Part 2 (1/2)

We'll voluntarily plunk down fifty smackeroos to have some s.a.d.i.s.t in a beauty salon pour hot wax on our crotch and rip our pubic hair clean off our bikini line. But somehow, when it comes to eating dinner, we're not worth more time and effort than a Lean Cuisine?

Yeah, chicken marsala might require a little more work, but we deserve it at least as much as a bikini wax.

8. Ice cream is nonpatriarchal. Ice cream, frozen yogurt, milk- shakes-every dairy product we can think of is the exclusive product of females. So, okay, they're cows. But eating this stuff can be a political act that neatly unites feminist principles with a love of animals. It can be our way of showing support for our bovine sisters! f.u.c.k the vegans, I say. Anyone who doesn't eat ice cream for purely ”ethical” reasons is a killjoy and a moron and ultimately not to be trusted. Pro-ice cream is pro-woman, Baby.

Okay, I admit this sounds a little stupid. But given the lengths to which we french-fry loving Freidas will go just to order a d.a.m.n milkshake, such a rationalization certainly isn't much wackier than the rest. So let's have a nice piece of fish, a baked potato, and then maybe a bowl of Rocky Road for dessert. As my grandma used to say, ”Once you're dead, you have the rest of eternity to be skinny. So why start now?”

Besides, no one ever conquered the world on an empty stomach.

Chapter 4.

We Won't Shape History.

by Shaping Our Thighs.

Sure, beauty has the power to excite men. But so does a box of donuts.

I used to be a Big Sister to a seven-year-old girl who emigrated here from Mexico. Every week, I'd have lunch with her at her elementary school. We'd read books together, do art projects, and talk. When I first met her, she was just starting second grade. She was a good, enthusiastic student. ”I want to grow up to be a teacher and a doctor,” she told me proudly.

The next year, when she was in third grade, she announced she didn't want to be a teacher or a doctor anymore: She wanted to be a model.

”Why?” I asked.

”Girl power!” she shouted.

Oh, Dear G.o.ddess, it starts so young.

A couple of years ago, Time magazine implied that women today care more about our bodies than our brains. In a much bally-hooed cover story, t.i.tled, ”Is Feminism Dead?” the magazine claimed that women are too preoccupied with glamour and looks to engage in serious pursuits or politics of substance. The women's movement, it said, had degenerated into narcissism, into tell-all books about o.r.g.a.s.ms, and young women who equate ”girl power” with the right to wear sequined culottes. ”Feminism today is wed to the culture of celebrity and self-obsession,” it declared.

Well , I thought, if this is true, can you really blame us? We're living in a culture where one of the richest, most powerful, and phenomenally successful women of all time-a television talk-show doyenne, movie star, and literacy G.o.ddess who has single-handedly built a multimillion-dollar production empire-has said in all seriousness that the most important accomplishment in her life has been to lose weight.

But that being said, I do think we gals would do ourselves and the little girls of the world a big favor by taking a step back for a moment and checking this reality.

Because the very same week that Time was painting us as narcissists, other significant pieces of news made the headlines, albeit in much smaller print. According to a census-bureau report, for the first time in history, more women than men ages twenty-five to twenty-nine are earning college and graduate degrees, and these degrees enable us pull down at least forty percent more income than our high school-educated sisters. Higher education also makes a bigger difference in women's salaries than in men's, particularly now. According to reports, the Information Age has created such a demand for brainiacs that a Smarty Pants can often write her own ticket.

Yeah, our culture is increasingly visual, but it's the women behind the cameras and computers who are best poised to reap its goodies. The glamourous fantasies touted in the pages of Vogue and Vibe are just that: fantasies. In reality, we gals have a far better shot at striking it big as a software developer or as a Webmistress than as an actress, model, or singer.

If we want to be truly subversive and powerful, we'd be wise to embrace our inner geek-and to actively encourage our younger sisters, daughters, and nieces to do the same. We gotta celebrate that cerebellum! Get down and get bookis.h.!.+ Sure, geeks may not have the s.e.x appeal of, say, Salma Hayek, or, ahem, the exposure of Pamela Lee, but if we want to have a stake in the twenty-first century, nerdhood is the way to go.

For the first time in history, women in America outnumber the men at universities, and for the first time in history, we have the chance to make it in any field, from aeros.p.a.ce engineering to zoology. Yet, curiously enough, we're still being encouraged to value our looks more than our minds-perhaps more so now than twenty years ago, when MTV wasn't beamed into millions of living rooms and fas.h.i.+on models reflected twenty-three percent of the female population, not six.

A prevailing message in our culture is that women can't possibly be intelligent and desirable at the same time. Watching Thelma and Daphne on a rerun of s...o...b..-Doo ... or Blaire and Natalie on The Facts of Life ... or even MTV's brilliant and ironic Daria, we don't have any trouble picking out the smart girls. They're the short, fat ones; the witty ones: the ones with gla.s.ses and no dates. And, of course, the cute girls are all popular and about as deep as toilets.

Were I not such a Pollyanna, in fact, I'd wonder if there wasn't some sort of cultural conspiracy at work. For as Naomi Wolf pointed out in her book The Beauty Myth, thinking obsessively about fat and dieting has actually been shown to change people's thought patterns and brain chemistry. A preoccupation with looks, then, has the potential to short-circuit women's intellects-precisely at a time when education and brain power are at a premium in the marketplace.

If we gals could stop focusing so much on our looks and start redirecting that energy toward our minds instead, we'd create even more serious compet.i.tion in the job market. We'd earn more moolah and play a bigger role in shaping our society than we do now. And we'd probably put some of the multimillion-dollar beauty and diet companies out of business. And then, G.o.ddess knows, the Earth would fall off its axis.

