A whole other war on women

Growing up I often heard the mantra of "you could be pretty if ..." with the blank being filled in by numerous words from "lose weight" to "you kept your mouth shut once in a while." 

I've fought to define beauty in a better light in my life, to come to grips with the person that I am and to define myself in my own terms. But the forces were not as simple as a few people in my life, magazines and movies and the "media," all played a role. In my day I remember clearly the "controversy" surrounding the stars of Facts of Life that were all but one told to go on diets. Blaire could not be the coveted if she possessed too many curves. And so, I'd look at myself in the mirror and wonder, if she's fat, then what am I? 

 But that was just the tipping point. The average size of women on television and in movies continued to shrink. And because men actually like curves, women began buying them, making them look more and more like a Barbie doll with unrealistic dimensions that the average woman couldn't compete with even in the best of times. 

So recently there have been so many examples of how far we've come - in a bad way - when it comes to women and beauty. There was a report recently that 43-year-old Jennifer Aniston spends roughly $141,037 on her beauty routine a year (which does include her trainer and special diet food), with roughly $1,180 on her skin care regime monthly alone. No normal woman can compete with that. That's why many women her age have age spots that she admits she's had zapped by lasers. 

But it doesn't stop there. There are so many examples of how celebrities and models are photoshopped that you don't have to look far. When I typed the keywords "photoshop" "models" and "pictures" into Google, I generated 71,200,000 results. So today models can't even look like models. No amount of make-up or dieting made them "beautiful" enough without professional retouching. 

The other day I listened to a conversation on The View where they were discussing the phenomenon of "hairlessness" as a new beauty attribute. And women pay dearly to have themselves waxed and plucked all over to maintain a vision of beauty.

But today for me was the tipping point - because now that women are hairless, it's not enough - today I happened upon the second news story in as many days about vagina bleaching - because now that the hair is removed the discovery is that the skin underneath is not always as pristinely white as would be desirable.  

And who are women doing this for anyway? From where does this idea of unnatural "beauty" proliferate? 

There comes a point when all this vision of beauty becomes so ingrained that even those of us that don't buy into that image catch ourselves judging and evaluating other women. We dissect and discuss. And while I've had countless conversations that talked about weight, beauty, plucking, waxing, breast implants, diet, exercise, gray hair, age spots, wrinkles and more, never, once have I ever had a conversation with a male or a female about how someone's vagina needed bleaching because it wasn't a light enough color. It isn't something that women have ever mentioned noticing about themselves, it's never been something that a male friend said he dumped his significant other over and it's just not something that anyone I know has ever mentioned. But two stories in two days means that somewhere this is either a trend or it's something that someone wants to be a trend. 

So now, on top of worry about the grays that have appeared in my hair and the crow's feet and the strays that I'm constantly plucking from my eyebrow region and the hair on my legs, now I'm supposed to have a new worry - am I pristinely light enough. 

Just when I thought I'd tallied all the possible things I had to worry about along comes this. I have to say that I have no idea what to expect next, but I know that I'll be at least one trend behind. 

The War of Words

The most beautiful man that I ever encountered in person was in my Catholic Social Thought Class sophomore year in college.  I, and just about every other young woman in the class, was enthralled with him and he was fully aware of that fact.

A few classes into the semester we began talking about the Catholic-controversial issue of birth control and beautiful man raised his hand and contributed what he believed to be a very sound argument in favor of it with a cocky grin on his face. I'm not sure how much of his argument he believed, but I could tell that his thought was "now they know a pretty face has a brain behind it." 

And so everyone sat in class, nervously looked around and the professor tried to catch the eye of a brave soul - which one of us was going to take him on and shoot his argument to shreds. I sadly admit that it took me a moment before I, never afraid of a fight before, slowly and tentatively raised my hand and caught his sly smile. I did the congenial debate tactic of acknowledging his argument. "While I don't disagree with your premise, the way you arrived at it was a little flawed," I said slowly easing in for the kill and feeling bad about it for the first time ever that I still remember the words today. "But, to say that 'God gave man the ability to make and use latex for this purpose' and therefore it is morally unobjectionable, only ignores the existence of every negative man-made invention ever used for harm. What about cop killer bullets? Or Agent Orange? Or biological weapons? ..." And then I hit my stride and didn't shut up. I watched him slowly deflate and the smile on my professor's face grow wider and wider. I never had a shot at him anyway and I'm not sure that I would ever be able to live with a man that couldn't argue his away out of a paper bag. 

