Embracing 39 with a camera lens: Losing the lashes, holding onto the lessons

By Anna Swartzlander 

Apparently, the age of 39 has not been good for women in my family. 

My mom reports her 39th year was one of the roughest years she has endured … (I will not divulge her secrets as they are hers to tell.)

One of my dear cousins took her life at the age of 39. 

And my grandma was right around 39 the year she left without a word to her husband or children to take a weeklong vacation all by herself, bringing back eccentric souvenirs from South Dakota that my grandpa always hated. Call it a midlife crisis – or perhaps an epiphany. 

To be fair, I didn’t acknowledge this perilous female family history as I entered my 39th year. However, I should have had an inkling when my part-time job – seeing hospice patients – was restructured and I was “let go” a month after my 39th birthday.  I have a great full-time job, so I’m fine, but this was the first time I had lost a job since age 16 when Wagner’s Food Pride fired me for “stealing cigarettes.” (Which, by the way, was a false allegation. I can’t smoke cigarettes; they make me faint.) 

Despite this small setback, I continued into my 39th year without angst or despair (just the heavy cloak of despondency I have worn since November 5th, 2024). I was mostly unfazed about being a year closer to 40 and was ready to conquer the year of 39 – head-on. 

Midway through 39, however, that changed – in fact, following in my family’s female footsteps I made some of the biggest blunders of my life.  And although I will not air them here, I can tell you, they were some doozies. 

Quickly, my unassuming depression (mostly due to the state of our country), turned into scary sadness, anxiety and panic. I not only had to worry about new viruses (such as the Hantavirus), brain amoebas (more common due to global warming), and nuclear wars (dying alone in my house) – now I had additional worries: How I was going to trudge through the tangled web of complications I had created?  How was I going to overcome the sense of feeling overwhelmed and embarrassed?

To put it simply: I was not in a good place. And I got stuck there, the depression festering for weeks and months. 

If I wasn’t a single mom with bills to pay, I just might have run away like my grandma.   

Instead, I woke up one morning and started making changes. It was a tedious process and took determination and resolve I didn’t know I had. I started to eat healthier. Bike again. Start a fabulous new book series, Dungeon Crawler Carl, which may have helped more than anything. I listened to music. I took time for me. 

And I booked a photo shoot, not the “Professional Businesswoman” photo shoot,  but the Fifty Shades of Grey photo shoot. The kind of pictures you don’t show mom. 

In conservative circles, these types of photos may be referred to as “smut.” Photography studios call it “boudoir.”  Interestingly enough, the term boudoir comes from the 18th-century French verb bouder, which literally translates "to sulk" or "to pout" and was used tongue-in-cheek to describe a small, private sitting room where a woman could retreat to be alone or vent her frustrations.

Well, I was sure ready to vent my frustrations.

With a gallon of gas and a gallon of milk costing five dollars apiece in this unsustainable economy, coupled with the fact that I am the sole financial contributor in my household, and tripled with the fact that my mistakes were going to be costly ones – I decided to do the irresponsible thing, and book an intimate photo session for myself. I had always wanted to do this as a wedding present for my future husband. Seeing that marriage was not in the cards for me anytime soon (perhaps ever), I decided to book it for myself.

This was an all-inclusive photo shoot. I had professional hair and makeup done. I was adorned with fake eyelashes for the first time in my life. There were several costume changes, a few immodest ones. There were multiple sensual poses that I performed in full fanfare in front of a stranger. (I will add, this studio thankfully only has women photographers.) 

I was miles outside my comfort zone. At first, I was nervous and self-conscious. But gradually I started to have fun and gain self-assurance. It was an experience that I urge all women to partake in at some point in their lives, the cost of milk be damned. 

When I saw the pictures, I could not believe my eyes. Gazing at this woman – whose eyes were mine despite the accentuated lashes – I didn’t see the mistakes that were made. Instead, I saw strength and independence.  I saw a woman who was figuring out life in her own way – even if, as my mom has told me so many times, “Anna, you always have to learn the hard way.”

Observing the woman in the photos, I felt happy, despite my many flaws and regrets. I felt a sense of pride for this woman – beyond the physical, but the soulful part, the heart, the core of her spirit. I saw a woman who has accomplished much, despite setbacks and heartbreak and 12 years of being a single mom. I saw a woman who is trying the best she can. 

Finally, I saw the person I have become after 39 years – and it wasn’t half as bad as I thought. 

After the shoot, I sat in my car for a long time reflecting on what I had just done (and will probably never do again, especially if gas prices keep rising). My first instinct was to rip off those false eyelashes and immediately scrub clean my made-up face. I was coaching my daughter’s softball team in a few hours and I had never coached wearing any makeup, let alone full glitz. But I ended up taking a selfie of my beautified face and sent it to my co-coach, jokingly asking her if I should show up to the game with full cosmetics. She answered enthusiastically, “Ow Ow!!!!! Yes, girl!” with an added fire emoji. 

