I'm a Gen X-er too, born a couple of years after you. Midway through high school my hips swung wide while the rest of me stayed thin. I still struggle with it, though I should know better. I went on diets hoping to shrink the hips and shed the pounds my hormones deemed necessary around hips and thighs. Zero luck. The ideal female shape chosen by our culture seems designed to inflict maximum female frustration (big bust, tiny waist, no hips but curvy butt. Big bouncy hair on the head while being hairless everywhere else). Why?
I learned very young to be afraid of male violence. Then as a teenager, I would go for walks to relieve stress and adult men would drive by staring at my body like a piece of meat. Even though I'm nothing like the ideal female and didn't dress in an attention getting way. There are lots of ways women cope with this...my way was to attempt invisibility and hypervigilance.
Some drag queens seem to be exploring femininity and I have no problem with that. They're more than welcome to my share of makeup and uncomfortable clothes. But some of them seem determined to take what is worst about women and amplify it, acting shrill, shallow, hysterical. OK, some women are, and a little good natured critique is fair. But until they've walked a mile in our horrendous heels, I don't want to hear it!
Many of the women I know in my age group didn't have children. I was terrified of pregnancy and childbirth too. That's something I often wonder about.
I'm glad old Kimberly came out to say a few things.
no subject
I'm a Gen X-er too, born a couple of years after you. Midway through high school my hips swung wide while the rest of me stayed thin. I still struggle with it, though I should know better. I went on diets hoping to shrink the hips and shed the pounds my hormones deemed necessary around hips and thighs. Zero luck. The ideal female shape chosen by our culture seems designed to inflict maximum female frustration (big bust, tiny waist, no hips but curvy butt. Big bouncy hair on the head while being hairless everywhere else). Why?
I learned very young to be afraid of male violence. Then as a teenager, I would go for walks to relieve stress and adult men would drive by staring at my body like a piece of meat. Even though I'm nothing like the ideal female and didn't dress in an attention getting way. There are lots of ways women cope with this...my way was to attempt invisibility and hypervigilance.
Some drag queens seem to be exploring femininity and I have no problem with that. They're more than welcome to my share of makeup and uncomfortable clothes. But some of them seem determined to take what is worst about women and amplify it, acting shrill, shallow, hysterical. OK, some women are, and a little good natured critique is fair. But until they've walked a mile in our horrendous heels, I don't want to hear it!
Many of the women I know in my age group didn't have children. I was terrified of pregnancy and childbirth too. That's something I often wonder about.
I'm glad old Kimberly came out to say a few things.
Pschedelic jocular puca