Sincerely, The Book Club
I met my brand new book club this past Thursday. I met 9 women in one evening, all of whom seemed lovely. I found out what they do for a living, whether they’re married with children, married without children, or single, what some of their interests are, as well as sharing my little story. We discussed the book we’d read, “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan”, around a long, antique Italian dining table, eating vegetable lasagna, Caesar salad, tabouli, fruit, cheese, drinking wine…I was loving it. The discussion was awesome; the book was about a 19th century Chinese woman and how ancient Chinese customs (especially that of footbinding) affected her life. So many brought up such great points, but mostly we centered on how the customs largely molded the main character, and would she have turned out the same way (financially well-off, but with hardening of the heart), making the same decisions (cutting off her best friend when she most needed her), if she had been born in a different culture or time.
Footbinding. One of the ladies brought a printout of pictures of feet that had been bound, and we just recoiled. Well, I recoiled again, because I had looked it up online to see what it looked like. The character describes the process in the book, which is painful enough to read, involving breaking bones and bleeding and pus-leakage, but to see the outcome…you cannot imagine how women endured it. And they were honored to have their mothers do it. Usually. There were girls who apparently fought, but many of them accepted it because they were told from birth that this is what they were to strive for. They also couldn’t comprehend with their six-year-old minds what kind of agony they were in for. Some of them only fought after it had begun and the pain drove them insane. Some of them died before it was over. But having small feet was a highly-prized quality in a woman, and so in a wife, and so it was done to all girls who had prospects for arranged marriages. It was considered the highest form of beauty (one could even say, a turn-on for husbands). It also signified how much physical hardship a girl could endure, regarding future childbirth pains. A girl with small feet would most likely live through childbirth multiple times. Mothers willingly did it to their daughters, knowing what lay ahead for them, having been through it themselves. Consequently, women had to harden themselves to make themselves go through with it. It was rigidly expected of them by society. To have large (read “normal”) feet ruined a woman’s entire life, because she would not be chosen for marriage at all, and she would have to spend the rest of her life being a servant-for-hire, never having any sons of her own, which was the ultimate disgrace. Having sons assured a woman’s high rank in society and within the family, because girls were “worthless” (and I quote characters in the book).
All that being said, with trying to understand the reasons why and be culturally sensitive and all…that’s fucked up! Just another way in which men’s preferences (or fetishes, really) caused women to feel they had to mar themselves in order to be desirable to them. Organ-squishing corsets in the Victorian Age, bunion-inducing high heels, liposuction, boob jobs, facelifts, Botox injections…all to be physically appealing to men (or currently, to be hire-able in a male-driven industry like television and film). Even if women tell themselves they’re doing it to feel prettier, to feel better about themselves, I wonder if that’s completely honest. There has to be a tiny, niggling thought about attracting a present someone or future someone at the back of their minds; who has plastic surgery only to choose to be alone? And the thing is, women do it. They will cram themselves into the ideal mold, whether they fit into it or not, because they really, ultimately fear being ignored, alone and unloved. Because after all, what IS a woman’s worth if she is unmarried and childless? Hell, might as well euthanize the poor bitch—she’s not living for anyone else, so she’s completely useless, right? Guess we’d better put my name at the top of the list, then.
I rail against women defining themselves by the standards of culture, most of which, traditionally, has been largely designed by men. Personal anecdote: an ex of mine was repelled by the spider veins on my legs. I have no problems with them, myself—they’re not that bad—but to please him, I did seriously consider having treatment to get rid of them, so even I can find myself under the influence. But I didn’t do it. We eventually broke up. Naturally, there were many other more serious problems besides this that lead to the breakup, but I admit, his being turned off by a part of me, turned me off. I suddenly felt defective—I don’t like feeling defective in the eyes of the man who’s supposed to love me. I had the veins when he got together with me—I wasn’t hiding them. If it was that big a deal, he could have broken it off sooner. But he couldn’t get past it, in his mind. He tried, so he said, but he couldn’t. He had an ideal woman in his head, and she didn’t have spider veins. Well, a real woman broke up with him. I don’t need to be compared to his internal porn stars. Note to men: real women are not airbrushed, not perfect (and neither are real men, while we’re at it). There’s a dividing line between real women and fantasy women. Learn to draw that line, and be okay with it. Because whatever you find attractive or disgusting is what we will or won’t do, and apparently some of us will break our fucking backs to get there. I’m just saying, from now on, we’ll wash and perfume and make ourselves smell good, we’ll wear makeup, we’ll arrange our hair nicely, we’ll wear pretty dresses, we’ll even shave our armpit and legs…we’ll do all that for you. We understand that’s important for sexual attraction. And we like doing it--it’s fun for us. But no more cutting or twisting or holding in or deforming parts of our bodies for you. No more destroying ourselves to attain some idealized image. And women, don’t you do it! Back me up here. You’re part of the problem, too, because you enlist for it. We can say, "Hell no, we won’t go"! And if your man is worth his salt, he’ll stay because he loves you as a whole and not your newly unwrinkled face courtesy of Dr. Nip & Tuck…and there are plenty of men out there who do. And if he’s not worth his salt, he’ll leave and you’ll be alone. That’s okay. You don’t want to be with a human being like that, anyway. You’ll be your own best friend. That’s a fantastic thing. In fact, it’s the only thing.