Sadly, beautiful man never once raised his hand again the rest of the semester. Most of the women in my class looked at me that day like I was crazy and the few other men in class, well I know that the smile two of them flashed me was for taking down their competition. 

But, that is me - never afraid to walk away from a fight. Always armed with the knowledge that I can construct an argument with the best of them and tear someone's down if there is even a small fallacy contained within it. I'm the young woman that passed her argumentation class easily. The one that will talk about how you need claims, grounds, warrants and backing to put up a war of words. 

Until now I've never been afraid to voice my opinions, to fight the good fight. But, somehow I've lost the will as of late. I sanction my words and I am now one of those scared young women that doesn't raise their hand in class when I know that there is a statement that I could tear down in a second. 

Why is that? Because it seems that the war of words has turned very, very ugly as of late and it's littered with insults rather than sound statements. 

Don't agree with someone's view on birth control, well it's far easier to call her a slut than to have a pointed debate on the issue. Someone has the audacity to look at the same situation and come to a different conclusion - call them an idiot and walk away. No longer are discourse or facts important, just throw out an insult and keep doing so until the person walks away from the fight - and not because you won, but because they realize there is no winning in this kind of war of words.

I've always been a political junkie. I remember being excited when I turned 18 and on that very day registered to vote. In third grade when others were turning in clippings of whatever was on the front page of the local paper for current events I was obsessed with the Iran-Iraq war and found stories from my mom's U.S. News & World Report. My teacher even once quizzed me, not sure that I was doing my own work in this area and she later told my mom in our discussion of said topic that I told her that her opinion on the issue seemed very "elementary" to me.  The Bush - Clinton election, my first presidential one as a voter, I actually teared up as I cast my ballot. 

But today's political climate leaves me cold and quiet on almost every issue. Sure, I still have very informed, strident opinions on the candidates and platforms, but even now I'm afraid to voice them. Because while I can read on every side of the issue, come to an informed opinion, voice said argument and the response will be someone calling me "brainwashed" at best. 

There are times when I see a fight so insane that I can't walk away without throwing in a little sanity to the mix, but for the most part I find myself tiptoeing in this political landscape. Even things that I wouldn't think would drum up such a response have. It just seems that things have become more polarized and less rational - there is no more agree to disagree. There is no conceding the point of someone else when they are armed with facts and figures. There's no debate any longer. Just a war of words - insulting, horrible ones - not the type of war of words in which I like to engage.

Just know that if you lob an insult upon me and I don't respond - I've virtually walked away, but it's not because you won. 

Mean Girls All Grown Up

I was standing on the soccer field behind my high school when a girl I barely ever spoke with approached me. She sat at what is still termed among my group of high school friends as the "front lunch table." It was the one exclusive clique in the school where you couldn't venture without an invitation. They were basically the group of "mean girls" that everyone loved to hate, and yet they still somehow were deemed "popular." Very kindly she smiled and told me there was a letter pealing on the back of my gym shirt and asked I wanted her to fix it for me. I told her thanks, that would be great.

It was only about a month into my freshman year and I was still feeling insecure and trying to find my place. It was a small, all-girls Catholic high school and only a handful of friends from my elementary school attended. I was in first period gym class and had forged a bond with only one other girl in that sea of sweatsocks and tennis shoes. It was by far my least favorite class and it didn't help that it was my first class of the day where I was left to look and feel my sweaty and smelly worst for the remainder of the day's classes.

She went about picking at the back of my shirt and while it seemed wrong, I just let it happen. And soon enough she had whittled out of my last name an insult that I had never imagined could be had from the letters that graced the back of my shirt. And so I was just another victim of a laughing group of mean girls. My sensitive soul bit back the tears and absorbed the hurt.

