I couldn't help but wonder...

Well, I know you were waiting for it... the inevitable "I am a girl, I have a blog, therefore I have an opinion on the SATC movie" moment. I would resist, except I can't. Obviously GIANT SPOILER ALERT, in case you care.

I had the option to see the movie on Friday night, but instead chose to go with a bunch of my girlfriends (like every other woman in the country) on Saturday. After a pretty quick, though delicious, brunch of huevos rancheros at Laurel's house, Laurel and I rushed to the Century Cinemas to meet six other ladies for the insanity. We walked in and beelined to the only available set of 8 seats in the theatre that weren't in the very front row -- the 8 seats on the side in the second row. Yeah, not only did I see this movie, but I saw it REALLY CLOSE UP (things I observed: Steve has some kind of mole on his ass, Carrie had a stain on her dress in the scene where she told Samantha she was engaged, and Big has gray chest hair). I was armed with a Screwdriver and three cans of Sofia champagne. I knew that the movie was two and a half hours long and I was not sure I could take it.

Before I get into my actual criticism of the movie, let me just comment on one irrelevant thing. PREVIEW FOR SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS SEQUEL! It looks like they decided to skip books 2 and 3 and go straight for book 4, probably because America Ferrara or Blake Lively decided that they could/would only commit to one sequel given their new TV fame. Nevertheless, I am pretty damn jazzed.

Anyway, so then the movie itself. Aside from the gross product placement and totally gratuitous, unnecessary scenes (fashion week? Christie's auction?).... aside from the way that things seemed pretty damn abrupt most of the time, in order to cram into a movie the kind of things that normally would happen in a season... Did it strike anyone else as totally unfeminist? Or, if not unfeminist, then, didn't it just seem to you that it was ridiculous that after all that, Carrie still took Big back? That all the girls insisted that Miranda was wrong to leave Steve? I admitted yesterday to my friends that, had the latter event happened in a season, I could have accepted it. I've always loved Steve, and I can accept that one transgression need not be the end of one's marriage. But in the movie, Carrie and Charlotte couldn't seem to blame Steve for cheating, and it almost seemed like you could read into it that Miranda was to blame, for not recognizing the problem in her sex life, for loving her job to the point of distraction/destruction of her relationship. Then, to even act as though Miranda's angry outburst at the rehearsal dinner was remotely responsible for Big's entirely inexcusable freakout! Can we talk about blaming the victims here? Really?

I don't quite share Dodai's rage over Samantha in this movie. I felt as though she was the only person who really took charge. She managed Carrie's broken marriage/wedding. She held them together when it seemed like they would all fall apart. Her compassion was high, and it's irrational to hate her for breaking things off with Smith because she "loves herself more" -- the truth is that he had become the center of her life, and not just her personal life but her job, too, and who wants that? I will say again that the relative shortness of the movie (to an entire season of episodes) probably gave this plot short shrift as well. How did Samantha ever let Smith become the center, plastered photos of him all over her wall? And did she, like Steve, have to leave her relationship because Smith, like Miranda, was devoted to his job (I'm making a comparison for rhetorical purposes, not necessarily agreeing with this argument). Was Smith actually distant? Was he actually in any way aware that he was making her feel dependent on him when he bought her the brooch, and if he wasn't, does it matter?

Charlotte was the only one whose life was drama free in this movie. Ace, my roommate, wondered if that was some kind of message -- you will only be happy once you've settled down, and not just settled down, but settled -- for a man who is less attractive, but rich and giving and blah blah? I'm not entirely sure about that, but it's still worth wondering.

Another beef I had with the movie was the moment when Samantha has gained weight and the girls are absolutely horrified to see her little baby pooch. Seriously? Please kill me now. I believe it was that moment when I turned to Laurel and said "I can't believe that millions of women, including us, are paying for this." It's like being charged for the loss of your dignity.

I hate to hate on things I used to like, but I reserve the right to have a split opinion. In some ways, I was satisfied with the movie, mostly just because it had some funny moments, and it was kind of fun to see the ladies a little further on in their lives. I kind of liked to see Carrie confronted with the fact that she was forty, seeing Brady and Lily (Charlotte's adopted daughter) grown up, seeing all of the women living at least a slightly different lifestyle than they did in the show. But in other ways I felt like it was shoddily made, far, far too capitalistic, and frankly it did not give me, as an American woman, the endings or lessons (or whatever you want to call them) that I feel like I deserve. These women are, and always have been, not exactly archetypes so much as a representation of the split personalities that so many of us have in us. There is a bit of each of the women in each of us, at least there is in me (although I don't want to sell myself short by saying that that is all I am, shudder). How could the producers, the writers, whoever, let them down like that and let them lose themselves, when the entire goodness of the old show was the idea that above all it was yourself and your friends to whom you should be true?

