Unless one’s made of stone and iron, having writing a novel (Waisted) based on extreme body-shaming & how the eyes of others scorch women, must change one, yes? Pair that with compiling an anthology titled Women Under Scrutiny, and voila, the perfect storm for facing personal crucibles.
Examining ‘knowing one’s character’s crucible**’ is paramount, I tell students when teaching writing seminars; looking at my personal albatrosses is a delve I leave to my unexamined subconscious. (A dissociation at which I excel.) Swimming on the surface personally, as my obsessions reign free in fiction, has been my specialty for quite some time.
Until Waisted.
Until faced with the bravery sixty-five women who contributed to Women Under Scrutiny.
Who wants to face the truth that lusting for cheese and chocolate, searching for the perfect curling mousse, and whether or not to wear pantyhose (will it make be look out-of-date? Do I care? Do I care more about covering scaly legs than fashion? Am I evil for caring about either?) can rent as much space in one’s head as concern for world peace and ensuring the happiness of one’s family?
My personal struggles—ones related to the shell I show the world—seem wearyingly unimportant. Especially compared previous issues I’ve fictionalized. (Domestic homicide, traumatic brain injury, financial ruin . . .).
Who cares if I agonize over wearing a sleeveless blouse? Does my obsession with wearing make-up (or sunglasses) every time I exit my house represent a vacuous nature, growing up with a beauty-obsessed mother, or living while female? And did it matter as long as I kept the crazy under wraps?
Until I didn’t.
Writing a novel (perhaps a bit-too-honestly) about the inner thoughts of women under scrutiny (their own and others) makes it harder for me to separate church and state—fact and fiction. Suddenly I wonder why I’m so adamant about never going sleeveless outside (and barely inside)—I search the web for non-judgmental examinations of these topics that should barely matter, especially during our awful political times. I think of how I’ve fought the texture of my hair as though battling climate change. And of course, with frizzy, curly, thin, hair, every turn of the climate changes my style choices—and why do I care so much?
Which is really, I suppose, my ultimate question. Why do I care so much?
I know how my characters dealt with this. I know all the right answers—but I’m still unsure about me.
- Is this obsession with my visage going to be a life-long battle?
- Will I always wonder if Botox represents the scourge of our times or a mild panacea for mirror displeasure?
- Will the scale always make or break my day?
- And can I ever leave the house in a sleeveless dress?
Tomorrow night I’ll get together with contributors to Women Under Scrutiny (at Newtonville Books) where we’ll talk honestly and openly, I hope, about how personal can define the political. And maybe we’ll speak of sleeveless dresses and our hair. Or perhaps we’ll concentrate on how women are under siege these days.
Perhaps we’ll look at if these things are all connected. And how women can’t run in high heels.
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*I am, in fact, made up of equal parts obsession, worry & self-consciousness.
**Crucible: 1. vessel of a very refractory material (as porcelain) used for melting a substance that requires a high degree of heat 2: a severe test 3: a place or situation in which concentrated forces interact to cause or influence change or development.
I cannot tell you how much your words validate my life experience — how the scale can make or break a day, or week, or a season; the obsession with frizzy hair and weather; issues of sleevelessness, etc. How much space this takes up in ones head! I thought as I got older this would get better and/or I would have figured it out. Well, there’s nothing like the aging body to exacerbate this mind set. I’m just trying to make peace with all the parts I’ve been at war with all these years. Who knows what more we would have accomplished with all this wasted time? I could go on and on. Thank you for putting it out there, Randy. I love the validation. So comforting.
Ah. sometimes I think admitting this insanity to each other might be the first step in managing it all. Or at least a way to learn how to laugh at these time-mind sucking foibles. xx
Wow. Someone else. Nice to meet you.
I’ve been there, done that, and had the credit card bills to prove it. A short plus-size (18W), I still had a closet that some of my thinner friends envied.
Despite that, my obsession was fixed on, “If I look perfect, no one can break through.” For women, that worked. Men were less kind. One told me in my 20s that he “didn’t date cows.” One in my 40s told me he loved me and I was great in bed—but he never wanted to be seen on the street with me because of my weight. (HoooGolly, that one left quick.)
Thank you for the admission. I thought it was just me.
The cruelty out there–plain meanness bringing nothing but pain–never fails to astound me. So nice to meet you, Lisa.