So, I showed up to coach my sixth-grade daughter’s team in full glam. The girls’ reactions were surprised and mixed. But mostly they agreed I looked better without the theatrical appearance (which I guaranteed them was not my new normal). 

However, there was confidence in doing something completely atypical and unconventional. I felt a sense of resilience by showing them that you don’t have to conform to any rules, you don’t have to live in a box, you can break the mold, you are worthy of joy in whatever shape that comes. Sometimes, you can treat yourself as a diva and wear lavish eyelashes, even when you have a softball game to coach. 

Although a photo shoot will not solve deep, emotional issues, the experience somehow helped me realize that I am going to be okay. I am resilient. I can accomplish whatever it is that life calls for, even if outside my comfort zone.

I still have a good portion of my 39th year left. And to be honest, I am a lot more hesitant about tackling it head-on (like I am used to doing everything). But I also know I will figure it out. Who would have thought that risqué pictures would show me I am more than an age or a mistake or a label. The experience has allowed me to see myself as everything that I am. I am 39 years of trauma and loss and heartbreak and sorrow. And I am 39 years of happiness and wonder and fortitude and love. 

Those spiderly lashes have come off, but the lessons remain. I choose not to be broken by societal norms, men or my own mistakes. I realize there will be more miscalculations. But there will be just as many triumphs. The one thing that I have faith in is that I will persist. This year will not break me.

I am practicing acceptance and learning to embrace 39-year-old Anna. 

In a time of uncertainty and instability, urgent reminders

By JoAnne Young

 

This will haunt us for years to come. It may haunt our children and their children.

We wonder, is it too late? How long can we carry on? 

 

One historian, beyond Heather Cox Richardson, has written about our descent into authoritarianism and those other words we’d rather not see in writing. Timothy Snyder, a history professor at the University of Toronto and formerly at Yale, has expertise on European history, Ukraine and democracy. In 2017 he wrote On Tyranny Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. I found it important and disturbing at the time. Even then, though, I had no idea how important. Then wandering through a bookstore in Savannah, Georgia, in February, I stumbled onto a graphic version of the book published in 2021, even more readable than the original. 

 

Many of you may be familiar with On Tyranny and know how profound its lessons have become. We are much farther down the road Snyder warned us about nine years ago. I realized reading the graphic edition, illustrated by Nora Krug, (Guggenheim and Fulbright fellowships) how I needed to review Snyder’s lessons, and continue to keep his words handy. 

 

In interviews, Snyder highlighted three lessons that were at the top of the list in his mind. 

 

* Do not obey in advance. 

 

 Speaking with Amanda Lang on the Canadian podcast WONK, Snyder said that’s exactly what Amazon’s Jeff Bezos did in October 2024 when he abruptly ended the Washington Post’s practice of endorsing presidential candidates close to election day, thus blocking the newspaper’s endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. 

 

     It was a teaching moment for second term Candidate Donald Trump. 

 

 “ ...  doing what Trump wants in advance only makes it more likely that Trump will have power, and only teaches him that you are easy to intimidate,” Snyder said. “You are giving him the authoritarian power he would not otherwise have.” 

 

* Defend institutions. 

 

Institutions such as courts, newspapers, the law, universities, help us to preserve decency. They do not protect themselves. They fall one after the other unless each is defended from the beginning. It is a vain hope, Snyder writes, for an institution to think a gesture of loyalty would bind the new system to them. The Washington Post has lost millions of dollars and at least 250,000 subscribers since Bezos’ decision, and has laid off a third of its staff, causing more subscriber desertions. 

 

* Beware the one-party state.

 

Nebraska should take this lesson to heart. The state has a Republican trifecta in its governor,  elected Constitutional officers (auditor, attorney general, treasurer, etc.), and Legislature. Its one-house Legislature at this time has 33 Republicans on the 49-member roster of senators, a supermajority, which can easily sustain a Republican governor’s vetoes, and break a filibuster. 

“A party emboldened by a favorable election result or denying an unfavorable one, might change the system from within,” Snyder writes. 

 

Snyder warns about defending the rules of democratic elections. This state’s voters in a recent primary chose a Trump supporter as its Republican candidate for Secretary of State, the office in charge of elections and state rules and regulations. Scott Petersen won the primary against Secretary of State Bob Evnen with 54.6% of the vote. 

 

Petersen has said he supports “meaningful voter ID with citizenship verification.” He also supports protections for poll challengers and observers, expanding post-election audits, data sharing and cleaning up voter registrations. 

 

Elections get “cooked” at the state level, Snyder says, before voters start paying attention. Bureaucratic burdens make it harder for people to show up. 

