rights is a naked attempt to suppress the votes of minorities, students, the elderly, and the poor. But don’t be fooled. This War on Voting is an essential part of the War on Women.”

“What is not commonly known, however, is that women are among those most affected by voter ID laws. In one survey, 66% of women voters had an ID that reflected their current name, according to the Brennan Center. The other 34% of women would have to present both a birth certificate and proof of marriage, divorce, or name change in order to vote, a task that is particularly onerous for elderly women and costly for poor women who may have to pay to access these records.”

Lesson Learned? Don’t change your name when you get married. That will show them!

And get out and vote, always, because this is an endless war against our rights.

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/the-war-voting-war-women

Same story covered on the Rachel Maddow Show.

“And yet, state Republicans approved a discriminatory voter-ID law anyway. As Ari Berman explained, the law is off to a rough start: ‘Based on Texas’s own data, 600,000 to 800,000 registered voters don’t have the government-issued ID needed to cast a ballot, with Hispanics 46 to 120 percent more likely than whites to lack an ID. But a much larger segment of the electorate, particularly women, will be impacted by the requirement that a voter’s ID be ‘substantially similar’ to their name on the voter registration rolls. According to a 2006 study by the Brennan Center for Justice, a third of all women have citizenship documents that do not match their current legal name.’”

Unbelievable. Texas has a law that forces a women to change her name on her official Texas state ID card, speaking about major control issues. So instead of having a middle name and a maiden name, on a Texas ID card, your maiden name becomes your middle name. How the heck did that get passed? But, because of this name change, many women won’t be able to vote because none of their other documents that they need to further prove who they are, have their name written that way—because it’s not their name. So, Texas gets to rename just about every married woman in the state—and screw them at the same time.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/when-the-war-voting-meets-the-war-women

 

ENDLESSLY RECURRING DEPARTMENT: GIRL RAPED. BOY CHARGED. CHARGES DROPPED. GIRL HARASSED.

How the hell does this keep on happening? Why do boys deserve protection but not girls?

“I'M DAISY COLEMAN, THE TEENAGER AT THE CENTER OF THE MARYVILLE RAPE MEDIA STORM, AND THIS IS WHAT REALLY HAPPENED”

“You may have heard my story, thanks to Anonymous who trended #justice4daisy. I'm not done fighting yet.”

Wisdom from Daisy: “I not only survived, I didn't give up. I've been told that a special prosecutor is going to reopen the case now. This is a victory, not just for me, but for every girl.

“I just hope more men will take a lesson from my brothers.

“They look out for women. They don't prey on them.”

http://www.xojane.com/it-happened-to-me/daisy-coleman-maryville-rape

“One way to think about Daisy and Paige’s choice to come forward is that they are trusting in the transparency of good journalism and, yes, the Internet. Before their story ran in the Star, the girls were the targets of vicious victim-blaming in their town. Locally, their names had been shredded. Now that the lens for their story has widened beyond Maryville, they’re getting the support they didn’t before. Daisy wrote about how “#justice4Daisy has trended on the Internet, and pressure has come down hard on the authorities who thought they could hide what really happened.” She’s right: The county prosecutor has called in a special prosecutor to reopen the case.”

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/10/21/daisy_coleman_and_paige_parkhurst_alleged_maryville_rape_victims_tell_their.html

Information also here:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/maryville-rape-case-sparks-courthouse-rally-article-1.1493960

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/22/daisy-coleman-rape-case_n_4145104.html

http://www.dailykos.com/blog/This%20Week%20in%20the%20War%20on%20Women

 

SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT WHY THIS MAY BE HAPPENING

The conversational rage this week, at least at Slate, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, seems to be that young women should not drink to excess because this may lead to their being raped. Is this news? Do we not know this even as we know that no matter how drunk, no woman asks to be raped, AND THE BLAME IS ON THE RAPIST.

The New York Times, in its Room for Debate section, examined this question: “With studies finding an association between binge drinking and rape on college campuses, is there anything wrong with telling women not to get blind drunk?”

Some of the voices:

“But, until that change fully takes hold, women remain vulnerable to forms of sexual violence against which the criminal law does not adequately protect them. Since that is so, it is essential – in some spaces, at some times, for some audiences – to make sure that women are told how to protect themselves.” Anne M. Coughlin is the Lewis F. Powell Jr. professor of law at the University of Virginia.

“Calling for young women to become teetotalers as a solution to the problem of rape on college campuses is not only old advice, but also wrongheaded and dangerous.”
Mychal Denzel Smith
 is Knobler fellow at The Nation Institute.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/10/23/young-women-drinking-and-rape

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/10/sexual_assault_and_drinking_teach_women_the_connection.html

Apparently this was the article that got it started: College Women: Stop Getting Drunk. It’s closely associated with sexual assault. And yet we’re reluctant to tell women to stop doing it.” by Emily Yoffe

“The young woman laments the whole campus landscape of alcohol-soaked hookup sex. ‘Women are encouraged to do it, which ignores all the risks for us,’ she says. ‘You get embarrassed and ashamed, so you try to make light of it. Then women get violated and degraded, and they accept it. Who does this culture benefit? Alcohol predators. It doesn’t liberate anybody.’”

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/10/sexual_assault_and_drinking_teach_women_the_connection.single.html

And Ruth Marcus at The Washington Post, in Thursday’s column notes, “The message of Emily Yoffe’s Slate article about binge drinking and sexual assault on college campuses was as important as it was obvious: The best step that young women can take to protect themselves is to stop drinking to excess.”

“Young women everywhere — not to mention their mothers — ought to be thanking Yoffe. Instead, she’s being pilloried.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ruth-marcus-missing-the-point-on-binge-drinking/2013/10/24/56c8a70a-3ce0-11e3-a94f-b58017bfee6c_story.html

 

GEE, HOW DID THAT HAPPEN DEPARTMENT

154,000 Fewer Women Held Jobs in September; Female Participation in Labor Force Matches 24-Year Low

“In September, according to BLS, the labor force participation rate for women was 57.1 percent, down from 57.3 percent in August and 57.4 percent in July. The female labor force participation rate had also dropped to 57.1 percent this March.”

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/154000-fewer-women-held-jobs-september-female-participation-labor

 

PETITION: CONCEALER SHOULD NOT CAUSE CANCER

“Revlon--one of the biggest cosmetics manufacturers in the country--is running ads promoting their support for breast cancer awareness while selling products to women that actually contain cancer-causing chemicals!”

Sign the petition: http://act.weareultraviolet.org/sign/revlon_toxic_chemicals/


A Good Saturday

I'm back from being in writer's no-words mode.

It is Saturday night and I am home alone in my emptied nest. The window is open, letting in the slight chill of an early fall evening in Virginia, and the crickets are the second soundtrack to the show tunes station to which I am listening.

In the morning I had a breakfast with a friend who is having relationship troubles. Ursula and I have known each other since I moved here from Israel thirteen years ago. We have breakfasted through my divorce, her dating escapades, my dating escapades, her relationship’s beginning, my relationship’s beginning—and end, and the draining interweaving-of-selves part of her relationship that shows just how hard it is to have a successful relationship once you’ve been divorced, and/or have passed 40 and the naiveté that accompanies us in our younger days.

In the afternoon I canvassed for a Democratic candidate for State Senate and against the entire Republican ticket in Virginia. Most people were not home on this beautiful, summer-like Saturday. One woman, whose husband I was there to talk to, tried to tell me that invasive ultrasounds were good because it gives women a chance to really consider killing a baby. Once we got past that, we had a real conversation, in spite of her obvious listening to Fox and my reading of DailyKos. I also saw a couple I know; he said that he was probably going to use his furlough time to do some canvassing.

When I came home, I read a little, I napped, then I walked Poops, and had dinner. For a few hours I have been reading at the computer and trying to write.

