Blog Against Sexism Day: 8 March 2007 (International Women's Day)

\'sek-,si-zem

Noun: profound disrespect for (usually) girls' and women's minds, bodies, aspirations, experiences and needs

I know about this because I possess a gendered body in a gendered world, and my brain circuitry has been sculpted by female versions of longing and joy, fear, grief and resignation.

I know about it because I own lovely, small breasts, a strong womb, and a clitoris (which can never, ever be used as a weapon) in a body that has ripened, sought and given pleasure, given birth and provided nurture, and now is aging and even ill.

Rape is out there, and I fear it. Unequal and inadequate pay is out there, and I earn it. Spousal control and cruelty are out there; in trying to co-exist with it, I was injured, and in trying to separate from and escape it, I was nearly destroyed. So I know.

I also know, from experience, that women are as apt as men to profoundly disrespect a girl or woman and, flowing from that, to hurt her or fail to protect her or collude in her injury.

Live long enough, and you become possessor of deep, in part unwilling, knowledge. Live courageously enough, and you talk about what you know. Live wisely enough, and you treat yourself, your children and other human beings better than the world has treated you.

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Like A Heat Wave

Since my last posting some time ago, I have not in fact hibernated, yet here it is 2007! I have kept silent, worked steadily, and been drawn deeper and deeper into the vortex of the change of life. Those who know, know, but for the record: nothing prepares a person for hormonal anarchy of this degree and duration except puberty, perhaps. And the first trimester of pregnancy, for certain. Menopausal morning sickness -- whoever heard of that?!

If the cops were to impound my hard drive – not my personal drive, which has become hormonally garbled and is often illegible even to me; I mean, my computer – this is what its recent, and intensive, search history would reveal (in polite sentences because, like the child that takes apart a radio to find the little man hidden inside, I like to imagine a diminutive being of infinite patience and compassion seated at a wee keyboard behind the monitor): "Are menopause and nape ache connected, pls?" "What about menopause and heightened sense of smell?" "Tell me about menopausal fatigue, pls?" "Is there such a thing as menopausal morning sickness? Is there?!"

A perpetual headache has glued itself to the back of my left eyeball. Chronic nausea, like a sick cat, has nuzzled into the hollow at the base of my throat. And according to my research, it so happens that other women my age are also manufacturing their own weather without reference to seasons or times of day, are also waking up in sweat-soaked bedclothes at midnight to stick their head into the freezer compartment, and so forth. And why do they call it meno-pause, I wonder? Instead of, you know, men-o-stop.

Last week, while washing the dishes and mopping the floor, I cheered myself by putting on Motown's Greatest Hits. Martha and the Vandellas began wailing "Heatwave," and I began swinging my hips, dancing with the mop and singing along. And it struck me that while nothing is a love song anymore, especially that song isn't a love song anymore. And that Martha deserves extra credit for experience and candor. With a few minor revisions to the lyrics, her song is fully relevant, and this is how it really goes:

Whenever I'm wide awake,
Somethin' insi-ide
Starts to burnin'
And I wish I could hi-ide!
Could it be a devil in me,
Or is this the way it's supposed to be?

(Chorus)

It's like a HOT FLASH
Burnin' in my heart;
Can't keep from cryin'!
It's tearin' me apart!

Whenever it calls my name,
I feel so sick, it's insane --
I feel, yeah, yeah, well I feel that burnin' flame!
Has my blood pressure got a hold on me,
Or is this the way it's supposed to be?! --

(Chorus)

It's like a HOT FLASH
Burnin' in my heart;
Can't keep from cryin'!
It's tearin' me apart!

Sometimes I stare in space,
Tears all OH-ver my face;
I can't explain it, don't understand it,
I ain't never felt like this before!

But that doesn't mean it has me amazed,
I don't know what to do, my head's in a haze --

(Chorus)

It's like a HOT FLASH
Burnin' in my heart;
Can't keep from cryin'!
It's tearin' me apart!

Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh
HOT FLASH!
Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh
HOT FLASH!

(chorus to fade)

But just as I was getting used to them, the hot flashes have morphed into wildly oscillating hot-and-cold flashes. So cold, my knees chatter and teeth knock. The first time this happened, I thought: Okay. Oh-kay. Nothing like the flu. Leukemia at least.

I queried the invisible, mute, wee being seated in mirror position at the keyboard behind the screen: "Do menopausal COLD flashes exist, pls?"

It is not your imagination, he typed back.

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