 

* I paid particular attention to lessons 9 and 17: Be kind to our language and listen for dangerous words. 

 

 Politicians feed their clichés to television, where they are repeated. Each story is “breaking” until it is displaced by the next. “So we are hit by wave upon wave but never see the ocean.”

 

More than half a century ago, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and George Orwell’s 1984 warned of domination of screens, suppression of books, narrowing of vocabularies. Snyder suggests being alert to words that refer to extremists and terrorists, and the use of patriotic vocabulary. 

 

He does offer some hope, saying people are learning and capable of reacting. We shouldn’t be wanting to go back to 2015 or even 2024. We should be looking to start new things. There are always surprises in store, both positive and negative, he said, like a prism in which we don’t see all the colors but they are there. 

 

The March 28 No Kings protests after the killings by ICE of Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, suppression of the Epstein files and the Iran war, were said to have drawn more than 8 million people, the largest single-day total in American history. 

 

Individual acts of courage are important. Elect people who understand the need for policies based on the public good, and who understand congressional responsibility. Support media that are physically present locally. Focus on the notion of what our country is supposed to be about. 

Be as courageous as you can. 

 

We have learned that the Constitution is not enough on its own to protect our democracy. 

 

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When Is It Enough....

 

By Marilyn Moore

“Enough.”  The word has been before me the past few days as I read More Than Enough by Anna Quindlen.  An engaging read, with characters I cared about (a lot), the complications of life as we all know it (marriage, divorce, friendships, aging, children, illnesses and death, book groups, severe storms, search for identity…), and while never put in writing, the lingering question of, “Is this enough….”

It reminded me of The Gift of Story, an enchanting and touching story by Clarissa Pinkolo Estés, who wrote about a chance meeting between a very old man and a very old woman on a cold wintry night as they were fleeing enemy troops near the end of World War II.  In a tender moment, they exchanged the gifts of the moon, the stars…and a story.  And on that night…it was enough.

“Enough” is a challenge to define.  Dictionary definitions suggest “adequate,” “sufficient” and “as much as required” as generally accepted meanings.  All pretty subjective, all dependent on the person or persons involved, and the circumstances of the moment.  I remember learning in a graduate class a number of years ago that when asked how much money they would need to live comfortably and without worry, the average responses was about a third more than they were making now.  So the person making $30,000 a year thought $40,000 a year would do it.  And the person making $300,000 thought it would take a $400,000 income to be comfortable and without worry.  Very different perceptions of “enough,” though the percentages are the same.  (A side note, I think our present economic and tax systems favor the $300,000 person more than the $30,000 person.  That’s for a future blog….)

For the man and the woman in Estés’s story, a few hours of companionship and the warmth of a story was enough.  Most of us would probably not find that “adequate,” but on that night, in that place, to them it was.  In Quindlen’s book, one character wonders if an adopted child will be “enough” if she is unable to become pregnant.  A parent wonders if providing her brilliant daughter who is mentally ill with a therapeutic and comfortable residential placement means that she has done “enough” to provide for and protect her.  

I recall many variations of the “enough” question in conversations with friends and family.  Are my financial resources enough to last me through retirement for the rest of my life?  When does providing assistance for a struggling family turn from support to enabling?  How many books, or trips, or square feet in a house, or adorable baby clothes for the long-awaited first grandchild are enough?  How many steps a day is enough?  How low does that LDL count have to be to be low enough?  How much money set aside for college for children/grandchildren is enough?  

And the question I hear over and over again, mostly from women, but not only, women of all ages, “When will I have done enough?”  The underlying question is, “Why do I feel like I need to be productive all the time?”  A young woman in a demanding profession wonders if it’s enough that she also got two loads of laundry done today.  A newly retired woman, who upon retiring stepped into another position that’s “only” 30 hours a week, wonders why she can’t get off the constant spinning wheel.  A friend wonders if it’s really okay to spend an hour watching the birds at the feeder outside her window, and I feel more than a little guilty choosing to read, for pleasure, during daylight hours…because there are closets to be cleaned, family photographs to be sorted, correspondence to attend to, a never-ending list of house projects…how is there ever enough time to do all that, and read, too…

I believe our spirits are healed through a more expansive understanding of productivity, one that says that just as laundry and closets and email can be counted as productive time, so can pages read, birds watched, phone calls with friends, and puttering in the garden….or whatever it is that sets one’s soul at ease.  Those are moments of “enough.”

The ”enough” question permeates our public policy discussions, too.  How much financial assistance for low-income students is enough?  How much in tax deductions is enough?  How much support for rural school is enough?  How many years in prison is enough?  How much public funds for economic development and job training are enough?  How much legislative oversight of executive actions is enough?  

