girl power, for real

Yeah, so everyone and their mother will be writing about the last episode of Buffy, but I don't care; this time, I'll be part of the crowd.

Hardly "one of the crowd," Maureen's take on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" goes beyond the review of this infamous episode and evolves into a gut-wrenching discussion of domestic abuse. A well-written, heartfelt post that should not be missed!

10:25:15 PM    

"Militant feminists don't like Heidi Klum"

So many different levels of feminist thought/action these days, it's hard for me to keep track. Since Jan Haugland of Secular Blasphemy is generally accurate about setting off article quotes from his own commentary, I must assume that quotes like:

...nothing enrages militant marxist feminists more than a beautiful woman...

and:

Radical ...feminists get rid of some of the testosterone they obviously have in abundance.

are Jan's rather than quotes from the original article (I can't translate Norwegian, so I can't say for sure).

On first blush, it is easy to distance myself from the actions of these vandals, since I do not consider myself "militant," "marxist," or "radical." I do consider myself a feminist, but my concerns are more focused on things like "equal pay for equal work" than on "the 'commercialisation' of women's bodies." I mean, as long as we get to commercialize men's bodies, too, I'm game. ;-)

But I'm not surprised by the fact that the two phrases I called out above struck me personally despite the qualifications. I suspect that Jan won't be surprised by that either – ire is probably the single emotion most commonly ascribed to feminists.

I can't speak for Jan's political beliefs and experiences, so this is an examination of why his particular phraseology hit a nerve with ME, not a request for political correctness from HIM (anyone who wants to call me the P.C. police has never heard me speak!). My experiences come from the perspective of a woman living in the U.S. while Jan's come from the perspective of a man living in Norway, after all.

In this country, "feminist" has become more of an invective than even "liberal," even among many liberals. Oh, of course even we who define ourselves as liberal don't cluck our tongues at ALL feminists; only those with extra qualifications, like "militant, radical, marxist," maybe even "lesbian." The popular term on the right in the U.S. for this particular "brand" of feminism, supposing for a moment that it can be categorized in such a broad stroke, is the Limbaugh invention, "femiNazi."

Who is this creature? Why, she is the very embodiment of man-hating, unfeminine, bitter, unappeasable person of the female gender that harkens back to the first slams against women who refused to "keep their place." From the early suffragist movements, this uberfeminist has been set up as the "straw woman" to tear down for every anti-feminist argument that has ever come down the pike.  

If I identify too closely with phrases like "[over]abundance of testosterone" or envy of "beautiful women," it is because I have had similar dismissals applied to my own arguments, despite the fact that I am not radical, marxist, or militant. I don't even have any quarrel with the poster of Heidi Klum attached to the article!

And yet, I take issue with the way that the argument of the Norwegian feminists about the poster, whatever that argument may really be, is lost in the noise of the invective in the same way that all feminist arguments have been dismissed in so many circles since they were first posed. Sure, Jan's got as much right to his opinion as anyone, but it all sounds to me like a variation on the "she just really needs to get laid" theme. And I dismiss THAT as a valid argument. Hey, I may be FFF, but I am geting laid and I still have issues with the status quo. I suppose next I'd be told I'm not getting laid properly? B.S. :-)

4:47:35 PM    

Thinking about menopause...

I have been thinking about menopause lately. I have no family history on which to base my expectations since my mother had a hysterectomy and my grandmother would never have discussed such matters. And, let's face it, the literature is a little dry; it doesn't compare to having someone who's gone through it tell you about their own experience.

We don't have any children and were not planning to, so the timing of menopause doesn't really matter in terms of any last ditch fertility efforts for me. Still, it seems a momentous occasion and I'd love to know how near or far it is on my event horizon. 

Besides, while I'm not organized enough to be called a planner, I do prefer to be more prepared than not for things that are likely to happen in life, don't you? I want to incorporate this next stage of womanhood into the rest of my life as gracefully as possible. In order to do that, I'd like to have a better idea of what to expect.

I'll share any good net resources I find with you as I continue my search. I hope you'll feel free to share your thoughts and finds here, too. For now, I'm just reading through the North American Menopause Society (NAMS) literature and trying not to get too freaked out by some of the terms I'm encountering there.

3:47:17 PM    

Younger men

Last year, there were at least three movies made around "mature" women having affairs with younger men (or, in the case of Tadpole, an adolescent). It's a theme that's certainly not new, but in "real life," it's something of a taboo in polite society, aside from the old cliché of the sexually inexperienced young man coming of age in the more skilled arms of an older woman (who can forget Stifler's mom?).

In many such films, the older woman character is sadder and lonlier than Stifler's mom, of course. If the movie is not of the sentimental romantic-comedy type, she often becomes something of a "Fatal Attraction" problem for the young man when either one or the other wishes to call it off (e.g. the already crazy Holden losing it entirely when Jennifer Aniston calls it quits in The Good Girl). If the central plot is the coming-of-age theme, the older woman simply fades into the background when the young hero decides to pursue more age-appropriate love interests.

Me? I'm married, to a man a few years older than I am, and not very likely to have a wild fling with anyone, let alone someone much younger. But I can feel the stereotypical itch sometimes that amounts to little more than a desire to confirm that I can still be attractive, and perhaps still unpredictable and untamed. There has always been a desire imbalance in my relationship, and, contrary to what culture usually portrays as the norm, it's not me who gets the headaches. It was actually when I was younger that I had the feeling I would have been more sexually satisfied with a younger man who would be more physically inclined to match my appetites.

I'm more likely to fantasize that I am younger (and of course considerably hotter) than that my partner is. That's not to say that I don't notice younger men. I work with many younger people nowadays, though by and large they are computer geeks as opposed to underwear models with washboard abs and pouts, so they don't turn my head as such. They tend to consider me "safe" rather than sexy, so it's an environment of "feeling at home" rather than one of unbridled sexual tension. This is actually fun because it gives me a bit of insight into their minds and even the occasional glimpse into their hearts. Were I more maternal, such perspectives would fill my own heart with sentimental goo. But it has allowed me to respect the ways that they are mature in their emotional lives and to appreciate the places where they are still "unformed."

So I'm attracted to the conquering mind of the younger man – the searching soul; the sense that there is so much more ahead than there is behind. If sex could tap into and borrow that the way that friendship has, I'd probably be a wanton woman in my midlife. Instead, the true gift that has come to me through the privilege of friendships with a few younger men is a dash of that courage in my own life, and a sense that there is much that I might yet accomplish before I toddle off to the old folks' home.

Would I sleep with a younger man? Well, I am monogamous and I don't intend to change that, so under current circumstances, no. If circumstances were different, I'd certainly consider the opportunity if it arose, but there would probably have to be some compromises. I can't see myself making love with godsmack playing in the background, but the younger men around me are teaching me never to say never.

6:18:54 PM