“Such an interesting book,” Mum said.
I was incurious about why she foundMy Mother/My Self so interesting. Nor was I interested in her advice that jobs such as teaching,optometry and dentistry were “good” for women because they were secure and the hours family friendly. I did not see a steady job or even a family,really,on my limitless horizon.
And I recoiled from her affectionately brutal assessment of men that drew little distinction between the Russian soldiers she had managed to dodge as they raped their way through Eastern Europe in the aftermath of WWII,and the blokes who ran their eyes down my teenage body as we strolled down Glenferrie Road. Men were “bastards” until proven otherwise. I fancied myself sexually “empowered”,more than equipped to handle men. I stuck to this line even as experience began to tilt the evidence in Mum’s favour.
Now I’m reaching that juncture where a woman starts to think of herself as the sum of all the compromises she’s made,or been forced to make. Short on income because she’s worked part-time or not at all since having children. Or she’s missed out on having children. Or she’s had low-paying jobs. Or she’s been traded in by her “bastard” husband.
Most days I seethe with a rage I can barely articulate.
“I’m reading this book,” I told my 14-year-old in the car,a few weeks ago. “It’s calledHags:The Demonisation of Middle-Aged Women. It’s radicalised me.”
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“You were already radicalised,Mum,” she quipped,eyes glued to her phone.
InHags,Victoria Smith writes from the perspective of women like me,Generation X-ers,the direct beneficiaries of gains made by second-wave feminists of the 1960s and 70s. In our youth we X-ers talked about “empowerment,” affected irony and assumed we’d out-liberate our mothers at work,and at home.
But now we’re middle-aged;losing what Smith refers to as the three Fs:“fertility,femininity and f---ability.” Now it’s our turn to wear the age-old slur of “hag”,“witch”,or a contemporary variant such as“Karen”.
Smith argues this misogynist contempt for older women and the ridiculing of their views – often at the hands of younger women – enables regressive beliefs to be recast as progressive. It also harms younger women because they’re likewise destined to end up on the so-called wrong side of history.
Mum’s prosthesis sat in the wardrobe for months. Then by chance I caught aninterview on ABC radio. A woman,Heather Tait from the NSW south coast,was calling for donations of prosthetic breasts for post-operative women in Fiji. During her frequent holidays to the island Tait had met rural women so poor they couldn’t afford such things. One had been blowing up balloons to stick in her bra so she could fit into clothes.
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Many women don’t have the luxury of hiding their wounds.
I knew Mum would endorse Tait’s firmly practical gesture of sisterhood.
My hands shook at Australia Post as I stuffed the shimmering mass into a padded envelope,the lady behind the counter watching me. It felt like I was packaging the last piece of Mum. But I am Mum. When I look at myself naked,it’s her middle-aged body I see.
“It’s OK,” the lady said gently. “Take your time.”
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