There are consequences from answers to “enough” questions.  A federal decision that fewer dollars for Medicaid would be enough results in the closure of rural hospitals and urban qualified health centers.  A federal decision that fewer (or no) dollars are necessary for health services in developing countries has resulted in the spread of contagious diseases, including an ebola outbreak; contagious diseases do not recognize national barriers, and we are not immune to a disease because it’s “over there.”   A federal decision that more than enough dollars were being allocated for hungry families has resulted in millions of people (seniors, veterans, children, families) no longer receiving assistance with food, not because they have “enough” resources of their own, but because they no longer meet the newer, higher, more stringent requirements.  A Supreme Court decision that “enough” has been done to protect the voting rights of racial minority citizens led to essentially gutting the federal Voting Rights Act; some southern states immediately gerrymandered congressional districts to dilute and diminish the voting impact of Black citizens.  Listen to the policy discussions, read the court decisions, note the embedded “enough” questions and answers.

Is the half-full glass enough?  It depends on what’s in the glass and who’s drinking from it.  If the glass is a bar of dark chocolate, half is probably enough.  If the glass is the daily nutritional requirement for a growing ten-year-old, half is never enough.  It always depends on context….

While the “enough” questions in my life are for the most part questions of privilege…how much time to read, how much time to work on house projects, how much leisure travel….I am painfully aware that many families in this community live with “not enough” every day.  There are families who do not have enough to eat.  There are families who do not have adequate housing.  There are women and children who do not have a safe place to live, a place away from their abuser.  There are people completing addiction programs or being discharged from incarceration who do not have enough support to re-enter the community successfully.  There are children and teens and adults in need of mental health services, and they cannot access them because of lack of family resources or lack of sufficient providers in the community to meet the need. (Note to self:  remember this on Give to Lincoln Day.)

At this age and stage of life, I go to more memorial services than I did ten years ago.  I wonder about the end-of-life “enough” questions.  Will I have loved enough?  Will I have lived enough?  Will I have laughed enough? Will I have listened enough?   Will I have given enough?  Will I have told the stories, made the music, walked the paths, savored the skies, and said “I love you,” and “Thank you,” enough….

I can hear the voice of Mrs. Teter, my high school English teacher, saying, “Okay, Marilyn, you have said enough.”  And that is so.  

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Unfolding the mysteries our mothers hold close to their hearts

 By Mary Kay Roth

Scuffed and scarred by time, the old cedar chest had been dwelling in the storage room of my mom and dad’s basement for years.  So, when my parents quietly passed away, though I didn’t want much of the furniture from their home, I’d always been intrigued by the cedar chest.

We moved it to my house without cracking open the lid, as I always figured it was empty.  A few years passed.  

Then one day I peeked inside and found a curious treasure trove. My mom had stashed away about a dozen of her outfits, layered one atop another, most of them labeled with a small piece of white paper pinned onto the clothes – with a date.

Her satin wedding gown and fragile bonnet-veil from the early 1940s.  A crisp indigo blue uniform – with the iconic anchor – from when she served in the U.S.  Women’s Naval Corps. A pink lace shift with a tailored crocheted jacket that looked like it came straight from Jackie Kennedy’s wardrobe. Several knit suits with matching skirts and jackets, tailored casual wear from the 1970s.  

I wondered about so many things. 

How I wished I could have asked my mother why. Why did you leave this cache of clothes behind, so carefully preserved and labeled?  Why were they special?  Did you get them out sometimes and try them on – or just leave them hidden away?  What did you want us to know?

This week I carefully lifted each outfit from the cedar chest and spread all the clothes around me.

I wanted to let them breathe and live again, out from the shadows of my mother’s past.  Following the breadcrumbs she had left behind, I wanted to understand the mysteries she held close to her heart.

Inhaling the deep scent of cedar – and a hint of mom’s familiar cologne – I took time to examine each piece.

A gorgeous brown skirt and suit jacket with a classy bow on back, straight from Doris Day movies of the 1950s. Black and red tailored hourglass sheaths, made of flannel, knee-length, both labeled “1955-1960.” A gorgeous cap-sleeved peach silk frock with sparkly buttons – from the 1960s. An outfit from her square dancing days – about a decade after that. 

A vintage fashion show of mom’s life.

Ardell Alberta Gilfert (Roth) had a tough and tangled childhood growing up during the depression in a small Nebraska town, plagued with a fierce rebellious streak and an alcoholic father.  She made promises to her high school sweetheart, a gentle young man who went away to war and never came back.  Several months later she finally escaped that small town and ran away to join the Navy, fell head over heels for my dad and married amidst the chaos of World War II.

I think my mom was deliriously happy in the Navy, finding a giddy freedom she had never experienced.  But when everyone came home from the war, she was stuffed back into the claustrophobic conformity of girdles and happy homemaker.  

