Fifty and Other F-Words Read online

  One day we’ll look back and wonder how this happened. Articles and books will be written, and college courses will dissect every aspect of the campaign, and its aftermath, in painstaking detail. What did she do wrong? How could she lose? How could this happen?

  I know how this happened. I’m a woman over 50 in a world that wants me to disappear. How can any woman hope to shatter the glass ceiling when women are still not equal under the law? How can a 71-year-old woman be elected to the most important job in the nation when most women over 50 can’t even get a job? How dare she!

  No one wants to see or listen to an older woman. How many of them do you see on TV, in magazines, or in advertisements for anything other than adult diapers, bone density medications, or vaginal mesh lawsuits? During the presidential campaign, I heard things like “She doesn’t smile enough. She smiles too much. She laughs at the wrong things. She’s shrill. She’s got too many wrinkles. She looks fragile. She lacks stamina.” Despite her being the most truthful candidate by far, people found her untrustworthy. Worst of all, she was smarter and more informed on virtually every issue than any other person in the race. Nobody likes a know-it-all, especially if it’s a woman.

  Sexism and ageism are deeply embedded in our cultural narrative. One must be over 35 to run for the office of president, but you need a level of experience few people possess at that age. The youngest president was Teddy Roosevelt, who was 42 when he succeeded William McKinley. Most of our presidents have been older than 50 when they were elected. This presents some challenges for female candidates. As we know, men become distinguished as they age, and women just get older.

  Do I think that gender and age were the only factors in Hillary Clinton’s defeat? Absolutely not. But I do think they played a substantial role. There was obviously a lot more at play. While 94 percent of African-American women voted for Hillary, I was seriously disturbed to discover that 53 percent of white women voted for Donald Trump. Breaking that down further, 51 percent of college-educated women voted for Clinton, while 62 percent of women without a college degree voted for Trump. Damn it, white women, get your shit together. White men overwhelmingly voted for Trump across demographics, which is also disturbing, though not shocking.

  Hillary Clinton’s age, sex, intellect, and income bracket, combined with the media-manipulated (and Russian influenced) narrative about her “trust factor,” conspired to defeat her. Regardless of how you feel about Hillary, it’s hard to deny that she was held to a completely different standard as a candidate. Trump just had to show up and speak in partial sentences. Hillary, on the other hand, had to show up, smile just the right amount, ignore Trump’s barrage of insults and abuses without responding in anger, and articulate her thoughts and positions with authority and detail. Then there were the endless questions about Hillary’s emails, while Trump’s ties to Russia, lawsuits against him and his company, and sexual assault accusations elicited little of the media scrutiny and moral outrage that dogged Hillary’s campaign, and which defeated her in the end.

  Will a woman ever be president? I think so. I hope it happens in my lifetime. I cried when I voted, knowing what it took for women to get there. That the glass ceiling is cracking sends a powerful message. Someday soon, I hope, a brilliant, capable, kick-ass woman will take a sledgehammer to that ceiling and shatter it once and for all. When that day comes, it will be a victory for everyone.

  Glass Ceiling

  We came close, 18 million cracks,

  And then they rolled our progress back.

  They crowned a predator-in-chief,

  We suffered from collective grief.

  Calm down, get back, shut up, they cried,

  No birth control, no equal rights!

  Education? Not for the masses,

  That’s reserved for the upper classes.

  The alt-right’s misogynistic bent,

  Fueled our Twitter happy president.

  Grab ’em by the pussy, smack ’em in the face!

  Teach ’em to be quiet, make ’em learn their place.

  Women should be seen, not heard,

  Girls in STEM? Well, that’s absurd.

  Let them focus on giving birth,

  We’ll be the judge of their self-worth.

  African Americans, progressives, Mexicans,

  LGBTQ, women, and Muslims,

  The poor, the handicapped, the tempest-tossed,

  Dismissed, demeaned, rejected, mocked.

  Immigrants and refugees

  Were banished with impunity,

  Earmarked as enemies of state,

  The focus of misdirected hate.

  Every freedom, right, and liberty,

  The thin veneer of civility,

  Truths held to be self-evident,

  Under siege by our new president.

  We knitted hats, we painted signs,

  Laced up our boots and spoke our minds.

  We will not break, we will not bend,

  You will not silence us again.

  We marched for freedom and equal rights,

  We joined hands to stand and fight.

  “Hear our voice!” our rallying cry,

  Stronger together, watch us rise.

  Pandora’s Hope: Reclaiming the Divine Feminine

  I think we, the collective we, the religious we, the secular we, the political we, the social we, do an endless amount of bending, twisting, and lying to accommodate the male sexual and aggressive impulse. Let’s start with Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament, which, among other stories, tells the tale of a man who was so weak and incapable of making his own decisions that a serpent and a woman tricked him. The original sin was not that man chose to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it was that woman “forced him” to eat that fruit by merely suggesting he give it a try. That fruit was a metaphor. Eve was the first temptress.