Nothing about my day was similar to the hectic pace and child-centric days when my daughters were home, nor was it similar to when I was focused on providing comfort to a husband or a boyfriend, or not getting the comfort I needed. Nothing about my day was less than an expression of myself. It is bittersweet, this open time of not being needed, but there is, too, the sense of satisfaction that the need I now fulfill for my daughters is fully me—and not a role. It is bittersweet, though, to have no one to ask me when I will be home from meeting with Ursula, and then to greet me with a kiss when I return as if I am some long-travelling love. But it was lovely not to think about when I need to be home so that a child or a man won’t feel alone.

There is much to life that is not intertwined with demands; it is astounding to have reached this point and this realization. Living without demands imposed upon me has also meant that I impose fewer upon myself. It also means that the focus I used to have on how I wasn’t as good as everyone but me is loosening its grip, as is my need to do just to show/say/feel that I am doing. There have been weekdays spent working and then coming home and not being productive. There have been weekends when the only thing I have done is to walk Poops. I am resisting saying that I did nothing because I am letting myself, finally, discover that life is life: it really is the moments and not only the actions or experiences or products.

Apparently I needed to be alone to proceed according to my internal clock (except for waking up at five am on weekdays) to become content. Spending a day with a friend, and a cause, and a dog, and then eating leftovers in pajamas is a darn fulfilling way to spend a day. 


This Week in the War on Women (August 24)

This is cross-posted at Daily Kos.

 

WAY PAST INSANITY

High School Virginity Check: Coming to a school near you?

So it’s good that these girls can get an education, but my goodness, the disrespect shown to them is unimaginable. Disrespect, I don’t even know what word works here. The patriarchy always knows what’s best for everyone.

“A city on Indonesia's Sumatra Island will require female students to pass a virginity test for entering senior high school in an effort to reduce the rate of "negative acts," news reports said Tuesday.

“Muhammad Rasyid, chief of the Education Agency in the city of Prabumulih in South Sumatra Province, reportedly said the virginity test, which will be a response to the high rate of "adultery" and "prostitution" among female students, is slated to start next year.” 

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/kyodo-news-international/130820/indonesian-city-require-female-students-pass-virginity

 

Because Men always Know what God Thinks

The depravity is just incomprehensible. What is the point of religion if it only makes you fearful and full of hate?

“A cleric cut his wife into pieces on Wednesday for refusing to wear a veil and sending their children to school, police said.”

“He said he had been telling her to cover her face with a veil when she stepping outside, but she had not listened. He also wrote that he did not want to be responsible for her sins and thus killed her.”

http://tribune.com.pk/story/593466/cut-into-pieces-she-challenged-gods-orders/?utm_content=buffer191a0&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer

 

VIOLENCE: The Kind Women Suffer From

Can’t a Girl Have Fun?

“Recently, the Guardian reported that women gamers who are threatened or targeted for abuse are often told by game companies that it’s their own fault for choosing a female name or avatar. One user reported that the CEO of a popular gaming company simply banned her from playing the game in which she’d been threatened because he was “tired of hearing about” her problems with other players.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/16/video-game-writer-leaves-company-after-threats-against-her-children/

 

The Double-Standard Lives On: And On And On In Social Media

“A 17-year-old was reportedly hospitalized after a photo of her performing oral sex on two different men went viral. Caroline Linton on a girl's public shaming—and her defenders.”

“Welcome to today’s reminder that it’s different for girls,” wrote Sarah Ditum in the New Statesman “A culture that hates women for having sex is one that simply hates women, and that is the grotty truth photographed at Slane.”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/articles/2013/08/22/behind-slanegirl-young-girl-hospitalized-after-photographed-having-oral-sex.html

 

Victims of Domestic Abuse Afraid to Call the Police

It is absolutely incredible (in a very, very bad way) how things always manage to work themselves out to a woman’s detriment. So she can’t call the police for help because they will evict her from her apartment because she’s disrupting the neighborhood. How many times does a woman need to be punished because she is/was with a violent man? Is there never going to be compassion or logic in the way the law deals with women? 

“The nuisance laws are growing in popularity around the country. They are ostensibly enacted to enable landlords to weed out drug dealers and other disruptive tenants from rental properties and create “crime-free neighborhoods.” Unfortunately, they often end up placing victims of domestic violence and other crimes at the mercy of their abusers.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/17/police-tell-victims-call-911-and-youll-get-evicted-under-nuisance-laws/

 

Rape Culture at Work: Five Examples of How Employers Turn Women into Sex Objects 

1. ”A New Jersey judge ruled that casino waitresses can be fired for gaining weight.”

2. “A widely-used employee training manual tells women how to make sure they don’t lead men on.”

3. “Women at Merrill Lynch have been instructed to seduce their way to the top.”

Check out the other two here: http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/08/22/2510031/rape-culture-at-work/

 

 

HARD TO BE A WOMAN DEPARTMENT

So How Does a Woman Lean In? Iranian Version

“That’s right, male officials in Iran have deemed Moradi simply too beautiful to hold public office. They even allege that she won her campaign based on her looks alone, calling her posters “vulgar and anti-religious.” To the contrary, her posters are in line with Islamic tradition. In the photograph in question, Moradi dons a hijab and hides all of her hair, as well as her skin other than her face.”

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/iranian-woman-declared-too-beautiful-to-be-a-politician.html#ixzz2cpPzBcNH


Some Games Are Just Too Complicated for Women (Hint: It involves a ball and scoring points, you know, complicated stuff)

I appreciate the apology, but my goodness, will the auto-pilot to sexism ever cease? “Alabama newspaper apologizes for saying women find football ‘confusing’ and ‘often vexing’”

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/alabama-paper-apologizes-women-find-football-confusing-article-1.1432259

 

Women Shortchanged In Retirement Earnings

An NPR interview (transcript also provided). Systemic change is needed. Once again: stop blaming individual women, even those who are the Leaning Tower of Pisa. This is a societal issue.

 “We're talking about the implications of the retirement-gender gap. And Paul, speaking to this gender gap specifically, what solves it? Is it bringing pay up to equal? If men and women are making the same amount, will then their retirement accounts have the same amount in them?

“SOLMAN: Well, not if, in fact, women leave the work force for longer periods of time than men, right? Even if they were making a hundred percent of what men make, if they had fewer years they'd have fewer years to accumulate income, they'd have a smaller pension and they'd have lower Social Security. So that by itself wouldn't change things unless you literally have men be house husbands to the exact same extent that women have been housewives, you know, over the years.”

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=213822180&ft=1&f=1006&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tw&utm_campaign=nprbusiness

 

ABORTION / CHOICE

Can They Ever Just Relax and Let People Get Medical Care?

“Well, if you’re watching Fox, you’d think it’s apocalyptic. Right wing radio host Mike Gallagher acted like there was nothing more outrageous than a public health clinic getting involved in a program that helps people get better access to health care. “I always try to anticipate what my friends on the left will possibly say to try to defend this egregious about-face,” he chuckled on Fox. The “about-face” is a reference to the overt lie underpinning this entire campaign against Planned Parenthood, which is the conservative claim that Obama somehow promised that Planned Parenthood as an entity would not get any federal funding under the Affordable Care Act. Obama made no such promise. He signed an executive order disallowing abortion to be covered in health care plans sold on the exchange, but signing people up for health care should not be equated with giving them abortions or even giving them plans that cover abortion. That’s like saying the Department of Motor Vehicles is casting your ballot for you by giving you the opportunity to register to vote—an outright and inflammatory lie.”

“Anti-choice activists object not just to abortion but to any reproductive technologies or sex education that makes it easier for people, women especially, to have sex without serious negative consequences.” (Emphasis added because it gets to the point so succinctly.) 

http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/articles/2013/08/21/the-right-s-new-attack-on-planned-parenthood-health-insurance-grants.html

 

Let’s See if You Can Play Fair

“Seven doctors who perform abortions in Wisconsin are applying for hospital admitting privileges as a way to show they cannot comply with a new state law (SB 206) that requires them to have the privileges, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.”

http://go.nationalpartnership.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=41610&security=3181&news_iv_ctrl=-1

 

North Dakota Showing the Way

“A North Dakota judge on Wednesday issued a preliminary injunction against a state law (SB 2305) that would require abortion providers to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals, Bloomberg reports.”

http://go.nationalpartnership.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=41451&security=3161&news_iv_ctrl=3235

 

And Bingo! But Can They Listen to SCIENCE and DATA?