There was a sweet unhappiness about Mom.  She loved my dad and was a diligent mother who cared deeply for her children. She set curfews and high bars, made sure we learned our lessons.  She was in charge of the family budget, never coddled us, ran the household smoothly.

But I’m not sure my mom was ever comfortable with the strict gender roles of domesticity.

Yes, she made sure her own children crafted their dreams.

But mom never talked about her own.  What was she thinking during the time she was raising kids? What was she daydreaming about, hoping for? What were her fantasies, her disappointments?

When we were growing up, money was tight, my parents true stalwarts of frugality and self-sacrifice. These dress purchases must have been quite a rare and elegant indulgence.

I suspect Mom must have laboriously saved and scraped to buy labels like GlenHaven, Jerrie Lurie and, oh my gosh, Hovland-Swanson (the fanciest Lincoln store of my youth). 

I’ll never really know why she saved and savored these clothes, the real answer remains lost in the beautiful chaos of a mother’s heart.

I like to believe, while she was vigilantly ensuring her own children had their dreams fulfilled, she found and lived some of her own dreams in the grace and beauty – of the contents in that cedar chest.

Then she locked them up for us to find.

I consider these enchanting inexplicable clothes a gift, perhaps a clue to what my mother envisioned herself to be.

A woman of style and independence.  

She refused to wear bathing suits, miniskirts or jeans, preferring classy styles the likes of Grace Kelly.  No, she never spoke to us about the pill or birth control, but was passionately pro-choice. After the war she never worked outside the home, but made it clear my father was not the boss.

This week I actually tried on a few of her clothes.  And I could feel her close and snug around me, a warm reminder to remember my own dreams.  I wondered about what secrets I hold dear, what have I locked away.

I wonder.

Meantime, I’m puzzled about what to do with her clothes.

The Nebraska State Historical Society is swamped with anything and everything from the Greatest Generation.  And it doesn’t seem appropriate to turn these beauties into dress-up whimsy.

For now, I’m folding them up, carefully and respectfully, and putting them back in the cedar chest.

Somehow, I hope my mom knows I found them. And that I hold them just as dearly and deeply as she did. 

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. 

I salute you and all the moms of the world, and the dreams and mysteries you hold close.  

The Ozempic Beauty Standard

By Karla Lester

At the Grand Palais in Paris, the Matisse exhibit was sold out, so my husband and I bought tickets for Mickalene Thomas: an ode to love and beauty. She is the first African American artist to be honored with a major solo exhibition at the Grand Palais. All About Love celebrates Black Beauty. I was struck by how the exhibit showed Black women who were not occupying the spaces created and controlled by men, but rather their own beautiful spaces. It was such a moving exhibit and the first time viewing art that I felt like I was a true observer, floating, looking in. I felt like what it must have been like to be on Artemis II and look back at the Earth in wonder. The pictures of the paintings I've highlighted in this blog took up whole walls in huge rooms of the Grand Palais in Paris.  

In America, we’ve entered dangerous territory. Has the work of the body positivity movement been undone by the onslaught of Glucagon Like Peptide (GLP) medications, like Ozempic? Are celebrities and social media influencers to blame? 

America’s obsession with thinness is not based on health. In fact, thinness in America has nothing to do with health. Because we haven’t deconstructed the thin equals health myth and still have a lot of confusion and misinformation about what health is, in some ways it feels like we are stuck in the 80’s and 90’s and early 2000’s.

Oprah’s weight has been the topic of discussion, almost an obsession, since she got on the air. It’s not a surprise that she feels a relief to have found a medication that will treat a chronic condition that she has dealt with so publicly. She invested and divested in weight watchers. She gets to do what she wants and I’m tired of thinking about Oprah and her weight. Most likely not as tired as she is. Serena Williams is the GOAT athlete. She started taking a GLP medication when she retired and has had some amazing results. It seems like she immediately invested in a company that sells GLP medications and she started advertising. Serena is always the GOAT and gets to do what she wants. The ethics are fuzzy though. 

Celebrities, like Demi Moore, who was strong in her role and physically as GI Jane, recently showed up on the red carpet looking gaunt with collar bones and ribs and like all the other celebs with their frozen filler and botox injected faces. They’re all looking the same and they look like they are weak and ready to pass out. But, if the harms are called out of what seems like a scary trend which will be harmful for teens and young women and boys too, then you get called out and told not to comment on women’s bodies. Eating disorders are glorified everywhere. Have we backtracked and lost all momentum? 

Kate Winslet, Lizzo, and Hillary Duff are working to show up in the middle lane of health and stay out of the harms of restrictive diet culture. They are their own beauty standard, but they are rare and it is a very difficult road in Hollywood, in the music industry and on the internet. The Kardashians who set the Instagram photoshopped beauty standard with their plastic surgery are now having their BBL’s removed. 

