Wisdom from d.i.c.kville You can admire Clint Eastwood with-

out starving yourself to look like him.

-"ONE HUNDRED REASONS WHY IT'S

GREAT TO BE A GUY"

Women have spent a fair amount of time these past thirty years debating The Man Question-namely, how we liberated gals can and should relate to our XY-chromosomed counterparts. Yet if you're reading this chapter in the hope of learning how to catch a player or conquer the patriarchy, f.a.geddabout.i.t. I won't be offering any pointers on how to win men's hearts or cut off their b.a.l.l.s. There are other books for that. Besides, I can't tell you how to best deal with men because, frankly, I'm still figuring it out myself. And I suspect it's going to take a really long time. Like, say, seventy years. Yeah, this is depressing, but let's think of it this way: As much as we gals cannot, for the life of us, figure out how to relate to guys, they, for the life of them, cannot figure out how to relate to us. So who says there's not an iota of s.e.xual justice in this world?

Instead, I'd like to use this chapter to outline what I think we can learn from men-the regular Joes-the straight guys who fall somewhere between Jerry Falwell and Jerry Springer.

Stop laughing. I'm serious.

Look, I know that if most guys had their way, they'd use the federal-budget surplus to make the t.i.ts bigger on the Statue of Liberty. But for the moment, at least, I'm willing to look beyond that.

Because the battle of the s.e.xes is like nuclear war. n.o.body can possibly really win it. I mean, if we can't get it together, who the h.e.l.l else are we going to talk to on this planet? Parrots?

Besides, truth be told, I actually have great hopes for men and women of today. Date rape, gangsta rap, and s.e.xual miscommuniques aside, we've also grown up as friends in ways that perhaps no other American generations have before.

Thanks to s.e.x ed, coed dormitories, our hyper-confessional culture, the blurring of traditional gender roles, t.i.tle IX, and even the epidemic of divorce (which often made our parents the common enemy), we boys and girls are comfortable around the opposite s.e.x in ways that our parents simply weren't.

Just check out our college dorm rooms. Check out the apartments we share. h.e.l.l, check out the TV shows we watch, such as Friends and The Real World. These wouldn't have existed back in 1962. The central premise was simply not a reality.

Back when my folks were in college, the relationship between men and women was largely a wrestling match-a covert war. The girls tried to trick the boys into marrying them, and the boys tried to trick the girls into f.u.c.king them. People didn't attempt to understand each other; mystifying gender differences were deliberately exaggerated.

And while a twenty-first century crybaby like Wendy Shalit has written a whole book bemoaning the loss of s.e.xual naivete, you won't find me endorsing it. In the long run, I think the fact that today's garcons et filles are not completely bamboozled by each other bodes well for both s.e.xes and all s.e.xual orientations.

Frankly, I think it's healthier to know boys as poignant, h.o.r.n.y, human dorks than as some enigmatic, war-mongering, lecherous Other. And I think it's healthier that boys see me as a sentient, pa.s.sionate, fallible human than as some scheming, incomprehensible sprite with a p.u.s.s.y. I mean, just because s.e.xual difference exists doesn't mean we have to be morons about it.

Big-hearted optimistic babe that I am, I believe that if we're open, we can learn from each other. There may even be some stuff we gals can learn from the guys.

I'm not serving up refried beans here: I'm not advocating that women play like men or try to be just like them. We tried that before, and mostly it resulted in unfortunate stuff like "power bows" and being casualties in "f.u.c.k-and-run" incidents. Nor am I suggesting we become Eliza Doolittles to their Henry Higginses.

Rather, I think we gals might be able to cultivate some more power for ourselves by mimicking guys in terms of what they do not do.

Face it, there are some self-defeating behaviors that guys refuse to indulge in. And if we could do a little figurative cross-dressing in these areas, a little gender-bending in the Att.i.tude Department, it might do us prima donnas a world of good. Not only that, but there's a fabulous irony in strengthening girls by appropriating the healthy habits of the boys.