“An analysis of these documents shows that congressional Republicans will find no support for their arguments in favor of new restrictions on abortion care in the evidence presented by the states. In particular, to the extent that anti-choice advocates claim that women are being put at risk by abortion services, these documents—from the very state entities charged with overseeing and regulating abortion—show the contrary. They show that abortion in the United States is highly regulated and overwhelmingly safe.”

http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/08/21/exclusive-results-of-congressional-fishing-expedition-show-abortion-is-already-highly-regulated-overwhelmingly-safe/

 

Using Tragedy for their Own Ends

“A tragedy, and Surovik was furious when she found out that while the other driver would be penalized for driving drunk, he wouldn’t be punished for causing her miscarriage. Her anger, and the terrible situation, has served as a perfect opportunity for the always-active anti-choice movement in Colorado, which seized upon it as an ideal excuse to advance yet another attempt at a fetal personhood law. Under such laws, a developing fetus is given rights similar to those of a fully developed person outside of the womb, despite the potentially dangerous implications of such measures.”

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/theyre-trying-to-bring-back-fetal-personhood-in-colorado.html#ixzz2cbVhLfgv

 

Abortion in Texas: The Game

Fundraising is underway to develop Choice: Texas, an interactive fiction game based on abortion access in the state of Texas.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/choice-texas-a-very-serious-game

According to the Kansas City Star, protesters from across the country, called the Abortion Rights Freedom Riders, converged on a crisis pregnancy center called – without a hint of irony – A Better Choice. They held signs that said “Fake Clinic” and “Stop Forced Motherhood” in front of the crisis pregnancy center, which happens to also share a parking lot with Operation Rescue, an anti-choice group known for their graphic protests of abortion clinics.”

“No one is doubting that anti-choice activists are well-organized and effective, but now pro-choice activists are fighting back. As long as they don’t start murdering people in cold blood, I say that it’s time to get loud.”

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/pro-choice-group-borrows-anti-choice-tactics-minus-the-shaming-and-intimidation.html#ixzz2cpP8JGMa

ACTION ITEMS & GOOD IN THE WORLD: WOMAN POWER

Unbelievable: In the YEAH! Department

“Birka Avenger: A Super-Hero in a Birka for Women’s Education in Pakistan”

Have a look at the clip and know that progress is being made for girls’ education where we don’t expect it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_d-NMni0n8

 

A Discovery that Makes So Much Sense

“The discovery in Peru of another tomb belonging to a pre-Hispanic priestess, the eighth in more than two decades, confirms that powerful women ruled this region 1,200 years ago, archeologists said.”

“This find makes it clear that women didn’t just run rituals in this area but governed here and were queens of Mochica society,” project director Luis Jaime Castillo told AFP.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/22/ancient-tomb-confirms-powerful-priestess-ruled-peru-long-ago/

 

Planned Parenthood Winning in Court

“The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a U.S. District Court ruling that will prevent Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s administration from effectively defunding Planned Parenthood.”

“This marks the second time in less than a month that Planned Parenthood has defeated an attempt to limit access to its facilities. On July 30, the ACLU prevailed in its lawsuit on behalf Planned Parenthood of Indiana when Judge Tanya Walton Pratt decided that an Indiana law similar to the Arizona one violated the same free-choice-of-provider provision.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/22/court-strikes-down-arizona-law-defunding-planned-parenthood/

 

Too Touchy: Filner Resigns

I guess now he’ll have some time for real therapy, not the pretend days in hiding.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/23/bob-filner-resigning_n_3796018.html

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/San-Diego-Mayor-Bob-Filner-to-Resign-220675401.html

 

Hero Who Used Her Words

And this story proves the lie that only guns fight guns. NO WORDS DO. YOU GO GIRL! A tragedy was averted in Georgia by a compassionate, wise, patient woman: Antoinette Tuff.

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/bookkeeper-at-georgia-elementary-school-talked-down-shooter?ref=fpb

Award the Presidential Citizens Medal to Antoinette Tuff of Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy in Atlanta, GA

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/award-presidential-citizens-medal-antoinette-tuff-ronald-e-mcnair-discovery-learning-academy-atlanta/B5Y0C5D0

 


Chipping Away at Women’s Rights in Northern Virginia

At 7:40PM, I read an email that I received at 4:22PM. The email from Planned Parenthood begins: “The City of Fairfax is voting TONIGHT, July 9 on a proposed ordinance that would arbitrarily single out women’s health centers from other medical facilities and if passed, would allow the city to block any abortion provider from moving into its boundaries. Now that the state TRAP law has passed and is being implemented, we cannot let localities increase the burdens on women’s health centers with additional local TRAP laws!”

I had just finished watching TV when I saw this email. I quickly got dressed and drove to the meeting—about a 20-minute traffic-free drive. For some reason I was expecting throngs in the streets; or at the very least, difficulty finding a parking place, but neither was the case. The meeting was going on, and the Council Chambers wasn’t full. Luckily, I automatically went to the left side of the room (a lefty’s instinct), which was where a group of people from NARAL were sitting, so all was good—at least with the seating arrangements.

Since I arrived almost an hour and a half late, I missed all of the citizen statements and was there just a few minutes before the ordinance came up for a vote. A few council members found it incumbent upon themselves to state that this was not a political issue, but merely a zoning issue. Sure. An ordinance (in the words of the email) that “will force centers to incur additional costs and barriers to complying with the state TRAP laws, and would be yet another regulatory obstacle for Virginia abortion providers to overcome in order to stay open” is not political. It was galling for them to state that. Seriously, what’s more hypocritical than a politician saying that he’s not motivated by politics? Is that akin to him saying that he’s not motivated by his ego?

A few members tried to push the decision to a future meeting after the staff would clarify vague points in the ordinance, which a few council members conceded were evident in the ordinance. But one council member, Jeffrey C. Greenfield, pushed the mayor to get the council to vote on the ordinance tonight. That was certainly politically-motivated: Members, get your little pro-choice or pro-life booklet stamped!

And they did. Four ayes. Two nays. Would it be shocking to learn that the one woman on the council voted nay?

It wasn’t enough for the council to restrict women’s rights in concert with Texas, and North Carolina, and Wisconsin, and Ohio, and Kansas, and Alabama, and South Dakota, no, we also had to get a ManLecture from Mayor R. Scott Silverthorne. He noted (warming us up?) that he is probably the most liberal mayor in Fairfax City in over 50 years (does that really say anything?). But that warm and fuzzy feeling he was going for froze when he had the nerve to call out, in his little Napoleon speech, that he was angry at NARAL for coming into his territory from outside to upset his meeting, which, after all, was simply about zoning. Is that next? Only people with the correct zip code can enter a supposedly public meeting? Or maybe, only the people that live on the right side of the tracks? Does he lecture other groups about wanting their members present to state their case and support their cause? Can he really think that he has the right, hmmm, as a public servant to limit free speech?

To me, his statement is in line with everything that’s been happening in the last few months that limit a woman’s rights to her own body and her own decision-making. As usual, a man knows best. I thought that we were done with all of this patronizing stuff now that we can lean in and almost have it all. 


The Alone Track

I’ve always considered myself a loner, so I was surprised to realize that I’ve never lived alone. In two months, though, it will be just me, and I’m not as happy about it as I thought I would be. When I first imagined the empty nest, I envisioned sipping champagne while soaking in a lavender bubble bath with a cucumber masque restoring my skin—with the door wide open and “my” music resounding throughout the apartment. Just me doing what I want. No critical, dismissive teen around. No man whose needs I cater to more than my own. I thought that I would have my own little resort spa, Casa Laura. But before I even had a chance to run my bath, I discovered that I’m not elated.

