Heutagogy

I've spent most of the past week unable to turn my head to the left fully. It started with last weekend's basketball session, was exacerbated by sitting in the front row for Batman IMAX, and then was pushed to another level by waves and boogie boarding on Tuesday. After a few more basketball games, I can't feel my left arm or turn at all. You should see me pathetically crawl onto bed while keeping my head supported and propped up.

Not to be overly dramatic but this is what it must feel like post-stroke. To have half your body become useless and dangling. I don't do well with inconvenience. I take perfect health for granted and any small uncomfortability makes me whine and create excuses for staying bedridden.

I blame my pillow. I suspect I've been sleeping perched on the edge of it, which strains the neck. As I'm about to set off travelling again, I fear that my body has become accustomed to sleeping in comfort. This won't do. One of the things keeping me young is the ability to sleep on any surface, without anything more than a towel on the ground to keep my head clean. Complaining about sleeping arrangements is a surefire sign I'm losing my edge. Hobos can't expect feathers and silk.

I finished I Feel Bad About My Neck and I Remember Nothing. They contain Ephron's reflections on getting old. The first one is a collection of essays about getting physically old, the second contains pieces about losing her memory. Not to Alzheimer's or anything, just simply to age.

People around me, mostly in their young thirties, love to say that they're getting forgetful in their "old" age. Perhaps it's just a thing people say. But what's going to happen when we're sixty? Will we remember anything? Will we have to?

After going through two books by Ephron, the logical next step was to read Caitlin Moran. So far her How to Be a Woman is exactly as I expected. Hilarious and great. I've seen Moran referred to as a "neo-feminist" but I'm not sure what means. Does feminism really need a "neo-" anything? Her book is part memoir and part ruminations about menstrual cycles, fat shaming, taming body hair, the lack of diverse porn, the shrinking real estate of lady underwear, hiring household help, and workplace sexism. Generally it's a statement on how disappointed she is in what feminism has become, and the direction it's going. She thinks feminisim should be less academic, more accepting, and much much louder.

I would recommend How to Be a Woman to everybody but also nobody. The friends I know who would be interested in this probably already know about it and the people that don't, well, don't. Perhaps I'm generalizing but most of my friends probably don't care to think about, much less discuss, the implications and causes of disappearing pubic hair. Or what to call your vagina. Or maybe my friends are having these conversations in secret without me. If so, please c.c. me in next time, I'm curious what you're saying.

Part of me wants to give this to my guys' book club to read and discuss. But that would be problematic since I don't have a guys' book club. (Does such a thing even exist?) And I can name only about three of my male friends who c/would read anything of this length. What I'm trying to figure out is what the male equivalent of How to Be a Woman is. Most of me fears it's something by Tucker Max. I did pick up a used book awhile ago titled Becoming a Man but it was a memoir about being in the closet. Interesting but not comparable.

I was told awhile ago that no man can be a feminist, that in fact it was an insult to the term. "A man can't be a feminist because they don't know what it's like to be a woman." Of course, this person also majored in women's studies and then decided to turn her back on all things feminist. However, her point is still valid. Do you have to actually be something to understand it? s.e. smith's post, "You Don't Have to Get It to Respect It" says no. Part of me says yes.

When white people say they know what it's like to be an ethnic minority, I have to scoff. Not because I don't believe that they believe it, but because it's impossible. Just like me understanding what being a woman is like. Impossible. I can read all the books, talk all the talks, maybe relate on some level, but at the end of the day, I haven't walked in those shoes. That applies across the board though. I'd still like to believe that males can call themselves feminist. In fact, Moran insists on it.

Moran is prolific. I read she outputs about 15,000 words a week and she wrote her first novel at thirteen, The Chronicles of Narmo, and had it published at fifteen. She also started writing for the Observer and the Guardian at seventeen. She's written for everybody. She's basically done it all. How can anyone not admire her?

• Caitlin on YouTube introducing her book (2011)
• They Don't Make Feminists This Outrageous Anymore
• The Guardian interview (2011)
• Neo-feminist Caitlin Moran on why being clever, funny and honest is better than presenting a sexy shield (2011)
• NPR: A Little Advice On 'How To Be A Woman'
• Moran interviews Lady Gaga (2010)

Also I was reading an article about how Iran's birth control policy is changing women's roles. For one, the ratio of men to women in college is now 35/65 there and some have called for affirmative action. For men. That's just ridiculous.