A Feminist Raises Its Daughter

I am currently reading Naomi Wolf's "Beauty Myth" which I suggested to my 15-yr old girl to help in critical "methodology" for her IB MYP project on "The image of women in advertising" and have conjured up more enthusiasm for the book, after toiling through the first 50 pages of conspiracy theory. Interesting point that the only professions where women are consistently paid higher than men are modeling and porn. Automatically ruling out porn, why would mothers NOT encourage their daughters to ever enter any profession (not just modeling, but including TV presenter, housewife, etc.) where their most valuable attribute is their appearance?

Because to do so, would be condemning your child to a life-time of insecurity, always worrying that she will be too fat, or too thin (aka not voluptuous enough because every smart woman knows the commercial appeal of Kate Moss is that, until she drank and drugged herself into middle-age, she looked like a child, which is disturbing if you think about that too much), not young enough, not mainstream enough, not exotic enough, not this year's look...always subjecting yourself to a judgment criteria you don't control.

"Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at...confuse desiring with being desired...a beautiful heroine is a contradiction in terms, since heroism is about individuality, interesting and ever changing, while "beauty" is generic, boring and inert." "A man's right to confer judgment on a woman's beauty while remaining himself unjudged is beyond scrutiny because it is thought of as God-given." "Though God made Adam from clay in his own image, Eve is an expendable rib. God breathed life directly into Adam's nostrils, inspiring his body with divinity; but Eve's body is twice removed from the Maker's hand, imperfect matter born of matter."

"The beautiful woman is forever excluded from the rewards and responsibilities of particular human love, for she cannot trust that any man will love herself "for herself alone." "When men are more aroused by the symbols of sexuality than by the sexuality of women themselves, they are fetishists. Fetishism treats the part as if it were a whole; men who choose a lover on the basis of her "beauty" alone are treating the woman as a fetish--that is treating a part of her, her visual image, not even her skin, as if it were her sexual self. The woman's value as a fetish lies in the way her "beauty" gives him status in the eyes of other men.

Wolf's thesis is that in "modern" European and North American culture up through the 19th century up to WWII, in mainstream culture, a woman's value was determined by her moral and spiritual purity, her religious devotion. With the end of WWII and the conversion to the consumer era, this religious fervor was transferred to the "Feminine Mystique" the value of the woman as the ultimate house-keeper, mother and home-maker, opening up the possibility to sell them detergents, house-hold appliances, sewing machines, baking accoutrements. Cleanliness was next to godliness and the new holy waters were soaps and detergents. With the feminist revolution in the 1960s and the entry of large numbers of women into the workforce, this no longer became as economically attractive a business model, so a new standard was invented - the Beauty standard.

Like any ideal, ideal beauty can never be achieved. Beauty is made into a religion in our culture. Like any religion, you must suffer and pay a high price to be beautiful, whether it is through gym work-outs or endless beauty maintenance rituals, ranging in pain and invasiveness from eyebrow pluckings, to laser treatments, to plastic surgeries. The holy oil of purification in the Beauty ritual is the ultimate consumer product: skin cream which promises to revitalize, rejuvenate, replenish nourish, reverse the signs of aging, protect your skin from a "hostile" environment, provide the skin with the calorie-rich indulgences "caviares" and "mousses" that most thin women cannot ingest as a food. The holy oil of beauty cream has a 10x profit margin on the base ingredients, cannot be misrepresented because everybody knows these products don't actually do what they promise - since none of these products actually penetrates the stratum corneum to effect any changes on a cellular level, and the more you charge for it, the more people will pay.

My daughter is now plotting (she is 15 and her "future job plans" change every week) to go to work for the health and beauty division of a consumer products company.

How does a Feminist raise its sons? Well, in addition to educating themselves to the level they need to engage in a fulfilling and self-sustaining (aka not sucking off the parental teat) profession, like my daughter, before they leave my house, my boys will know how to clean a bathroom like nobody's business, cook at least three full, healthy meals, open the door for any woman or girl and treat women with courtesy, respect and old-fashioned manners, and maybe just maybe if they attend SEC football games, wear a coat and tie? Because, at the end of the day, George Clooney dated cocktail waitresses and television presenters, but he married an Oxford-educated international human rights lawyer (who also happens to be beautiful), and I want my sons to find smart life partners with character, moral and family values...

Wife Drives Husband's Tesla

I had hoped Marc Fleury learned his lesson the last time he borrowed my "clean diesel" SUV to transport his pinball machine and forced me to drive the Tesla. This resulted in an unfortunate encounter with the right curb on those inconveniently narrow lanes on Piedmont road that led to tire and hubcap replacement that COST MORE THAN my first car. If you think handing your wallet over to the pretentious German motors garage (where they serve you cappucino!) is painful, wait until you get the service and maintenance bills from Tesla.

