mother hubbard, you're such a zero

yup, another sucker adding to the flotsam of the Flash Gordon-esque swamp of junk, that is blogworld.. disillusioned by the petty, apathetic hogwash on facebook i have jumped ship to share my neurotic ramblings and wonderings right here in the midst of the din.

my 'profile'?  who cares? well, it's polite, an ice breaker, some foreplay, courteous smalltalk before the meat (ugh)...mother of 2, living on the other side of the world to which i was born (grammar?), kids are steiner educated (relevant?), i surf now and again, am married, mid thirties and that'll do.

so let's get to the meat.  lately, and for some years now, i have pondered the situation us women have found ourselves in.  a brief dalliance with feminism during university years often left me isolated from my business degree peers (say no more and no loss there) though handed me membership to a select bunch of wannabe freaks.  rightly, or wrongly, my role models were courteney love, kat bjelland and pj harvey at the time.  i tried to establish a riot grrl group at my university which died dismally before it was even birthed.  my peers simply didn't give a bald monkey's testicle about human rights let alone what a couple of whingey-woo, stinky looking girls had to say, but then i was in the middle of a snakes nest of right wing, white trash, personality-free, capitalist-y type, absolute wankers.  yes, it was all wrong.  the whole thing. relevance?  apathy even back then, even at a time when independent thought was s'posed to be at some kind of prime.  

so, ladies, mamas, chicas, girls, sisters...where are we at?  whatsdahapps lady-loos?  looking around i see too-skinny models, bras for 5 year old girls, labia plastic surgery (god i hadn't even thought to measure those little pups up), the hell that is the MILF and yummy mummy phenomena (like.  get fucked.), more plastic surgery just for the hell of it, bratz dolls (grrrrr), glee at celebrity fuckups' lives,  a major increase in eating disorders in young girls, ads ads and more ads showing airbrushed, bizarre looking versions of 'beauty'.  gahhhhh where do i even start?  our gender is a contorted, twisted, fucked up, deformed HEAP.

the female phases...maiden, mother, crone.  well, our poor maidens are just bombarded so damned hard by the blessed media they don't know which bit to pump up, lop off, suck off, spray on next, and even when they do there's always more work to be done.  but that's okay because they can turn to their mothers for guidance and light, right?  

as mothers, with our aura of dough around our thighs and bellies (and i won't even start on our tits), we are invisible and undervalued but that's okay because we can turn to our mothers and their mothers for guidance, support and wisdom only, oh wait...our mothers are fucked up baby boomers and their mothers, our crones...  our dear old, wise women are shoved into old people's homes, forgotten, attending tragic wednesday afternoon sing-a-longs to strangers with strangers; their  valuable lifelong experiences and wisdom unheard, gathering dust in concrete bunkers around the western world.  apparently useless.

country? australia.  state?  a sorry one that's what.

so.  who are the perpetrators of such a heinous and deadly crime?  men, yes? hmmm i'm not so sure anymore.  i speak to my husband about this (he treads very carefully and looks nervous).  he asks (in a whisper, trembling.  upper lip has broken into a sweat) who edits the women's magazines that broadcast these images of photoshopped beauty?  women, i say...  who buys these magazines, he questions?  okayyy, women, i say...  he goes on, who buys the bratz dolls?  mothers, i say, tapping my foot and starting to show 'closed' body language...   and, he asks, (he's getting so cocky now i could DECK him) who's buying the bras for their daughters?  yes yes MOTHERS I scream BUT i say, BUT (stabbing the air) who's watching the PORN buddyboy?  (..and that's another show..).

seriously though, it's food for thought.  are we, as a gender, imploding in on ourselves?  are we perpetuating some dreadful, insidious legacy from wayback when? are we now doing this shit to ourselves?   i know when i do make an effort and get all glammed up (oh the comedy), it isn't men who compliment me it's my girlfriends, female relatives, other women (hmmmm maybe that's another issue).  

what is feminism anymore?  what does it mean to be a woman these days?  i don't know that we can point the nail varnished finger at the ole floppy sausage anymore.    we need to look at ourselves as women and as mothers to the new generation of girls.  it's a responsibility we carry and we owe it to our little girls.  easier said than done.  we have to truly love our saggy tits and jelly thighs and transcend the physical in spite of every damned media atom in the universe conspiring against us and our natural, life giving bodies.