The empty nest marker signals the end of too much for it to be only about celebration. For almost thirty years I have cared for my loved ones. It’s not that I defined myself by the stuffing I made and the carpools I drove, but I did. How could I not? Sure, I’ve always been something else besides partner and mother, and I’ve always identified myself by my writing and my work, but whoa, this is like having an integral part of my identity being torn from me. A mental hysterectomy.

Am I ready to be just me? It seems so bare. So alone. How will I perceive myself? Obviously, I’m still a mother, but if no child is living in my house on a permanent basis, I need to create a new perception of who I am in relation to my daughters.

I can remember the day when the switch from active to supportive-back-burner mom occurred: the day my younger daughter got her own car. Up to then, the process of not being needed was so gradual as not to disturb my hormones, especially because there were always the driving duties to keep me in the need-loop. But, wow, when she could drive herself and not have to coordinate the car usage with me, I was released from an essential part of what being a mother has meant to me. It would be a lie to say that I didn’t revel in her independence, but it’s an empty independence. Gone were the talks in the car; gone, too, were the sullen silences, but, still, we were together.

Which means that I’ll have more in common with my widowed, retired mother than with my daughters. They are striding into their lives, while I am heading to a spot on a bench, next to my mother.

Oddly, the more I think about it, the more I feel ready to be just me. Over the last year and a half of her driving herself, and the year since Kenny left, I have been able to do what I want, no excuses or blame. I have gotten together with friends, and have spent or wasted my time as me and my pocketbook have allowed. I have been becoming the woman I am meant to be. Active motherhood is a thick layer in the lasagna of life, not the whole pan.

This summer, while my daughter is still here, I have plans of my own: I took a class for work last week, and I’ll teach a writing class for a couple of weeks. I’m also going away for a weekend with two friends and taking a woodworking class (which I’ve wanted to do since I had to take Home Ec and sewing in junior high school and not shop like the boys). It occurs to me that I have already started the transition from “mommy and me” to “girls’ night out.” I’ve been making decisions based on my needs and wants, not strictly theirs, but what is essential for my understanding of myself and my relationship with my daughters is that I still want to give and give and give, but they, rightfully, no longer want to live on the receiving line.

I can’t know what stages the relationship with my daughters will go through as they live their lives. What I now realize is that I won’t be an onlooker to their lives, because I will be on a parallel track: watching them and participating in my own race. Who knows? Maybe they’ll want to glance over every once in a while and see what I’m doing.


Helping My Daughter Enter Dateland

I entered Dateland without a talk. Not only did my mother not understand the unrestricted nature of the 70s, she barely understood dating in her own buttoned-up 50s. And my father, well, obviously fathers don’t do those girl talks; although, it seems to me that their insights into the minds of teen boys would probably be the most worthwhile thing to hear. So I was completely unprepared the first time a kiss became a grind and a contest of wills far more than a testament to romance.

 

“Mom! Guess what?” My daughter’s deep brown doe-shaped eyes and effervescent smile were, for a change, passionately-pleased to see me and so very close to my face that I breathed in her excitement and in a rush I breathed out my response.

“He asked you out.”

“To Homecoming.” Her scream came out as an overwhelmed whisper. Even though she had told me that she was no longer interested in this boy and there had been no talk about Homecoming, there could be nothing else that could have brought that degree of passion to my generally staid young lady, now a senior in high school.

I could barely sleep that night. I was so excited for her. Her first high school date. A date with a boy she has liked for more than a year, but both of them too shy, up to the low-key, “Want to go to Homecoming?” to do more than daydream. At first I channeled myself as her. What will she wear? Will he drive or will she? Will they go to dinner first? What will they talk about? Will they be too shy and sit in silence? But sometime in the night I awoke as a protective father, sweeping all thoughts of romance and first kisses, tongue or no tongue, aside. “No more than a peck good-night. Don’t rush anything. Don’t let him touch you—anywhere.” Was I having a father’s thoughts since her father isn’t around? Or did I realize that it is my responsibility to prepare her for dating as I had prepared her for playdates and kindergarten. 

 

How do you prepare your daughter for the thrill of love and lust and not burden her with your own insecurities? I want to protect my sixteen-year-old daughter from letting her insecurities wall her up into a cocoon of protectionism that would stifle her development as a loved and loving young woman.

My older daughter, now 21, was so distant in her teens with the pain and bitterness of our divorce that I was unable to do “the talk” with her, other than to repeatedly warn her never to let a man—anyone—talk to her the way her father talked to me. So when she called me, six months after moving to LA to attend college, that she was in San Francisco for a few days with her boyfriend, who I had never heard about, all I could say was, “I hope you’re using protection. You don’t want to get pregnant or STDs.” To which she responded, “I know, Mom,” as if we were continuing a conversation that we had been having since she reached puberty.

My own fear as a teen was that someone would discover what I perceived as my physical abnormalities and so I reverted into prudishness. And even when I rounded second base, and no words of shock or disgust were uttered for my innie nipples, I was still embarrassed for my overwhelming body faults. I certainly didn’t look like the women in the Playboy magazines my brother had shoved under his bed, as I assumed everyone looked.

A healthy sense of my physical sense could have prepared me for the overwhelmingly-physical nature of dating. My parents subscribed to the child-rearing philosophy of “praise spoils a child,” so you neither praise for internal qualities nor for external ones. In that scenario, the only way to create a healthy sense of self is through years of trial and error. At 51 I do believe that I am finally accepting of my thunder thighs and gently rolling tummy, and my now drooping breasts.

For years I have been telling my daughter how beautiful she is, because she is. I don’t want her self-esteem be tied to what a man says to her. No, I want her to value herself and build her own realistic self-assessment. Of course, this has been in concert with talking about her intelligence and her sweetness. It seems just as hazardous to ignore a child’s physicality as it is to over-emphasize it. This way of raising her seems to have worked. She will shyly smile, say “Thank you,” and then look down when given a compliment. She can wear yoga pants or sweatpants, a body-hugging dress or one of my worn-out size L sweatshirts and look equally herself. Comfy in her skin seems to have been accomplished. What else do I need to give to her so that she is prepared to hold onto herself and fall in love at the same time?

 

The night before the Homecoming date we had a five-minute mini-lecture in the kitchen. Surprisingly, she didn’t resent my speaking to her, and the kitchen turned out to be the perfect location since it wasn’t a solemn sit-down in the rarely-used living room, rather it was a casual chat in the one room where we meet most often.

I had hoped to mentally write and rehearse my speech on my way home from work, but no ideas or phrases came to mind. It was disappointing; I had thought a steady stream of ideas would come. But they didn’t. So I ended up doing what I generally do: wing it. And, I must admit, what came out of my mouth was far more insightful than anything that casually popped into my head since last week when I knew I would need to have this talk, and even since I had daughters who reached their teens and the inevitability of this talk, with someone, became apparent.

“I need to talk to you about dating.” She rolled her eyes and her eyebrows went up, but she didn’t resist; rather, she looked at me as an athlete looks to a coach. “As a general rule, and I’m not saying this against boys, it’s just the way it is, they will always want to do more than you will want and it’s up to you to push his hand away or say ‘No.’” That felt so true and so unknown before I said it that I surprised myself with my insight. 

“Mom,” was all she said because she was listening.

I continued, still not knowing what would come out until it did, but pleased with the accumulated wisdom of 39-years of boy-girl interactions. “It doesn’t matter if he pays for dinner or what he buys you, your body is your own and you decide what you want to do. No one deserves anything just because he paid for a meal. Your body is yours.”

“I know.”

