Like A Girl

 

Ten things that surfaced after watching this video recently released by Procter & Gamble.(The P&G survey found that out of 1,300 American females ages 16 to 24 years old, only 19 percent have a positive association toward the phrase, "like a girl.") 

 

1. I have used the phrase "I throw like a girl" to criticize my inept arm when I played intramural sports in high school and college.  I sadly saw my poor softball throw and volleyball serve as irreversible, and, apparently, my gender as the reason. 

 

2. I recently used that phrase when talking with college friends about my athleticism and I wasn't bragging. 

 

3. How thoughtless of me - right?  Wrong.  I used the gender crushing phrase with full thought to give myself a poor grade. It hurts to write that.  It's not the phrase that's bad; it's the negative intent. 

 

4. My husband recalled a female executive he worked for around 20 years ago whose harsh management 'skills' relied on figuratively stating (with hand gestures) her personal mantra, "I will squeeze balls until I get that person to do what I want."   Apparently, her female power needed male parts for fuel. 

 

5. What do you think when you hear/say someone is "a pussy?"  That they are a kitten?  Hardly.  Female parts, regardless which raw descriptor chosen, are again used to mean weakness.  As my friend Nicole, who posted the P&G video on her FB page, stated, "I've never understood it. There is nothing about a woman's anatomy that says weakness to me."

6. "Girly Man." Again, a put down made famous in an Saturday Night Live skit with buffoon body building characters Hans (Dana Carvey) and Franz (Kevin Nealon) describing a man's physique before their training: "That's right, and we have proof!  We've taken the world's most pathetic girly-man, and turned him into the embodiment of perfect pumptitude!" ('Pumptitude' cracks me up)

7. The door swings both ways.  I once heard a dad say to his pre-school son who was sobbing after being dropped off for his first library story time, "Stop crying - boys don't cry!"  Maybe if boys could cry without criticism (especially from males) they could relax about expressing sadness.  Tear ducts are universal.  So is their use.

8. In the video, ten year old Dakota's response to being asked to "run like a girl" captures
her intact self-esteem.  Offering an older female a second chance to "run like a girl" makes me tear up in gratitude because it reminds me we all have second chances. 

9. I wonder what messages my two daughters have internalized when they hear the "like a girl" phrase and it makes me consider what role I've played in sending them. 

10. The Hawaiian word "imua" (E-moo-ah) means "forward."  Today and beyond, I use imua energy, like a girl.

Link to P&G's 'Social Awareness' experiment and the methodology used:  http://news.pg.com/press-release/pg-corporate-announcements/new-social-experiment-always-reveals-harmful-impact-commonl

Link to the SNL skit transcript:  http://snltranscripts.jt.org/88/88thansfranz.phtml

The Signature of All Things

I am a barefaced Elizabeth Gilbert fan.

Her writing pleases me.  However, it is her articulate, endearing, and engaging manner that pulls me in close and keeps me interested.  She is an unvarnished connector.  When I recently explained to someone the basis for her appeal, I stated plainly, "I just really like her way."

She became wildly famous for her 2006 memoir, "Eat, Pray, Love."  That work was my introduction to this funny, searching, facile writer even though she had authored three novels and multiple magazine articles prior to EPL.  


Elizabeth Gilbert taking questions at St. Joseph's
College in Brooklyn, NY

Understandably, the non-fiction work provided a exhaustive dose of oversharing for some readers (followed by the film version starring Julia Roberts in August, 2010.) I nonetheless became an admirer as she unraveled her early adult life in humorous, metaphorical prose. 

Appropriately, her command of analogies was one of many questions tossed her way at a book signing event in Brooklyn this week. The author unblinkingly answered the query with a metaphor and then burst out laughing at her own unintended joke.  This undisguised manner placed us at her conversational table.  

For 90 minutes, Liz candidly answered questions from moderator/author Rebecca Mead of New Yorker Magazine as well as from the intimate audience.  She also read an excerpt from her latest novel, "The Signature of All Things," marking its paperback publication debut on that first night of a mini-book tour.  

When asked about a statement Liz has repeatedly made about how fiction writing reveals more about the author than non-fiction writing, her reply rustled with truth, and, of course, an analogy.  "Non-fiction writing is still very curated," she explained.  "There is nothing in "Eat, Pray, Love" that I didn't want revealed; it's like a crime scene with everything swabbed and wiped clean so you receive only what I want to send out."  In her current 19th century fiction, Liz said with hand motions, "my hair and fingerprints are all over it!"  

