Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Cosmuh-oh. I have four issues of Cosmopolitan in my bedroom. I'm going to confess that right off the bat. Three were bought by me, one by my friend Catherine. And I've been struck (for the thousandth time, mind you) by the incredible cognitive dissonance that women's magazines -- and especially young women's magazines -- create in our lives as females in modern society. I should note here that Catherine and I read much more than Cosmo. Each of us has books on the go and I have a bigger stack of New Yorkers lying around than I do anything else. Neither of us would be described as vapid, nor do I imagine that most Cosmo readers are; they've just ended up reading something that too often encourages them in that direction. I read the magazine because of the hair and makeup stuff (I'm a die-hard girl -- no question, no excuses) and perhaps, on a more subconscious level, because of the "carefree existence" it celebrates. I don't really have a life where my biggest crises are romantic ones, or where I get to buy a new wardrobe every season. So for me, Cosmo is escapism at it's finest. But maybe that's just the problem. What exactly am I escaping into? Field and Stream with a tackle box full of lipstick. I happen to have the current "Fun, Fearless Female" edition, featuring page after page of celebrities who have either kicked a drug or alchol habit, continued to act past the age of 35 (where they say there are few good roles), or taken on some kind of charity work. Or not. Some of them just look great in tight pants. I suppose that these examples of self-determination are meant to inspire me, but since I know plenty of women who work past 35, have been in recovery, and who work for non-profits, I'm kind of stuck as to how to laud these particular people above the ladies in my life. Besides -- none of them are even all that better looking than my friends, anyhow. They just have more exposure. The FFF theme is undoubtedly supposed to lend a feminist cast to a party-girl publication, but the stories never find their way into the regular world, where women do courageous things every day that don't involve self-tanner. The effort to appear beautiful, prosperous, well-adjusted, and upwardly mobile is at the true heart of every feature. Discussion of life issues revolve around not appearing "psycho"; putting your best face forward, whether the end goal is to seduce some man in your Manolos or to succeed at career and social networking. The problems you might actually have are not dealt with, nor are you encouraged to face them in a meaningful way. You're supposed to find a way to sublimate them, so that you appear "fun and fearless" as much as possible. Pop psychology -- as touched upon in advice columns and the notorious "Cosmo Quiz" -- is the only apparent stab at working through dilemmas and issues. Even then, the counsel of "experts" never strays far from "do the opposite" theory of solution: if you're partying too much, stay home. If you don't party enough, go out. If you can't meet a man, look better. If that doesn't work, look even better. If you have a man you don't want, find another one. If men hurt you, well... don't get hurt. And if you have raging childhood issues of abuse that don't allow you to function normally, give you an intense fear of rejection, wake you with nightmares, and force you into awful patterns that cause you to continually degrade yourself publicly... Well... you could always try losing some weight. I know this isn't news. We've been aware for years that these magazines give women an unhealthy idea of how they are supposed to live and look. The problem is this: they are trying to sell that ideal more than ever as a feminist one. The whole "Fun, Fearless Female" concept now shows up in all of the beauty/fashion/lifestyle magazines that I read: Helen Reddy with a mani-pedi! I realize that Helen Gurley Brown started her vanguard rag to target women at the peak of the sexual revolution. This was the power she wanted women to embrace: all the strength and inherent force in their sexual identity. But -- and I say this as a regular reader -- it has become a crippler, rather than an empowerer. Cosmo lauds women in government who push for key gender-sensitive legislation. They profile models who have overcome eating disorders to have "normal" bodies. They encourage self-acceptance. Then the next page brings a contradiction of everything on the previous one: there is no encouragement to become politically active, but only to be socially active; the models in the fashion spreads look thinner than the recovering model at her worst; and the main thing that all the "life coaching" hints point you towards is not helping yourself, but making yourself worthy of money or a man. Is this the feminism being embraced by the next generation? The "if I look good and act normal someone will believe in me" school of getting ahead? They are embracing their sexual power without ever getting to know the non-sexual parts of who they are and without the fundamental proviso that their sexuality cannot be their only playing card in life. In the end, women are taught to embrace their bodies and minds only to earn the chance to hand them off to someone else -- and the validation of relationship/ownership by a mate. Most of the twenty- and thirtysomething women I know are pretty conflicted about how sexual or nonsexual to be, how image-conscious or not image-conscious to be, and how to find satisfaction within ourselves. But on the other hand, most of the women I know are incredibly smart, giving, exciting individuals with, at least the beginnings of good priorities. The generation below us is the one I am more worried about: the Britney-ites who have heard the message of empowerment their