Tag: Women’s Rights

For the love of women…

fitzgerald

I posted this F. Scott Fitzgerald quote on Facebook about a month ago.  I then posted a not so wonderful picture of myself.  It was the sort of picture I would normally see and trash almost immediately on my iPhone. But, on that day, I shared it and others began to share, too.  

Middle-aged women and few of my not quite there former students shared unvarnished, imperfect pictures of their beautiful selves.  It was a wonderful day in the not always productive world of Facebook.

I have unruly hair, an overbite, and imperfect teeth.  My eyes are a touch wide-set and now require glasses. I have contacts, but they are mostly uncomfortable. 

There are circles under my eyes and brown age spots that try to meld with my already too freckled face. My long neck is beginning to show signs of age; it’s  .skin not nearly as taut as it once was.

For a 55 -year-old women, my body is okay.  The broad shoulders, which in my youth made me feel masculine, now give me strength. I do have rather good posture, a nod to my grandmother who would put her pointer finger in the small of my back when I slouched as a girl, “Be proud of your height!”

I am thinner now than I was in my thirties.  But, at 5’8 inches, there are still days when I feel too gangly, too big, too much.   

Let’s not start with the wrinkles.

My breasts no longer stand at attention and there is a pouch where two babies made their arrivals by cesarean section and an appendectomy scar which followed shortly thereafter.  If I overindulge, I feel it at my waist first, then my buttocks.   I wish I had worn a bikini when I was a young.  I would have looked great, but I had no such confidence as a girl.

A man once loved me and thought I was beautiful.  And then, he didn’t.  I spent the next two years believing his words and felt haggish.  The power of a man’s opinion is quite something in the game of self-perception. For the record, he would not turn heads at the supermarket.  I thought he was attractive, flaws and all, until the end. I loved his soul.

My friend shared a marvelous anecdote many years ago.  She and her husband were in their master bathroom.  Each had a sink and shared the large mirror.  As she plucked the unwanted facial hair and applied cream to her eyelids, then stroked mascara and looked critically at her reflection, she took note of her sixty-year-old husband.  He was balding, paunchy, and sun damaged. 

He shaved, splashed water on his face, brushed his teeth and was done.  She told me, “Oh my God, I was taking stock of every flaw.  He may as well have snapped a towel at the mirror, pointed at himself and said ‘You, the man!’”

In my brief foray into online dating, I met a man for dinner; two strangers taking the measure of each other.  Fifteen minutes in, he interrupted me to say, “You animate really well.  In person, you are so much more attractive than your pictures.”  I think I said thanks but wanted to say, “Yeah, Pal, that would be my soul making its appearance. Camera’s don’t see the soul.”  

Ugh….

I pour this out, late on a Saturday evening, because of the news this week.  Donald being Donald, yet again.  

I am a liberal.  A Democrat.  It is existential. My cable news of choice is MSNBC.

I am smart and engaging and would not last a second on television.  Not with my flawed face.  Not a prayer.

Mika Brzezinski co-hosts “Morning Joe” and I have watched it for years. She is a stunningly beautiful Slav.  Her face is taut and perfect.  Her figure flawless, her legs the envy of a Rockette.

She shares the show each day with a posse of men. She is a smart, incisive, opinionated Democrat.

Joe Scarborough, a former Republican Congressman, is a sort of goofy looking Southerner, with a rash of brown hair, an oversized nose, and thick-framed glasses.  I have a soft spot for the contributing Mike Barnicle, a past his middle years, rumpled, thickly accented Boston journalist with a gap-toothed smile and face that shows the march of years.  Willie Geist is the young, up and comer.  He is a paste-y, well-heeled New York boy next store.

I would guess it takes those men about 30 minutes to prepare to go on television. Mika Brzezinski?  I think we know the expectation.  Women, no matter how smart, don’t get to be goofy or rumpled or paste-y on television.  See Fox, see CNN, see MSNBC.

Mika Brzezinski had a facelift.  Of course, she did.  If her looks don’t match her intellect there is little chance she shares the spotlight with men.  

How dare this President call her out on that?  How dare he personalize the news media? How dare he, when he should be working to advance this country, be so thin-skinned as to bark back when he is criticized by a morning cable television host?  How dare he hit a woman where it hurts?

He is an outrageous misogynist. He is a child, a megalomaniac and at his base, just a terrible man. So terrible, in fact, that this Democrat actually misses George W. Bush. Now that’s real news! 

Donald J. Trump has no manners and no respect for his Pennsylvania Avenue address.  It seems most of the country is just fine with that. And that’s the real kick in the pants; people I know defend him.

Aaargh…

In the Trump Era, I worry for my 18-year-old daughter and what this President’s behavior means to women of her generation. What does lowering the bar for misogynists mean for those girls who graduated high school this year?  How far does he set them back by sending a message to every boy my daughter’s age, that a women’s appearance is fair game for the President?

My daughter is objectively beautiful.  By that I mean, physically, in a lineup of her peers, she is stunning.  Unlike my chaotic mess of hair, she enjoys a color and texture that the salons would love to bottle.  Her skin is gorgeous and she carries her 5’9” frame with confidence. She rolls out of bed, beautiful.

She better. Despite the fact that she is also smart and passionate, in 2016 this country elected a man who has no respect for women.  I noted this in my piece about Charlie Chaplin just after the election, and even I am surprised at Trump’s inability to disguise his abject hatred for women.

So yes, my daughter will need all the confidence she can muster.  This President has, in short order, made it abundantly clear that women do not matter.  Those who support him in their silence, only strengthen him.