Only through knowing our human history can we do the present right. Only by finding out about cultures in the past who have been extreme can we compare and see that we may doing the same thing today in a different way. Only then can we find the courage to stand up to culture and do what’s good for our own selves. We don’t have to worry about a socio-economic system not supporting us for our rebellion, like the Chinese women did. We can support ourselves now, and therefore we have choices.
So, a rant came out. That’s what happens when you read a damn good book. It makes you think, and then it makes you speak out.
I think I like my new book club.
Footbinding. One of the ladies brought a printout of pictures of feet that had been bound, and we just recoiled. Well, I recoiled again, because I had looked it up online to see what it looked like. The character describes the process in the book, which is painful enough to read, involving breaking bones and bleeding and pus-leakage, but to see the outcome…you cannot imagine how women endured it. And they were honored to have their mothers do it. Usually. There were girls who apparently fought, but many of them accepted it because they were told from birth that this is what they were to strive for. They also couldn’t comprehend with their six-year-old minds what kind of agony they were in for. Some of them only fought after it had begun and the pain drove them insane. Some of them died before it was over. But having small feet was a highly-prized quality in a woman, and so in a wife, and so it was done to all girls who had prospects for arranged marriages. It was considered the highest form of beauty (one could even say, a turn-on for husbands). It also signified how much physical hardship a girl could endure, regarding future childbirth pains. A girl with small feet would most likely live through childbirth multiple times. Mothers willingly did it to their daughters, knowing what lay ahead for them, having been through it themselves. Consequently, women had to harden themselves to make themselves go through with it. It was rigidly expected of them by society. To have large (read “normal”) feet ruined a woman’s entire life, because she would not be chosen for marriage at all, and she would have to spend the rest of her life being a servant-for-hire, never having any sons of her own, which was the ultimate disgrace. Having sons assured a woman’s high rank in society and within the family, because girls were “worthless” (and I quote characters in the book).
All that being said, with trying to understand the reasons why and be culturally sensitive and all…that’s fucked up! Just another way in which men’s preferences (or fetishes, really) caused women to feel they had to mar themselves in order to be desirable to them. Organ-squishing corsets in the Victorian Age, bunion-inducing high heels, liposuction, boob jobs, facelifts, Botox injections…all to be physically appealing to men (or currently, to be hire-able in a male-driven industry like television and film). Even if women tell themselves they’re doing it to feel prettier, to feel better about themselves, I wonder if that’s completely honest. There has to be a tiny, niggling thought about attracting a present someone or future someone at the back of their minds; who has plastic surgery only to choose to be alone? And the thing is, women do it. They will cram themselves into the ideal mold, whether they fit into it or not, because they really, ultimately fear being ignored, alone and unloved. Because after all, what IS a woman’s worth if she is unmarried and childless? Hell, might as well euthanize the poor bitch—she’s not living for anyone else, so she’s completely useless, right? Guess we’d better put my name at the top of the list, then.
I rail against women defining themselves by the standards of culture, most of which, traditionally, has been largely designed by men. Personal anecdote: an ex of mine was repelled by the spider veins on my legs. I have no problems with them, myself—they’re not that bad—but to please him, I did seriously consider having treatment to get rid of them, so even I can find myself under the influence. But I didn’t do it. We eventually broke up. Naturally, there were many other more serious problems besides this that lead to the breakup, but I admit, his being turned off by a part of me, turned me off. I suddenly felt defective—I don’t like feeling defective in the eyes of the man who’s supposed to love me. I had the veins when he got together with me—I wasn’t hiding them. If it was that big a deal, he could have broken it off sooner. But he couldn’t get past it, in his mind. He tried, so he said, but he couldn’t. He had an ideal woman in his head, and she didn’t have spider veins. Well, a real woman broke up with him. I don’t need to be compared to his internal porn stars. Note to men: real women are not airbrushed, not perfect (and neither are real men, while we’re at it). There’s a dividing line between real women and fantasy women. Learn to draw that line, and be okay with it. Because whatever you find attractive or disgusting is what we will or won’t do, and apparently some of us will break our fucking backs to get there. I’m just saying, from now on, we’ll wash and perfume and make ourselves smell good, we’ll wear makeup, we’ll arrange our hair nicely, we’ll wear pretty dresses, we’ll even shave our armpit and legs…we’ll do all that for you. We understand that’s important for sexual attraction. And we like doing it--it’s fun for us. But no more cutting or twisting or holding in or deforming parts of our bodies for you. No more destroying ourselves to attain some idealized image. And women, don’t you do it! Back me up here. You’re part of the problem, too, because you enlist for it. We can say, "Hell no, we won’t go"! And if your man is worth his salt, he’ll stay because he loves you as a whole and not your newly unwrinkled face courtesy of Dr. Nip & Tuck…and there are plenty of men out there who do. And if he’s not worth his salt, he’ll leave and you’ll be alone. That’s okay. You don’t want to be with a human being like that, anyway. You’ll be your own best friend. That’s a fantastic thing. In fact, it’s the only thing.
Only through knowing our human history can we do the present right. Only by finding out about cultures in the past who have been extreme can we compare and see that we may doing the same thing today in a different way. Only then can we find the courage to stand up to culture and do what’s good for our own selves. We don’t have to worry about a socio-economic system not supporting us for our rebellion, like the Chinese women did. We can support ourselves now, and therefore we have choices.
So, a rant came out. That’s what happens when you read a damn good book. It makes you think, and then it makes you speak out.
I think I like my new book club.
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