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29 November, 2005 - 1:46 a.m.
AMN: part 4 of the review.

I've had a crap day and can't sleep, so I broke open the book Are Men Necessary? By Maurine Dowd, about which the last several of my entries have been a sort of review. As with the rest of them, I wrote the review as a letter to the boyfriend. I'd like to think he enjoys them. At least it gives him something to do during his office hours.

I can't sleep. Yoga didn't help. Meditation didn't help. Hot tea didn't help. Argh. So. More book review for you. I finished up the chapter on feminism/politics and read the chapter on beauty, which was really a chapter about vanity and plastic surgery and insecurity. But I got some good tidbits from it, so you'll get those quotes. She also referenced a book I've been dying to read for four years now (Nancy Etcoff, Survival of the Prettiest). So I was excited about that. But first, the politics.

"W. has a feminist foreign policy, but not a feminist domestic policy. The only women whose equality he's interested in are women who wear burkas there. Women who wear low-slung jeans here are losing rights in an administration where faith trumps both science and facts." Oh man. How can I argue with that? She backs it up with all of the excuses Bush made to go to war in afghanistan and iraq (and soon syria, iran, and even saudi arabia if we don't watch out... S.A. are "allies" for now, and their women wear burkas too... well robes and head scarves). And she cites many of the "but their WOMEN!!! we must fight for their women's rights!!" bullshit we've been fed, and we've still done nothing to help the women there. Mission Accomplished.

In a section about the perils of plastic surgery, "Vanity nearly always beats out health fears." I think it's hysterical that the company who makes botox (botulism!) is called Allergan. SO close to "allergen". And that a botox-similar product is called "relatox" which is supposed to fool us into believing that it's relaxing. But it's the "tox" part that gets me. And I don't give a crap... I've been pissed off at the beauty ideals of this country ever since H2's plastic-faced friend made me feel like crap because I have a wrinkle on my forehead (it's my "concern" line, and no one could see it, not even me, until she pointed it out and NOW i can't stop looking at it). I even told her I was allergic to their products and that I'd have to ask my dermatologizt, but she kept trying to put gunk on my skin. No thanks. I don't want your incredibly expensive life-changing product that will shave years off of the way i look. She's in her late 30s and you could almost see your reflection in her skin. Porcelain is a beautiful material, but it doesn't work for the living.

And I grinned just a little when MoDo referenced Nancy Etcoff stating something I've stated several times today about beauty and fertility. I have GOT to get that book. "From Victorian corsets to Victoria's Secret's buoyant water bras, from hennaed hair and pupil-dilating belladonna drops to French Manicures and cinnamon and peppermint-stinging lip plumpers, women have always sought to look younger, prettier, healthier and more supple and fecund. It's all about faking better genes. According to Dr. Etcoff, men simply gravitate like zombies toward a 'maximally fertile woman, or at least one who looks that way'." And then she quotes some plastic surgeons who have actually had clients who were upset because they could no longer bear children and stated that they'd lied for so long about their age (and they certainly didn't look their age), they'd forgotten how old they were. I think that's bullshit. Why do I have to be 19 forever? I mean, 19 was a good age for me, but I don't want to look like that forever.

And on over-surgeried hollywood vixens (and those who emulate them), "Women are headed toward one face, one body and one expression." hee! I've said this many times. How everybody in hollywood looks alike so that i can't figure out who the blonde skinny chick is any more.

And of course, she has to say something out loud that makes me cringe even when I say it in my own head. "American women are evolving backward-- becoming more focused on their looks than ever. Feminism has been defeated by narcissim." If women spent an eighth of the time they spend on their appearance on social causes, well... the world would be a better place. But who has that kind of time when we're out killing skin cells by tanning and then having those dead skin cells buffed and waxed and polished and hydrated all the time?

I mean, really. I barely have time for the half an hour it takes me to get ready in the morning. And that INCLUDES my shower. Which is one of the reasons why no one but L can cut my hair. When we met, I told her I wanted something professional, but young, and that I didn't want to spend time doing in the morning. I hate mornings and I hate getting out of bed and I do NOT have the patience for a hair dryer and whatever else it would take to do my hair. Wash. Condition. Towel. Goop. Comb. Go. She managed to get my hair to look decent (best hairstyle ever) AND I do nothing to it in terms of straightening or curling or drying. Nothing at all. Fantastic. I don't see how H2 does it every morning. Of course, she has straight hair. But I digress.

And again on the female fertility anti-aging "when we stop breeding, we lose our value" principle that has me so riled up today... "Women have become so obsessed with not withering that they've forgotten that there are infinite ways to be beautiful." Oh I love that. And so you can see how conflicted I feel about MoDo. She points out all the things I hate about women and then she says something like that. How can I hate her when she's right? I hate that so many fought so hard for equality and the women of my generation sit meekly back not bothering with anything... primping and becoming baby-makers and man-pleasers and completely ignoring the large glass ceiling that is so conveniently floating just above their heads.

And they have no idea. No fucking clue how far we have to go still before we take this idea of feminism from the 60s and 70s and we work on this idea I have called humanism and we fight for equality for all genders (male, female, trans) and all sexualities and all colors and all religions and we fight the systems of control that decaying patriarchies have left looming over us, glowering at us and slapping our hands away when we question what's going on.

It's like that bastard new pope we have, who is trying to edge out women and who wrote a letter back when he was a cardinal and talks about how women basically need to sit back and take it on the chin and "honey, the men are talking, go back into the kitchen". And how I hate that there is that link between government and faith and they're becoming too enmeshed to separate and people's religious ideologies are making the rest of us suffer. Separation of church and state. When policies are based on religious doctrine and not justice... well... I'd have to say we've wiped our asses with the constitution and we'll continue to do so until someone stands up and says something about it... loud enough to make people vote for change. Thankfully the new pope is old and he'll die soon enough and hopefully without undoing centuries of progress. Unlike america, where decades of work on the defecit and on civil rights have been undone in just 5 short years. I guess I'll be ready when they stop letting us wear pants and force us back into corsets. Have ballgown. Will travel.

It's so hard not to be pissed off at Bush all the time.

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