Social media influencers who built huge platforms as body positive creators are now taking Ozempic and have flipped the script and turned into “health” influencers peddling supplements or compounded versions of Ozempic. Many of their followers feel betrayed and are questioning whether they should try Ozempic. Many have a history of restrictive eating behaviors and weight controlling behaviors and have worked very hard to heal. It makes it difficult to find safe spaces online that won’t trigger internalized bias and body shame, not to mention eating disorders. 

Body positivity has been co-opted by thin white women on social media. Trad wife culture means rich women are cosplaying pioneers selling protein powder and raw milk, while wasting away and getting silent. It’s all a grift. It’s all about adhering to the patriarchy and keeping the male gaze and the patriarchal capitalism fires burning. Check out Ballerina Farms, but don't buy anything.

Body positive creators on TikTok who I follow, many are artists, PhD graduate students, content creators, musicians, are accused of promoting obesity by merely existing in a large body. It makes sense that they would want to seek safety from cyberbullying attacks. Defending your existence becomes exhausting in their comment section filled with gym bro trolls who think they know everything about your health from a video.

Ozempic and other GLP medications seem like miracle drugs to thousands, if not millions of Americans who are dealing with diseases like chronic obesity, cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes. But, due to the high cost, access to medications is a real problem and the right patients aren’t always able to get the medication. 

Medications like Ozempic are extremely helpful metabolic health tools. I know because I prescribe them for my patients. At the same time, layering Ozempic onto America’s diet culture has resulted in a dangerous and unhealthy standard that makes it more difficult for patients to focus on health. Anyone can get their hands on a compounded version and there are many bad companies out there capitalizing on our obsession with thinness.

The beauty standard is patriarchal socially constructed and is not about health or even beauty. It’s about silencing and obedience. Smallness is weakness of body and voice. It’s the pursuit of thin privilege and the social capital of thinness and not health. It has to do more with patriarchy, Christian Nationalism and white supremacy. 

In “Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia”, which should be required reading for everyone, author Sabrina Strings, details the history of anti-fat and pro-thin bias in America and the complex intersections of gender, race, class and morality. Dr. Strings named the birth of the new ‘ascetic aesthetic’ when in Great Britain, philosophers, physicians and religious leaders began to define a new etiquette, what scholars call “standards of taste”, for how women and men should behave. They should show restraint of oral appetite. The new ways of judging beauty required the superior and rational mind, specifically of men. “English men were seen as the arbiters of taste, or those capable of creating the guidelines for judging beauty. English women were seen as its representatives.” The 'ascetic aesthetic' made its way to America. Ascetic means austere or self-disciplined.

There isn’t a woman who hasn’t experienced the pressure or bias of the ‘ascetic aesthetic', all while the most unhealthiest of Presidents, Spray Tan Bitcoin Donny, comments on women' s bodies and says, “Quiet Quiet, Piggy,” as he posts AI pics of himself on Truth Social looking like a gym bro. What a dangerous joke.

America's beauty standard is socially constructed and based on marginalization, peripheralization and silencing voices that don’t perpetuate white supremacy. Eugenics has been perpetuated by Body Mass Index (BMI), championed for decades by the medical community. 

Aubrey Gordon, an activist, co-host of the Maintenance Phase podcast, in her book, “You Just Need to Lose Weight and 19 other myths about fat people", writes about how BMI has caused harm and isn’t a direct correlate to health. Sonya Renee Taylor writes in “My Body is Not an Apology” about the tools for radical self-love in a culture that creates constant body shame. 

The body positive movement was created by Black Queer women. All About Love was created by a Black Queer woman and her paintings took up whole walls of the Grand Palais. There's much more at stake than the size of our bodies. Voting rights, reproductive rights and healthcare are being stripped away.

Do the work to deconstruct the toxicity. Read the books I referenced here. The most important and intentional work I have done is through social justice workshops through the Body Positive Institute. I have made the commitment to never contribute to further harm, silencing or peripheralizing voices. I encourage you to do the work too. Check out All About Love by Mickalene Thomas if you are able to. Your whole world will change forever. I am so very grateful the Matisse exhibit was sold out.

You are your own beauty standard. Art changes the world for the better. Take up space. Roar your glorious roar!

Childless Cat Ladies Make The World Go 'Round

By Chelsea Klinkebiel

“We are effectively run…. by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too". This very stupid statement by J.D. Vance in 2021 implicated Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as examples of childless people who did not have a stake in the future of our country because they did not have biological children (even though Kamala Harris is a stepmother and Pete Buttigieg and his husband added children to their family very shortly after these comments). Ever since these comments resurfaced a few years later and became echoed by other GOP mouthpieces (e.g, the “diabolical lie” speech by Harrison Butker at a college graduation), I have felt deeply unsettled by a message that I see reflected in political discourse, in social media, and in my students’ discussions about their futures. It is not a new message. It is patriarchy that has been repackaged into a shiny, 2020s-modern shell. Tradwife influencers and plenty of mediocre men are trying to sell the idea that for women to truly find their meaning and purpose in life, they need to birth babies, and a lot of them.

