How to love thy neighbour's stretchmarks
If there’s one thing lately that irritates me more than an army of wasps at a picnic, it’s the loss of sisterhood in today’s society. Not that I’m a feminist but… (uh-oh…)
What women tend to do nowadays is wrap a compliment in an insult and get away with it scott-free. Much like these examples;
“Walk behind me, you’re a skinny bitch and you’re showing me up.”
“God your hair is gorgeous, I fucking hate you!”
“Your boobs are so perky today Mary, I hope you die in a horrible car accident.”
What would make for a really refreshing change, would be to overhear the following conversation;
“Howye Mary, I prayed for your sebaceous glands last night, I see it paid off!”…”Yeah I thought my hair was extra glossy today, thanks Aine!”
We’ve lost the knack of sisterly caring and support in this heavily patriarchal world, the ying and the yang are totally off kilter and instead of rallying our femininity together again, we wish cancers upon each other and that really, really sucks. Menses are hidden, menopausal women are left on their shelves, caesarean sections rule the day for a quick and easy birth instead of securing a happy and calm environment for mother and baby. We’ve been converted into cows… jealous, backbiting cows.
In the spirit of this, I would like to remind women who we used to be… Goddesses. (WITCH!! WITCH!! I hear you say? Yeah I wouldn’t blame you, for you’ve been conditioned that way.) I shudder to think of the 9 million women who were burned, drowned or commited suicide in defense of their sisterhood. This post is for them, and for you ladies out there who hate your bodies and hate your friends because of theirs.
Let me introduce you to the Goddesses who used to inhabit our souls before they were bet out of us:
Gaia; Knows that stretchmark creams are truly pointless.
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Hecate: Never could be arsed with the likes of Oil of Olay.
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Rhiannon: Knows that ‘pale and interesting’ far outweights St Tropez fakeness.
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Sappho: Born on the island of Lesbos and will kick seven shades out of you for slagging her about it.
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Yemaja: Wants you to tell her to her face that motherhood isn’t a real job.
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Baba Yaga; Wise beyond Botox
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Isis; Beyond asking if her bum looks big in this.
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Mary; Loves you with or without your Wonderbra.
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Of course there are some other Goddesses that should be included here, but maybe best celebrated in the privacy of one’s own home;
So go on out there and love your women. Wish blessings upon their belts and tell them you think their acne is cute. Sisterhood is dead. Long live sisterhood.
I look in my mirror and Gaia stares back.
Oh, how I hate skinny bitches. *sigh*
Not sure which I love best: the words or the pictures! Either way, this is a keeper!
I agree, sisterhood is dead. Sisters need to love themselves and each other a lot more and a lot more publicly.
I can supply the jelly and the tub in which they may love each other.
Gaia is beautiful… it’s not easy walking around with the body of a pre-pubescent boy y’know, we tend not to fare very well in windy weather.
My favourite is this lady
What a bodaceous babe!
Can it be raspberry jelly and would it have to involve a foot vagina? That thing freaks me out, man.
The Venus of Willendorf is my role model!http://academics.smcvt.edu/awerbel/Survey%201%20Exam%20Study/Venus%20of%20Willendorf.png
I love THIS book too: http://tinyurl.com/c6xofo
Nice post and pictures.
That foot vagina is the next step in evolution. Don’t diss the footgina.
Ah, Sile na Gig.
Don’t forget Bast, Bilquis, Kali, the upcoming Easter, and Mawu.
I’m unsure about patiarchy, most of the blokes I know don’t work that way and it implies a conspiracy that is, frankly, too much effort and cooperation in the selfish world of competetive avarice where we seem to have found ourselves. We do need a new philosophy though, the current one is literally bankrupt and trying to fix it keeps the muppets in place.
