The Cougar Question

Yes I will probably see Sex in the City 2, and I'll probably roll my eyes a lot and find many problems with it just like I did the first movie and about half of the episodes of the show. But whatever, I also watch awful shows like Tough Love Couples and enjoy eating ramen noodles, no one has "good" taste in everything.

That said, I clearly don't love everything about those four ladies and certainly not their characters. Kim Cattrell is really not a good actress and Samantha I could take or leave. But the recent hub-bub about a "significant magazine for women over 40" that pulled her as their cover model when she refused to pose with a cougar has made me like her a lot more as a person.

I've made mention of it before, but I am really irked by the prevalence of women over 40 being called "cougars" or "MILFs", but more so I’m annoyed by how much women not only accept it but embrace it—want to be called one of these horribly demeaning names or call themselves it.

I mean I get that getting old is scary and feeling like you are losing your sex appeal can be devastating for a lot of women. But instead of agreeing that you have to try to look like some 50-year old alien version of a 22-year-old, why can’t women get the hot older person labels that men get—“silver fox”, “distinguished”?

So kudos to Kim Cattrell (or her publicist) for not perpetuating the cougar label. As for the Women’s Mag the pulled the cover? I’d really like to believe there was more to the decision, magazines for women have so much potential and so many just need an editorial voice that isn’t condescending yet is still titillating and relevant (hee hee, titillating). It’s not rocket science and readers aren’t the crazy vapid creatures that many editors seem to think they are.

Big Girls Need Love Too

Childhood obesity is a topic I keep coming back to and a topic discussed exhaustively in all forms of media right now. And while some lip service is also given to the super skinny skeletor models and the eating disorder other end of the spectrum, the obesity epidemic is still the most talked about problem. And yes lots of kids are too fat and lazy and eat junk and watch too much TV/play too many video games/never put down their cell phones, but what about the flip side? Especially for girls the message that they aren’t skinny enough is often the strongest and while it’s coming from magazines and TV and all that in a big way, for many girls being critical of your appearance is something they learn at home.

Peggy Orenstein pointed it out in her article in the New York Times magazine recently— while middle class and affluent parents obsess over organic healthy foods especially for their children, there’s also a strong possibility that they are giving them horrible body image issues at the same time. She uses the president and first lady’s public remarks about their daughters’ weights as an example. But it’s not the same for sons, like most things appearance related this seems to be the territory of girls only.

“Daughters understand that early: according to a study of preschool girls published in the journal Pediatrics in 2001, those whose mothers expressed “higher concern” over their daughters’ weights not only reported more negative body images than their peers but also perceived themselves as less smart and less physically capable (paternal “concern” was associated only with the latter). The effect was independent of the child’s actual size.

A 2003 analysis of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, meanwhile, showed that mothers were three times as likely to notice excess weight in daughters than in sons, even though the boys were more likely to be large. That gave me pause. It is so easy for the concern with “health,” however legitimate, to justify a focus on girls’ appearances. For organic-eating, right-living parents whose girls are merely on the fleshy side of average, “health” may also mask a discomfort with how a less-than-perfect daughter reflects on them. “ ‘Good’ parents today are expected to have normal-weight kids,” says Joan Jacobs Brumberg, author of the book “The Body Project” and a professor of history and human development at Cornell University. “Having a fat girl is a failure.”

Orenstein’s first solution was to opt out completely and have her husband be responsible for feeding their daughter, which isn’t a solution really—while mothers may pass their negative body image on, fathers and men in general aren’t outside of blame. There’s no question that there’s a huge beauty double standard, but an even bigger fat double standard. Unless a guy gets really big, a few extra pounds here and there are not even blink-worthy on men, let alone cause for most women to reject them. But over and over you hear the “no fat chicks” mentality coming even from fat dudes, helped none by the reinforcement that hot ladies go for slubby guys.

There is something totally off base when a gorgeous woman like Tina Fey is believable as a nerdy food-obsessed lonely heart and Kevin James can get a hot wife.

The conclusion to the article is that she decided to just not talk about looks or food in front of her daughter (of course a difficult feat) and while it would be ideal for weight and appearance to be as much of a non-issue for women (or at least a smaller issue) as it is for men, she acknowledges that her daughter will just get the messages elsewhere, which means not talking about it doesn’t really solve the problem. I realize that it’s an over-arching and vague statement but more than moms just pretending that they aren’t terrified of getting old/fat/unattractive, maybe we all should be more concerned with consuming good food and being cool with how we look, not criticizing women for things we tolerate in men. Pretending that the double standard doesn’t exist won’t make it go away, it will just make it grow.