whole lives, and who are now inundated with examples of brazenness, not emotional courage. I can see the contradictions at 31, but did I at 17? I spent years working with these girls with my former job and I did my best to help them realize that they are amazing creatures who are capable of great things; great things that have nothing to do with their appearance. I'd insist that it was okay to be slightly crazy, emotional, frustrating and complex. To not look Cosmo-glamourous at all time. To realize that image -- even the proto-feminist image that you find in the glossies today -- is only going to get you so far. At some point, you must develop a soul. So. I've still got the four issues of Cosmo in my bedroom. I'm still going to read them. But I am also going to have to do a little more thinking as to what impact those issues are having on my issues as a real, live, "Fun Fearless Female." Because I am fun. Sometimes I'm even fearless. But I don't always trust or love myself. And I should probably figure out why. I'm willing to bet the answer has nothing to do with velcro rollers. 11:56:22 PM    well, yes, but...  [] frosty is my boyfriend. Snow in Vancouver isn't much like snow anywhere else. Currently, it appears as though someone has dribbled a slightly dirty 7-Up Slurpee on every surface available in my fair city. Our special kind of snow doesn't leave you rosy-nosed and chilly-toed, it leaves you soaked and freezing and cursing the day you were born. Or at least the day you went outside. So what's the appeal? I recall listening to the radio weather at 7 am with a huge grin on my face, rushing to switch it off, and then hearing my mom come in to whisper to me what I already knew: "Go back to sleep. Schools are closed." I would sleep in, snack all day, play outside, watch tv with my mom, and go to bed at night praying for a further reprieve. I recall snowmen, snow angels, snow castles, and snow piles, and the way I would tug my mittens off to pack a snowball just right. If you had any warmth left in your fingers at all, you could ice up the surface of the chilly sphere, and make it that much more lethal a weapon. I recall sled rides down steep hills, and the crazy, breathless noises I would make as I buzzed a tree (or another sledder!) a wee bit too closely for comfort. I can remember using everything from 'crazy carpets', to garbage bags, to tv trays, to inner tubes to make my way down the snow-covered slopes. I always ended up being launched far, far from those objects after my ride, spread-eagled and dizzy, giggling like mad and not wanting to face the re-ascent of the hill. I recall the day I cooked with snow. I'd seen something on Sesame Street about maple sugar and snow making some sort of candy, so I brought out everything I could find in the kitchen (from artifical rum extract to cherry Jell-O powder to Coca-Cola) to try it out in the freshly fallen stuff. I will state for the record that Lemon Snow is my favourite, and awfully refreshing, no matter how cold the air is around you. The yellow is a wee bit of an issue, though (pun intended). I recall shoveling sidewalks in my neighbourhood in Edmonton at 3 am as an insomniac university student. I loved the idea of old ladies or worn-out students (because my neighbourhood was pretty much all students and seniors) waking up on a bitterly cold winter morning and not having to worry about clearing their paths. I would scrape away out there in my coat and boots and pj pants and mom-knitted scarf, hoping to finally be sleepy enough to drift off when I finally came in from the cold. I remember the pale skies that were a violet colour, tinged with apricot -- the weird Edmonton amber streetlights would reflect their glow upward off the endless white rooftops and streets and lawns, and render the night light enough for me to feel safe being outside alone. I recall my eyelashes freezing shut on a walk to school one day and prying them apart, only to hear them click-click-click every time I blinked. I would flamenco blink thereafter while standing at the bus stop, to make myself laugh... until I noticed that people were staring at me fearfully. I recall a night in Cold Lake, AB when the temperature hit - 57 C, and we decided to go for a drive, my friends and I, all the way to Bonneville, AB in a car with no heater. I remember holding one of my guy friends' hands, "just to keep warm", and feeling myself blush with happiness, despite the horrible chill. I remember him squeezing my hand before he let go when we got home. I remember wondering forever what that meant -- and never ever finding out. I recall venturing forth in a -19C blizzard in Birkenstocks and a miniskirt during my first year away from home, just for shock value. It was incredibly stupid, but completely freeing. We went for ice cream like that and laughed all the way home. I recall thinking once that the sky during a snowfall looked like the beginning of Star Wars movies, if you glanced up on a dark night. I also recall telling someone this, and having them give me a look as blank as a freshly-snowed field. Why does no one know what I mean? I know snow is hard to handle, hard to plow, hard to drive in, and hard to be patient with throughout the winter months, especially for those of you that get dumped on often. But for this girl, in her generally temperate province, snow is a bit of a treat. Indulge me, just this once. Let's go out, stare up at the sky, and grin until our lips freeze off, the way I have on a million dark nights -- nights with pinprick stars and sparkling white fields and roofs and roads -- in five different provinces (and one state). I never saw a snowfall, or the night after a snowfall, that I did not love. 6:43:52 AM    well, yes, but...  []

© Copyright 2006 Meg Fowler. Last update: 3/4/06; 2:30:23 PM.