One final note. I read Dodai's rant about the movie with interest. It has always been obvious to me that the SATC girls are incredibly flawed. Materialistic, obviously. Self-absorbed? Obviously. Incredibly privileged and whitewashed? Yes. Yes. Yes. (The moment where Charlotte said she wouldn't eat anything because she was in Mexico was perfectly in character and I didn't take offense because of course Charlotte would say shit like that. Miranda's "Look! A white guy with a baby" I was more iffy about, just because I'd hope Miranda would be more wise than that, but it's not hard for me to accept that she isn't. Louise from St. Louis was really hard for me to take, since she was all of a sudden the only non-white -- or adopted, sweet, dressed in pink Asian four year old -- character in the movie and represented some terrible kind of sweet, down-home innocence that I couldn't help [ACK] but take in a bad way. Oh, those clueless black folks from the middle of the country.) It's one of those cases where I was not at all disillusioned by those aspects of their characters, because they have been there all along. Instead, the question is: do the writers/producers know that about the characters, and more importantly, do the millions of women paying to see this shit in the theatres know that? And do the masses that watched this movie this weekend realize that in many ways, their heroes in Blahniks let them down and are leading them on the wrong path? Are those viewers going to fight back, or continue to be misled? I hate to start judging media (it reeks of Tipper Gore to me), or suggesting that producers have some kind of moral right to tell a properly empowering story, but I am also pretty damn convinced that this stuff is poisonous to women.

Grr. All I know is, I yelled a lot at the screen on Saturday. So much so that I got shushed. I don't really regret it, either. Now I'm just trying to forget all this hoopla and find something else to think about.

On Tina Fey being "curvy" (or not)

Since I had lost my April 28 New Yorker, it took me a while to actually read the Anthony Lane review that had people pissed off back in, well, April. Here's the part in question:

Angie is skinny to Kate's curves, loose-tongued to her zipped-up sense of fun, fertile to her barren jealousy. Angie wears pedal pushers and tank tops, whereas Kate stalks around bare-legged in skirts that lurch to a halt two inches above the knee, which is a length that Christy Turlington would struggle to carry off. It's possible that Fey, like other television stars, is unused to being framed in full length, and, thought in complete command of her deliver -- dry, spiky, but unthreatening -- she hasn't yet made up her mind how funny her body is meant to be. She isn't big enough to make a joke of her ripeness, like Bette Midler, but she's no Lily Tomlin, either. She could do worse than steal a trick from Lucille Ball -- a lovely, elegant figure who taught herself to be graceless.

Alright, so obviously* this is annoying, but besides being sexist, it's also inaccurate. Tina Fey isn't big at all, nor is she curvy to Amy Poehler's skinny. Hello? Look at them here. I always thought -- and think -- that Tina Fey is kinda bony -- her body and her attitude/delivery are sort of the same -- "spiky," wry, laidback. She's not ripe at all, and in this movie she's the opposite of ripe because she is, oh that's right, unable to have children of her own. If anything it's Amy Poehler who is ripe -- and she shows off what "curves" (I fucking hate that word**) she has way more than Tina does because she dresses kind of skanky. Tina's skirts that "Christy Turlington would struggle to carry off" actually professional on her, which, hello, dumbass, is part of her character. (She is just a little tightly wound.) Plus, they actually look pretty good most of the time.

So in other words, not only are you apparently kinda sexist, Anthony Lane, but you kind of sucked at reviewing this movie. (Which, for interested parties, was actually pretty good.)

*Emily Gould comments that Tina Fey is "normal-sized," but I have to say that the women of the Gawker blogosphere (by which I mean the Jezebel girls and then Emily Gould), for all their more-mainstream-than-Feministing championship of women and all that, still totally suck at perceiving "normal" women's bodies. For them "normal" seems to be "unfamous," but still thin as shit. Perhaps that is because they are all some kind of pseudocelebrity themselves (case in point), and therefore have skewed perceptions. At any rate, I think Tina Fey is pretty hot.

**Every single magazine that has a "size" issue or a "body" issue or who wants to show you jeans or swimsuits or what-have-you "for your body type" always labels one type "curvy." That is their PC word for "fat," and they never actually have clothes for real people who are overweight and not like big boned or whatever. I want clothes for people who are supposed to be kinda skinny with not a lot of waist, but who have managed to add on 20 pounds at some point and therefore are "curvy." Not to go off on a rant but one good thing about Self magazine (besides everything) is that when they do a body breakdown, they actually do it by shapes, like "bigger in the middle" or "bigger on top" and shit like that. Anyway, just a thought.

Why Kissing Jessica Stein is amazing.

I love Rachel for posting this:

Yoga guy: In what ways do you feel we don’t click?