Sidebar: My (15 year old) Little Sister keeps telling me that boys tell her that she must be having sex (she’s not) because she’s gained weight. Where did this flawed biology lesson come from, is this kind of teasing something kids have been doing for a while?

And another thing: Everyone needs to stop with this whole “cougar” and “MILTF” trend; 50 year old women should look 50 not 20, it’s just creepy.

To Please a Woman

Jezebel pointed yesterday to a recent interview Cosmo’s EIC Kate White did with Media Bistro. In it she was asked about the reputation of the magazine being a little outdated with it’s approach to relationships. Here’s what she said:

"I think there are some people who think that it's still that retro magazine from the 70s, all about guy-pleasing. And it really is not that way at all. Certainly a big part of Cosmo — we're the relationship bible, and a big part is helping women navigate relationships and understand what makes men tick because they're so baffling! But we approach relationships with the idea of — we're teaching women and showing them how to please guys, but we're expecting that they're getting that back from the guys — that somewhere the guys are learning that information, maybe from their friends, or from websites, or other magazines."

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First I take issue with the whole “men are so baffling!” thing. The men are from Mars women from Venus thing is like the “white people be like this and black people be like this” jokes, it’s just a tired and lazy perspective based on oft-untrue or outdated stereotypes. Sure, there are a lot of differences between men and women, but I don’t think figuring out what a man is looking for out of sex or a relationship is really that difficult, especially if you, you know…ask them.

The biggest problem with her statement is that she expects that guys are magically learning how to please women somewhere. I’m not so sure. And granted men aren’t reading Cosmo, but that doesn’t mean the onus isn’t completely off women’s magazines like hers. More than 95% of their sex and relationship content is about what women are doing wrong and how to make sure he’s sexually satisfied.

What about making sure you are sexually satisfied (whether bestowing the knowledge of how to take care of business yourself or how to make sure that dude you’re so concerned about pleasing in the sack is returning the favor)? What about how to negotiate the tricky ground of equality in a relationship. It’s not news that many women’s magazines make women feel bad about themselves and many men’s magazines objectify women and promote some rather disgusting treatment of women (like how to trick them into sleeping with you).

Still after White’s comment about hoping that men are learning how to please women “from their friends (where’d they learn?), websites, or other magazines” I decided to see what about pleasing women is available for men. Below the cover blurbs from the January and February 2010 issues of both Cosmo and Maxim (what I deemed to be Cosmo’s male equivalent).

Cosmo January 2010 cover:

100% Hotter Sex: Thrill every inch of his body using a move no woman has dared to try on him before

50 Ways to have fun with your guy

The New Male Sex Habit that can hurt a relationship

Maxim January 2010 cover:

Swimsuit Bonus: 16 Pages of Miami’s hottest bikini girls

Double your salary in 2010

Wet and Wild Olivia Munn (with a spead eagle soaking wet photo)

Hangover survival guide

Cosmo February 2010 cover:

The Hour Men Crave Sex the Most

How to deal with a jealous Bitch…when that Jealous bitch is you

What makes a woman irresistible

99 Sex moves: sweet and slow, quick and dirty and everything inbetween

Maxim February 2010:

Amanda Bynes Grown up and uncovered

The 25 Best Beers

Tiger’s Texting Temptress Hot new Photos

The secret to no fail sex

What have we learned? Men drink a lot, like to look at sexy ladies (be they a golfer’s mistress or a barely legal Disney star), have the ability to advance in their careers and need help keeping it up (probably all that beer). Meanwhile, women need to stop being jealous bitches, must make themselves more desirable and come up with all kinds of different ways to have sex. Glad we’ve come so far Kate White…

Boobs! In Public!

In the past couple weeks there’s been a big hullabaloo about ladies putting up picture of themselves breastfeeding on Facebook, and Facebook getting all “Those are boobs and that’s obscene!” and threatening to delete the accounts of those ladies. And then as you do the ladies have blogged about it and wanted everyone to change their Facebook status and pictures, at all (you know, the type of lazy nothingness that passes for activism these days)

For the most part I am totally on their side, and Facebook’s argument that they want “ the site to "[remain] a safe, secure and trusted environment for all users, including the many children.” holds no weight when those “children” are (according to Facebook’s rules) over 13 years old. Or when you take into account ridiculous FB applications like "Big Boobs" that lets users send each other cartoon drawings of breasts, or the “Boobs or Butt” application that makes users answer tough questions deciphering if a cropped image is cleavage or a butt, or "boobs" fan pages, or lots and lots of pretty sexualized cleavage shots in profile pictures.

