:: The Wendy House ::

Sunday Times and  online Times article ‘Sex and the Sixities’  by India Knight includes the following rousing calls to womanhood:

“the essence of modern womanhood, the one hard-to-define component that makes us all want to cheer the loudest…“  is  “…possibility that we may, at 62, perhaps look like Helen Mirren in a bikini”

“a 62-year-old woman looking hot – properly hot, not “hot for her age” or hot as in “fanciable, even though you know you shouldn’t” is a thing that simply can’t be celebrated enough.”

‘Mirren in her red bikini says more, more succinctly, about what women want and can achieve than any amount of turgid feminist preaching ever could’

Gosh, I don’t think I know people who think spending time and skill to dress for the occasion is shallow,  but India thinks that view might be held by some Times readers because she considerately quashes it “if you think that’s shallow, I would humbly posit that you understand nothing at all about real women’s hopes and ambitions.”  Trying to following India’s humble reasoning,  leads to the suspicion that if I don’t want to look like Helen Mirren in a Bikini then I may not be a real woman,  Ooops!  I think I may have fallen over.

Apparently the social construction of ‘woman’ once meant “no longer being “a girl”, which translated into bad clothes, bad hair, bad make-up and, if you were especially unfortunate, a bad figure.”  and “Worse, having reproduced meant that in the eyes of society you no longer existed as a sexual being“. It seems that India believes promoting yourself as a ’sexual being’ , sexbot, should be an aspirational goal for real women and it is equated to looking young. If you don’t look sexy you look old.  Whhhooooops!  I definitely fell over this time.

India’s view also implies that, normal, aspiring real women have no financial or legal obstacles to not looking youthful and sexy because ‘deregulated’‘ ‘minor surgical procedures’ are ‘nothing that is outside most people’s league’ .  It is all part of the groundwork for achieving ‘a triumphant assertion of easy, carefree femininity’.  While fake women should embrace the freedom and “life-changing power of hair dye“.  As a self-identified, terminally-fake, woman I  ”might know better if they [I] made an attempt at living in the real world“.  Maybe downtown Reading is actually a figment of my nasty, demented, Ivory-tower, imagination?  Deary me,  I  must get out more and take my zimmer-frame.

If ‘looking good’ is primarily equated to looking youthful and sexy I have no intention of developing an interest. or skill, in it.  When looking good is constructed to promote wrinkles and twisty silver hairs ideally with a dash,  or spring, of surrealist creativity,  then I’ll be swinging my funky-stuff with the melting clocks but not with the people who aspire to portray themselves as sexbots.

For now,  if I place myself in India’s analytical framework I find that I am:

• Preaching (turgid?) feminism.
• intelligent, a blue stocking.
• a frump because I don’t pride myself in being fashionable.
• Living in an ivory tower (in Reading). 
• not recognising the equivalence of the value of having a face-lift with the right to paid maternity leave.

At least India has clearly given me the escape route to achieve real-woman status that luckily I can choose not to aspire to,  I must

• maintain my already abundant confidence.
• promote my sexual potential. 
• develop and interest in whatever the current fashion defines as looking good.  
• have minor surgical procedures so that I can look good in a bikini. 
• Die my hair.

Unlike Alan’s outstanding advice I wont be aligning the value-set outlined in India’s article.

* the sound of me and my zimmer-frame colliding with the ground when dropping out of our Ivory tower.

As you know,  I don’t need the help of heels to fall-over and scrape my knee, uppity curbs are sufficient, it is a wendy-way of being…

Sophie King received £7,200 compensation for ‘pain, suffering and loss of amenity’ due to a broken ankle resulting from a fall when the heel of her newly purchased shoe broke.  The Guardian’s Ariane Sherine thinks Sophie deserved a broken ankle and should repay the damages.  At least one fledgeling member of the UK caring(?), medical, profession agrees with Ariane’s view that women should expect to suffer pain for conforming to patriarchal, consumerist, pressures to wear sub-standard dangerous products,  in this case,  high-heeled shoes.  Both the Guardian and medical blog point out that Sophie, the victim, was 5 ft 9.  The sheer audacity to be a girl AND tall without recognising that she expected to suffer substandard, dangerous goods, while maintaining her social obligation to conform to patriarchal ’sexy’ values. 