Jessica:In what ways? We don’t click in any ways. We don’t have chemistry, or banter, or common interests. You’re a yoga instructor, you get colonics, you don’t understand the chaos or absurdity of life, on this planet and in this city. You don’t understand irony, or ethnicity, or eccentricity, or poetry, or the simple joy of being a regular at the diner on your block—I love that. You don’t drink coffee, or alcohol, you don’t overeat, you don’t cry when you’re alone, you don’t understand sarcasm. You plod through life in a neat, colorless, caffeine-free, dairy-free, conflict-free, banal self-possessed way—I’m bold, and angry, and tortured, and tremendous and I notice when someone has changed their hair part, or when someone is wearing two very distinctly different shades of black, or when someone changes the natural timbre of their voice on the phone. I don’t give out empty praise. I’m not complacent, or well-adjusted, I can’t spend 50 minutes breathing and stretching and getting in touch with myself, I can’t even spend 3 minutes finishing an article. I check my phone machine 9 times every day, and I can’t sleep at night, because I feel that there is so much to do and fix and change in the world, and I wonder every day if I am making a difference, and if I will ever express the greatness within me or if I will remain forever paralyzed by the muddled madness inside my head. I’ve wept on every birthday I’ve ever had, because life is huge, and fleeting. And I hate certain people and certain shoes. And I feel that life is terribly unfair and sometimes beautiful and wonderful and extraordinary, but also numbing and horrifying and insurmountable. And I hate myself a lot of the time, but a lot of the rest of the time, I adore myself and I adore my life in this city, in this world we live in, this huge and wondrous, bewildering, brilliant, horrible world.

(sigh) And in these ways, I feel that we do not click.

Yoga guy: So you don’t think it’s gonna work out right now?

—Original scene from Kissing Jessica Stein that didn’t make it into the movie

Kissing Jessica Stein is underrated or underrepresented, probably because of the whole lesbian thing, but the reality is that I relate much, much more to Jessica than I ever could to Carrie Bradshaw or any of the other SATC girls, who are supposed to be our New York archetypal women of our generation (or the one a bit ahead of us). She's such a disaster, but in the ways I am a disaster, and now I feel the urge to go watch this movie as soon as possible.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Suddenly it occurs to me that the Judd Apatow backlash might all be bullshit. Let me see if I can explain.

I saw "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" last night and I was pleasantly surprised by it. I really liked it, in fact. It was funny and sweet and not overly filled with the standard Apatow crew (although several of them, obviously, appeared, thank you Paul Rudd I love you). Halfway through I thought to myself, fuck, this is a romantic comedy. And here's the New York Times sitting around talking about how the romantic comedy industry is freaking out because they aren't managing to capture crowds the way "You've Got Mail" used to, and they all want another "Wedding Crashers," which was not that funny, nor was it really that romantic. The Judd Apatow backlash constantly refers to his talent for portraying the loser guy, who always inexplicably gets the girl, even though she is like ten billion times hotter than he is. But "Wedding Crashers" was way more of a guy movie than any Judd Apatow fare, and I really don't get how people keep missing that point... maybe it's whatever freakish portion of the female population finds Vince Vaughn attractive.

Anyway, the new(ish) standard Apatow critique is that his female characters are two-dimensional. I will grant you that, to a point. I get that there was not much female character development in "Knocked Up," and the movie was primarily about the guys, although in my opinion not so much the guys who all lived with Seth Rogen in the house but more about Seth and Paul Rudd, who produced the funniest and saddest and best scene in the movie (when they are high on shrooms in the Vegas hotel room). However, I still think that Leslie Mann, despite coming off as somewhat shrill at times, was nevertheless incredibly sympathetic in addition to being legitimately funny. And Katherine Heigl, despite being the hottie who somehow was desperate (?) enough to sleep with the nottie, still showed a considerable level of strength throughout the movie, and there were hints of complication around her (such as when she runs into her old friends after buying baby stuff, and wants to hide it -- she's got issues with this, even if they are somewhat snobbish ones).

The girls in "Superbad" somewhat inexplicably go for the boys in the story, despite the boys being total idiots (or at least Jonah Hill was. Michael Cera is always adorable). But that was a teen movie, and it was more of a teen party movie, less a teen romcom (a la "She's All That," which is not so much a com except when it's by accident).

"Forgetting Sarah Marshall" was not much different, although I would argue that sheerly because Kristin Bell is awesome she manages to give some depth, even if it was bitch-depth, to a role that could easily have been just a figurehead (forgive me since that's totally not the right word for a film role). Critics have claimed that she doesn't come off well even when she is trying to be sympathetic, but I disagree. I thought she is clearly a smart woman, who is clearly stuck in a career that she wants and does not want at the same time, and is negotiating a level of fame that she isn't really emotionally equipped for. Perhaps I'm interpreting, but I think that stuff is there, and it in part excuses her bitchiness. The other thing about this movie is that Jason Segel is much more likable than Seth Rogen in "Knocked Up," partly because he is more attractive and partly because he is written to be less of a total loser (although definitely not a success, he at least has managed to keep a job and date a girl for an extended period of time, and he has a treadmill, whatever that means), so it's much more understandable when Mila Kunis goes for him. Less of the total "shlub," in other words.