“Don’t let anyone try to pressure you into doing something that you’re not comfortable with. Only do what you are comfortable doing. Move his hand,” and I moved my hand over the lower and then the upper girl parts, “and say, ‘No,’ otherwise he’ll continue.” She looked embarrassed. This might have been too much for a girl who hadn’t been confronted with a kiss yet, but if I couldn’t be blunt now, when would I be? “And if you’re ever in a situation where you’re uncomfortable, call me. Thank goodness for cellphones.” I wasn’t sure if I should go there, but I gave her a watered-down version of my scary date story. “One time I was in this guy’s apartment, somewhere in Buffalo, I wanted to leave but I didn’t know where I was and I was afraid. Afraid to leave and afraid to stay. I ended up staying. If I had a cellphone, I could have called a taxi to take me to the airport rather than wait until the morning for him to take me. It was scary. I don’t want you to be in that situation.”

Those doe eyes of hers were finally reflecting some compassion for me. “Okay.”

“I mean it. You don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to do.” Was there anything more to say?

We stayed in the kitchen for another couple of minutes talking about the logistics of the next night’s Homecoming and then she went into her room.

I followed her to say one last thing. On her bed was one of her best friends.

“Did you hear our conversation?” I was annoyed, not that she possibly heard what I said, but that our poignant mother-daughter moment hadn’t just been between the two of us.

She shook her head.

“So I had ‘the talk’ with her while you were here?”

“I wish my mom would talk to me,” was her response.

That made me feel less bad about having lost the absolute intimacy of the moment. In my mother-to-all / teacher voice, I reiterated, “Your body is your own, that’s the most important thing to know.” With that, I left them, hoping that my daughter would be my surrogate to her friend and add some more of my wisdom. I was particularly pleased with my realization that men will not stop unless you stop them.

I did what I could do; now it is up to her, and to the men in her life to respect her and her protective mechanisms, as every woman deserves to be respected and heeded.

 

I wonder what the boy’s father said to him. I hope that he told him to respect my daughter by not seeing her body as a baseball diamond, and that he told his son that the key to happiness with a woman, at 16 or 50, is not based on what you can get or how you’re feeling, but on how you make her feel.  


Guest Blogger: Author of "Never Marry a Momma’s Boy and 62 other men to avoid like the plague!"

Thank you for allowing me to do a guest post on your blog!  I am very excited to have this opportunity!

I have recently published a book titled “Never Marry a Momma’s  Boy and 62 other men to avoid like the plague!”   This book deals with types of men and the problems they automatically bring to a relationship.

Now don’t get me wrong-I really like men-I have been married 4 times (yes, four-I am the eternal optimist!).  Men can be interesting creatures-they see the world differently than women, have different interests, and can be fun to be around (not to mention the sex thing!). 

But “Being around” a man and marrying him are two different things!  Marriage changes everything-you are stuck with the whole person, not just the fun parts!

Men and women are very different (in case you haven’t noticed!) Men tend to be shallower and more rooted in the moment.  Women tend to be more introspective, caring, and nurturing.  We plan more for the future, and just generally have a much deeper nature in all ways.  It makes me laugh that most of the famous philosophers were men-the women were probably at home caring for the family and guiding him in his deep, deep thoughts (that he got credit for!)  Anyway, back to our topic…

Some men are genuinely wonderful people (in some ways). Sometimes you would swear this same man had the brains of a nit- and just about as much compassion and understanding!

 With all this said, many categories of men come with predictable problems, not just because of the man.  Certain problems are just inherent with different habits, families, personalities, or occupations.

This book has been the result of years of observations made as a Public Health Nurse, also working in the ER, Labor and Delivery and teaching Psychology.  As the years passed, I noticed, as many of you probably have also, that many men tend to fall into categories, with each category having its own set of problems.

This book was triggered by an event at work-the Momma’s  Boy of a co-worker was engaged.  Looking at the invitation sent to our office(with a lovely picture of the couple) was a horrifying experience-I saw myself years earlier, and knew exactly what kind of hell that poor girl was going to marry into!  That started a cascade of thoughts about types of men to avoid.

At around the same time I emailed an author about a book of hers that I loved, mentioning that I liked to write.  She said “Only you can write your book.”

Well, this book took over my life-I would dream of types of men-and wake up to write them down.  In the bathtub, types would pop into my mind, and I would scribble them down as soon as I stepped out.  I wanted to be done, but kept thinking of different types. 

I felt that if I could save ONE woman from a bad marriage, then I would be happy!

So here I am, sharing this on your blog-I hope it helps someone, or at least makes you laugh!  If you read this book, please email me your thoughts at [email protected] would love to hear from you!

Here is the link to my book:  “Never Marry a Momma’s Boy, and 62 other men to avoid like the plague!”

 


A Small Family

Both of my daughters are here, and later in the week my mother will come down from New York for a few days, which means that my whole family will be together. Four women, three generations: a family, not as much modern as realistic.

The men are missing. My father has passed away. My boyfriend is gone, somewhere. My ex-husband is gone, somewhere. My brother is where he always is, in his house that is 30 minutes from where we grew up, with his wife and two children; he seems incapable of expanding his active compassion to more people.

So it is the four of us.

My older daughter is visiting for a week; last month she graduated from an LA-area college with a BA in English and next month she is headed to Vienna to study German and possibly stay there permanently. She will be going with her boyfriend, who, since he is much older, I refer to as her man-friend. In August my younger daughter will be going to college, probably in Colorado. My mother is in the process of selling the apartment in New York where I grew up and moving year-round to Florida.

There will be a dispersal of us women, but not a disintegration. It saddens me that my family doesn’t fill my dining room table when we sit round it for a meal. It saddens me that I couldn’t give my daughters the boisterous family full of close cousins and aunts and uncles that I had dreamed of for myself, but didn’t get, and so had hoped to create for my children. It did not come to pass. It is we four.

A cousin of mine recently adopted a baby, but she never notified me. Another cousin did, which is good that at least one person has a sense of keeping a link alive, but that is all it is, a tenuous, very occasional email link.

The sister of the cousin who adopted the baby tried to friend me on Facebook about a year ago. Since I don’t use Facebook, I contacted her via email, hopeful about reconnecting a childhood friendship. It turned out that she just wanted me to be a Facebook friend/number and possible client of her artwork.

My ex-husband’s two sisters are not in touch with my daughters; it seems that they decided that since their brother is not around, they have no hold or responsibility toward his part of the family.

But while I might feel inadequate about this paucity, my younger daughter gave me her decidedly different perspective. She had gone to a friend’s grandparent’s house for Christmas dinner. Round the table were relatives who her friend only sees at the annual holiday meals, but they felt it incumbent upon themselves to tell her what to study in college, what college to go to, and what to do with her life. There was arguing and interference, and my daughter was appalled; “I’m glad we have a small family” was her reaction.

I looked at her, stunned, that she wouldn’t want something that I thought would be so integral to her desires and that she was endorsing her life—which is what I give to her. It’s hard sometimes—okay, always—to separate your desires and perception of their needs from your child’s, and it’s hard, too, to learn from your children. But that was a good lesson. The grass over here is the grass she knows, and that is comforting to a child. They want—at least at the fundamental level—what they have, because the unknown is frightening.

So the next time I have family-envy, I need to remember that the four of us sitting round the table means a bigger piece of pie and talking time for each of us. 


Young-Womanicide

How much can a society violate its young women?

How much can a society free its young men of blame for violating its young women?

Is it an equation: a woman sacrificed for a man?

Is this our version of female abortion or infanticide—young-womanicide?

Are we standing before a pyre, with flames that are stoked through the clearest of skies by the twisted and the seemingly-sane?

If these men—and their enablers and supporters and bystanders—violate all that once was held sacred and we let them, then what are we?

How can I not hate these people who are so arrogant as to think that sons are better than daughters; that the despicable actions of boys are of greater worth than a single tear/tear of a girl’s?

Are there any mirrors to look into that don’t cloud over with shame and anger, and regret?

Who let these boys and men enter our public places as beasts?

How is it that their excuses and blaming drown out voices of remorse and sorrow and repugnance?

Go for a walk run jog. Attend a party play concert. Wear pants shorts skirt. Fear of being raped should not accompany every woman every day everywhere forever. 


