(this essay first appeared in Purple Clover) Frank* and I are like an old married couple except that we aren’t married, until recently didn’t live in the same house and for years didn’t see each other every day, or even every week. We’ve worked hard to get to this point—where our relationship isn’t always being questioned or parsed, discussed or denied. Where we can just be for days, even weeks,… Read More »See You Soon
(This originally Appeared in The Broad Side) Recently, during a debilitating illness and after reading three novels and catching up on all my past New Yorkers, Elles, Allures, and Harper’s, I needed something to binge watch. I was hesitant to start something new as I realized that shortly my favorite shows would be back on the air and I had just finished the summer’s programs I am hooked on. How… Read More »How To Get Away With No Makeup and Hair
Here is what Viagra does: it allows a man to get an erection so that he can have intercourse with a woman when his body isn’t cooperating due to age, illness or medication side effects. Here is what Viagra doesn’t do: it doesn’t spark desire, it doesn’t make a man want to make love to a woman, any woman, just because he takes a pill. It doesn’t turn him into… Read More »That “Little Pink Pill” Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up to Be
Full Disclosure: I do not like whiners. Especially adult whiners. Especially adults who constantly whine about how hard child-rearing is. (With this caveat: if you have a child who is emotionally or mentally challenged, stop reading. I do not know how it feels to be a mother to a child with autism or any related issue. I understand from friends it is both hellish and joyous.) But for all the… Read More »Hey Whiny Parents, Get Over Yourselves!
Dear Jessica: At 36, I was still getting catcalled in the street. At 46, I was being accosted by men on the streets of Paris and in cafes where I sat, by myself, reading and writing. At 50, and divorced, I was asked out by a man of 42 who was crushed when I told him he was too young for me. At 59, my lover frequently tells me I… Read More »Dear Jessica Valenti, You’re Missing the Cat Calls?
Some days I look in the mirror and I think: You look pretty good for a woman pushing 60. Other days I glance at myself and wonder: Who is that woman? She looks nothing like me. More than once I catch glimpses of my mother and my father in the way I look. And when I see photographs of my grandparents and parents when they were the age I am… Read More »Yeah, But I Still Feel Bad About My Face
At six months short of my sixtieth birthday I have a six pack. Well, practically. I can see the ripples of muscle more clearly than I ever had before even if they are covered in a small layer of post C-section, well-past menopause fat. The muscles are discernible. My arms are strong, too, the bat wings of old age less distressing than they might be. My legs can carry me… Read More »At Six Months Shy of Sixty, A Six Pack
Hey you. Yes, you. Come here. Yes. Closer. I have something to tell you. Are you ready? Are you sure? Can you handle it? Ok. Here it is. Women over 37 have sex. They have relationships. They are attractive. They have sex with men their own age, too. Or older. Or younger. In the real world. In Hollywood, not so much. Only in the bizarro world of Hollywood dog years… Read More »Psst! You Can’t Handle the Truth About Women!
In a recent Sunday issue of the New York Times two very different articles on women and their households appeared. One, “Poor Little Rich Woman,” is already stirring up controversy for the so-called “wife bonuses” that some of these uber wealthy stay-at-home-moms supposedly receive from their husbands if they perform well as wives and mothers (although that notion has been pretty thoroughly debunked as something of a one-off.) The other,… Read More »Wife Bonuses, Mad Men and The Mommy Wars
Better than Keri Russell who is tough but on the wrong side, way more interesting than any Wonder Woman incarnation, more fully realized than any of the female FBI agents or cops who abound in television dramas, and far less neurotic than Lucy Liu’s Dr. Watson, Téa Leoni is the best thing to happen to feminism on television since I don’t know when. Like the television shows The West Wing… Read More »Téa Leoni Saves the World