Anyway, all this is a long way of saying that it's true that the women in Judd Apatow romantic comedies (and romantic comedies they are, so don't deny it, boys) are arguably more two-dimensional than the guys in the movies. However, as a woman, I can say that usually, I like romantic comedies because I like the men in them at least as much as I relate to the women. At least in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," I related to Sarah Marshall (on a more shallow level than, say, I relate to Sally in "When Harry Met Sally," but that is Nora Ephron's genius so I cannot explain further). The best romantic comedies out there have both relatable women and attractive (I mean physically and personality-wise) men. The worst have bland women and boring men. There are some, like "My Best Friend's Wedding," where the woman is supremely relatable but the guy is not really super appealing except in the way that you so completely identify with Julia Roberts that you competitively want her to win him and he therefore becomes desirable. And there's "Two Weeks Notice," where Sandra Bullock is sort of meh (I can't relate to her, I don't get it) but Hugh Grant is bumbling and sort of incapable of taking care of himself and I love that movie. So the one thing Apatow has going for him is that his movies have somewhat realistic men, who also happen to be attractive, despite being legitimately flawed both physically and emotionally. I think that's why I've gotten more of a kick out of "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" than the romantic comedies I've watched recently -- and why, when I want to see a cute movie as of late, I dive into the archives instead of bothering to see a new one. Apatow movies aren't really guy movies. They still end well. "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" had its fair share of sort of fuzzy sunset moments. It also featured "pearl necklace" jokes and a pretty long (no pun intended) male frontal nudity moment/scene. So at risk of sounding like a moron and betraying my feminist roots, I think these movies are sort of unisex. And I consider that a strength, in a world where "romantic" movies have been relegated to the same world as chick lit and pink covers and all that. They are genuine crossovers, and I think the reason people are worried about them being sexist is less because they actually are and more because men actually go see the movies, and like them, and no one seems to be inclined to call them a click flick. So it's a case of a hyper-reaction, or something.

Anyway, this has been a very long ramble and I'm sure I'm leaving something out and probably will disagree with myself at a later point. But I'm pretty sure I'll be seeing "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" again, so I guess that's sort of the ultimate point, right?

(Side note: It reminded me of "50 First Dates." Just fun fact!)

All this inspired by this.

Equal pay?

Thanks to Justin for drawing my attention to this fun piece of news:

Republican Sen. John McCain, campaigning through poverty-stricken cities and towns, said Wednesday he opposes a Senate bill that seeks equal pay for women because it would lead to more lawsuits.

"I am all in favor of pay equity for women, but this kind of legislation, as is typical of what's being proposed by my friends on the other side of the aisle, opens us up to lawsuits for all kinds of problems," the expected GOP presidential nominee told reporters. "This is government playing a much, much greater role in the business of a private enterprise system."

Hate away, please.

I especially like this part:

McCain stated his opposition to the bill as he campaigned in rural eastern Kentucky, where poverty is worse among women than men. The Arizona senator said he was familiar with the disparity but that there are better ways to help women find better paying jobs.

"They need the education and training, particularly since more and more women are heads of their households, as much or more than anybody else," McCain said. "And it's hard for them to leave their families when they don't have somebody to take care of them.

Because, you know, clearly the only reason why women are not being paid equally is because instead of being educated and training they were birthin' babies.

(here)

"the next Hillary"

I have a friend who is working on the Clinton campaign. She's actually working, not just volunteering, as it's part of her regular job (she works for a small, Emily's List type place). We have had a few diplomatic conversations about the campaign and I respect the reasons she's supporting Clinton (basically it seems to boil down to the "Day One" experience argument, plus feminism). One thing we talked about this morning, in the middle of her Election Day madness (she is on the ground in Pittsburgh this week), was how, win or lose, what we'd like to take from this election is this idea that we are the next powerful women in this country. As she put it: "what I realized last night was that if Hillary doesn't get this I think that as a young woman and a feminist this is our wakeup call, this is our launching ground. It will be up to our generation to produce the next Hillary."

I'm not supporting Clinton, but that is not to say I don't incredibly sympathize with her. I do agree that she is in a tough spot, and a lot of the reasons she is disliked and forced into corners and coming out to "twist the knife" as Obama put it is because things are not easy for her as a powerful woman in a male-dominated field, or even a male-dominated world. She is damned if she does, and damned if she doesn't. And I don't like the way that makes her behave (and I also don't think that her personality is entirely a product of the way our society treats women, but it's a significant part of it), and I want Obama to win because I want fresh blood and I believe in his movement and I think it's amazing that someone has gotten the whole country excited, and for a lot of reasons. But I do want a woman president someday, sooner rather than later, and I think that my friend is right about this being a wake-up call. We have to be able to find another way to be a woman in this country, to embrace our femininity and our strength, to be powerful without being or being called bitchy or shrewish, to show weakness from time to time without losing our footing and the respect of others. I hope we can do that, and I believe we can. (Yes, we can!)