Where these mommies lose me is when they start acting like having a kid is the pinnacle of human accomplishment. It’s a big deal sure, probably the biggest thing that will happen in your personal life, but it ladies have been doing it for awhile, don’t expect everyone to drop their bags and applaud when you whip your boob out to feed. Do I think women should be allowed to breastfeed in toys r us, or restaurants or anywhere else their babies are hungry? Yes of course. Do I think they should be able to post pictures of it wherever they want? Why not. What I disdain is the tone of their argument, like one mom who wrote an open letter to Facebook after they took down her boob pictures:
“That's right, Facebook. I grew two tiny people inside my womb, birthed them, almost died in the process, and then set my own needs aside to carry out the grave responsibility of sustaining those lives by creating nutritionally perfect food within my body and feeding it to them using my (GASP!) breasts.”
I can only respond with this fantastic Garfunkel and Oates song (yes I’m a little obsessed).



The overall issue I think is the odd values that Americans have on what is and isn’t offensive. I’ve never understood the lines of “decency” that we’ve agreed on as a society, like boobs are fine, but nipples aren’t, and butts are OK and long as there’s no crack. Sexual representations are sometimes OK, but sex isn’t. Objectification is funny and sells products, but representations of homosexually or things like breast feeding aren’t for young eyes and aren’t decent. You can call a woman a bitch on prime time TV, but you can’t call a man an asshole. I think I might start a Facebook group in protest of this.

Breastfeeding and Facebook the debate

Health Care and Killing Babies

Much talk about the health care reform bill, the comprise that’s left the country more divided and neither side getting what it really wants. For “liberals,” it’s a “something is better than nothing” reform that will still leave many uninsured, might not take care of the struggling working class enough and will take years to take effect.

For the tea party republicans it makes us a communist baby-killing country. The whole thing makes for an interesting case study in argument tactics. BBC World News put forth the idea that those opposed to the health care reform aren’t so worried about what the bill contains as they are about the implications that it threatens the idea of American Exceptionalism —that we are above the rest of the world and don’t need the same sorts of systems that other countries do.

After all, this new law is far from radical, and leaves a lot of payment on individuals. And as noted on NPR this morning, the first benefits of the bill even go to the groups that have been complaining the most: seniors with Medicare, will get $250 rebate this year to help fill in the gap in the prescription drug coverage, and small business owners will get tax credit starting this year to encourage them to provide insurance to their employees (which they are still not even required to do).

The other major sticking point is a “moral” one of course—abortion. The irony in the pro-life panic about tax money funding abortions is that the “baby killer” screamers aren’t prolife at all, they are pro-moral agenda pushing.

As George Carlin famously said, “Conservatives are all in favor of the unborn, but once you’re born, you’re on your own, they are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months, after that they don’t want to know about you—no daycare, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare —if you’re pre-born you’re fine, if you’re preschool, you’re fucked. They are not pro-life, they are anti-woman.”

But the bill passed and it’s a law now, and I’m glad for some progress, even if it’s at the cost of a more divided country with knee-jerk flawed logic. As Joe Biden said, it’s still “A Big Fucking Deal”

Summary of Health Care Reform

Dating Advice From Disney

From This Article

The Rape Myth

Sometimes it’s hard to believe that it’s 2009, not because I don’t feel old enough to yet be this old, or because we are still living in a future woefully devoid of hover crafts, but because of the appalling discussions that take place by so-called intelligent forward thinking people whenever there’s a public case of rape or domestic abuse.

From the common cry of faking or “asking for it” or trying to make money whenever someone notable is accused of rape or assault, to the disgusting initial defense of Chris Brown, to most recently the concept of rape the doesn’t “count” as rape.

In the last week alone there have been two more cases of not calling a spade a spade, or in the case of John Phillips and Roman Polanski, calling a rapist a rapist.