  It wasn’t his fault.

  Eve introduced sin into the world. Adam just went along for the ride. In actuality, the serpent convinced her to eat it. Note that the Genesis mythology was a restructuring of more ancient religious stories where the female was the deity and the serpent her consort. Note that to know the goddess intimately, personally, intrinsically meant eating from her tree of knowledge, knowing her in the carnal, magical, deepest sense. The mysteries of the universe and the divine were discovered through sexual contact. So, even the metaphor of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was recast in Genesis. In earlier texts, from which the Old Testament was formed, Jahweh had a wife, Asherah, which means “sacred tree.” Asherah represented the female experience of the divine. Her name also means “womb.” She was often depicted with serpents. These stories, in the Judeo-Christian Bible and in all of the religious texts of the world’s major religions, evolved over time and were edited to shape a new mythology.

  I’ve often pondered why Jahweh put that tree in the garden and then made such a big deal about warning Adam and Eve not to eat it. It seems like a setup to me. Also, what’s up with the serpent? How did he get in there? What was the point of giving them paradise and then stacking the deck so heavily against them? Also, what’s so bad about wisdom, exactly? Is blissful ignorance really paradise? If it is, I’ll take a pass.

  The message relayed from this story, even if it wasn’t fully supported by the text, was that woman was inferior. Therefore, she needed to be forced into subjugation. How better to subjugate woman than to recast her as the enemy? How better to recast the once-powerful goddess than to make her a vessel for male release? Then every woman became, by proxy, a vessel for male release. How better to exert male superiority than to create a new mythology that absolved men from responsibility for their sexual urges and their aggressive impulses?

  Woman was weak because she chose to eat the fruit and evil because she convinced man to make the same choice. Man was the hapless victim. By casting women as the agents of the downfall of humanity, we have created a world in which women will always be perceived as duplicitous, dangerous,
and inferior. Our current geopolitical reality is the endgame of this mythology.

  LGBTQ people are also considered threatening, because they defy the male/female duality. The myth of the male as superior and woman as his servant, vessel, and property is shattered by people who exist outside of this mythology. Marriage began and still exists in many cultures, as a transaction, a way of treating women as property to be handed from one male figure to another. In that sense, marriage as a contract between two equal adults who are not tethered by the patriarchal construct is a threat to the continuation of that mythology. The frantic efforts in this country to enforce religious mythology as law are a direct response to the tide of LGBTQ people who have risen from the shadows and demanded to be treated as equals. By pushing them back down through laws or force, the patriarchal male/female superior/inferior good/evil duality remains unchallenged and unchanged.

  It’s not just the Judeo-Christian mythology. These underlying male/female themes are present in every major religion. This mythology that men are not responsible, are victims of female temptation, has influenced cultures that regularly subjugate women while blaming them for the male sexual impulse for centuries. This includes Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and all of the world’s major religions.

  The fascinating thing is that so many women have bought into these limiting constructs and accepted a position of inferiority. We have turned myth into reality. We have co-created a world where male sexual and aggressive impulses reign supreme. Whether it means hiding ourselves under layers of fabric, remaining pressed against the glass ceiling, forcing other women to accept the patriarchal code, making ourselves smaller and more docile, allowing physical or sexual abuse, or telling ourselves the story that women are less than, it all contributes to the continuation and proliferation of the mythology.

  I believe that we will not find balance between male and female energy until we shift our mythology. We will not find this balance until we stop creating and accepting a reality that tells the story that men cannot control themselves and women are to blame. We will not find balance until we stop telling women how to dress, how to act, what to say, what they can and cannot do with their bodies, how to move through the world as if they are constantly forcing men to think bad thoughts and do bad things. We will not find balance until we create true equality for the sexes. We will also not progress until women stop tearing each other apart and start lifting each other up instead. That’s important, because it’s a huge hurdle that needs addressing and eliminating. Women cannot rise until they do it collectively.

  Each year 20.9 million adults and children are sold into sexual slavery. About 98% of them are female. This is all because we have accepted the myth that men are entitled to sex and women are obligated to provide it regardless of their willingness to comply. This is our great, mostly unspoken, collective shame. These women and children often come from extreme poverty; children are sold out of desperation or tricked into slavery through false promises. In this twisted reality, a virgin is a trophy, not a living, breathing, human being, not a child in need of protecting. This industry exists solely to serve male sexual desire. Despite our cultural taboos regarding the sexual abuse of children, millions of them are sexually abused every single day.

  Interestingly, in the Old Testament of the Judeo-Christian Bible, there are multiple passages where Jahweh instructs men to rape, murder, and even tear pregnant women and their unborn fetuses apart if they are women who belong to their enemies. The Bible offers advice on how to force female children into sexual slavery. When so many treat this ancient text as the word of God, it becomes easy to see how what should be unconscionable becomes quietly acceptable.