On that note, I've got my fingers crossed for Obama in Pennsylvania today. Polls are all over the place and there's no way to predict, I'm just hoping for something good.

Mad, Bad and Sad - a to-read

After reading tons of reviews of Lisa Appignanesi's book "Mad, Bad, and Sad" I've decided I want to read it. I'm only wondering now if it was a UK release since all the reviews are British... (note: looks like it's coming out in the US in April.) But anyway, the real point is that it sounds like a pretty fascinating history of psychiatric care, specifically with regard to women's mental health. I remember in Oxford Laurel wrote a lot about the portrayal of mad women in literature, and it sounded like a fascinating topic. Plus, I've got an ongoing beef with the way women I know so often feel comfortable describing themselves as "crazy" and, slightly less common but still enraging, men's comfort with describing women as crazy, when they may in fact just be normal women. (Or maybe not. The point is, it's complicated.) I think this would be an interesting perspective on the subject.

McCain and Choice

The Democratic primary race isn't over, but it's not too early to start going on the offense against John McCain. This article sums up McCain's dismal (I editorialize) record when it comes to reproductive rights and sex positivity. It's really important for us to beat this guy.

McCain's voting record, which NARAL Pro-Choice America scrupulously tracks, is telling. He has consistently voted against the right to a legal abortion and he has also consistently voted against contraception. McCain voted to end the Title X family planning program which is the only way millions of Americans have been able to plan their family. Title X has also been heralded as having prevented more than nine million abortions in the last two decades. Without Title X, the number of teenage pregnancies would have been 20 percent higher, too. McCain voted against legislation that would have required insurance coverage of prescription birth control and would also have provided more women with prenatal health care.

(via Feministing)

A few excerpts from "Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters"

Finally getting around to posting some excerpts from Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters, mostly because I'm chatting with a friend of mine about it right now. It really did ring very true.

Anna Quindlen, in her 2005 short book aptly titled Being Perfect, wrote, "Someday, sometime, you will be sitting somewhere. A bench overlooking a pond in Vermont. The lip of the Grand Canyon at sunset. A seat on the subway. And something bad will have happened: You will have lost someone you loved, or failed at something at which you badly wanted to succeed. And sitting there, you will fall into the center of yourself. You will look for some core to sustain you. And if you have been perfect all your life and have managed to meet all the expectations of your family, your friends, your community, your society, chances are excellent that there will be a black hole where that core ought to be."
My friends and I, girls and young women across the nation (and even, I have learned, across the world), harbor black holes at the center of our beings. We, the perfect girls, try to fill these gaping holes with food, blue ribbons, sexual attention, trendy clothes, but no matter how hard we try, they remain. We have called this insatiable hunger by many names -- ambition, drive, pride -- but in truth it is a fundamental distrust that we deserve to be on this earth in the shape we are in. A perfect girl must always be a starving daughter, because there is never enough -- never enough accomplishment. Never enough control. Never enough perfection.
Our mothers had the luxury of aspiring to be "good," but we have the ultimate goal of "effortless perfection" This was the term that young women at Duke University used to describe "the expectation that one would be smart, accomplished, fit, beautiful, and popular, and that all this would happen without visible effort" in a series of discussions held in 2001 as part of their Women's Initiative. This is not, of course, just a Duke thing. "Effortless perfection" has become the unattainable and anxiety-producing ideal for women across the country and across the world. We must not only be perfect -- as in accomplished, brilliant, beautiful, witty -- but also appear as if we achieve all this perfection through an easygoing, fun-loving approach. Perfect girls are powerfully afraid of seeming too uptight, rigid, or moralistic. We don't just want to achieve; we also want to be cool. (p. 5)