Defensive Mothers and Innocent Sons

The world has always been as we know it now: violent, cruel, inequitable, and ceaselessly pressing upon us. Has there ever been a moment of Garden of Edenesque tranquility, except in individuals at moments of supreme joy? Why is there always a battle for supremacy—in everything—rather than a field of wildflowers stretching beyond the horizon? It’s stultifying to acknowledge that this is how the world is meant to be; it’s also stultifying to think that this is how it will be past time imagined.

Is the reason for this pre-evolutionary way of being to be found in a simple explanation, or at least a logical explanation albeit with an, as yet, unknown way of resolving it?

 

Every year since I started teaching about ten years ago, there has always been one problematic student. That student has always been a boy. This is the student who would not take directions from me; not only would he not listen to me, but he seemed determined to undermine my authority and take it for himself. That student was often of African or African-American descent or Muslim, though not always, last year’s bad boy was white. I am a 51-year-old white Jewish woman. In the past I have commented, part jokingly, that those students had a hard time accepting a woman’s authority—dominance—over them. I’m not joking any more.

When the student would disrupt class, I would send him out to the hall for a one-on-one talk with me, and then, after the next time and the next time, I’d have his counselor speak to him, and his assistant principal, and I’d meet with the parents (though more often than not it was only with the mother). But rarely was there lasting change.

At the beginning of the school year I have my ninth grade students write an essay about someone they know well. In my second year of teaching, one student, as many do, wrote his essay about his mother. Generally, these essays exalt, with a tiny critique, the mother. Not this boy. His perception of his mother, as it came out in his essay, was very condescending. That perception of his mother seemed to carry over to how he treated me.

Two years ago the mother of the student I couldn’t manage or teach asked why I was failing her son (as in putting in the grade book the Fs he earned). This was during a conference with him, his mother, his assistant principal, his guidance counselor, and me. Everything that I said to her in explanation of adhering to my grading policy (which is based on school policy) was irrelevant to her, since she only saw me as undermining her son. Never mind, apparently, that her son didn’t do his work and what he did do was of poor quality, and that he came late to class, and cursed me in class. Never mind, she implied, for surely I was trying to deny his essence with my insistence that he adhere to my rules, which did not accommodate him.

Last year’s problem son suffered, apparently, from me being too hard on him. You know, expecting him to be quiet in class and not talk back.

I haven’t yet figured out or been told what this year’s problem son’s issue is. Perhaps it relates to his coming to class without a pencil and not paying attention. It was when I was speaking to his mother recently that I realized that herein lies the problem of mankind—yes, mankind: the mothers of these problem boys are always defensive of them. The boys are never at fault: it’s always either the teacher, or the system, or a diagnosis.

This light bulbish moment came to me less than a month after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. There was so much talk about how the murderer’s mother had tried to do her best for her son. She looked for the right schools and the right programs and, it seems—from so far outside of their truth—that she ended up helping him create his own cocoon.

Are these mothers who protect their sons against the impositions of the world helping them or hurting them, and, consequently, hurting all of us by setting upon the world men who are boys—boys who think they are above reproach. Once among us, instead of being sheltered by their mothers, they are the storms from which we need protection. They have been sheltered for so long that their interactions and reactions are off-kilter, but only if you aren’t looking at the world from the prism of their own eyes.  

I wonder if the mothers who create this barrier around their sons do so from love or need. It seems odd that, at least according to my perception, these fierce momma lions come out with sons and not with daughters. (Disclosure: I am the mother of two daughters.) Could it be that women are lacking something from the men in their lives and the only way to get it is through their sons?

When I talk to my mother, and if I happen to casually bring up the fact that my brother does not visit her or do enough for her, she will generally brush it off with excuses for him and the myriad constraints upon his time. Yesterday, tired of me and my barely-veiled accusations against him, she simply put a wall between my criticisms and my brother by saying, “Stop turning the screw.” Once again, the mother took the fall for the son.

The question to be asked, I realize, is not why he doesn’t visit her, but what happened in his childhood that made him think that he didn’t owe her anything? Friends have noted this about their brothers or husbands (ex or present): they are often disengaged from their parents. Many have said (and I said it myself) that the vast majority of these grown boys would never call or visit their parents without their wife’s prodding. These mothers devoted their lives to wiping their son’s noses, and yet demands are placed on their daughters, to whom they passed the box of tissues, and not the sons.

Obviously this is too big of a theory to figure out neatly in a short essay, but the reality of so many sons mistreating (or not treating properly) their mothers, has led to our world, a world in which men oppress women—in country after country, and generation after generation—and in which there is always so much imposed suffering. I have to wonder if the source of this anger and pain and struggle is to be found somewhere in mother-son relationships.

 


One Woman Roaring

Just a couple of months ago we women were on our way to ruling the world, what with the end of men and all. We were even arguing about what it means to have it all, because we were at the point in our societal evolution of hair splitting the definition of “all.” Now we can be found in binders, which certainly adds a new twist to the idea of having it all—for men, I mean, certainly not for women.

I want to know why, in October 2012, are so many men still bullies and cowards toward women? Recorded history of their wars and conflicts and pillaging and raping began more than 5,000 years ago; you would have hoped that at some point they would have put aside their little man-scepters and let us girls play, too, on a level playing field so that, perhaps, all the animosity and power-mania that they do so well could be tempered with thoughts of compassion and not aspirations of greatness.

It’s as if they are born with an endless bag of M&Ms in their hands and they won’t let women have any, not a brown one or a red one or even a yellow one. Nope. It’s their bag and they don’t have to share if they don’t want to. So they don’t, because who are they to listen to their mothers about the importance of sharing and caring?

Am I talking about the boys and men in Afghanistan and Pakistan where they are trying to tie girls—body, mind, and soul—to the kitchen and bedroom? No. I am talking about here. All the brouhaha about romney and his comments about “binders full of women,” and us ladies being granted the privilege to get home by five to cook for our little men, and the inability of single women to control the violence in their sons has not been met by the proper degree of disgust and condemnation. Sure, there are funny memes and tweets and witty comments about Avery binders, but where has the serious discussion been that 50% of the people (going on the tightness of the presidential race) in this country have their minds wrapped in turbans and have joined the Taliban. No wonder we can’t defeat them.

I guess it’s so addictive, this power that men have over women, that it’s too hard to relinquish.

Legitimate rape. Acceptable rape (military style). Shut-down systems. Forced vaginal ultra-sounds. 77 cents to the dollar. Ladies issues. Vagina as a four-letter word. And apparently we’re causing penises to go petite.

I don’t care if the crazy is limited to the republicans or the tea party, what I care about is the damage these ideas and actions are having on my present and my future, and on the present and future of my daughters—and of our sons. How many more generations will be forced to send their children to war because the men in power only know power? Why are women being put en masse into a ducking stool? These are not separate issues, they are one and the same.

I remember singing, “I am woman, hear me roar” back in 1971; who would have thought that we would still be roaring now, and even louder than before because now we are so much closer to where we should be, but we are being told to go back, to go back to the wonders of being barefoot and pregnant. (Contraception access restrictions anyone?) Okay, so the guys who say that are Neanderthals. But that’s an awful lot of throw-backs that we have in this country. Why is that?

Do we have any hope left of ever having it all, where “all” refers to the same choices and opportunities as the boys have, without giving ourselves gender-neutral names and becoming as aggressive as men?

We can laugh about those binders, but the comedy doesn’t go very deep before the pain throbs.

I know this will sound naïve, but I honestly don’t understand why any man thinks that he is innately better than any woman, or even why any person thinks that he or she is better than anyone else, or anything else, if I’m going all the way in my thoughts.

Arrogance. It’s so much easier to be arrogant when you can be because you hold the levers.

No one wants to serve when it is not a choice. No one wants to be told how to act and how to be by someone who only issues commands. No one wants to be boxed in by the dimensions of another person’s mind-box.

We can roar, but we cannot be invincible if we are thrown under the bus of men’s ambitions. In that case, who wants any of it, never mind all of it?    


