What We Carry

Years ago, a short time after I met R, my then boyfriend later my husband, I decided to try and lose some weight. Not a huge amount - perhaps 10-20 pounds. It seemed a reasonable goal. It was and I was successful over several months of effort. Although I was a bit shy of my ultimate goal I was able to lose the weight.

At around that same time I also ran into an old "boyfriend". I use the term very loosely here - it was more an unsuccessful romantic entanglement than an actual romance. He gave me an appraising look and said, "Oh, you lost weight?' "Yes," I said eagerly, anticipating a compliment. "You look [slight pause] ... better," was his response.

Um, better? Not great, not good. Better?

I remember being crushed, absolutely crushed. I thought I looked good. I was proud of my achievement. Then I realized that what he seemed to be attracted to (besides my much thinner roommate when I had been seeing him) was a waif-like thinness that was impossible for me to achieve.

Never underestimate that no matter how good you may feel about yourself that there is someone around the corner who will tell you that you need to feel inferior because of how you look. 

I realize now that, at that weight, I was the same weight then as my daughter J is now. And I think she looks terrific, really terrific. It's the same weight, roughly same body shape, stretched over a slightly longer frame (she is two inches taller).

I continuously hear, with some sadness, the note of dissatisfaction in my daughter's voice about her own body. She is too this, too that ... she dislikes this, she dislikes that about herself. It doesn't matter what it is. I hear it from her friends as well. This is basically the lament of every female in the Western world. We have the most absurd complaints - from the shape of our feet to the quality of our hair to the inadequacy of our "too" plump thighs and stomachs.

I still remember, with horror, the results of a 2008 survey that indicated that a certain percentage of women (56%) would rather have cancer than be fat. Cancer. That is very messed up and extremely disturbing. This attitude still prevails most recently in a 2010 survey conducted with French women smokers (who are much acclaimed for their thinness) and who stated that they'd rather be dead than fat (“plutôt mourir qu'être grosse”) ...

I would love to hear someone (preferably female) say, "I am at my ideal weight. I love my shape." It never happens. The self-loathing is palpable.

Even when my loving spouse says something complimentary about my body I immediately start to downplay what he says. How annoying to listen to this sort of self-effacement and how insulting it is to the person who has lavished a kind and sincere compliment on you.

When, oh when, will we let this go? Does this self-denigration ever go away? Let's not blame it on those familiar culprits: the media, the fashion industry and fashion magazines, pressure from family. Let's all grow a spine, make intelligent decisions and realize how destructive this obsession is.

Please, let's give it up ... so we don't look like Gisele Bündchen or Tyra Banks. Every woman has attractive qualities - pretty hair, nice legs, a toned body, lovely eyes, a great smile - something that is unique to us and makes us feel good about ourselves.

Take a more proactive approach:

• Challenge attitudes which castigate the not-so-thin. 
• Vote with your pocket book. Stop subscribing to magazines that foster unrealistic and dangerous images or write letters to fashion editors about your concerns.
• Stop unrealistically pressuring your kids to be thinner under the guise of worrying about their health when your real fear may be having a fat kid. 
• Stop telling everyone how fat you look! We are so brainwashed that even the women that weigh a scant 105 pounds have bought into this and constantly complain about themselves and their physical appearance.

Next time someone compliments me I'd like respond in an appreciative manner and not reinforce my own insecurities (and the insecurity that many women feel) by denying that it is so.

How I Learned to Love the "F" Word ...

I know the precise moment when I became a feminist - now a term frequently employed as a dirty word or, quite often, used with disdain. I was eleven. Oh, please, you scoff - how could that be so? But I recognized immediately that rules that applied only to females were ridiculous rules.

Here is a section from my novella Made Up Of Arias (Blaurock Press, 2008) in which I describe what roughly happened, in a fictionalized form, to me when I was eleven, a practising Catholic and enrolled at a grade school called Holy Name of Jesus on Belmont Avenue in Hamilton ...

~

Each Thursday morning a Catholic mass was held in the center of this open concept classroom and every Wednesday evening the chairs would be set in a semi-circle around the “portable” wooden altar on wheels. Traditionally, there was a core group of six or seven boys who set up the chairs and also acted as the altar boys. The girls' responsibility was to care for the linen and upkeep of the altar itself. We proceeded in a comfortable state of ignorance until the day that some of the girls volunteered to set up the chairs on that fateful Wednesday evening.