I know that at times in my life I have also been the "mean girl." I went along with the crowd, I manipulated and made "friends" feel guilt. I laughed at someone's hair or clothes or words. I levied the word "bitch" and hurled other insults that were based on my own insecurities.

That day my freshman year I was the victim - as I had been before and since - and it hurt. And as much as I was hearing a message of female leadership and empowerment daily in many of my classes, I was also witnessing how horrible girls, and then women can be to one another.

I was never someone that was bullied or teased much and when I think about that and how much incidents like the shirt one hurt, I can't imagine the people that live with that torture daily. I think of how blessed I've been in ways to, for the most part, have been involved with really positive, healthy female friendships.

And still I remember being teased once by an older girl in elementary school when we were in line to walk back to our building from church of all places for my hair cut. I remember the girls in the mall that laughed at my jeans that were too short as I bit back the tears and clutched the bag that held the new ones that weren't in my hands. I remember in college when someone dear to me told me she couldn't be my friend any longer because I was just "too much." And I remember a year ago when I lost what I thought was one of my best friends in the midst of my journey out of depression for reasons that I will never know. All of these incident stung me enough that I still remember them. They shaped me. And yet I still remember being the person that laughed and carried on at the expense of other women when the feeling suited me after most of them.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about women and how we relate to one another and I often wonder why so many of us are so horrible to one another for so long. Many of those same mean girls are now mean women and they wear their "ugliness" as a badge of honor. Television is full of examples of women that call one another "friend" and then proceed to stab that women repeatedly in the front and the back.

What is it about women that makes us so threatened by the success or happiness of a fellow sister? Why is it that so often we just can't be happy for another woman, but we are more than happy to help her wallow in her sadness? Why is it that we want to fit our friends into little boxes and will do everything in our power to keep them contained in said box?

The simple answer is that some of outgrow, embrace and own our own insecurities and once we do that we don't need to weigh other women down to feel like a worthwhile human being.

I'm so happy for the woman in my life that have stood by my side, but in some ways I'm happy for the mean ones too - they have showed me exactly who I never want to be in my life and why.

I can't say that if someone called me the same name today that was made on the back of my gym shirt that I wouldn't hurt a little, but in the end I would walk away, happy that I wasn't that girl that needed to do that to get the attention of her friends.

I just wish there were more women in the world that knew that you don't have to drag the world down with you and that instead you could build it and other women up around you and that it wouldn't make you any less of the incredible woman that you are.

No More Bad Dates ... Please

I think Philip might have been my last good relationship.

He was at least the last "boyfriend" to leave me and I knew that it definitely was not me, but him.

See Philip was a particular kind of boyfriend,  and it might say wonders that I couldn't keep him around either.

When I taught dance I had a Saturday morning class with a very precocious four-year-old that had a fondness for bringing imaginary friends to class and Philip was one of them. So, at the end of the half hour as we changed shoes and I distributed stamps for good behavior, she asked me if I would like Philip to be my boyfriend, she was done with him. I wasn't above four-year-old leftovers, so I said "yes, I would love that." And so with the instruction that I could only see Philip on dance days and not ever speak to him except via her, I was convinced that this was finally a relationship that I could make work.

Fast forward few blissful weeks and our class paraded through the studio to watch the "big (read high school young women) girls," dance. After we performed our recital dance in front of them we took seats on the floor along the mirrored wall and my favorite four-year-old took a seat on my lap to enjoy the show. Since I wasn't allowed to speak to him, I asked her how my boyfriend Philip was doing and with every bit of seriousness on her face she looked at me and said "Not good, he's gone up to the sky." One of the teens ready to dance in front of us heard the comment and giggled and she then turned to them and admonished "IT is NOT funny when people go up to the sky." She was right, it's not funny when people "go to the sky," nor was it funny that my best relationship ever would end this way.

At this point I'm not sure that I'll ever do better than my few weeks with Philip.