For example, consider the following: 1. Men do not apologize to inanimate objects. (Granted, I've heard it said that men don't apologize to anyone, but hey, n.o.body's perfect.) Have you ever seen a woman b.u.mp into a chair and say to the chair, "Oops, I'm sorry"? I've seen women say "excuse me" to wastepaper baskets. I've seen women say "pardon me" to table legs. On occasion, I've seen women apologize to extension cords, department-store mannequins, and packing crates that people have left in the middle of their living rooms. Once I even watched a woman do a mea culpa to a parking cone.

To this end, I have also seen someone with a huge duffle bag b.u.mp into a woman and almost knock her down. And I've seen the woman-not the walker-say, "Oh! I'm sorry." Wherever I go, I see gals constantly striving to be polite, game, and invisible. I hear us excuse ourselves for living.

"I'm sorry! Pardon me, let me move my small children, their stroller, and all my grocery bags so you can wedge in here with your golf clubs."

We exhibit such continual discomfort in the world; we're so nervous and conditioned to a.s.sume we're wrong, that we apologize anytime there's a gaff-even if this means we end up apologizing to the radiator.

And, let me tell you, this is not one of our more attractive qualities.

Guys don't do this. When a guy trips over a packing crate, you know what he does? He curses. He goes, "Who the f.u.c.k put this box here?"-even if he left it there himself.

2. Men do not schlepp. Men do not routinely carry their lunch in a plastic shopping bag along with a gym bag and a purse slung across their chest like a bandolier containing, among other things, a makeup bag, a Toni Morrison novel, a bottle of Nuprin, Certs, Q-tips in a baggie, six Tampons, a comb, a checkbook, a Dayrunner, seventeen ATM receipts, a Lady Speed Stick, a curling iron, and a Powerbar.

Unless they're working out, most men will not even carry a bottle of spring water.

Men understand the value of being as physically unenc.u.mbered as possible. After all, how free can you be if your hands and shoulders aren't?

Yeah, women's clothes often don't have pockets (which I'm convinced is a conspiracy by clothing manufacturers to sell us more purses, and thus more clothes to go with them). But how much stuff do we actually need with us at all times? Schlepping is not a source of female empowerment. We can't be liberated if we're bogged down with c.r.a.ppola 24/7.

So let's take a page from the boys on this one. Men do not buy bags that they have to carry in other bags. I say: Let's use a man's wallet, take our keys, a lipstick, some Kleenex, and be done with it. (Our arms and shoulders will say, "amen, sister," too.) 3. Men do not wear shoes they can't walk in. Wanna stand on your own two feet? Then be able to stand on your own two feet. We gals are not going to be able to get to the top in this world if we can't walk there, let alone run. Men understand this; their idea of a great shoe is one that feels so good they forget they're even wearing it. (Bonus points if the insoles don't smell.) I'm not saying we've got to invest in Birken-stock (ugh), but, face it, if we say, "These boots are made for walkin'," then hobble away, trip over the rug, and fall flat on our face, how empowering is that?

4. For men, dressing rooms are for trying on clothes, not contemplating surgery. Do you think men would squeeze themselves into jock straps that cut off their circulation? If a fashion magazine told men that "Big d.i.c.ks are out this year. Teeny peenies are in!" do you think for one moment they'd start hating themselves if they were well endowed? If men were told that the only way they could fit into this season's pants was to weigh one hundred pounds and have tiny t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es, do you think they'd consider plastic surgery or go running to the gym? Pul-leze.

When it comes to fashion, guys know a moronic idea when they see one. (Okay, maybe not when it comes to hats, but remember Donna Karan's "skirts for men" a few years back? If you don't, it's only further proof of how quickly those got the thumbs-down.) Men also don't spend their hard-earned bucks on threads that don't fit, hoping they'll be able to "diet into them." They don't have a "dream suit" that they "just have to squeeze into or they'll die!" You won't hear guys say, "I'm a forty-four long, but I swear I'm going to make it into a thirty-eight regular." They know that's physically impossible, and they accept that. They have an innate, zenlike understanding that clothes are supposed to fit you, not vice versa.

So next time we're shopping, if we can't find anything that fits us right, it'll do us gals some good to think like a guy and get ourselves to a good seamstress, not a plastic surgeon. Fabric, not flesh, was meant to be altered.