On a nondescript Wednesday afternoon in the fall, Mr. Ward asked for volunteers and the usual boys raised their hands. I got an inclination, a premonition of things to come; I raised my hand too.

“Very good. Ralph, Tommy, Andrew. Tony. David and ... Lilla,” said Mr. Ward with some satisfaction, counting off the hands and making a note in a small black notebook that he always carried. All heads turned towards me, boys and girls alike.

“She can't do it,” Ralph objected. His blonde spiky hair stood up on end, even more that usual, which gave him a vaguely Nazi-like air. His red windbreaker and neatly pressed jeans lent him more than his usual air of confidence.

“And why not, sir?” Mr. Ward asked, his Irish lilt became more pronounced when he was angry or bemused. In this case he was bemused.

“ 'Cause she's a girl,” Ralph said, as if explaining the obvious to a simpleton.

“And?”

“And ... and girls don't set up the chairs for mass!” came the indignant reply echoed by a chorus of masculine Yeahs which echoed through the classroom.

“They don't? Well, heavens, why not?” Mr. Ward leaned forward on his desk, eager to hear the response as if witnessing some strange relic of Canadian culture he was unfamiliar with.

“They just don't sir,” Ralph said, more to the group of muttering boys, attempting to bolster his faltering position, than to the teacher.

“That's right sir!” The boys were yelling. This immediately galvanized the girls, even the ones who couldn't care less, which was most of them. They stopped inspecting the ends of their hair or picking scabs off their knees and were yelling too. Mr. Ward passed a hand over his dark, curly hair obviously relishing the turmoil.

“If I want to help—why can't I?” I burst out angrily.

“ 'Cause the chairs are too ... heavy,” offered one budding male chauvinist. “Chauvinist” was a word I'd heard on TV but had never used until that day. (“But why are they burning their bras?” Mama asked in a puzzled fashion, “Don't they know how much we need them?”)

“They are not!” yelled my friend Teresa. “We carry them every day in class. What's the difference if we set them up for mass too?”

“Yeah!”

“But girls never do the chairs!” whined Ralph and one of his cohorts in unison.

“Because a thing has never been done doesn't mean it can't or shouldn't be done,” said Mr. Ward as he turned to erase the blackboard behind him. As he said this it felt like the proverbial light bulb had turned on above my head.

“If some of the girls want to help, so be it. There's more than enough work to be done and it will save time for all concerned. Isn't that fair?”

“No! No!” yelled the boys while the girls cheered. Some danced an impromptu jig in the aisles, raising their clasped fists like champions, jeering at the boys.

“Well, I don't see why not,” said Mr. Ward laughing at the whole crew of us and the volcanic eruptions that had sprung from his innocent request.

“Well, I won't do it with a bunch of stinkin' girls,” Ralph cried.

“I won't either,” trumpeted Tony behind him.

“Aaahh you babies,” the girls hooted.

“No, I won't,” Ralph reasserted again emphatically.

“Fine Mr. Puzzo. I will take your name off the list and Mr. Tacchino's. I know Father McKenna will be a little disappointed but that's the price of living in a democracy. I won't compel you, gentlemen.”

But a further thought intruded. Father McKenna usually took the boys to Tim Horton's once a month to thank them for their help. It was, by all accounts, a veritable donut orgy, or such was the rumour. Ralph and Tony suddenly were reminded of this, when they overheard the other boys' whispered question “What about the donuts?” which made the rounds of the room.

“Yeah, what about the donuts?” Tony asked.

“Never mind that crap,” Ralph fumed as the girls danced around the room. As it stood, half of the eight boys had dropped out. They were replaced by Lianna and two of my friends Teresa and Anna Maria. That we thought, was the end of that.

~

Making up

As a feminist (yes, I will cop to that dreaded and much maligned "F"word), I am constantly puzzled by the reaction of some to the amount (or lack of) of makeup women wear. People seem so invested in what women do to, and for, themselves and seem to feel very comfortable commenting on it in a manner that they would not employ about other areas of your deportment or physical appearance.
It's as if they perceive makeup as a barometer of the worthiness of a woman's inner being or self-worth. "Too much" is an issue (slutty, provocative) but none at all is also perceived as a problem (slovenly, not feminine enough). In their minds, does the artifice of cosmetically enhanced beauty equal falsity? Insincerity? Lack of character? Frivolity?