One question about story ideas triggered Liz to take a quick breath and lean into her thoughts. She queried, "we're all friends here, right?"  before launching into firmly rooted belief.  Liz sees ideas as things that float around all of us all the time, somewhat like the innumerable stars in space. Ideas present themselves and challenge us to take them on. 

 If we don't take them on, they move on to other possible takers, always making themselves available to a willing receptor.  If we accept and begin to formulate too many ideas, we are left with may starts and few finishes.  Her choice is to take on one or two ideas, deeply attend to them, and let all others float away. 

This "magical thinking" (her words) theory is one she is pursuing for a future novel, along with another story idea about Broadway showgirls from the 1940s.

The mostly female, multi-generational audience well represented the author's readership demographic.  My twenty-something year old daughter (and transplanted Brooklyn-ite) joined me at the event making for a rich conversation afterward.  I loved hearing what did and did not resonate over the ages, but most especially appreciated how it triggered thoughtful connection. 

The same was true last Fall when the author kicked off her novel's hardcover publication at the Philadelphia Library.  My friend Rosalie and I attended that event, appreciating Liz's candor, love of language, and dedication to research. 

She is also a generous Facebook and Twitter participant with posts/tweets that entertain and challenge readers.  My favorite, so far, is about her love of bawdy language and a well chosen expletive.

In the ever changing game of musical chairs at my fantasy dinner table of past/present guests, there's a place card with Liz Gilbert's name on it. 

Here is the link to the NYTimes review of "The Signature of All Things" in September, 2013.  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/30/books/elizabeth-gilberts-novel-the-signature-of-all-things.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar%2C%5B%22RI%3A5%22%2C%22RI%3A17%22%5D

Greenlight Bookstore (http://greenlightbookstore.com/) partnered with St. Joseph's College (http://www.sjcny.edu/Giving/Press-Release/520) to bring in authors as part of the school's Brooklyn Voices series.

Under My Dome

I close my eyes, exhale, and let the rushing water separate my thoughts from the chatter around me. 

In this room filled mostly with women in lively conversation, these blessed minutes happily lift me from the surrounding dissonance.  I could be at a yoga studio or a retreat but I find this blissful escape in a more pedestrian place.  I'm not in some deep meditation.  I am having my hair washed at the salon.

 It is a personal top ten moment of relaxation.  It's also guilt free.  Normally, hair is washed before it is cut, so it is a means to an end.  I find it the best step in the entire hair maintenance process.   Good grooming is its own reward, but having someone massage/clean my scalp to reach that reward trumps whatever comes before or follows it.

Unlike much of the time in a hair salon where news, gossip, and stories fill the space, the hair washing portion pushes off dialogue.  The holy trinity of shampoo, conditioner, and water spill over my head blocking all else.  It becomes a temporary, blessed submission.  There's a befitting sensual quality as I surrender to the shampooer's fingertips working my needy dome. 

The ultimate onscreen shampooing occurs when Robert Redford washes Meryl Streep's hair in the film "Out of Africa" as he recites two stanzas from the poem Rime of the Ancient Mariner to her.  It lifts a normally mundane moment to one that transcends connection.  Of course, he could have given a recitation from portions of the phone book in that scene and it would have had the same impact.  The implied intimacy resonates as he says:

Laughed loud and long, and all the while

His eyes went to and fro.

'Ha! ha!' quoth he, 'full plain I see,

The Devil knows how to row.'

~~~

Farewell, farewell! but this I tell 

To thee, thou Wedding Guest!

He prayeth well, who loveth well

Both man and bird and beast

 

Sadly, no poems are shared during the shampoo portion of my hair salon visit, but the basic experience of closing my eyes and surrendering my scalp to another's capable hands creates a brief respite for any weary head.  I wonder if men and women experience the same pleasure in this simplest of services?  

 

One female friend has the opposite feeling when at the salon. She finds the time spent seems wasteful with the many fussy steps to a finished look. She'd prefer a speedier process.   I gasp in disbelief and beg her to just surrender to it.  While we can expedite many daily routines (online shopping and banking, drive-through dry cleaners, grocery delivery services, etc.) hair appointments thankfully keep the same precious pace. 

 

I average seven to eight visits a year to the salon, and from the moment I darken the doorway, I chat indiscriminately.  However, when I get the nod for shampoo time, it dissolves all the socializing into a precious few moments of real pampering - reclining by the salon sink and remembering that Simon and Garfunkel were right - silence is golden.
 

Robert Redford & Meryl Streep in"Out of Africa"

1985