5. Men do not call the psychic hotline for career advice. Nor do they read their horoscopes in the newspaper every day to see how the stars will affect their relationship. Nor do they buy candles, rocks, or soaps that promise to "empower" them.

If they do get their tarot cards read by a person at a street fair, nine times out of ten they're the kind of guys who played Dungeons & Dragons in high school.

Recently I received a catalog full of "gifts to inspire and celebrate women."

Among the pickings? "Prosperity candles." Apparently, we're supposed to "light prosperity candles while paying bills, making money decisions, and plotting business strategies"-though exactly how plunking down forty-nine dollars for three shafts of green wax will help us financially is unclear. (Plus, is it ever a good idea to fill out our tax returns by candlelight? Don't bank on it.) Other "pro-woman" gifts? To "encourage your highest aspirations," there are "dream" and "wish" pillows (are we supposed to sleep our way to the top?). "G.o.ddess nail potion," apparently "a powerful tool to remind you to embrace your true magnificence." (Don't embrace too hard, though. You might chip your manicure.) And "ritual for success" boxes containing incense, "success oil," herbs, flowers, a charm pouch, and a "magic knot chord." Oh, great. Just the thing we need to win us that big fat promotion-a New Age noose.

I mean, c'mon. Guys will not buy this c.r.a.p. And for good reason.

Look, I'm all for tapping the unseen forces of the universe. I'm an astrology buff myself, and I'll be the first to agree that some phenomena exist that can't been seen or proven. Faith, magic, the paranormal: sure. Why not? Power to the powers.

For that matter, I'm all for women selling whimsical crafts through a catalog, too. But let's not confuse entrepreneurism with hucksterism. And let's not kid each other that there's career power in patchouli or cold hard cash in a candle. We don't become more successful by painting our nails "Athena Purple." I know some real witches and, trust me, they don't get their power through a mail-order catalog.

Likewise, plunking down our hard-earned shekels on a 900 number does not make us the mistress of our own fate. It makes us mental Cinderellas, hoping a fairy G.o.dmother will work her magic, use her crystal ball, and do the rescue work for us. Success ain't achieved by manipulating unseen forces-it's achieved through our own d.a.m.n hard work.

Sure, leaders like Napoleon and Ronald Reagan had astrologers counseling them. But these guys also had vast armies and empires at their disposal.

So, when it comes to quick-fix psychics, potions, and simplistic starcasts, sisters take heed: Make sure your head isn't so far in Ura.n.u.s that you really can't function down here on Earth.

6. If men crave a chocolate bar, they don't eat fourteen rice cakes. Plus a bag of carrot sticks, some leftover chicken, and a bowl of Tofutti-then break down and eat the chocolate bar anyway, hating themselves for it the whole time.

Men are stunningly direct in their needs. When they're hungry, they eat. When they want a cheeseburger, they eat a cheeseburger. When they want ice cream, they say, "Hey, I want some ice cream." They don't go, "Hey, does anyone here want ice cream?" then stew if n.o.body else does because now it means they can't have some, either.

And this modus operandi of theirs extends beyond food. Men are not afraid to ask for what they want, period, for fear that "n.o.body will like them." Whether they're asking a secretary to write a letter for them, a waiter to take back a lousy steak, or their boss for a raise, they express their needs clearly and directly. And, big surprise, they tend to get what they want more frequently than women who hem and haw, hoping the world will "get it."

7. When men go on diets, they don't make a career out of it. They don't buy calorie counters, tiny food scales, and join support groups with weekly weigh-ins en ma.s.se in which they discuss "strategies for holiday eating." Doctors-or significant others-tell men what they can and cannot eat, and the guys pretty much take it from there.

At restaurants, they shrug their shoulders and say to the waitress, "Nope. Can't eat burgers. Doctor says I can't have red meat. Guess I'll have the heart-smart fish-fiesta platter." Then they shrug their shoulders, pat their bellies, and say, "Yep, I'm getting a gut. Guess I have to cut back on the beer and do a little NordicTrak." When we ask them how much weight they want to lose, they shrug their shoulders again: "I dunno. Coupla pounds. Enough so I can fit back into my jeans." End of story. The next forty-five minutes are not spent in an orgy of self-flagellation and calorie parsing.