A starving daughter lies at the center of each perfect girl. The face we show to the world is one of beauty, maturity, determination, strength, willpower, and ultimately, accomplishment. But beneath the facade is a daughter - starving for attention and recognition, starving to justify her own existence.
The starving daughter within annoys us, slows us down, embarrasses us. She is the one who doubts our ability to handle a full-time job and full-time school. She gets scared, lonely, homesick. She drinks too much, cries too loud, is nostalgic and sappy. When neglected, she seems comfort in cookies, coffee ice cream, warm bread -- transgressions that make the perfect girl in us angry.
The starving daughter emerges in midnight confessions, a best friend's sudden tears, a suitemate buried in mountains of cover, shades drawn, eating ice cream in the middle of the day, and watching Buffy reruns in the dark.
Starving daughters are full of self-doubt. We don't want to worry so much about making other people happy but feel like we can never say thank you enough times, never show enough humility, never help enough, never feel enough shame. We feel guilty. We fear conflict. We are dramatic, sensitive, injured easily. We are clinging to all kinds of attachments that, in our minds, we know we should let go of, but in our bodies, we feel incapable of relinquishing. We are self-pitying, sad, even depressed.
We are tired of trying so hard all the time. We feel like giving up. We feel hopeless. We want love, acceptance, happy endings, and rest. We wish that we had faith, that we weren't ruled by our heads and could live in our hearts more often. We want to have daughters -- little girls who will love us unconditionally. We still small things, such as candy bars and bras -- that make us feel special for just a moment. We try to fill the black holes inside of us with forbidden foods. We never feel full. We always feel cold. We starve for a god.
We don't like to talk about this part of ourselves. Our whole lives, we have received so much affirmation for the perfect part that the starving-daughter part feels like an evil twin. Sometimes we can even convince ourselves that the sadness, self-doubts, and hunger don't exist, that we like to be this busy, that we like to eat small, unfulfilling meals or work out constantly.
For a while... but then the phone doesn't ring when we want it to or we get passed over for a job or a fellowship. Then the starving daughter makes herself known like an explosion. We collapse from exhaustion, or pick fights with our boyfriends or families, or sob inside the locked bathroom stall. Some girls experience their deep sadness in going on binges (food or alcohol), sleeping all day, sleeping around, buying a lot of clothes they don't need, ignoring professional or relational opportunities, dropping out of the race altogether. Some of my best friends have retreated inside themselves in this way, refused help, wasted away, or cloaked themselves in excess weight. We get mono and can't move for weeks. We hate losing control. We hate being "wimps." We fight these breakdowns, but the starving daughter emerges, young and scared and sick of our shit.
Young women struggle with this duality. The perfect girl in each drives forward, the starving daughter digs in her heels. The perfect girl wants excellence, the starving daughter calm and nurturance. The perfect girl takes on the world, the starving daughter shrinks from it. It is a power struggle between two forces, and at the center, almost every time, is an innocent body. (pp. 20-21)

My hesitation in posting this latter bit is that I think it can easily be misread as implying that women are "soft" or "weak" at their core -- which would be outrageously anti-feminist. However, the author isn't saying that at all. Rather, she's saying that we women, modern women, women of or generation, however you want to put it, are determined to be so strong that sometimes we neglect the softer parts of ourselves. (I imagine similar things could be said about some men, although there are different societal pressures at work.) I myself am constantly aware of whether something I'm doing is going to be perceived as weak, or whether it is weak, or whether by doing something "weak" is going to bring womenkind back down into the dregs of past male hegemony. (That's a strange kind of awareness -- awareness of role as representative of group.) Anyway, the point is that women are strong, but they never give themselves a break, and that can lead to a breakdown. I used to repress a lot of anger and then lash out at people randomly -- I did it in high school a lot with female friends and then in college, too. I've now become a lot better at it. The point is to accept and work with the parts of yourself that you aren't pleased with all the time, instead of trying to bury them. Anyway. I could say much, much more, but I will leave it here for now. There will be more.

Settling

Do you sometimes get to the bottom of the first page of an online article and think to yourself, shit, I have THREE MORE (or one more, or four more, or in the case of Sunday Times articles, eight or eleven more) PAGES OF THIS??

That is what happened to me wen I read this ridiculous article in the Atlantic Monthly (via Bookslut and a bunch of other blogs written by feminists of one creed or another) about how women should get married to the first man they meet, or at least the last one they meet before they turn that evil age of thirty. I can't even express my emotions at the bottom of page one of this one. (It's like, is it satire? If it is, it's bad satire.) Here's a good clip:

So if you rarely see your husband—but he’s a decent guy who takes out the trash and sets up the baby gear, and he provides a second income that allows you to spend time with your child instead of working 60 hours a week to support a family on your own—how much does it matter whether the guy you marry is The One?

Oy.

Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters

I just finished reading "Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters." It was different from what I expected. I don't really know what I expected -- I guess I just didn't expect it to be about me. But it was. It wasn't just about girls with eating disorders. It was about how women in our generation spend huge portions of their days worrying about what they eat, when they could be putting time and energy into more important things that matter to them more. It was about how even if we don't binge or purge, or starve ourselves, or overexercise, we are running around in our heads feeling guilty or angry at ourselves. It was about how we feel the need to be perfect, effortlessly, and that includes our bodies but it includes much more than that. It was about how we feel pressure to do everything all the time.

I typed up a few excerpts and I'll be sharing them over the next few days. In the meantime let me just say this is highly recommended, especially if you are a twenty-something who has ever felt in over her head and not wanted to admit it.

Scary statistic of the day

In 1995, 34 percent of high school-age girls in the United States thought they were overweight. Today, 90 percent do.