F. Scott Fitzgerald was one complicated fella, But, my God, he loved women. He loved Zelda, but, not for her beauty.  Fitzgerald loved her for her soul. It is the only part of any human that actually matters.

I would love to hear from my readers about the current state of affairs.  I’m done tuckered out!

 

 

 

 

The Old Man and The Sea… Of Women.

 

suffragettes

I seek to understand.  I try to make a rational argument, but responses are irrational and facts are muddled and dressed up as truth.  So, I walk away. The fact that I was a participant in the Women’s March, an eyewitness to history, seems to mean little to those determined to diminish it.  Apparently, those who had the audacity to walk are extremist, anarchists, and, naturally, angry. Those positioned to pounce and pick from the comfort of their home appear to have the inside scoop.  Peaceful demonstrations reimagined:  Anarchy!  Fox News told them so!

That wasn’t my experience on a sun-drenched Saturday in Key West, Florida, as I walked with three thousand plus along Duval Street, chanting, singing, smiling, hugging and admiring.  I walked alongside a red trolley, seated within were extraordinary men and women, most on the north side of 80, whose aging bodies made the walk impossible.  They carried signs, and some wore silly hats. They all looked alive, purposeful, and grateful that they found this moment, late in their life, to exercise the rights the Founding Fathers gave them: peaceful protest. It was a meaningful moment in time which they thought might never be realized as their lives look to the twilight.

I spoke with an African American woman grinning from ear-to-ear with her best friend.  Her tee-shirt said, “I Am My Ancestor’s Wildest Dreams.”  My God, that’s a sobering, wonderful thought, isn’t it? It was not lost on that beautiful lady that this great country, in the Bill of Rights and Amendment’s to the Constitution, gave her the right to this day, to walk peaceably with her sisters and brothers along a palm-shaded street on the Southeastern most tip of the United States of America.

Young women, many with their husbands beside them, marched pushing strollers.  Most of the children were girls, the daughters for whom they dream big dreams; that the world will not threaten to dismiss them because of their gender.  Maybe, just maybe, those baby girls will grow up in a world where this conversation is spoken in a nod to history.  How I wish my own girl had been with me.  She wasn’t.  Rather, she was wielding a lacrosse stick in an indoor pre-season league preparing for her senior season.  Title IX at work.

In Key West, Los Angeles, Washington, Paris, Stockholm, San Francisco and throughout this great world, women gathered and welcomed the support of men in The March.  I had friends marching in Washington, New York, Hartford, Phoenix, and Omaha.  All of them reported joy, empowerment, and an appreciation that we live in a country where such a thing remains an inalienable right.

Key West is an interesting place.  This is the first time I have been to the Keys, and as I write, in the near distance, I see white caps dancing on water whose shades of blue seem to change with each gust of wind.  My view of that vast Atlantic is disturbed only by majestic palm trees and thatched palapas where weary northerners lounge, desperate to re-energize on a late January day.

Key West belongs to Ernest Hemingway.  If there ever was a man’s man, it would be Hemingway.  He was a big game hunting, deep-sea fishing, safari-loving, bombastic man with the soul of a poet.  It took me years to appreciate his writer’s voice.  He had none of the grandiosity of my favorites: Fitzgerald, Austen, and the brilliant Oscar Wilde. My literary palette has matured with age, and I now find Hemingway’s direct, simple, potent narrative powerful.  For all his surface bravado, Hemingway had a fascinating perspective on women.  Despite his traditionalist view of them, his women were strong, complex, and clearly important in his personal and literary life.

From the book “Hemingway and Women”,

“While Hemingway was certainly influenced by traditional perceptions of women, these essays show that he was also aware of the struggle of the emerging new woman of his time.”

As I marched in Key West, I imagined Ernest sitting on a Duval Street Veranda, in a rocking chair, cigar in one hand, and a potent Bloody Mary in the other, fascinated by the scene that played out in front of him.  I imagined Ernest Hemingway, with a nod and great guffaw, shouting out, “Have at it, ladies!”  I think Hemingway wasn’t intimidated by women, as much as he was bewitched and besotted by them.

Ah – but it’s not the early twentieth century.  It’s the new Millennium and so I’ll return to my thesis: I’m trying to understand…

Perhaps the most off-putting accusation about the March was about violence and broken glass at a Starbucks in Washington DC.  Please don’t muddle the facts.  That despicable act happened Friday during an Anti-trump incident that was not part of the Women’s March.

Regarding demonstrations, the people’s right to participate, and the charge that the President’s supporters would not have marched had Mrs. Clinton won the election?  A tweet from the President on November 6, 2012:

trump

Would I have preferred that Ashley Judd control her rhetoric?  Sure.  Do I wish the same thing of Madonna?  Yup.  But what about the magnificent Gloria Steinem, Scarlett Johansson, America Ferrera, and Michael Moore, who reminded all of us to stay involved in the process, be doers, be dreamers.  What about all the organizers throughout the world who have no celebrity cache, but pulled off one of the greatest, most unexpected, most peaceful mass Marches in history.

I’m proud I was part of it.  Those who stayed home? Maybe save your rhetoric for the things you show up for?

To my friends who share my perspective, here’s a thought that might surprise you. I wish, for the love of Pete, that those who supported the March might tone down the oratory and banish base language from their social media.  Rise above it, use your intellect to state your case. Don’t take the bait. We have a responsibility to elevate the conversation with thoughtful, factual discourse. I believe our better angels possess a better vocabulary.

One last thing which might seem small, but here we go:

Mr. President, when you walk the walk of Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Reagan, Bush, Sr. and Obama, maybe you could give some thought to the gravitas of the Office of the President of the United States of America.  Is it too much to ask that you button your suit jacket?  A little respect, that’s all we are asking for.