  It isn’t just biblical or religious mythology that formed this archetype of woman as evil. The Greek myth of Pandora, the first human woman, also contributes to this idea. Men were immortal, living in a world without women, until Prometheus stole fire from the gods. Pandora was created as a punishment for this act, designed as a “beautiful evil.” She was fashioned to lure mankind into sexual congress to create the offspring that would torment the human race. Woman was designed specifically and carefully to bring the downfall of mankind. Her box or jar, like the grail, was opened unleashing evil into the world. Again, woman is to blame. Sure, Prometheus stole fire, but Pandora opened the jar. Yet, interestingly, the only thing remaining inside the jar is hope.

  Progress for women’s rights has been made, but it is rapidly being lost. Increasing assaults by governments around the world on women’s reproductive control all stems from the idea that women are inferior. Controlling women’s reproduction allows for the continuation of cycles of poverty and hopelessness. When women are forced to provide sex to men even under force, prevented from using birth control to prevent unwanted pregnancies, and denied access to abortions, women do not have any control over their destiny or even their day-to-day reality.

  Shifting this mythology doesn’t mean emasculating men, it means asking them to take responsibility for their thoughts, impulses, and actions. It means no longer placing the burden and the blame for male lack of physical control on women. It also means women will have to cease seeing each other as enemies competing for the male gaze or male-dominated cultural approval. When your value stems from your physical attractiveness, you are objectified and lessened. Shifting this mythology also means accepting and embracing the complex spectrum of sexuality as a part of our natural biology and embracing all of the endless variations of being in the world.

  I used to think that if women had an equal share in ruling the world, it would be a better world. I still think this, but many of the women who rise to power within the limitations of the patriarchal construct are most often still acting under those rules and limitations. They are still promoting the agenda of the oppressor. I often hear women suggest that if we passed the ERA, women should be forced to sign up for the draft. I find this unacceptable. Equality does not mean indistinguishable or interchangeable. War is unacceptable to me, it is a male construct. I don’t think anyone should be forced to sign up for the draft or to fight for the financial gains of the profiteers behind the military-industrial complex. If we pass the ERA, perhaps we should work to end the construct of war. Perhaps then we would work toward a society in the United States and even more importantly, globally, where women’s rights are considered human rights and war, rape, violence, aggression, discrimination, sexism, ageism, racism all become abominations and impossibilities.

  If women were free to move from a place of unrestricted power and equality, then I do think we could change the world. I think we’d see less violence, aggression, war, fear, greed, poverty, ignorance, and hoarding of resources. I think we’d see more cooperation, kindness, love, abundance, understanding, and sharing of resources. Perhaps I’m wrong, because the programming of division and competition between women may be too strong to override.

  Is it possible that there are enough women who reject the prevailing mythology and messaging? Are there enough of us who are willing to join forces to say no to war, greed, corruption, poverty, discrimination, destruction, and control of women’s bodies and choices? Can we, as women, reject the patriarchal construct and spur an evolution of consciousness together? Can we reclaim the divine feminine?

  Can we open Pandora’s jar again to unleash hope upon the world?

  How to Dress for the Resistance

  Being a fashionista and a nasty woman presents a few style challenges. I may be a fierce feminist over 50, but I’m not giving up on my pink hair or my love of lip gloss. If you, too, wish to look fabulous while saving the world from ruin, I’ve got you covered.

  Marching in the wind, rain, fog, and snow means your hairdo can become a hair don’t in an instant. Forget the pussyhat, might I suggest a jaunty beret instead? They come in so many colors and they give the rebel a touch of that je ne sais quoi.

  Hours of marching take a terrible toll on the tootsies. Take a cue from the military and try a stylish combat boot. We liberal lad
ies have the right to the trifecta of footwear: style, comfort, and functionality. Don’t forget steel toes for extra ass-kicking potential.

  Skirts or pants? An age-old question, and one every rebel will have to decide for herself. I’m of the mind that a great pair of jeans is a girl’s best friend, but perhaps black tights and an A-line mini are more your cuppa java. You do you, sister.

  Pepper spray? Never fear! Toss a water bottle in your clear backpack and a patterned bandanna around your neck. Remove, moisten, and feel that sweet relief.

  Don’t dismiss the power of a statement T-shirt, especially when tucked under a cozy knit cardigan. What message do you wish to impart without saying a word: #uppity? #nasty? #arewestillprotestingthisshit? Sadly, yes.

  Et voilà, Nasty Woman, welcome to the Lady Party!

  The B-Word

  Ah, the B-word.

  Every strong, confident, successful woman has felt the sting. Perhaps whispered sharply under someone’s breath or shouted out in a fit of rage. This word has power, but the focus of that power is entirely up to you.

  I’ve surely been called that word plenty of times over the years by people who were threatened by my self-confidence and willingness to point out that the emperor has no clothes. Or, more aptly, I have been called that due to my observation that most of the people in charge of making the important decisions lack even the slightest whiff of a clue.