A Single Lady, Her Dog, Her Girl-Chats, and Her Epiphany

On weekends I live in a virtually segregated world. There are no men around, unless you count the men servicing me—my groceries, I mean. It’s odd, but not a bad way to live. It’s as if I’m living on the flip-side of Taliban-enforced segregation but rather than in a remote Afghan village, I’m in a close-to-the-epicenter Northern Virginia neighborhood.

My ex-husband is gone. My boyfriend is gone. Even the man who just wanted to have sex with me is gone. And for some not-difficult-to-discern reason, I’m not seeking a man with whom I can attempt yet another failed relationship.

I know that there are families and couples in my neighborhood, and some barely-viewed single men, but their schedules don’t coincide with mine, so they are not a part of my world. It seems, though, that most of the single women around have dogs or at least keep similar hours as me, so we meet and chat as our dogs sniff each other’s not-so-private parts or as my dog sniffs and pees on one square of grass for ten minutes.

And on the home front, I have two daughters, so whether talking with my daughter at home or my daughter away in college, all our talk is from a woman’s perspective. For phone conversations there’s my mother who is always available for a recap of her day, which mostly involves discussing her women friends and their issues, especially since my father passed away two years ago. The one man still in my life, my brother, I call once every few months after I have despaired of waiting for him to ever call me, but our conversations barely make a flicker in my weekends of women-talk.

So there’s this constant brief interchange of stories and ideas that feeds my need to be heard and to hear. Since most of these conversations are unplanned, they represent the cream of conversations: concern for the other, telling only what is utmost in one’s mind and heart, and expressions of empathy—in short, conversations that recognize the value of the ordinary rhythm of life.

 

It occurs to me as I think of these open exchanges that there’s a reason why I’m single, and the blame doesn’t fall solely on the men who are no longer in my life—or never made it into my life. Maybe I’m just more myself with women. With men, there always seems to be a limit to my honesty. With my female friends I never try to figure out what to say to please them or to make them like me; there’s never any pressure to impress. It’s me in all my blunt and interrupting glory.

It could be, too, that I do better in small chunks of time rather than unending time together. There’s a big difference in who you are when you have two minutes every couple of days or two hours every few months than when you have dinner together every night, and breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack time on the weekends. For goodness’ sake, all the good stories have long since told and retold by the time a relationship’s second anniversary rolls around and by the weekend every day has been thoroughly examined. When you only see a friend once in a while, there’s always something new to recount. For two hours we can each put forward the best aspects of our personalities and our lives. It’s certainly not worth it to be grumpy when it will soon be back to the grind that caused the grumpiness in the first place.

Maybe the best way for relationships to survive is to redefine them. My marriage might have lasted if we only met once a week and sex was upon desire, not convenience.

But maybe not, because I fundamentally act differently with men, so the whole two-hour weekly visit practice might still have backfired on me. After my boyfriend, who had been my friend 28 years ago, became my partner I rose to the occasion by considering his feelings and needs before my own, which turned out not to be good for our relationship. With friends I pride myself on being forthright, so why can’t I do that with men? Sure, the stakes are different: no more coffees together versus no more retirement plans together. But I do I wish that I hadn’t felt the need to protect him from my honesty; I wish, too, that I hadn’t felt so much pressure to make him happy.

With friends there are no expectations beyond the moment, so there is no reason not to be forthright. It should be possible for me to act like that with a man, especially if I want to be in a relationship and, surely, I have learned by now that without honesty, there is no staying power.

Not needing or expecting anything could be the key; although, I’m not sure it’s possible. Isn’t reciprocity the very essence of a relationship? Indeed, I know that I don’t want a relationship that is as casual as a conversation on the corner. The problem might be in the hoping and the wishing that this man, whoever he is, could be my knight, even though I have learned that I am the only knightette I can depend on, and that I don’t want to be anyone else’s knightette.

The added value of these all-women weekends is not for me to safely retreat, but to have realized that my essence contains no subterfuge and that I need to live that truth—in or out of a relationship. 


Missing Words: the Quandary of Being 50 Plus

 I’ve been forgetting things for a year. Is this what’s supposed to happen when you turn 50? It was like clockwork: I got my invite from AARP to join the party and I started forgetting things. Not things, per se, I can still find my keys and my car (not counting supermarket parking lots), no, I’ve been forgetting words. Not all words, not words when I’m writing, but when I’m speaking. All of a sudden, in the midst of a conversation, when it’s my turn to talk, I freeze up. I become, sorry Mom, my mother: a picture of confusion, a pause one two three four five six and then back to the conversation. Or right in the middle of my talking the next word will suddenly—poof!—disappear as if a magic wand had suddenly descended upon my internal dictionary. I’m not happy about this development or reverse development, as the case seems to be.

One day in school I was standing in front of my class discussing The Odyssey and how Odysseus’ ship was sunk in the storm that Zeus sent as per the request of Helios, the Sun God, because Odysseus’ men had a bbq with his sacred cattle, when the word “sunk” disappeared. I stood there in front of 28 teens whose brains are in the midst of expanding watching me visibly losing some synapses. The word “drowned” popped into my mind, but I knew it was wrong—people drown, not ships. Still standing there, pretending that this wasn’t awkward, I searched some more, when it occurred to me to just say “the ship went down.” A few seconds later, thankfully, the word, “sunk” came into view, but too late for me to prevent a fearful insight—I am beginning my decline.

The other day I was at a sports store with my 16-year-daughter. As we walked around looking for a sports bag I told her that I was anxious that I was forgetting things.

“Oh, Mom, I forget things all the time,” she noted with that trademark exasperation of the teen.

“No, this is different. It’s an age thing.” Why is it that we always talk about sensitive topics in the car or public places?

“Mom, you’re being dramatic. Now, ask them where the drawstring bags are, and don’t call them cinch bags, that’s not what they’re called.” 

Sure, she doesn’t want to deal with thinking about her mother as less than the lady who can take care of things for her; after all, I am the only adult in her life. I’m her rock, but I’m crumbling.

I walked right over to the sales clerk and asked, “Excuse me, but where are the cinch bags, uh, I mean drawstring bags.”

As we walked over to the soccer balls, where the drawstring bags were located, I said to her, “You see, I didn’t mean to say ‘cinch’ but it just came out.” It’s confusing and upsetting this whole word-replacement thing. I have lost control over my brain.

When I was younger (yes, that’s how old I feel right now that I can say that with confidence) everything worked without being aware of the parts—of the magic of creation and how amazing it is that the mind and body work so well. I heard a scientist on the radio recently talk about how much work goes on in the brain just to bring a cup of coffee to our lips. I can still do that, with ease, but still, this visible change is hard.

I used to walk by older people, going at their extreme snail’s paces, visibly concentrating on each step, wondering how they can be so slow—I don’t any more. Now I marvel at their ability to keep going in spite of all the stuff that’s becoming unglued and dismantled inside. I don’t see “them” so much as I see me down the road. Hopefully I won’t forget the word “road” and that I need to keep truckin’ down it.


Envy-Free at 51?

I’m at the age when I should have stopped looking around to compare myself and my life to anyone else’s, and certainly not to everyone else’s. It’s time (51 is definitely after the supposed watershed moment) for me to rejoice in ME! I am free to discard all thoughts of limitations, weight issues, and life lackings—because, apparently, just getting to this point should be enough of an ego boost to last the rest of my lifetime!

HA!

And the trick’s on me because, unfortunately, this is just one more thing for me to feel bad about having failed: apparently I am the only woman who has failed in the “Look World, No Envy and No Jealousy! I Love My Almost Green Lawn Now That I’m 50!” stage of development.

Woe is me.

It’s not that I haven’t evolved at all, but there’s just no way a lifetime of thinking that I’m the smartest/stupidest/most attractive/least attractive/nicest/meanest woman around can be dismissed, or wished away just because THEY say it should be gone. You see, I’m still dealing with the darn THEYs of the world.