An adult having sex with a 13-year-old is rape. An adult having sex with a drugged and drunk 13-year-old is rape. Period. End of Story. There should be no discussion over who was in the house, what was said by whom, and certainly none over what a great director they are. Even Whoopi (say it ain’t so!) is using made up terms like “rape-rape”, and Debra Tate saying “it was rape, but it wasn’t rape.” The fact that Polanski has still been able to make movies and live in relative freedom for the past 30 plus years, is upsurd, the fact that so many people agreed to work with him, defend him.

The judicial system already puts the burden of proof on the victim too many times and lets the rapists and abusers get off with small or often nonexistent sentences. What’s rarely considered is how damaging something like rape and abuse is to a person, how it’s something that can ruin a life, even after years, even after you “get over it.” Adding on a chorus of voices saying “oh, well it wasn’t really rape” is damaging not only to those who have lived through it, but those in the future who will question themselves if they are so unfortunate as to have something like this happen to them.

What's in a Name?

As my BFF's wedding approaches next month. I have found myself increasingly engrossed in all things matrimonial. With the dress, shoes, plane ticket, etc. all out of the way. I've been focusing lately on the Bridal Shower and Best Lady toast/speech.

The first is pretty well planned:
Hil's shower won't include any cheesy games and they'll be no blinking-penis-shaped-necklace filled bachelorette party. Just a morning at the spa followed by an afternoon picnic in the park. I ended up making the invites myself with my mad crafting skillz, and good thing I did, because it turns out Bridal Shower invitations are inherently sexist.

Exhibit A:



Every example of custom shower invites I found included some form of “soon to be Mrs. SOME DUDE.” Sure, you can leave that part out when you customize it, but really? Not a single nod to women who aren’t so keen on morphing into their future husband’s shadow? Or to same sex couples?

Far worse of course is this trend:


Ugh.

As for the speech, I’m currently working on putting together something that will be wonderful, moving, profound, and hilarious, that will inspire both a river of tears as well as uproarious laughter from every guest. But if that doesn’t work I’ll just start dancing, no one can resist my sweet moves.

Why Dora Stopped Exploring

She decided to go shopping instead. I guess we are supposed to be relieved that she’s not all totally tarted up Bratz style. But seriously? You can’t do any exploring in an outfit like that. Listening to the things my 14-year-old Little Sister faces between friends getting shot and boyfriends going to jail I realize that what a doll like Dora or my childhood favorite Strawberry Shortcake look like is of little to no consequence.

But I’d like to make the argument that it’s all the more reason to just leave them alone. These dolls aren’t for tweens, or even 8-year-olds, these are little girls these are marketed for, as in the 3-6 set. They are hopefully in the ever-shrinking period of innocence; a chubby tomboy with a backpack suits them just fine unless you tell them otherwise.

Girls have the rest of their lives to worry about their weight and talk about boys, give them a few years to make up adventure stories and appreciate the simple joy of a chubby strawberry scented head.

Happily Ever After?

I’m extremely conflicted about weddings and marriage.

Sure the concept of finding someone with whom you want to spend the rest of your life (and who feels the same way) is something I’d ultimately like in my life, which isn’t to say of course that I’m not without my mountain of reservations on the whole “happily ever after” thing (or even the "I’ll actually stick with you even when it sucks" thing).

But feelings on the actual institution of marriage aside, I do love weddings; I love throwing and planning parties (and a reception is really just a big party), I love the idea of declaring love and commitment in front of everyone you know, I like to get dressed up, I like flowers, and food, and dancing, and the idea that you can go around a store scanning all the stuff you want people to buy you. I don’t think liking all these things makes me less of a feminist, and I resent the notion that you are either one or the other.

On the other hand of course, I hate the wedding industrial complex, the way people go in to debt over really trivial shit, the social hierarchy of inviting people you don’t really want to, or the hurt feelings of people not included in ways they think they should, not to mention all of the awful misogynistic traditions (the veiled property exchange and vows of obedience).

And I hate the emerging genre of “all women want to get married and when they finally trap a man they turn into crazy bitches” entertainment. We TV (one of the 3 or 4 “lady” channels) has long had this market cornered with at least one whole night a week committed to wedding shows. And yes, I’ll admit that I’ve watched a few, but shows like Bridezillas are entertaining insofar as watching crazy people (like Tyra Banks) is amusing.

The most offensive of this genre is the new movie Bride Wars.

