The Writer's Husband....

How does that sound? Good? Weird?

I remember in high school one day while perusing the library book collection I found a hard-cover book entitled "My life with the Indians."

I was surprised that my school would have something so seemingly outdated but really it was the first time I realized concretely there was such thing as a gaze, a POV, one that carried power and authority. I also realized that for various reasons, I would probably always be on the receiving side of such a powerful look.
****

bell hooks talks about the gaze in several of her essays, about how slaves were hung and severely beaten for looking a white person in the eye. These days, she might maintain, this patriarchal white view has been internalized, and every day women and minorities are suspending their own realities in order to participate in many aspects of mass culture.

I went to B&N yesterday and saw evidence of my own suspension in contemplating a new book to read. I noticed a trend which I later confirmed on Amazon:

The Astronaut's Wife
Ahab's Wife
The Pilot's Wife
The Time Travelers Wife
A Hustler's Wife

Though some of these books are written by a woman, the titles refer to the main character of each book in terms of how she is defined by being the wife of someone. As though her status as an individual is/must be defined in term of the man she is attached to. POV. To men we are their wives, daughters, whatever. To be fair, that men see us that way is not bad.

But to ourselves, that we are not first ourselves,  we are wives, girlfriends, etc, is something I find disturbing.

Put the word "husbands" in Amazon and you will find one movie "An Ideal Husband" and a number of books on how to find and keep a husband. Again, men are the subject, women are the adjective. Or, white is the subject and black is the adjective.No where do you see stories of men's strength and triumph couched in terms of his marital status. 

Heck I don't know. I am just thinking at my keyboard, now. But I do know that I sometimes think about writing a book called "My Time with the White People" or better yet, and more microcosmic, "My White Friends-A Study in Whiteness" or even "The Writer's Husband."

oh love, fuck love

let's paint a pretty picture:

girl meets boy
girl hits on boy
boy asks girl to "go steady"
boy tells girl "i love you"
girl gets giddy. just giddy.
girl thinks things are going too fast
girl starts to worry, as girls do
boy starts to get annoyed?
boy ignores girl on phone
boy ignores girl at his house
boy ignores girl in general
girl tries to break up with boy
boy doesn't get it
girl doesn't get it
who started it?
what should girl do next?

Oh No, An Angry Feminist!

I've been reading THE BEAUTY MYTH. Good stuff. Yeah, and it's making me angry. An angry feminist. Although I am not always angry, I am always a feminist.

Anger point #1: Crunch Fitness' new ad campaign. 300 virgins (oh, I mean, elliptical machines) waiting for you to what? Rape them? As if we couldn't make enough connections between those ridiculous female beauty standards and sexual purity (a virgin is like a new stairmaster, step me up to heaven, please). And really, as if men needed yet another reason to go to the gym, or maintain any view that women are conquests and not human beings. "Yeah, dudes, I fucked her first, took her virginity and she liked it, I mean, what a good workout!"

Anger point #2: Meg Ryan in this month's issue of Jane. Come Meg, get over it. Yeah yeah, being in the limelight is tough. No privacy, life sucks. But demeaning a movement that has been nothing but a benefit to you and saying you didn't realize that sex sells, even yours, is a little shitty, or stupid, I don't know. Face it. You are a role model. I know the stereotype about shallow actors but do you have to fit it so perfectly?

Anger point #3: Jane magazine. I used to like it. I aspired to write for it. Now I fantasize about Bitch mag instead.