Funny in that yeah-not-so-funny-at-all-actually way that the ultimate insult to a guy is to call him the crude term for female genitalia.
Not the one that rhymes with a delightful spongecake your grandmother maybe baked in a ringed pan, or the one named after the industrious flat-tailed critter that builds dams out of twigs and branches, but the one that, whenever innocent toddlers use it to refer to the family cat, their adolescent siblings snort OJ out their noses and then feel, like, really mature for catching the double entendre.
So it makes a certain effed up sense that most any time a woman writes something about the day-to-day experience of being female it’s labeled “chick lit” and is deemed trivial. Even by another woman! That’s what this gal did on Politics Daily.
Please, call my book “superficial” and “opportunistic,” if that’s your opinion. But the topic is neither, and neither are female readers in general, as this yutz who shall not be named lest I make her more searchable seems to imply. I’d love your point of view, both on what she has to say and what she doesn’t say but implies: That it’s not merely my book that sucks, but women’s concerns in general.
Contrast that with this excellent Q&A on TresSugar, which actually explores the topics of women, beauty, aging and power with the true intent of getting people to think, and this post from self-described “old lady” blogger Ruby Wilhite, who speaks from the other side of Formerly. Opinions, please!
UPDATE: I wrote this at the end of a very long day. The piece has been corrected to reflect the fact that the writer of the PD article is in fact female–thank you Erin and PT!–not that it makes any difference.
August 19, 2010 at 10:58 pm
It’s been a long day and I’m probably confused…but the article you link to (from Politics Daily) was written by a woman, not a guy. (?)
One thing to note…in spite of the negative intent of her statement:
“It’s funny, not to say ridiculous, that such a superficial and opportunistic book can make it to the point that we are talking and writing about it.”
…the reality is that people ARE talking and writing about it. You’ve obviously hit a nerve! Whether people love it or hate it, I love that you’ve made people talk…and think. That’s a good thing!
August 20, 2010 at 2:31 am
Hi I am turning 40 in November and a little upset about it but I hope your book will ease me into the transitions of this new decade. I hope this will be a turning point in my life a much better part of it. My children are older now I have friends that are having children now so I kind of feel out of touch but then again, it can get complicated I just need some advice …
August 20, 2010 at 9:22 am
Okay, I get the not naming writers, but why can’t you say the various names for female genitalia? This post was such a letdown.
August 20, 2010 at 4:09 pm
I’m on a friend’s computer and don’t want to create an aol account to leave this comment, but this is my comment to that screed.
“The question remains: why would women in their 30s and 40s feel that the best years of their lives are past?”
That’s precisely the point Dolgoff is making in her book. She is in the middle of her best years . . . even while society has decided not to look at her so much anymore. Did you read past the first two pages? It’s a laugh-and-think-at-the-same-time kind of book. It skewers our youth obsessed culture and at the same time complains about some of the indignities of middle age. She’s funny and she’s not wearing a feminist sign around her neck, but this is basically a feminist book that answers most of the questions you raised in this review.
August 20, 2010 at 5:07 pm
You know, I wasn’t going to buy your book, only because I’m cheap. All the negative comments made me change my mind. I love myself and my life, but growing old stinks. Every time I need surgery or physical therapy for another ailment, when I look in the mirror and see my mother or contemplate the indignities of aging, I have to work on coming to terms with it. Mortality is the great and terrifying definer of our lives, and every sign of aging slaps us in the face with it. I believe in Jesus, I’m not worried about the afterlife, it’s what happens between now and then that bothers me. It isn’t superficial, no one wants to be old, needing help with daily tasks, but it beats the alternative. It takes work to have equanimity in aging. If you can laugh, it really helps. I think the negative comments you receive simply reflect the angst of this subject.
August 21, 2010 at 1:45 pm
Okay, I’ve got to say, you have hit a cultural nerve, and I will be reading your book. I’m 39, and I was at the mall recently wondering what I was supposed to do for the next decade – while I’m not going to be buying clothes at “Forever 21”, I’m also not quite ready to start shopping exclusively at JC Penney. I’m working on a master’s degree, and I regularly find myself in gym class with people who could easily be my children. I want to kick the prof whenever she tells me, “Try to relax” – you try standing in your underwear in a roomful of fit, tan, lithe 20-something girls (including said prof) when you’ve got cellulite, stretch marks, and spider veins to call your own, and see how relaxed you feel. It’s as if even admitting that these facts exist breaks some kind of cultural taboo – we’re all supposed to spring effortlessly from being Britney Spears to being Dame Judy Dench at a single blow, with nothing in between. As for the haters, let me quote Gloria Steinem: “The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.”