As Jezebel said, “it's pretty offensive to anyone with a soul or a comedic sensibility. The movie is about two women who are OMG BFFS forevs, until it turns out that they have to compromise about who gets to have her dream wedding at the Plaza. Instead of compromising (because deep down, women are just catty bitches who will take any excuse to sabotage their so-called friends, particularly when it comes to a pretty princess wedding.) they duke it out for the single, perfect wedding that apparently only one of them is able to have. It's like a perfect storm of Cosmo approved clichés.”


My question is, how does a movie that so very obviously calls women insane self-centered harpies, get marketed as a “chick flick” why would we want to entertain ourselves with such a representations of ourselves?




Also, it’s really disappointing to see Anne Hathaway in this movie after how amazing she was in Rachel Getting Married.

How Divorce Screws Women …

…and kids too. I’m the last person to advocate that people who shouldn’t be together stay in a bad relationship, especially for the misguided notion that it will be better for the kids (it never is). But it (pretty unsurprisingly) turns out that it’s usually the woman (and almost always the kids) that get screwed over in a divorce.

Far from the cliché that women take their ex-husbands to the cleaners when they split, a new study from the Institute of Social and Economic Research found that the incomes of ex-husbands rose by 25 percent after divorce, while ex-wives incomes fell sharply, and 27 percent of the women in the survey wound up living in poverty (three times the rate of the ex-husbands).

The reason was usually the kids—the dads leave, and the moms (who may have left work to take care of the kids, or at least paused their careers) are left to take care of the kids on their own, add not only the new additional expense of more childcare, but subtract his contribution (and most likely ANY future contributions, the study found that only 31% of fathers actually pay child support for their children).

As many people who grew up with a dad who only occasionally made any kind of financial contribution can attest, it makes the business of making ends meet for single mother extremely difficult. The problem lies not only in the fact that so many men don’t bother to contribute to the raising of their children, it’s that the system works in their favor. So many payments can be missed before anything is done and the hassle of going to court is often more than a single working mother can swing, or even when she does, a ridiculous amount of time can pass before anything is done, and even when it is (garnished wages, warrants for arrest) it does little to help the family that needs the day to day money to survive. In I’m sure many cases (as was with my family), all of these avenues are pursued to little avail, many years pass, the family struggles by, the kids reach 18, the thousands of dollars owed are no longer worth it to the overworked system, and the guy gets another free pass.

Lady Issues

From www.katiehalper.com, f-ing brilliant!

Election..blah, blah, blah…

So I watched the last debate last night, and like the ones before it, it had a lot of not talking about the topics, saying wrong shit, and being petty. And really I feel like everyone is kind of just ready to get this over with. I mean, are people seriously still undecided? This effing thing has gone on for longer than most of my relationships. I’m ready to forget (affront to all women) Sara Pailn exists. I’m ready to stop hearing about Joe the Plumber. But just for the hell of it, here are a few notes to McCain or anyone misguided enough to think about voting for him:

1) $5,000 will buy no one health insurance any more than those $600 checks fixed the economy.

2) Not only does saying “drill, baby, drill make you sound like more of a douche than referring to yourself as a “maverick,” but offshore drilling will lower gas prices (at best) by a few cents a gallon for a very short time, and then we’ll be screwed again, not exactly a good solution.

3) As Hilary (Stratton not Clinton) pointed out, Autism does not equal Down Syndrome, and your pandering is so transparent that I can’t believe anyone would fall for it.

4) Nobody is pro abortion, people are pro choice. And for all the talk about the “rights of the unborn” maybe you should do a little more for them once they are born. Anyways, it (like most things in life) reminds me of the Simpsons…

What's Wrong this Week

There’s a lot wrong with the world. A LOT. Here are just two things this week that are particularly f-ed up:

America’s Next Top Model
Okay, so it’s been common knowledge for a while now that Trya Banks is bat shit crazy. Which is probably a large part of ANTM’s success (that and equally bat shit crazy half naked anorexic 20-year-olds). And I am a religious guilty pleasure watcher of the show. But lately I have started to feel like I must be watching the show for masochistic reasons because every episode just leaves me slightly confused/annoyed. Like this week, where they wore necklaces and underwear made out of meat and then posed next to buckets of innards and 100s of pounds beef. Because…models sometimes have to do gross stuff?? Aside from the fact that the factory farmed meat industrial complex is totally whack, wasting 100s of pounds of perfectly good food on meat panties is a more than a little pointless. I mean there are starving people that could have used those panties…

Crazy-ass women blaming Elliot Spitzer’s wife for him spending $80,000 on a hooker.