--Courtney Martin, "Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters"

Roe v. Wade

Today is the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Today is also "Blog for Choice" day. I don't have any personal stories to tell (happy to say that), but I would like to add my voice to the crowd of people out there who are thankful that we still have the right to choose. And, who are prepared to do what it takes to preserve that right. I vote pro-choice. I don't think I need to state the reasons for it, I just believe it's important to say it.

(Update: Check out Jessica from Feministing's list of why she votes pro-choice -- and read the comments.)

Beaten down, backed into a corner

I don’t for a moment begrudge Hillary her victory on Tuesday. But if victory came for the reasons we’ve been led to believe – because women voters ultimately saw in her, exhausted and near defeat, a countenance that mirrored their own – then I hate what that victory says about the state of their lives and the nature of the emotions they carry forward into this race. I hate the thought that women feel beaten down, backed into a corner, overwhelmed and near to breaking point, as Hillary appeared to be in the debate Saturday night. And I hate even more that they’ve got to see a strong, smart and savvy woman cut down to size before they can embrace her as one of their own.

-Judith Warner, in her "Domestic Disturbances" blog on NYTimes.com

Ok, I'm not going to argue about "who it was" who gave Hillary her victory -- there is enough speculation and rage out there already. But I will say that this gave me pause. It feels a little bit like she's talking about me.

(via)

More on Hillary

Interesting article in the Times about women's votes for Hillary. The chart (it's on the left hand side) showing various differences in the types of people voting for Hillary and Obama (poll-wise) is the most interesting part.

So, I may as well say it. I'm conflicted. I'm trying to figure out what my vote for Obama means. I don't want to get caught up in this hype, but I want to question my motives for not voting for Hillary. If that makes any sense.

(Two reactions to the article here and here.)

Rebutting Steinem

Interesting, pissed-off article in Slate rebutting Gloria Steinem's Hillary op-ed:

"Gender," writes Gloria Steinem on the op-ed page of the Jan. 8 New York Times, "is probably the most restricting force in American life." That is incorrect. Poverty is the most restricting force in American life. It's become somewhat unfashionable to point this out, but I don't see how it could be otherwise. Given the choice between being born poor and being born female, which would you choose?

Point taken (but of course that doesn't mean sexism doesn't exist.)

(via Bookforum)

Am I the broken record, or is the rest of the press?

Having a day of annoyance with political journalism. I feel like the press has, like, 5 templates for stories (the "comeback," the "not out of the race yet" the "well what it comes down to everyone really wants change, even Republicans, they just have to decide who they think will give them the change they want" the "if he doesn't win the next one he's out" and the "black man or white woman?" are the ones that come to mind), and they just plug in a candidate into each template, depending on who is ahead in the polls that day. It's sort of tiresome. I was interested to hear the exit poll data from NH yesterday, but heard a lot of things that sounded familiar (the one thing that jumped out at me was that the lower-income groups voted for Clinton, not Edwards, but then of course there's the "older women vote for Hillary, younger women vote for Obama" thing which, whether it's true or not, is starting to sound trite). I guess it's just that, predictably, in this post-Hillary-tears-on-TV world, that's all anyone can talk about. I'm a little tired today of wondering about the bias of this paper or radio commentator or columnist or news site. Most of that, I think is me being annoyed about the Hillary tears debate. It's bringing up a lot of complicated bullshit over this whole woman candidate thing. Was it weakness or emotional strength? Whatever. I liked it, and so did a lot of other people, but I keep asking myself whether people liked it or didn't like it for the right reasons. On NPR this morning they interviewed a woman from NH who voted for Hillary. She decided Saturday morning, and soon after her decision her daughter called. Her daughter had volunteered for Obama. She told her mom, "Mom, when I was a kid, I told you I'd never call myself a feminist, and you told me 'How ungrateful.'" Then she told her mom she'd changed her mind and was voting for Hillary. I keep thinking about this stuff because I don't think any of it is clear cut. I want to support women in leadership roles, but I don't think Hillary is right for this role right now.

So there's a lot of stir over this shit. Maureen Dowd's op-ed today in the Times was pretty unbearable, in my opinion. Moe at Jezebel posted a rant about Hillary supporters that made me kind of sad, since Jezebel's one of my favorite sites and I hate to see women hating on other women so much, especially since I don't see supporting Hillary like it's the end of the world. (This post did reinforce my belief that while I love reading Moe's writing on Jezebel, I just don't know if I could actually stomach her in real life. She has a weird set of opinions sometimes.) I am upset about this stuff not because I am a Hillary supporter, but because I am disturbed by the number of people who truly hate her, who disbelieve everything she says, who make everything about her gender. It feels backwards. Now, with Obama, people definitely do talk about his race, but such talk lacks the viciousness of the anti-Clinton rhetoric. And I don't think you can say that this is all residual from the Bill Clinton era. Not at all.