My entire dating life has always pretty much been a disaster of one type or another. For long periods of time in my life it was pretty much non-existent - I made no effort and no one went out of their way to try to convince me to date them either. Then, in 2006, in the midst of a major life overhaul I was undertaking I started my string of new dating disasters including somewhere in the middle of them Philip.

There was a guy that asked to be my date for a wedding that then stood me up when the day arrived, begged my forgiveness and said he'd make it up to me - he never did. There was one that told me that if I wanted to be successful in dating I "needed to learn my place on the ladder of attractiveness and not aim so high," (meaning for someone like him). There was one that turned out to be married in the end even though after being caught he still tried to convince me that I had misunderstood. Another that didn't know that with a little ingenuity and the power of google a former reporter could find your felony charge and prison sentence that you didn't just omit, but chose to lie about when you were telling your "life story." There were your typical men - the ones that clearly only had one interest in mind. And the not so typical men - the ones that seemed to want to string me along just to have someone to talk with for hours on end because they were lonely, but not upfront about it.

My personal parade of losers for a while was small, but they did provide great fodder.

Then I moved this past year and for some reason - whether it be that I was making a greater effort in a new town or my commodity was much "hotter" a few hours south of where I previously lived - I started going on lots of dates. And all I've really done is add more "great" stories to the pile of previous ones to the point where I feel like I could write one of those one-woman off-broadway shows on the topic.

Just a few of the highlights:

- My first date here was a guy that I'd talked to for about a month before I moved. Somehow in all our conversations he never thought to tell me that since he was from England and always planned to eventually move back (he's been here for almost seven years at present count) that he wasn't interested in anything very serious. He just wanted someone to date for the next few years that he would break-up with once he was ready to return home. I could have used that knowledge a little earlier than date two.

- Another guy thought he was ready to date after separating this summer from his wife. He said that they hadn't really been married for about two years before the split when they had started sleeping in different bedrooms and she had started "dating" other men. Which would have been fine, except the story didn't stop there.  I listened to the whole story - the men, the phone calls from the men, her suicide attempt, her diagnosis with bipolar, all the things that he did for her and on and on and ... And that was fine, even though he shouldn't have "let it all out," I'm someone that understands a person's need to share their struggles and his was fresh, but then on our date I heard it all over AGAIN. He asked me countless times "how could she have said that?" or "Why would someone do this?" or "I know I didn't do everything right, but ..." It would have been enough if it ended there, but then he asked if I'd go out on the patio with him because since all the "shit with her" he'd started smoking again. So, since I'd be closer to my car, I went along. We talked, he finished his cigarette and he moved in, grabbed my face romantic comedy- I have to have you right now- style and kissed me - really? I've often wondered what turned him on - my listening to it all or that I was a good smoker's buddy?

- There was another guy that I can't say too much about because he was fabulous - right up until the part where he told me that he didn't want to see anyone else and then two days later texted me an hour before our next date to tell me that he told a friend about meeting "the perfect girl" and she told him that she had always wanted to date him - he was going to give that a try. Guess I was only perfect in the event that she was not available.

- There was the guy that took me up on my offer to pay when I reached for my purse at the end of the date. And even though I know as a feminist that I shouldn't expect a guy to pay, and that despite no one ever allowing me, I always offer; well all my male friends have told me it was bad form.

I could go on and on - some are better stories than others.

Some were just boring, some couldn't tear their eyes away from the football game on in the restaurant, some couldn't tear their attention away from first their phone and then from the waitress that was serving us and then couldn't understand why I wasn't interested in having him back to my place for a drink, one made the mistake of telling me a not-so-flattering political opinion, but every one of them was just one more bad date.

And to this I say - ENOUGH ALREADY!

Don't get me wrong, I don't NEED a man to complete me, I'm a fine person all on my own. I've learned to weed out a lot of the crazy and still I'm left with these stories - if I wanted to I could have been on far more bad dates. The guys that didn't make it past the first cut, well you can just imagine what good stories I would have then.