When I was growing up my mother alternated between admonishing me, to "Go take some makeup off in the bathroom" with telling my younger sister,"Why can't you put on a little lipstick?" because she thought she looked too washed out.

Exhibit "A": all the "gotcha" photos of celebrities without makeup in public places which now constitute a sizable portion of the front covers of gossip rags and website pics.

Exhibit B: The HMV shop in London retailer Harrod's full two-page 'ladies' dress code tells workers in every department to wear: "Full makeup at all time: base, blusher, full eyes (not too heavy), lipstick, lip liner and gloss are worn at all time and maintained discreetly (please take into account the store display lighting which has a 'washing out' effect)." For non-compliance, a previously lauded store employee named Melanie Stark was forced to resign even though she had worked there for five years sans makeup.

Exhibit C: The media reception of Republican nominee John McCain's wife Cindy McCain vs. Republican nominee-wannabe Fred Thompson's wife Jeri Kehn. Ms. Kehn was described by right wing pundit Joe Scarborough as resembling a "stripper". Oh that's not fair, let me clarify: he asked if she "works the pole". No matter that Ms. Kehn was a former political consultant, the Republican Senate Conference and the Republican National Committee.
Ms. Kehn's crime: being comely in a sexy fashion, well put together, glamorous (perhaps too glamorous for a Republican politician's wife?). It's upscale demure housewife (McCain) vs. hottie trophy wife (Kehn) - guess who wins public approval? The message seems to be that if cosmetics are used at all they must be used modestly when you are in the public eye ... Unless you are some sort of a pop star who is expected to "tart it up" for the public.

The heavily made up Evil Queen in Snow White peering into her mirror to re-ascertain her own beauty...

But top-ranking celebrities certainly are not immune to criticism. Someone like Lady Gaga who builds her image on extreme artifice and theatrics takes a great deal of heat for her elaborate makeup and clothes but just as much if she dares to appear in public without. As a simple exercise plug in the phrase "too much makeup" in Google and see the sort of remarks you come up with. They aren't pretty.

Not surprisingly, a great deal of makeup on a woman seems to signal "trouble" with a capital "T".

Exhibit D: the Evil Queen in Snow White, the depiction of every mean girl in every movie about mean girls (you can tell she's bad - look at the makeup on her!), depictions of working girls in film and photography, the "talentless" starlets who provide gossip fodder for the Internet, print and television, and women who are perceived to be your garden variety "tramps" ...

And, sadly, women are just as disturbing as men in their criticisms, never failing to register their disapproval when a woman does not conform with their image of what women should dress like, should look like, and should or should not put on their faces.

Feminism, for me, has always been about breaking down stereotypes and liberating women from roles that are forced upon them by others, male and female. Feminism should equal freedom - it's not about other women conforming to your vision of what women should be - ranging from their complex life choices about marriage, procreation and career options to simple, frivolous decisions about whether to wear high heels and mascara.

I stand by my theory (previously expressed here) that shoes and clothes dictate female friendships. A high heel wearing aficionado will never bond with a makeup-less Birkenstock lover in any substantial way. Women don't roll that way. Yes, we are that shallow at times. We are just not that tolerant of each other. Women, who, by and large, do not want to be perceived purely as sex objects or judged solely on their looks, often do exactly that to other women.

Sometimes the husband will catch me in an up and down assessment of a perfect stranger on the street: "You're doing it again!" he will admonish. I have to consciously stop myself as I particularly hate to be the recipient of such a reciprocal assessment. J, my daughter, is experiencing a bit of that now in public, too, as she experiments with hairstyles and clothes.

Female friends sometimes ask me if J, now fourteen years old, is into makeup (as it happens, just a dash of mascara). When I say no, they always say happily, "Oh great!" as if she, and we as her parents, have dodged a bullet. And if I said yes, what would that say about her and her choices? Would that be a disappointment to anyone? A provocation of some sort?

I see makeup as part of a costume that I put on every day - a reflection of who I am and who I want to present myself as to the world. Is it a mask? Of sorts ... But we all wear masks. We all try to project certain carefully cultivated images to the outside world as women: virtuous housewife, serious and politically aware citizen, devoted mother, hottie, career girl, smart girl, an "I-don't-care-about-fashion" girl. For some, my costume may be just a little more provocative than yours.

Let's ease up gals. If you do not wish to be judged purely on your physical appearance and as a sexual object, let's not judge other girls and women by that standard either. That is neither progressive nor fair ... yet another "F' word.