It makes me sad that this is even a subject. It makes me sad that my support of Obama puts me, in some people's opinions, in a group of "young women in denial" about the state of sexism in our nation. It makes me sad for Hillary, and for our country, too.

Sorry, as usual this is rather jumbled and probably misinformed. I'm just venting.

(via Feministing)

Gloria on Hillary

This blog has taken on a Hillary slant today, hasn't it?! Just got around to reading Gloria Steinem's op-ed in the Times today and it's quite the rallying cry. All I'm saying is, sometimes I wonder.

So why is the sex barrier not taken as seriously as the racial one? The reasons are as pervasive as the air we breathe: because sexism is still confused with nature as racism once was; because anything that affects males is seen as more serious than anything that affects “only” the female half of the human race; because children are still raised mostly by women (to put it mildly) so men especially tend to feel they are regressing to childhood when dealing with a powerful woman; because racism stereotyped black men as more “masculine” for so long that some white men find their presence to be masculinity-affirming (as long as there aren’t too many of them); and because there is still no “right” way to be a woman in public power without being considered a you-know-what.

(thanks to Justin for pushing me to read it earlier than I otherwise would)

Hillary

I will admit it: I kind of had a moment of warmth towards Hillary when I watched this clip of her "tearing up" in New Hampshire.

(It reminded me of my occasional nagging guilt that perhaps I am partially swayed by society's resentment of Hillary for being a woman in a man's field, and that it's all those sort of weirdly female self-hating things that make me dislike her, for, you know, something like her stridency and aggression. Because I honestly think if she always seemed this genuine, I would like her more, but then again, another way to look at this clip is that she is being more traditionally "female," soft-spoken, emotional, even a little fragile. So which is it that made me warm up to her? This is my inner debate.)

I'm still an Obama girl, though. Do you think either Clinton or Obama would a) ask the other to be their running mate or b) accept if asked? Just a random, uninformed thought.

(video from Justin)

Some thoughts on thoughts on body image.

Yesterday, I went bookstore browsing briefly, planning to buy the second book in the Twilight series. It wasn't available where I was, so I just got something else. I picked up the book Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters, which I have been meaning to read ever since it came out, and which has gotten rave reviews in a variety of circles, read the blurbs on the back from folks like Arianna Huffington, and put it back down.

I think the problem is that with all my education, it feels cliche to be worried about eating disorders. We all know what we are supposed to think about our bodies. We are supposed to love them. We are not supposed to feel bad about them. We are supposed to eat when we are hungry, give into that craving, exercise because it feels good. But the truth is that's really hard to do, and there are about a million factors going into how we feel about our physical selves. I remember a time when I could write honestly that I didn't feel inferior when I looked in a magazine and saw nothing but slim models. That time, unfortunately, is long gone. Somewhere in the middle of college, it disappeared. I'm still wondering how exactly that transformation took place, but sometime in 2002 I became yet another woman in this world who doesn't see food or an exercise machine or a thin girl in a coffee shop for what they are, but for what they mean for me.

So I think part of the reason I've been putting off reading Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters is that I feel like I know the score. And that is just another way of saying that I'm in denial. Part of me doesn't want to read about the tyranny of the diet industry because I still buy into it, or to read about how fucked up our society is about weight and beauty and thinness, because I am afraid of how much that will reflect my own beliefs. I thought about this yesterday as I gingerly replaced the book on the shelf, and instead picked up a copy of Oliver Sacks' Musicophilia.

This morning, I read a short excerpt in the Utne Reader from Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters. I do think parts of it are the old saw. But I am really trying to think about it, and I think we need the old saw. I hate it when I see my smart, funny, beautiful women friends reading shit like Glamour and Cosmo, even though I forgive myself for reading Lucky and Self. (Because, you know, these are body-positive magazines in my head.) I hate feeling ambivalent every time I eat a meal. I hate that my male friends think it's weird when I talk about this, but all date thin women. I hate that for women, our bodies are inseparable from our shopping habits, our social lives, our careers, whatever. I hate that this is considered a "women's issue." It all drives me crazy. So I am going to go back and buy that book and read it, and hopefully it challenges me as much as I hope it will.

Our all-or-nothing nation is built on foundations of fantasy. Our imaginations are harnessed to America’s favorite adolescent fantasy: how much prettier, thinner, richer, and more successful we will be one day. This perpetual American daydream is written in the language of “somedays.” Someday whispers us to sleep at night, gets us through a boring workday, makes our little lives bearable. The hundreds of ads the average American sees every day brainwash us into believing that we need more shiny, new things and, of course, food—glorious piles of chocolate chip cookies, decadent ice cream, burgers the size of elephants. “Someday” soothes insecurities, numbs discomfort, and keeps perfect girls running obediently in the hamster wheel of preoccupation with their weight. Someday we will be thin. Translation: Someday we will be happy, loved, and powerful.

--Courtney E. Martin

(from the Utne Reader, via Feministing)