I've had the conversation during the years with many a girlfriend - and all have told me that it's clearly not me - just as all good women are supposed to do. So, during this past year two very good male friends have had quite an earful about my dating exploits - and they keep telling me that it's not me, that any guy would be lucky to have me and that they think I'm wonderful. Well, of course they do - they wouldn't be my friends if they didn't, but I was hoping that the male mind would have more insight into what I was clearly doing wrong, but it didn't.

Recently I had a conversation with someone that I barely knew and I thought I'd broach the subject - he asked how many dates I'd been on in the last year - after way too much thinking and adding I ballparked a low number of 12 (which wasn't accurate when I counted later, it was actually higher) and he said in no uncertain terms "It's clearly you." Finally, someone telling me what I knew all along, because we all know the "it's not you, it's me speech" is really all about you and never about the me. But the problem, I still don't know what the "it" is.

The one thing I know - I don't need any more bad or "funny" dating stories - I have more in my collection if anyone wants to challenge me. I swear that this is only a sampling. I didn't even go into any of the ones that were just of the modest, there was no spark variety.

To paraphrase Charlotte on an episode of Sex in the City, I've been dating for years now - "where is he already, I'm exhausted?"

If anyone knows they can feel free to give me directions. Until then, I'll be over here trying to decipher the "It's not you, it's me" puzzle and hoping that another perfect man like my Philip comes along soon.

317, A Love Story

* Years ago I was asked to write a version of this story. At the time I didn't fathom myself a writer and so I didn't. Little did I know that one day it would have an even better ending.


Pulaski Street is a small, unremarkable residential road off Nebraska Avenue - one of the main streets in the old Kuschwantz village in Toledo.  The homes that stood there were modest and tidy and filled with Polish Catholic families that were struggling during the Great Depression.

A teenage boy worked a long day ushering after school in a downtown theatre. Tired he boarded a bus and headed home to Pulaski Street. His family was struggling and his meager pay check at the theatre was helping, but not nearly enough he would soon learn. He disembarked from the bus and walked home and stared at his house. Littering the lawn were his families' belongings and strangers were moving in their things. He didn't know where his family was, the bank had foreclosed and no one left a forwarding address. He was alone, confused and bewildered. It wasn't the first or the last home that his family would lose to the bank in an era where many homes and fortunes were. The house at 317 Pulaski Street would be just one of dozens of places that he would call home.

His story was like a lot of others from the day - struggled through the Depression, signed up for the Army at 18 when a recruiter guaranteed him that he would never leave the states, boot camp, shipped off to Africa as a radio signal controller in World War II, honorably discharged and came home to find work in a paper factory in his hometown.  He was one of the few that went off to war unmarried and now that he was home his sister was anxious to set him up with a woman she worked with at the glove factory, she would introduce him at a wedding they were all attending that weekend. Marriage was the expected next step in life. Handsome with stunning blue eyes every one of the four woman he asked out the night of that wedding said yes, including the one his sister insisted he ask.

So, that late fall day he set out in a cab on the way to pick up his first date for the night. Little did he know that she looked out the window and asked her mother to lie and say she wasn't home, she didn't want to go on the date she made. Her mother refused, saying he'd spent the money on a cab. So reluctantly she went off on a date to listen to live music and share a drink at Kaycee's. In the course of the night, he excused himself and used a pay phone to cancel his second date he'd scheduled for later in the night.

During the course of the very good first date the couple started sharing stories of all the homes they lived in in the Polish neighborhood. And while they went back and forth in the litany of homes and streets in which they had resided, he mentioned the day he came home to Pulaski Street. "We lived on Pulaski Street too, where?," she asked. And then in unison their words collided as they both said "317." Turns out he happened to be on a date with a woman that was moving in the day he stood on the street and watched another family move into "his" home. And all the time that she'd worked with his sister and shared lunch breaks with her they had never stumbled upon the topic that they had lived in the same home.

Six months later the couple married and 317 was always their "lucky" number.

