...if, had the newly appointed Governor-General been a man, the National Post would've seen fit to print a picture of him at the age of three on the front page, under the heading "Future Viceroy":
Somehow, I don't think they would've found such condescension appropriate, do you?
Nor would they find it necessary to quote an (unidentified, of course) "friend" of the new G-G claiming that "Ms. Jean only had relationships with white men" - because, you see, such information might be construed as, OH, inappropriate, speculative and slanderous.
If, of course, we were talking about a man.
But it is WOMEN that the National Post concerned itself with this weekend, letting us know on A3 that Marilyn Monroe faked orgasms ("Speaking of Oscars, I would win overwhelmingly if the Academy gave an Oscar for faking orgasms. I have done some of my best acting convincing my partners I was in the throes of ecstasy"), and on A8 that the proper identification of a woman who unfortunately died young is "mother", because that's more tragic than just a regular, not-breeding sort of woman's death. We were taught that the "high-society wives" in Toronto's Rosedale neighborhoods are warming up to $300 plastic topiaries, because they're, like, so fake anyway:
"A lot of people will come in and say, 'I couldn't possibly do it,' "
says Rivers Reid, co-owner of Blossoms Rosedale, which has sold the
plastic plants to the likes of Ben Mulroney and Roots co-founder Don
Green as well as countless high-society wives. "Meanwhile, they have
fake nails and fake boobs."
Get it? GET IT?!? They're, like, FAKE women, because they've got FAKE BITS on their bodies! THAT means that if they don't like FAKE PLANTS, they're HYPOCRITES! It also makes them FAKE ORGASMS! Women are FAKE! Or they're liars! Get it?!?
Have you paid attention? That was an important story. It was the back cover of the front page, on A20, which means that it was NEWS. The stuff in the rest of the paper isn't really news, so there's more stuff about REAL women there. Let's see:
Susan Hiller offers the third article in a four-part series about returning to work after a year's maternity leave. What does she cover, you ask? The overstretched feeling of being pulled between her working life and her home life? Frustration over being the default parent? A tirade about the insufficiency of daycare or alternative work arrangements or the rarity of media coverage on paternal responsibility?
No. We get another article on "mommy brain", that catch-all phrase that allows men and women alike to dismiss the stresses placed upon new mothers as some kind of hormonal change that they'll eventually grow out of.
Feeling frazzled? No, it has nothing to do with the fact that you've just worked all day after staying up all night nursing a squirmy, teething infant - it's MOMMY BRAIN!
Lose something? No, it has nothing to do with the fact that you're trying to juggle not only your own stuff but the multitude of ubiquitous baby gear that Sears, Parenting magazine and Mothering.com say you need in order to give your offspring the best chance in life - it's MOMMY BRAIN!
Think it's Wednesday on Thursday? No, that's not a common or genuine mistake - it's MOMMY BRAIN!
Why normalize your behaviour as having a practical and obvious cause, when you can blame your hormones and sex? It's quick, easy and painless. Oh, don't worry about those childless feminists who have the time to criticize normative language use and its effect on women, they can be easily dismissed with one of those "when I was a feminist"-type statements:
The term is not one I would have used before I got pregnant. I, like all good feminists, assumed the alleged condition was a cliche made up by a male obstetrician. These days, however, I freely admit to being a total spaz...I may be offending Ellison and the sisterhood in general, but my friends and I throw around the term "mommy brain" all the time (in Britain, they call it porridge brain). Far from demeaning, it's a handy excuse for the occasional lapse.
Ah. See how good that feels? Blame the hormones, blame your sex, blame evolution. But God forbid you blame your husband or the forty-hour work week or patriarchy. Remember, this is the REAL women part of the paper, and REAL women don't point fingers at anything other than themselves. That's why the REAL women part of the paper has chatty little 800 word articles by other REAL women that end on chipper, self-deprecating notes like,
For now, I will continue to forget to bring a photo to daycare to affix to the family board. At this rate, Lucy will soon be able to, uh ... wait a second, I can't remember where I was going with this thought. Mommy brain!
Uh, right.
Anyway, we learn from Deidre McMurdy that try as they might, women folk just can't manage "do it yourself" beauty maintenance at the cottage, because our bodies are too complicated for that kind of haphazard upkeep. Why one would feel it necessary to pluck, primp, polish, paste, prep, prime and pretty up body parts when one is surrounded by dirt and bugs is a valid question, but McMurdy waves it away with a simple dismissal of that old boring chestnut, social conditioning:
Stubble may be acceptable for terrorists and male models, but women have been conditioned to view it as the human equivalent of vetch, a scourge to be zapped on sight.
Damn that conditioning. So debilitating. But that's enough of THAT. Nobody wants to read about social conditioning that forces women to question their bizarre commitment to hairlessness, even in a situation where hair might actually be useful. Anyway, such an article might detract from the simpering chattiness that we know REAL women prefer - and who can cram a critique of patriarchal beauty standards in 800 words anyway? [ed. My new fantasy girlfriend Twisty Faster can, but whatever] It's much better to be trite and chipper, and suggest that whatever women attempt in their quest for beauty, they'll fail miserably:
Let's not even discuss the fact that if you take all the prescribed measures to protect your steamed, creamed, exfoliated skin from the sun's death rays, you'll be mistaken for Norma Desmond at the feedstore.
Hah-HAH! Funny, right? Anyway, why care about what Deirdre McMurdy says when one can read the work of Anne Kingston instead? Kingston (who, because she's a woman and writes about women, is buried in the REAL women section, right beside the etiquette column and beneath a filler piece on the new Ikea catalogue) does some dismantling of the Vogue "Age Issue" out this month.
Now I don't read Vogue, but I'm hardly surprised. Apparently a fashion magazine touting the virtues of aging is somewhat hypocritical, sandwiching articles on "hot at 70!" between ads for Botox and wrinkle cream. It's a good, if simple, article that is thankfully accompanied by lots of pictures of attractive women so that I can understand that it is something I should concern myself with.
Because, you see, we're visual, us women. We like to see pictures of ourselves, or else we might be forced to read all of those sticky wordy bits that try to tell us stuff, and it would just be terrible if articles took longer to read than it takes to fake an orgasm. I've got stuff to do, like become hairless and feel inferior about my breast size, or distress over the dating habits of our new Governor-General, who was such a cutie-patootie when she was a little nipper. I could just eat her right up. Thanks, National Post!
So many things to say...
1. Thanks for the thing about the new GG. I saw that in the newspaper box and freaked.
But she said it best when asked about tokenism: Sir, I'm nobody's token.
2. Mommy brain: I got my PhD after having two kids 22 months apart, who were nursed for over a year each. My mommybrain works quite fine thank you very much.
3. Cottages are for being grubby. And drinking beer. 'nuff said.
Posted by: Steph | August 07, 2005 at 18:21