Even writing this has me fraught with comparisons because I am not writing the way I am supposed to. I can’t stay focused for more than ten minutes (I lied, five minutes) before I need to click to see if I have any emails or if there’s some undiscovered news to read. If I were a real writer, I’d focus fully for at least two hours without letting myself be tempted, even by the need to re-re-reheat my coffee. Alas, failure again.

And what of my being beyond all thoughts of could haves and should haves. I have found in my teeny tiny bit of research that it is the women who have checked off some accomplishments (besides the children, I mean, but that’s not exactly a unique accomplishment) who are able to lay claim to that “universal 50+ trait” of not comparing oneself to any other woman in the room. Is it that I am supposed to be content with not achieving any of the achievements I had dreamed of just because I’m 50+? Does it mean that I’m supposed to be content with whatever it is that I have done and not worry about falling further and further away from what I think I am capable or want I want to do? If that’s the case, doesn’t it assume, sort of, that I have given up, that I am no longer going to push myself because I have done all that I can expect from myself? But I am not ready to throw in any towels—I’m still here and hope to be for a while to come.

The real difference for me, pre and post the dawning of this marvelous age of the new Middle Age, is that I have less of a speak-up suppressor. The hand-over-mouth synchronicity that was there from my teen years to not so very long ago has vanished—POOF! The big mouth I was when I was still wearing dresses and Danskins is back, but the big difference is that in 3rd grade it was just a need to talk constantly, now it’s a need to say what I think—even if it’s not my turn to speak and even if it’s not censured for proper company. The topics are often of the “think but don’t say” variety; it does feel good, I admit, to have overridden the what-will-they-say internal censor.

My skin. Apparently my skin is supposed to be very very comfy right about now, but I look in the mirror and I see that my face is fuller than it’s supposed to be and not as bright as it’s supposed to be. In my mind, I am the woman of my wedding pictures. I was 24 then. I am not now. I’m not even married now. Yet that’s my mind’s image of myself. How the heck am I supposed to change from perception to reality? And, really, are all those other happy-with-their-lawn women really seeing themselves in the here-and-now or are they trying to trick me for someone else’s good? Is it really bad that every time I peek in the mirror I am disappointed that I’m still me, as in puffy-and-tired-faced Laura? Isn’t it, in some sense, a good thing that I am not willing to forsake my hopes and dreams just because I have reached an age milestone?

Why am I feeling bad that I’m not aging the way I’m supposed to?

Is it self-esteem issues, still? Or is it that this magical glory-be-me revelation isn’t something that we all get to share? Perhaps, as in all things, it happens for some while for others it just doesn’t happen with exclamation marks or over tea with my closest, dearest friends since kindergarten.

What’s wrong with a bit of envy? Isn’t it a bit of a driving force? Can everything really be completely internally driven? Do we all become yogi masters when we step over the 50 milestone? Maybe the key is that by this time we have made our own internal recipes where we can adjust what we need with what we have and what we can still get, as opposed to thinking that all’s well, couldn’t be better, I’m where I’m supposed to be without really believing it—or afraid to believe it.  


Book Review: Love for Grown-ups

Book Review: Love for Grown-ups: The Garter Brides’ Guide to Marrying for Life When You’ve Already Got a Life by Ann Blumenthal Jacobs, Patricia Ryan Lampl, and Trish Rabe

A big recommendation goes out to women and men to read Love for Grown-ups. This book is about how we, the “over the hill” folks, are not so over the hill, or once we’ve all made it over the hill there’s a sensitivity and kindness that weren’t there on the other side—or at least there’s the acknowledgement that that’s what it’s all about: being loving, finding love, continuing to be loving, and finally being maturely loved (as in loved and respected for all one’s qualities—and personality quirks). What’s so wonderful about this time of life, as the Garter Brides describe in their book, is that both women and men have decided that kindness, consideration, and good sex are all things to want, to search for—to deserve and to expect. No longer are we to believe those adages about women over 40 and their chances of marrying being akin to winning a Vogue make-over. No, we are to listen and heed all the happily-ever-after stories of the many midlife women they have compiled in this book, including the three authors’ lovely stories, to make us know that we are the winning ticket! 

This book is listed as being a Self Help book, but as a non self-help book fan, I can say that this is not a simplistic do this and this will happen type of book. It’s more that Blumenthal Jacobs, Lampl, and Rabe laid out their stories and invited the reader into the lives of so many other women so that the reader can think that “you know, maybe it could happen to me too, maybe I can still be happy in a relationship.” And that, truly, is more honest help than I got from friends who just tried to pick up my spirits saying that I deserve happiness (which is true for all of us). But that’s not the same as showing how it has happened and how it could happen to me.

And now that I am in a relationship, although I don’t know if it’s going to last more than another month, there is a security that I feel because of this book, and it’s not necessarily that I will marry again, which is not my goal. No, the security is in the fact that Love for Grown-ups puts all those horror stories that I lived through via on-line dating into context—that there is a reason to believe that it could happened to me too.

While up-beat on the whole, the book tries to be realistic, but since the writers’ stories are so positive-in-the-end, “look we got married!”—it’s up to the reader to add her dose of doubt. The section on blending kids and families was, for me, not as true to my reality, but who’s to say my tough teen is not the exception? I did appreciate, though, that they did lay out the problems that arise and how they and other couples handled them. That, surely, was insightful.

So if you need to read some real life 40+ love stories, this is the place to go.  


The War on Women: Foot First

Sure, a woman’s ability to not get pregnant, stop a pregnancy, care for her body-mind-soul, feed her children, support herself, house her partner, tend to her parents is being undermined, curtailed and impinged upon, but at least she can buy all the guns she wants!

And a woman’s ability to be judged fairly, without any bias based on what she doesn’t have between her legs is being thwarted, but at least she can understand her place and not fight against the little men with their little fill-in-the-blank who inhabit the hollow—I mean hallowed—chambers of representation across the land!

No, my indignation is directed toward the real War on Woman, namely the War on Women’s Feet. How on earth have women agreed—paid of their 77-cents-to-the-dollar-earnings—to be strapped to five inch heels? What does this say about us that we have let this happen—that we have not forced shoe stores and shoe-sites to return these woman-hating shoes back to their designers with the heels sawed off! (A shoe castration, if you will.)

What is attractive (read sexy) about a woman taking itty bitty steps and needing to hold onto a man who is wearing quarter-inch heels because otherwise she couldn’t even attempt to walk straight to the nearest seat? (I know the answer to this is obvious, but still, for my soul, I need to cry out the question in protestation.)

I have to admit, there was a moment in the middle of a DSW when I thought that perhaps I was wrong—one of those “if everyone’s doing it, it must be right” moments. But then I attempted to try on a pair and came to the rapid conclusion that this style is yet another form of disempowerment.

I took off my well-worn black flats and prepared myself to mimic the stars on their red carpets and us ordinary women at the mall. With one five-inch shoe on, my other foot hovered above the ground—I held onto the shoe display for dear life. It felt like I was training to walk on stilts, only there wasn’t a circus performer there to instruct me how to maintain my balance. Quickly, before I should fall and be expelled permanently from the Woman of the World department, I put my shoeless foot back on terra firma, put the stilt-shoe back in its box and said goodbye to extreme fashion, goodbye to thinking that high heels are what defines a woman’s sensuality.

Was I not woman enough for this or was I too much a woman? Why is this the style now, now when women’s rights are being rescinded law by law? Why, when it had seemed passé to even talk about feminism (my teenage daughter mocked my even discussing it) is this backlash coming at us—first our wombs, then our feet? Why are they trying to manipulate us back to the times of bound feet and cobbled expectations? Why, when so many men and women respect each other as equals, is this undermining happening?

Is the extra height an extreme message that we have forgotten what we’re really valued for—or what we should value about ourselves? And why has walking on stilts come to be equated with one’s sexiness?

Women—let’s show those shoe purveyors and trendsetters what we think of their attempts at objectifying us into some kind of uber-stilted-Barbies and put our two feet down on the earth, walking right to the voting booth.

(I wonder if the Koch Brothers are investors in Louboutin?)