Eat the Damn Cake

There’s this woman who goes to my gym. She’s always a few ellipticals down from me. She is very tall, and all of her bones stick out. I try not to look at her more than twice or three times. I don’t want to be rude. She is wearing a tank top that flops. It billows. Her arms pump back and forth, the sinew stringy and sharp, her wrists like glass stems. Her face is gaunt, the skin pulled back.

It’s a little like watching someone cutting herself. Like watching a diabetic, like Bear, eat a bucketful of maple syrup. Except maybe if someone was sitting there with a knife, slicing their own arm open, we could say something.

(source)

We don’t say anything to each other anyway. We walk past homeless people on the street. It becomes easier and easier, the longer you live in the city. Someone is crying on the subway, but it feels too awkward to ask if they are OK.

Part of the problem is that we’ve learned that saying something is almost always offensive. It’s presumptuous. The people who say something are guys on the street who yell things at women. They’re casual acquaintances who make an inappropriate remark about how much weight we’ve been gaining. They are people without tact or sensitivity. We have learned to be very careful, because we don’t know the whole story. Because we know that everyone makes different decisions. Because we’re supposed to respect everyone’s decisions. Because we don’t want to step on any toes.

Continue Reading »

It’s a revolution out there! Or so I hear. Women with small breasts are taking over the world! Cosmo told me so. Or maybe it was Glamour. I can’t keep these magazines straight. The New York Times told me so. Everything is changing. Within a week or two, Christina Hendricks will be getting reduction surgery. She’ll ask her surgeon, “How small can you make them? Can we go down to a double A?”

“But Christina… your career…”

“JUST DO IT!”

Every time I go bra shopping, I write a post about it. It’s like I can’t even help myself. Because every time feels like a revelation. When I was fitted for a strapless bra to go under my wedding gown, the saleswoman was very impressed with my maid of honor’s breasts. She measured me at a B and, losing interest, left me to fend for myself. Sort of like how the runt gets abandoned sometimes while the healthy cubs gobble up all the resources. My tiny voice from the darkened corner of the cavernous dressing room shook a little when I cried, “Can anyone help me find a bra? A bra for my wedding? I’m so cold…”

Continue Reading »

Yesterday’s post and some of the comments on it made me think about beauty as a spectrum. You know: ugly, plain, decent looking, pretty, very pretty, beautiful, super sexy, MEGAN FOX (I can’t think of any Victoria’s Secret models names off the top of my head). It’s a very persistent idea. It follows me around places. It enters without knocking. It sees things it shouldn’t. It won’t go away. But it’s wrong.

“See?” say the researchers who are studying beauty and sex and love and fun, “When everyone in this room divides into couples, they always pick partners who are the same level of attractiveness as themselves. See that?”

But I don’t really see it. And I’m not just saying that to be like, “No….we’re all one family….we’re all a part of the human race… I don’t see differences, I only see how we’re all united by our gorgeous souls” or something. I mean, I think the couple who the researchers are defining as the most attractive looks kind of boring. Normal, I should say. They’re just the closest to a certain ideal of beauty. They’re tall and thin and blond. Maybe it’s my short, dark, Eastern European Jewish genes, but tall blondness isn’t my favorite look. No offense to tall blonds! You guys are definitely lovely! But my eye is drawn to people who look more mysterious.

That’s just me. And sure, I’m weird. But so are a lot of people. In fact, I think we probably make up the majority.

Continue Reading »

In old books, especially, women and girls are constantly being described as “plain.” “One sister was so lovely it looked as though she were made of the finest spun gold. The other was mousey and plain.” There’s always “the plain one.” The perky, thrilling girls who torment and delight and influence everyone around them are never plain. The plain girls drift silently to the back. They vanish. We assume that they must be dull, boring, and slightly stupid as well. Plainness is like a disease; it infects every part of a person.

People don’t use the word a ton these days, but I’m still terrified of it. I’m waiting for the day when someone will call me “plain” and all the potential and vivacity and spunk will drain out of my life and I will put on a big brown bonnet and retreat to my corner.

(there it is. waiting. source)

But seriously, I hate that word.

Continue Reading »

Are women taking over the world? Or are they dropping out where it counts?

Yesterday I watched two TED talks. The first was by Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook. It was called “Why we have too few women leaders.”

Sandberg talks about ways to encourage girls and women to succeed in corporate environments. It’s lonely at the top. She’s made deals with CEOs of important companies who couldn’t direct her to the women’s bathroom, because she was the first woman who had been in that part of the building. Women, Sandberg insists, underestimate themselves constantly. When men are asked to explain their success, they attribute it to their personal awesomeness. When women are asked the same question, they name the people who helped them along the way, and consider themselves lucky. Remember when I was talking about ambition? I’m like a prophet. Kidding (especially since these talks were given a month ago. Being a prophet of the past isn’t nearly as impressive). But really– this stuff is everywhere.

The second TED talk I watched was by Hanna Rosin, the amazing journalist who recently wrote “The End of Men” for The Atlantic. It was called “New data on the rise of women.”

Continue Reading »

Tampons are a great invention. They make my life a lot better. I’ve been thinking about them in a slightly different way since I wrote about how the elvyn women in their magical, pristinely forested world would probably not have any. And it makes me thankful to be human.

But here is where I am not very good at being human: most tampons scare me.

(source)

I’m young, but over the course of the time I’ve had any interest in them, tampons have evolved in dramatic, flagrantly unnatural ways. They went from chunks of fibrous white stuff in a heavy paper shell to sleek plastic tubes that cradle a molded dollop of synthetic cloth. They look like vicious little pink bullets. You’re supposed to shoot up.

Continue Reading »