For nearly 50 years they shared a life not unlike a typical family of their day. She was a homemaker and he worked his way up at the paper factory into an office management job. They had three girls and later four grandchildren. It was a good, but from many standards, an unremarkable marriage.

But throughout the years, 317 remained their lucky number. And, it many times won him modestly large amounts of money in the lottery and in other games of chance.

In March of 1996, three months shy of their 50th anniversary in the midst of planning a big party, he suffered a brief illness and died. That day after the family left the intensive care unit they all made a trek and played 317 in the lottery in his honor, but no one won that day.

And for days and then months and, then just because it became a novelty to see when, years, the family watched the lottery numbers and 317 never, ever appeared. Ten years and the number never showed. He'd taken his number with him.

In 2006, she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And as the illness escalated, as is common in terminal illnesses, she told many of the family that she'd be home for the great big birthday party. All knew that she was predicting her death day in a cryptic way, but none of them would put together the puzzle until standing by her bedside on January 10, having just witnessed her last breath one of them said the date - it's grandpa's/dad's/her husband's birthday - she was indeed home with her love for the big party.

And then to break the silence almost an hour later, one member of the family turned on the television just in time to see the number "3 - 1 - 7" flash across screen. And at that point, the love story was complete. A small sign that once again the couple was happy and enjoying the beginning of their endless life together again.

___

Happy Birthday, Grandpa! And thank you for encouraging me in your own way years ago to find a way to write your love story, for seeing the writer inside me that I didn't know was there and for giving us your small sign of comfort that night.

Seeds for a New Year

I've planted a lot of seeds in my life, but rarely have I had the time and patience to give them the care and comfort that they need to adequately grow. From time to time I've killed house plant after house plant because I was too lazy to water them. I could go long periods watching them thrive only to cut them off from the water they so desired. I've treated lots of things in my life with the same sort of haphazard care and the results have all been the same. And so when I was searching for a word to define 2012 I almost laughed when I realized that the word to which I kept returning was "nurture."

Last year was the year of the "reveal" - for better or for worse I laid a lot of my feelings, emotions, thoughts and demons out to the world of those that surround me. It was one of the few times in my life when I carried through from start to finish with one of my "plans." Early in the year I'd stumbled upon a story about defining the new year by choosing a word for all you wanted to accomplish. I shared with a few friends and one went along with me for the ride. It was one of those things that really helps set your goals and priorities and if you reflect upon it enough it can really make a difference - last year for me it made a world of difference. And so this same friend and I set upon once again to think of words that would define our year. I give myself some credit, because last year it took me a few months to discover my word, but this year it was only a few weeks into the new year when I realized that I wanted to have a year of "nurturing."

It's such a simple word, but it says so much about where I am, what I want to do and where I want to be at this stage in my life. Last year I planted the seeds and now this year I'm actually going to "nurture" them. I laid myself out for all to see and for those that are in my life I want to further "nurture" my friendships. I began writing and I want to utilize this blog to "nurture" this love. I want to "nurture" a healthy lifestyle - one that I abandoned a few years back, but one that I want to embrace again by eating well and exercising. I want to "nurture" and grow in hobbies that I've developed along the way like the jewelry making and photography. And I want to look at an overlooked part of my life and "nurture" a spiritual side that I all but left by the wayside years ago. I hope to also find a volunteer project that I can grow with that will be part of this long-neglected aspect of my life. I want to discover and "nurture" a network of respectful and respected professionals that will hopefully lead me into my dream job. And, if I'm so lucky I hope to have relationships and things to "nurture" that I haven't even thought about yet. 

I told everyone that last year was the "year of me." And in so many ways it was. I finally felt like myself, I made choices (like moving) that were all about me. This year I want to start a fresh, new decade that will hopefully make me a better person in the end and I'm so happy to have incredible people with me along for the ride. 

And, as I "nurture" this writer side of my personality I hope to explore so much more than me. I have stories and thoughts and things that I've wanted to write for ages and just never did - part of the littered path of neglected things I've left by the roadside of my life. I hope that you can join me and help me grow in my writing when ever you choose. 

And now, let the nurture of writing begin ...