While growing up, I was fortunate to have many amazing women in my life who happened to not have children. Many of my colleagues and friends fit the description of a “childless cat (or dog) lady.”  These women are phenomenal educators, mentors, advocates, and volunteers. They are aunts who provide their wisdom, perspective, and unconditional love to nieces and nephews. These women care for other children in the community as if they were their own children or grandchildren, providing resources, respite to parents, enrichment, and safety. We could discuss for hours the incredible women throughout history who happened to not have biological children and who have impacted millions and led deeply fulfilling lives. They have been scientists, artists, activists, business moguls, public servants, and on and on.

Of course, this is not a suggestion of the exact opposite: that for women to find their true purpose, they
should not have children. I chose to be a mother and decided that one child was enough. My life felt complete and fulfilled in the role of a mother who is also a psychologist, professor, advisor, mentor, wife, aunt, daughter, niece, friend, volunteer, traveler, etc. Yet, I have received countless messages (some implicit and some very explicit) from strangers, acquaintances, friends, and family members that somehow, one child is not enough - that perhaps, I am not “enough” of a mother if I have only one child. Why the obsession with the number of children someone has birthed?

I don’t know if the women who happen not to have biological children need to be told just how amazing they are. They likely know, but we should still remind them. And perhaps society needs a reminder, particularly as dangerous messages are being sent to the next generation of women who will decide how they want to form their biological or chosen families. The insinuation that women who do not have multiple biological children are not enough is another example of the dehumanization of those who do not fit the conservative aesthetic of what makes a person worthy of love, worthy of protection, worthy of human rights.

Of course, the GOP will attempt to veil this dehumanization thinly enough to push an agenda of traditional gender roles, stay-at home mothers, and homesteading by way of a carefully manicured, artificial aesthetic that influencers create.  For example, the “More babies, less burnout” message delivered to young women was part of a speech at a Turning Point USA conference this last year. As if burnout magically disappears once you are following the societal norms that the GOP is trying to set. However, parents and non-parents alike are very aware that:

• U.S. healthcare and childcare systems are shamefully inadequate compared to those in other countries, and families continue to rely on crowdfunding to pay their medical bills.
• Pregnant women’s lives are at risk, and women are dying as reproductive healthcare rights are being actively eroded.
• Unless you have large amounts of privilege, it is virtually impossible to thrive on one income in this economy.
• Women who leave the workforce in the U.S. and who are financially dependent on a partner face innumerable risks to their well-being, safety, and security.
• Women who are stay-at-home parents AND women who work as many hours as their partners are burdened with the bulk of the mental and physical load related to caring for children and a household. 

So, loving and cherishing women and children is not at the heart of the pressure for more babies. And very obviously, if you want to reduce burnout, there are a lot of other great places to start (you know, maybe by having our tax dollars go to programs and infrastructure that support families rather than those that rip families apart and bomb innocent civilians, including women and children).

I hope that the next generation of women can see through the obvious lies and distractions that are being perpetuated. And I hope they will see the amazing women who lead rich, fulfilling lives as models of who they can aspire to be, regardless of whether they decide to have children. Because these women truly make the world go ‘round.

In letters we reveal, we confess, we atone, we vent

By JoAnne Young

I learned some things this month as a finished up this month’s book club book, The Correspondent. I learned that I need to get back to writing letters. It’s fine to post a comment on social media, or jot a quick email to a friend or coworker or politician. But it seems not the same as a letter, in your own handwriting that is, at once, old school and next level, in an envelope. 

 

We reveal in letters. We commit self-therapy. We confess. We encourage. We let others know how we feel about them, rather than keep those feelings to ourselves. Sometimes we vent. We learn about ourselves, the normal and the quirky. (Mostly I like the quirky.)

 

Virginia Evans, author of The Correspondent, writes through her character Sybil: “If all this amounts to you as nothing more than drivel, then you might also consider a simpler value of the written letter, which is, namely, that reaching out in correspondence is really one of the original forms of civility in the world, the preservation of which has to be of some value we cannot yet see. ... The written word in black and white. It is letters. It is books. It is law. It’s all the same.”

 

Recently, I found an envelope of individual letters written to me many years ago from a class of elementary students I had talked to about my job and a recent trip. The teacher had assigned the letter writing, and I thought many of them were thoughtful. But one stood out. So I was moved to find an address for this young person, who is in her early 40s by now, and send her the letter and wish her well in the important job she has taken on. I have no idea if the address was correct and if she got the letter. But I really liked writing and sending it to her.  