8. Men do not insist upon HTA (Home Toilet Advantage). Okay, I know this isn't ladylike, but if we're going to talk about improving women's lives, at some point we've got to mention "going to the bathroom." I don't like it either. I'm as prissy as they come when it's time to visit the Scatology Department.

But let's face it, most gals I know would sooner throw up in somebody else's bathroom than use it for anything more than a quick pee. (I mean, the doo-doo taboo is so pervasive that "s.e.x and the City" once based an entire episode around the fact that Sarah Jessica Parker's character finally "did a number two" in her boyfriend's bathroom.) Granted, the lines in ladies' rooms are long enough, but I know women who are so uncomfortable doing their business in any other bathroom (i.e., dorm, office, in-laws) that they develop some serious gastrointestinal problems. Men will take a dump anywhere-and their bathroom lines are still shorter and faster (go figure). To that end, men also do not refuse to pee in the middle of a romantic moment for fear of "ruining the mood." Perhaps this is one of the many reasons they get fewer bladder infections than we do.

For the sake of our health, we may be wise to take a cue from them and, ahem, lighten up a little.

Anyhow, these are small things, I know. But in their own way, they have the potential to improve how comfortable we feel in our own skin and in the world at large. And the beauty of it is, while we're learning these behaviors from guys, it absolutely in no way interferes with guys learning stuff from us.

And what might this stuff be?

Oh, just about everything else in the world that's not on this list.

Chapter 15.

Family. Oy.

How to Survive Your Relatives

I was on a corner the other day when a wild-looking sort of gypsy lady with a dark veil over her face grabbed me on Ventura Boulevard and said, "Karen Haber! You're never going to find happiness, and no one is ever going to marry you." I said, "Mom, leave me alone."

-KAREN HABER They begin in November, just before Thanksgiving, and their symptoms usually last until a few days after New Year's. I'm speaking, of course, about those dreaded winter afflictions known as parentus horriblus, siblingus tensus, and relativus overloadus, otherwise known as "holidays with your family."

"Well, I'm off to Bosnia," my co-worker Jamie groans. "Bosnia" refers not to the former Yugoslavia but to her parents' house in New Jersey, where her mother stops chain-smoking just long enough to say things to Jamie like, "Tell that no-good father of yours to pa.s.s the f.u.c.king latkes."

Mariel calls me. "That Woman just telephoned again to ask why I'm not coming to Boca a day early to help her clean the garage. One more call from That Woman and, I swear, I'm joining the Hari Krishnas."

That Woman, by the way, is what Mariel calls her mother.

Then my girl Barbara drops by. "Guess what I'm getting for Christmas?" she announces. "A new stepmother. Dad's girlfriend number three. The one who's two years younger than me and works at the roller rink. Got any Prozac?"

"Time to spend Thanksgiving with the Mouth from the South," groans my friend Chris, referring to her sister. "Five days of listening to her brag about how much her furniture costs."

Aah, family.

Face it, anyone who advocates "traditional family values" has obviously never spent any quality time with their relatives. If they did, they'd realize that most people's families are such a Piece of Work, they deserve their own patent. They'd see that Tolstoy was basically dyslexic. It's not that "each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." It's that, in their own way, each family is capable of making us, personally, really, really miserable.

If you disagree, by the way, you can stop reading this chapter immediately and climb back on your s.p.a.ceship.

Sure, it's comforting to have a group of people who are either genetically or legally required to look out for us. And sure, they can, on occasion, provide unparalleled strength and comfort. But let's face a few facts here. First of all, most families today are shaken-not blended. And on a day-to-day basis, when everybody is in okay health and there aren't any disasters looming, the traditional family values that most folks practice are things like Nagging and Silent Treatment, Guilt and Fighting Over the Check. Yelling and Paying Backhanded Compliments Like That New Haircut Looks Good It Really Hides Your Double Chin.