And, no you WON'T have a choice on where to go because only Tesla services and makes parts for Tesla. You think Steve Jobs and Apple's custom interfaces are bad? You haven't even begun to start kow-towing to Elon Musk. Tech geeks love Elon Musk. Elon is the alpha-geek's alpha geek. They even based Iron Man on Elon. How smart is Elon? Well, my guess is that he's so smart, he'll have himself cryogenically frozen so he can extend his dominance to future generations.

Giving a person like me a Tesla or any powerful car to drive is a waste. How bad a driver am I? My father, in trying to teach me to drive stick shift, after I had stalled out for the twentieth time, once famously suggested that I drink a beer...to loosen up. However, like most people who are aware of their shortcomings, my caution serves me well. I have never had any accidents (except those involving curbs or objects placed behind my car, like tree branches). Part of the reason for this is that when I get on the highway, I place myself in the 2nd to right lane and go at a consistent speed of 60-65mph, and don't move because that's EXACTLY the advice they gave me in the Driver's Ed educational movie I watched at age 16.

However, I am stuck driving the Tesla again because my 15-yr old wants to practice driving and feels the immediate need to go to Publix grocery store...to buy air freshener for her room. So, the only thing worse than me driving the Tesla would be our daughter driving the Tesla. Did I mention she's 15 years old. My husband decides to drive with her. And, I find myself driving the Tesla on The Mission: Pick up the three boys from catechism and deliver them to their cousin's house in the ATL suburbs so they can go to his birthday party at SKY HELLZONE.

If you want to lose your religion, try getting out of a large Catholic church parking lot after the 10:30 mass and Sunday School. Every other person drives a Chevy Suburban or GMC Yukon, and it's not because they all have ten children. As I try to navigate around the butt end of some sort of monster 4x4 truck crammed into a parking space that is way too small, I start to experience the first symptom of driving a fuel-efficient vehicle: feeling self-righteous. I can barely restrain myself from leaving a note on the windshield of afore-mentioned monster 4x4. "Buddy, what do you think you are doing? We aren't within 60 miles of a farm, and you are driving this aberration in-town? It's thanks to nimrods like you that American lives are being lost in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not to mention that we're destroying our environment back home with horizontal drilling..." Thankfully before I have time to compose said note, the line moving out of the parking lot moves forward.

The children safely acquired, I now have my husband's Mini Me in the car to help me figure out the Tesla. This is the child who, at age 10, surpassed my ability to control any automated device in the house. B is my co-pilot and his brothers are in the back seat.

Task One: Change the music station. Now Tesla has something I do love. Slacker Radio. Only problem is my husband, who has been kicked out of such exclusive groups as "Real DJs Against Douchebags" has the radio set to some boring electronic music station. Time for revenge: Slacker Top 40 here I come. In all honesty, 95% of this is total crap, but Slacker allows me to immediately click ahead to the next song, so it's better than regular Top 40 Radio, where you have to listen to the same tunes by Katy Perry, Maroon 5 and John Legend on infinity loop, not to mention the timeless pitch of Tom Shane, "your friend in the diamond business." Thanks to Slacker Top 40, I start to rock out to the latest by Lil Jon, Mary Lambert and Lady Antebellum and relax.

Until. Oh no you don't! Mini (My Husband)'s hand is reaching suspiciously for the radio controls. Time to reassert Vehicular Musical Dominance over the Progeny with The Speech. I have been giving variants of The Speech as soon as my oldest child reached age 10 and started having musical preferences. The Speech goes as following: "When you and I are in the car together, you will have a say in the music we listen to WHEN AND ONLY WHEN when YOU can afford a car, gas and car insurance. When is that going to happen? Not any time soon.... mwah ha ha ha.

On the surface streets, I start to notice pleasant things about the Tesla. It's low and heavy and hugs the road. Not only that, I discover that Tesla has some bitchin' acceleration. It's actually FUN TO DRIVE. When I get to Hwy 85, I am no longer driving like me. I am driving like 17-yr old boy jacked up on testosterone and driving this car is like mainlining adrenaline. All my risk-averse instincts get thrown out the window. I'm changing lanes, passing cars, left and right. The Children are starting to get nervous. I am completely oblivious as I sing along with Iggy Azalea and Charlie XCX:

I'm so fancy You already know I'm in the fast lane From L.A. to Tokyo I'm so fancy Can't you taste this gold? Remember my name 'Bout to blow

Whew ee. This is fun. I've just discovered the acceleration has something like a hyper-drive. I am Han Solo putting the Millenium Falcon into "lightspeed." All the lesser ships fall behind me. I forget to hate on Elon and decide I must find him immediately and have his love-child.