This is a classic example of the patriarchal approach to dealing with systematic abuse against women by requiring an adjustment to the behaviour of the victim rather than the perpetrator of the crime.  Legally referred to as ‘contributory negligence’ , infamously called-out in 1980’s UK when a man convicted of rape was not given even a custodial sentence by Judge pickles because the woman (victim) was negligent in her behaviour by wearing a mini-skirt.  Huh?! 

I’m glad that this time, the legal system protected the victim, Sophie King. 

Shoe manufacturers systematically target physically-dangerous (high-heeled) shoes at women, not men. It is a clear case of female-gender abuse.  A trap targeted only at female health.  On planet Wendy an insightful, talented, lawyer would bring a class action against the shoe industry for being the instrument of perpetrating systematic violence against women.

Wendy:  I accidentally pulled the bathroom light fitting on the ceiling,   today I picked up a newer sealed light fitting.

Dad:  Do you want me to bring me tools?

Wendy:  Not really,  [brothers' name]’s coming round with his tools, advice,  and innovative home-improvement books on Wednesday.  I’d rather he climbed the ladder than you or I.

Dad: Yes, I do get a bit dizzy when my feet leave the ground.

Contrast.  Less than 20 yards apart,  an empty Hotel foyer with ample seating and the busy street across the road where the pavement provides seating.  Shuffling through the  slowly revolving, silent, automatic Hotel doors onto Friary street the chilly night air, scent, and sounds of Reading nightlife slap you sharply on the cheek.  Especially if you sit down suddenly. On the pavement (US = sidewalk) as I am wont to do occassionally.

Oddly enough I didn’t fall-over on my recent trip to Reading.  Is this portentous? 

It’s cold.  While shivering and looking for a quick dose of warmth I push my hands deep into my jacket pockets.  In one pocket I felt a warm fluffy object.  Like a soft furry stick.  It did the job but I didn’t know what it was.  I pulled it out of my pocket to take a look.  It was Matrix’s right front leg,  apparantly recently severed from her body.  Still warm and wet with blood.

I woke-up very suddenly.   I suspect that was a real nightmare that wasn’t cheese induced.   Despite distinctly recalling going to bed last night I was definitely not in bed when I woke on the floor about 20 feet from the bed.  At least matrix is okay but I’ve gained a nasty bruise on the back of my head and an ache to match. 

Ouch.

sixty-first in an weak weekly Wednesday series of posts explaining my singleness.

Reason #61: limp appeal. 

Despite the well-known hobbity effect,  and a limping Wendy being a fairly regular state of affairs, my limp hasn’t induced an affair but has induced a wobbly state.  Maybe I should just cut the falling-over part of being Wendy? 

I like to test the diverse effects of gravity in different countries and continents.  normally with the help of a curb.

While walking home from the atmospheric,  smoke-free, Tom Collins pub after one,  well two,  actually three, definitely not four pints of Smithwicks,  while crossing the road I tustled with the uneven curb and ended up sitting in the gutter

Passerby:  Are you alright?

Wendy:  I’ve twisted my ankle

Passerby:  No dancing for you tonight then!

I scooped myself up and hobbled home.   Once back in the US I hobbled myself to a medical center to be triaged by my fabulous nurse:

nurse:  what have you done this time?

Wendy: twisted my ankle,  I wasn’t skiing,  just crossing the road

The last 3 times we met she confirmed that I had broken a bone during a fall while downhill skiing.  She’s recommended that I stick with cross-country skiing.   No broken bones.  I have got the ankle wrapped-up in fancy medical bindings with streamline black velcro. 

I jumped right in and fell-over on my first day in Madrid. 

Nice scrape there on my knee… …and what colour and style are those pants I’m wearing….a shade of khaki…a version of cargo….have I succumbed to the camoflauge of the masses? 

Oh fickle me and my grazed knee. 

We are sat at the beautiful Madrid airport watching the rain……

the RAIN  in SPAIN waiting for my PLANE

My Scandinavian designed ergonomic kneeling chair decided to trip me up.  I was trying to stand-up.  Moving from sitting to standing is one of those things that people do with a chair, frequently.  Sigh.  This chair sneakily left me sprawled across the office floor.  Ergonomic chair attacks are one of the everyday hazards of my life.  It’s a wonder that I don’t have more grazes and bruises.

I fall over a lot.

It’s an art.

The picture below was taken accidentally mid-fall.  Accident upon accident… 

Wobbly Wendy