So first I was annoyed by Silda for doing the Hilary Clinton move of standing by her slezzeball husband. But why do people have to give these backwards crazy women like Laura Schlessinger and Cindy Adams a mouthpiece to set back women’s progress a couple hundred years. (Their respective views: A) He wouldn’t have done it if she would have treated him better and B) Sleeping with a hooker is really doing her a favor, it’s like getting takeout so you don’t have to cook dinner..) You have to be fucking kidding me.

The Time for Change is Now

I read this joke earlier this week (I don’t remember who wrote it), but it seems appropriate in light of the super close results of Super Tuesday:

It gave a lot of black people hope when a black man beat a white women in Iowa, but you might get in trouble if you carry that over into your life. You can’t just go around pushing white women over and saying “Our Time for Change is Now!”

But what about gently nudging them and whispering it in their ear?




And is it socially acceptable to push John McCain over?

What's Wrong with American Fashion

Crocs are still the biggest thing wrong with fashion in the world. And I would be tempted to say that the second most grossly offensive thing is the 80’s resurgence, but really it just makes me giggle. No, the second most infuriating and offensive thing in the world of fashion is undoubtedly American Apparel.

Exhibit A: Hello Ladies, American Apparel hates you, now please spend $50 on this metallic swimsuit.



1) The clothes for men, babies and children are normal and simple. The clothes offered for women are almost exclusively metallic, spandex, and hideous (as seen here)



2)You are asking for it, and if you aren’t asking for it, you should be. It’s no secret that the powers that be at AA are huge mysogistic perverts. Their ads (as seen here) feature young and underage women in unambiguous soft-core porn poses. And the sexual harassment lawsuits from employees (senior partner Dov Charney reportedly asked a young store employee to have sex with him, exposed himself to several employees and conducted board meetings nearly nude) Oh and he also thinks that you are asking for a beating, “women initiate most domestic violence.” Charney asserts.

Exhibit B: Sure our clothes weren’t made in a sweatshop, but that doesn’t mean that we give a flying fuck about worker’s rights.

According to this article the “progressive” clothing chain that kills two hipsters’ birds with one stone (looking stupid and feeling superiorly good about ones self) hates unions almost as much as they hate women.

When American Apparel heard the news of workers wanting a union (and disputing things like no paid time off, lack of affordable healthcare, production methods, and (most shocking) treatment by supervisors) the management held captive meetings with employees, interrogating them about their union activities and sympathies, solicited employees to ask the union to return their union authorization cards and threatened to shut down the plant if the workers organized. Nice. Real “liberal.”

In a society where carrying a canvas bag proclaiming, “ I’m not a plastic bag!” seems to be the best we can hope for in the way of awareness and action, the antics and support for American Apparel is still as hideous as their clothing.

UPDATE: Ha Ha!

Isn't it Ironic?

In one of my English classes in high school we had to bring in the lyrics to a song and talk about the form and meaning like it was a poem. I brought in a Tori Amos song because I was so terribly deep and brooding.

If I had the assignment today I would like to think that I would bring in this cover of "My Humps" and explain a line by saying " I think what she's trying to say is that she would like to own the power that her body has over men and turn the patriarchal tide to use it in her favor, for wealth that she has systematically been denied."






"Also I believe that she would like us all to 'check it out'."


ps. It really does take something like this (and 12 years) to redeem Alanis for teaching a whole generation the wrong meaning of the word ironic*


*In another one of my English classes in high school we were forced to listen to Alanis Morissette's "Ironic" and write similar poems using "irony." I would of course look back now and call the exercise ironic, but I wouldn't want to mis-use the word.

Holla Back Girl

Getting catcalled is not a matter of attractiveness, it’s a numbers game. Especially in a city of 8 million, the average woman is bound to get “hollared” at sooner or later.

It becomes then a matter of points for creativity rather than existence or frequency.

I haven’t been the recipient of many catcalls since my tenure at the world’s capital began, but two of my all time favorites included:

“Hey, girl can I send you a text message?”

and

“Hey Cracker! (yelled at someone across the street as I walked in front of them) …oooh, not you- sorry about that!”

This morning however I got the old school traditional woo-woo whistle from the construction workers next to my apartment. And some said they had cleaned up their acts..
So as much as my fellow directors of the vagina monologues would hate me for saying it, at 8am, such a good morning greeting, while totally crass, can be as uplifting as the stale office coffee (it’s not what you want, but it will give you a little boost for a few minutes)