 

Here are a few others I need to write. 

 

* “Dear Sen. Megan Hunt, 

     I saw in you from your first day in the Nebraska Legislature, that you would be, as sports and entertainment writers say, ‘one to watch.’ You proved my instincts to be right. Now after eight years, term limits mean you must leave and take with you your candor, conviction, honesty, intelligence and thoughtful approach to bills. 

     In your farewell speech this past week, you left us all with much to think about. You recognized that the responsibility of our elected lawmakers and governors is to bring the future into being. It can’t be designed on fear and anger, you said, but on opportunities for equality and freedom and an affordable lifestyle. On strengthening our culture.

    To do that, we must change the message for young people that they deserve to make at least a minimum wage for their work. For immigrants that they and their contributions are welcome in Nebraska. That women know best what decisions to make for their health and childbearing. That those who identify as LGBTQ belong in Nebraska as who they are. That the work of educators, researchers, scientists are valued and worthy of investment. 

     Thank you for your words, for the bills you fought for and for your caring for us all.”

 

* To the health care providers and all workers in the emergency department of the Bryan West Medical Center, where I volunteer: 

 

“Dear all ... Thank you for your caring for the people of Lincoln who find themselves on any given day hurting or scared, feverish or weak, nauseous, or broken in some way. You greet them in the kindest of ways ... those who clearly don’t want to be there, those who are filled with fear, are in tears, or for whom you are a target of their frustration or anger. Thank you for choosing hospital-based care. You are needed.” 

 

* A short note of appreciation to whoever thought up this meme: “You are the result of 3.8 billion years of evolutionary success. Act like it.” 

 

* An apology to the young versions of my children for any physical injuries I caused. 

 

     “Dearests: I tried so hard to be the guardian of your adorable little bodies, to live by that oath: first, do no harm.  But it happens. To my firstborn, I say, ‘Eighteen months into your babyhood, you toddled out of your bedroom as I told you, “Hurry, Carson, we have to go pick up Daddy at work.” My mind on getting out of the house, I moved quickly to get you into the hallway to leave, not noticing that you had put four little fingers between the door jamb and the open bedroom door. I tried to shut the door behind you, but it wouldn’t close tightly. I pulled on it again to hear it click, hearing instead your screech, and then wail, piercing the hallway air. I am so sorry. When I got you untangled from the doorway, I saw I had flattened three of your beautiful, until that moment perfect, fingers. 

 

     It wasn’t the only time I made such a mistake, kids. A few years later I pulled shut a Plymouth Voyager side door, smashing four little Elizabeth fingers between the metals of the sliding door and the minivan frame. Did I say how sorry I am enough times? You may have gotten over the pain in a short time. I did not.”

 

* I wrote a partial letter to a friend from work a few years ago as she was retiring. And here I will confess a terrible shortcoming: I write but sometimes never send the letter. I think it is incomplete and I need to write more. But then I get busy with life and forget, and it sits there waiting for me. 

 

So I share it here, today and in part, to Cindy Lange Kubick with apologies that it is several years late. 

 

“Cindy: 

     You came to the Journal Star about 10 years after me. I remember thinking, this woman is a bold writer, a woman who can take on subject matter I just hadn’t considered. You wrote about hair in your nose and hair on your chin. And strippers. And sex. I thought: I could learn from this woman about bold writing and taking risks. I never did it as well as you, but you helped me to keep pushing to improve, all the way to today. 

     When the papers merged and tension was high, you wrote: “Who wants to write birthday cards when she can tap dance with words across the page of a daily paper?” You stayed a while, and so did I, and we both loved that dance up to the minute we took off the tap shoes.

     I’m a big fan, not only of your writing, but of you, the woman who feels free to eat her cookie while waiting for her entrée. Thank you. And please keep me on your Valentine cards list. I love watching your grandchildren grow.” 

 

One last thought.

 

* As Sybil in The Correspondent did, I would like to write to all those people whose books, poems, essays and photographs I so enjoy and learn from. It would be a full-time job. Here’s a thank you to one who is more than a thousand years gone. Maybe the vibration of his name being written will penetrate the temporal continuum. 

 

     “Dear Rumi, 

     I take encouragement from your poem “The Guest House,” in which you compare being human to a guest house with its new arrivals each morning, be they joys, or dark thoughts, some momentary awareness, or sorrows that sweep your house empty, but may be clearing you out for some new delight. Meet them at the door laughing, you wrote, and be grateful, ‘because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.’ 

     I, we all, need this more than ever. Thank you for the reach through time with it.” 

 

 And thank you to Virginia Evans for the letter writing nudge. 

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