Indeed, I remember the strong feeling of sisterhood that was around in the sixties, and I often wonder where the hell it went to. I said in a recent post that women could bitch something rotten about each other, far more than men, and several women took issue with me – but I hear women bitching all the time. The jealousy and ill-will and venom is incredible. Men don’t need to tear women apart, they’re doing it all by themselves. I for one would love to see some real sisterhood again.
Great idea for a book!! I wonder if they’d endorse it in primary schools around here? So tempted to buy a copy.
Yeah the old school of male dominated thought is dwindling, but there are still signs of it… there’s still the pay discrepancy, and around here, a woman’s worth is judged from her husband’s job and status symbols, not what skills she has to offer. Also I was surprised at how difficult it was to integrate myself into the taxi driving profession – at least 6 blokes refused to get into my cab on the basis that I was a female and would most likely kill them with my scatty driving. I was quite happy to leave them in the rain at 2am, I didn’t fight it.
Then there’s female mutilation and the belief in a lot of cultures that women don’t have souls… most deities are male etc etc, globally speaking it’s still a patriarchal society I think.
It’s probably the media’s fault again. We’re spoon-fed stories about cat fights between celebrities, told what we must look like in order to be perfect. So, when we see these ‘perfect’ qualities in other women, we resent them for it.
Why do women want to look plastic these days, is it for the benefit of male admiration, or female? Are we just going to turn into a world full of wankers?
Die, celeb media, die.
Globally is a fair point.
Wouldn’t get in the taxi? Gobshites! And it’s not solidarity making me say that, that’s just plain stupid. That said, I won’t get in my mother in law’s car, she never did a test, perhaps that’s age-ist of me?
Sod gender, animal based deities are much more interesting if you ask me. Oh and I’m pretty sure some of my aunts have no soul, but that’s just because they are selfish waggons, nothing to do with gender.
Excellent post as ever K8
THAT’S AN UNREAL COINCIDENCE!!
I was watching Hellboy II with TAT this evening which featured this very statue on auction and I stated that it was my very favourite statue of all time.
TAT didn’t see the appeal.
If somebody plonked this thing in my front garden, all 10ft of it, I would be the happiest person alive. It’s beautiful.
Ah not really but thanks anyway :)
If you are going to Hide Sile na gig in the privacy of your home, you could that with about 90% of the other heroines you listed. Hate to be anti catholic but the Mary Chick doesn’t cut the mosthered,( mother and mustard) , she is a combination of all that is safe and benign in the others. You know what they say about too much goodness.
As a bloke I would put a lot of blame squarely at the feet of whinging women, whose mothers and sisters fought for equality, and then who refuse to get the finger out and characterise all men as potential raping bastards, the misery of the world is of course the fault of all men every where, especially that bloke who just looked at your cleavage. If you don’t want him looking don’t show it for crying out loud. The probablem is of course caused by a bloke, Walt disney, and inforced by….mothers and fathers who want their little princesses growing up marrying princes, and at the same time they give two fingers to the queen of wherever.
Give me a world where babies are not classed as blue or pink and when the first question is not is it a boy or girl? What freakin difference does it make if you are still going to say, ‘your baby is lovely’ smile at me sickenly and then toddle off into history unintroduced.
One more thing, would you lot please just once turn around to your men and make them feel like they can have some credit for existing please!
Right rant over… sorry…….sort of!
Oh hey now don’t get me wrong here, this isn’t a feminist rant about bastard men… jeebus no. It’s more of a rant about women!
I suppose when a group has been oppressed for such a long time, they tend to turn and oppress their weaker counterparts… classic bully syndrome.
This is a shout out to womankind that seeing as we’re no longer oppressed, maybe it’s time to stop the resentment.
I love men. I love the man in me (so to speak), and the feminine aspects of men in turn. An ideal world for me would be an exact balance of each, pretty much as Nick says, like it was in the 60′s.
I’m with you 100% on the princess thing. If I see one more ‘Princess on board’ placard in someone’s rear window I may vomit all over my dashboard.
go vomit over their’s instead :-)