Nothing, but nothing, can shred a girl's self-esteem as easily as our families can.

Forget high school. No one rattles our cool, fuels our insecurities, criticizes us, or makes us revert back to an eager-to-please seven-year-old more quickly than our relatives. Even when they aren't around, we feel perpetually watched and judged by them. They're perched on our shoulders like those angels and devils in the cartoons-our father in a red catsuit with horns and a pitchfork; our mother in a white tutu, a lopsided halo bobbing over her head-everyone who's ever raised us hovering above us in a choir of critics whispering: That's what you're wearing?

It's about time you cleaned your apartment.

So when are you going to find someone nice and settle down already?

You know, something like that is no longer cute at your age.

This is the dirty little secret that's so often ignored by traditional feminism: The patriarchy may promote all sorts of s.e.xism, but often these values are instilled in us not by Rush Limbaugh but by our mother's holier-than-thou sister Darlene whose unofficial mantra is, "Keep acting like that and you'll never get a husband."

We don't learn gender-role stereotypes from the Southern Baptist Convention, Playboy, or Phyllis Schlafly. We get them from a catty, compet.i.tive older sister who announces, "I'm the pretty one. You just have personality." Or a father who routinely tells us to "go help grandma" in the kitchen while he and our brothers watch the Super Bowl. Or a mother who says, "If Jeffrey is. .h.i.tting you in the playground, that's just because he likes you."

The sad truth is that the people who share our home turf, if not our DNA, can do more damage to a gal's sense of personal power than all those fartbags at the Heritage Foundation combined.

Recently, I attended a women's forum lead by Regina Williams, chairwoman of the Michigan chapter of the National a.s.sociation to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA). The young women in the audience were of all ethnicities and backgrounds, but, truth be told, Williams was the only sister in the room who clocked in at three hundred pounds. Interestingly enough, she was also the only sister in the room who'd posed for a magazine in a leopard-skin bathing suit (but that's another story).

Compared to her, the rest of us looked svelte, as my grandmother used to say. Nonetheless, when Williams asked us, "How many of you think you're overweight?" at least eighty percent of us raised our hands.

"Now, to me, all of you appear to be of average weight," Williams said. "Where do you get the idea that you're heavy?"

The obvious answer, of course, would have been the media. And at first, I admit, we gals indulged in a little Calvin and Cos...o...b..shing. But then the majority of us began talking about our families. And talking. And talking. It didn't take Buffy to find the real demons.

"Every time I go home for the holidays I tense up," one woman confessed. "I know that as soon as I walk in the door and take off my coat, my mother's going to give me the once-over. She won't even have to say anything. I'll know just from the way she raises one eyebrow that she thinks I've gained weight."

"I have three brothers, and we all have hearty appet.i.tes," said another. "But my stepfather always makes these snide remarks at the dinner table, like, 'Wow, look at her shovel it in. She's a regular John Deere backhoe.' "

"Every family get-together becomes a search-and-destroy mission," said a third, who identified herself as an artist. "First they ask me why I'm so heavy. Why haven't I been taking care of myself, they ask. When I tell them I'm fine, they say, 'How can you be fine working at Starbucks?' I say that Starbucks is great-it covers my health insurance and gives me time to paint. Then my uncle goes something like 'Paint, schmaint. You can't pay your rent with a picture, you know.' At which point, my mother always jumps in and says how I should be in law school. Lawyers make real money, she says. And then, my aunt adds something about how all the good single men are in law school-maybe I'd finally get a boyfriend. At which point, of course, the discussion comes full circle, because then my mother says, 'But who's going to want to date you when you're so fat?' "

What's a girl to do? Intellectually, of course, we may realize that our families' criticisms of us are not actually about us, but them-their life choices, their disappointments, their hopes and fears, and so forth. Yet this is cold comfort when our own demons start emerging after Halloween each year. I mean, it's one thing to know that your family is a tin of a.s.sorted nuts like everybody else's. It's quite another not to let them actually sap us of our confidence.

How do modern chicks rule the world when we feel cowed in our own roost? How do we recuperate from our relatives?