Of course, attempts to disparage women's intelligence are hardly revolutionary. Brains and femininity have been placed on a crash course with each other throughout history. In the Middle Ages, the only way most girls could receive an education was by joining a nunnery. During the Renaissance, while da Vinci was drawing up plans for a flying machine, enterprising midwives were being burned at the stake as witches. When Western women in the nineteenth century began making a name for themselves as popular novelists, they were derided as ”scribbling women.” In 1873, a Dr. Edwards Hammond Clark published s.e.x in Education, in which he argued that education is harmful to women because mental activity draws blood away from our reproductive organs. In 1905, a psychologist named G. Stanley Hall a.s.serted that specialized professional work was ”alien to the female mind.” In the 1950s, a pamphlet about how to identify a lesbian was published. One of the dead giveaways of d.y.k.edom? A woman reading a book.

And perhaps most tellingly, just a few years ago, the women of Mensa posed for Playboy. Why? Apparently, the women felt the need to show the world that they were more than a bunch of high IQs. More than a bunch of high IQs? Zoiks! I'm sorry, but we SmartMouth G.o.ddesses have got to question any culture where a woman feels compelled to take off her clothes in order to prove that, really, she's more than just a mathematical genius.

For all the talk about women's empowerment today, there are still few celebrated images of women who are intellectual. We're still not really brought up to see ourselves as powerful or heroic except in ways that are s.e.xualized. Even female superheros like Wonder Woman and Xena look fabulous in a bustier. Even Buffy is way buff.

Ironically, Camille Paglia, who insists that women's greatest powers lie in our beauty and s.e.xuality, has obtained her greatest power through the academy. I can't help but wonder how successful Ms. P. would've been if she'd spent her career in a beauty salon instead of in a library.

Besides, if women's greatest power really is our beauty and s.e.xuality, well, then, I say we demand a refund. Because for centuries we've subscribed to all sorts of nonsense in the name of ”enhancing” our ”feminine powers.” Be it foot-binding, wearing enormous bra.s.s rings around our necks, or getting silicone balloons implanted in our chests, we have relentlessly mutilated ourselves in pursuit of our ”womanly power.” And what has it gotten us? Better overall pay? A political voice? Help with the laundry?

For that matter, what has it gotten the world? Has it abolished racism, or brought about peace, or even shortened the lines for the ladies' rooms? Sure, beauty does have the power to excite men, but so does a box of donuts. I mean, can't we aspire to something a little loftier-and with a little more shelf life?

Only one woman's beauty has truly changed the course of Western history, and that was Helen of Troy, whose face started a war. Thousands of people were killed, and today n.o.body has the faintest idea what she looked like.

Cleopatra was apparently beautiful, too, but she was also highly educated and spoke seven languages. How likely is it that Marc Antony would have fallen for her if she sat across from him in Alexandria twirling her hair around her finger and giggling?

And since we're flipping through history, what about the Virgin Mary? Maybe it's inappropriate to ask but, hey, does anybody know if she was a hottie?

No woman's beauty has ever outlived her, with the possible exception of Marilyn Monroe, and that's largely because Andy Warhol turned her face into wallpaper. And as Norma Jean reminds everyone, beauty may get you into bed with a couple of Kennedys, but it won't bring you happiness, or marriage, or children, or respect, or love.

The women who have truly influenced the world have done so because of their conviction and smarts. Jane Austen, Harriet Tubman, Marie Curie, s.h.i.+rley Chisholm, Helen Keller-none of these women made an impact because they were the bomb in a bikini. Even Anne Frank and Joan of Arc, who were teenagers, didn't make history because they had perky little b.o.o.bs.

Millions of lives have been saved because of Clara Barton, who founded the Red Cross. Margaret Sanger, who pioneered birth control, has done more to liberate women s.e.xually than Madonna. Rosa Parks didn't get invited to a lot of glitzy Hollywood parties, but her effect on history surely exceeds that of, say, Gwyneth Paltrow. As far as I know, Sojourner Truth never wore hot pants. Ditto for Margaret Mead. Mother Teresa was not exactly a ”10” in the looks department. And neither was Golda Meir. And neither was Eleanor Roosevelt, arguably the most important woman of the twentieth century.

Thirty women so far have won the n.o.bel Prize, in physics, chemistry, physiology and medicine, literature, and peace. Does anyone have a clue what any of these women look like?

Even in twentieth-century American pop culture, the majority of famous women who have had real staying power and influence are not cla.s.sical ”wispy beauties.” Mae West, Lucille Ball, Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, Roseanne, and, yes, Oprah Winfrey, have been smart as h.e.l.l and mult.i.talented. In the long run, their brains have served them better than their s.e.x appeal. And it'll serve us well to remind each other of this from time to time.

Sure, it's important to be healthy and feel good in our own skin. And it's hard for young women to overcome the pressures and the values that are foisted upon us, especially in high school and college. Ironically, in school-which is supposedly ground-zero for intellectual pursuits-looks are often the primary form of social currency. And, sure, s.e.xy and glamourous stuff is, well, s.e.xy and glamourous (hey, I read In Style). But my own egotistical little heart wants all of us gals-young and old-to aspire to being more than the flavor of the month, or a Spice.

If physical appearance is what we women idealize the most, it'll undermine our chances for serious, enduring, historic achievement. We've got to remember (and, if need be, rearrange) our priorities here. Our gray matter has far greater staying power than our thighs ever will; it has the capacity to endow us-and the world-with joy, enlightenment, and influence well into our old age. So why focus so much on shaping our bodies when we can shape history? Let's say it loud, proud, and repeatedly to every chick we know: Real girl power lies between our ears.

Chapter 5.

Niceness: Barf.

It's the good girls who keep diaries.

The bad girls never have time.

-TALLULAH BANKHEAD.