It's been about 100 years since women laced themselves into clothing that required corsets and stays, a row of laces up the back, or front, that so tightly bound our breasts and chests and lungs that women often fainted.
The stays were often made of whalebone, light and flexible, but still able to do its job effectively -- keep those unruly bits of flesh in line, out of sight, shaped as society demanded.
We're still doing it, but now we do it to one another. We lace one another in verbally, flaying one another with the tireless scourges of self-righteousness.
And the ruthlessness with which some do it leaves me, for one, breathless.
I recently posted a brief item about "Eat, Pray, Love" on my other blog. More than 140 people liked it -- but the ones who didn't are stunning in their disapproval, even loathing, of a woman who decided to do what many women long to do every day:
Leave. Flee the miserable marriage. Ditch the dull suburban life. Travel the world, alone. Make new friends. Sit still in lovely places very faraway from home and decide what your life, now, might look like.
Shriek! Women have lined up, (far more than men) to finger-waggle and jowl-shake and tsk-tsk-tsk at a woman who dared to try something different. They stumble over themselves to castigate Elizabeth Gilbert: she's white, she's middle-class, she's a writer, she got a book advance, she left her husband.
The envy and anger and outrage fly as thick and poisonous as tear gas. How dare she...be different? Follow her dreams? Challenge the norm?
Indeed, ladies, indeed.
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Stephanie Phoenix
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greenheron
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Little Forrest in the Big City
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Comments
I loved the book, I admit. If I could afford it, I'd take off on an adventure. I recently saw the movie, I liked it, but not as much as reading the narrative and following her progression to a heathier mind set.
But I will say this: I think it is in human nature to find fault in something popular. My last blog had to do with the pizza scene in the movie. I admitted I've been brainwashed by media to watch my diet. Although I think being obese has it's own health issues and should be taken more seriously, I admitted that I would have felt like I'd get fat on a piece of pizza, so I wrote about it.
Would I have worn a whalebone corset back in the day? Probably.
I liked your blog and rated it, and don't get me wrong, I'm not angry at you in the slightest.
I also agree with you, women are hard on each other and they say awful things to one another when women all have to deal with many of the same issues across all racial, color, creed lines. One of the biggest issues is the submitting to social opinion about beauty. I wrote that I thought even men had a problem not thinking for themselves on this issue.
Happy Blogging!
Heather
Getting eyeballs on a blog post is strategic. The film EPL opened the day I blogged it, but wordpress also made it a pick of the day, which opened the floodgates. Lucky for me.
There are so many bloggers it's amazing anyone reads any of them.
Basically what I got from the majority of the comments is that it's deplorable to be a woman who doesn't settle down, get married, have children, and stick it out no matter what - oh, and don't bother EVER thinking about traveling alone (heaven forbid!) after that. I guess I'm as bad as Elizabeth Gilbert then since my life path just doesn't fit into that nice little box - and never will since I don't plan on the "having children" part of the equation!
I was appalled by the reactions from men and women. Very depressing!
libmomrn, thanks...It truly appalls me when women, especially, tear one another to shreds because they simply make different choices. I don't have kids and never wanted them, but why would I then attack or sneer at women who did? It's their life and their values.
The whole point of blogging, for me, as in all my writing (and thanks!) is to provoke thoughtful dialogue and shift perceptions, including my own.
http://mistakenforarebel.blogspot.com/2010/07/there-is-special-place-in-hell.html
I've been having a very conflicted relationship to Eat Pray Love which I hope i can unpack in as few words as possible here. I put off reading the book a long time, not b/c of what she did, but b/c my attitude was, "why would I, a single mom with no time to write or travel, want to torment myself with this narrative?" I finally did read it, on a business trip--devoured it in fact. Smart, insightful, funny, and an over-the-top confection.
Only two years later, I am completely broke but traveling anyway, writing again, very happy. Was the book part of that? Maybe. Yes, perhaps. Also another book very dissimilar: Still Life with Chickens by Catherine Goldhammer (link: http://www.amazon.com/Still-Life-Chickens-Starting-House/dp/1594630259).
Here is the rub: both books tickled and inspired me. In both cases, though, I am leery as to whether I'd actually be able to stand a lot of interaction or contact with the authors. Esp in the case of EPL, the author seems so narcissitic at times (even while she can poke fun at herself for this) that I concluded, terrific author, maybe not my choice of friend.
To indict myself here, I am now working on a full-length work of autobiography that will definitely approach narcissistic narrative, and probably will go over the cliff (I pray I get a good editor).
Is my reaction to this woman from some sort of sit-down-shut-up-don't-get-a-big-head female programming? I don't think so. My mom was pretty clear about blowing one's own horn and stepping up to the podium. I actually have read at least two essays by men of late that were both very entertaining as nonfiction and a bit repellant on the narcissism scale, too. Probably it is my over-scrutiny as a fellow writer. My personal issues don't detract much from my enjoyment; on the other hand, I won't be seeing the movie or buying the World Market tchotchkes (okay, maybe I will drop in at Two Buttons one day...)
So, those are my two cents expanded into a far too-long five dollar message. Sorry to clutter the comments.
When my memoir comes out, some people will love it/me and others will hate it/me. It's their choice. Some will find it, de facto, narcissistic -- well, yeah, it's my story!
I think we've come to expect far too much of writers beyond -- is it a good read? Whether we'd like them in person, to me, is moot. I've met a few memoirists in person, whose writing I adore, and found them - as people -- more or less congenial than I had fantasized. But that's more my issue than theirs.