Who You Callin' A Female?

I was sitting at the table watching the manicurist meticulously paint my nails, when he said something about “females.” I sucked in my breath as the words from his tongue screeched against the chalkboard of my mind.  By the time, he uttered it the third time, my ears were burning so I said, “I don’t like being called a female.” He looked at me, paused hunched up his shoulders and resumed polishing my nails. It was quiet for a few minutes, and then he asked, “What’s wrong with female?”

And I asked him “If I am simply a female, then what separates me from a dog, a cat or cow?” He said he never really thought about it. And I’m sure he didn’t because it’s so common now. But I don’t like it, and I won’t wear it because the title “female” strips me of my humanity. I don’t want to be objectified by the v-shaped space below my navel.  If being called female is ok, then why don’t we run around calling guys males?

Female is what I check on forms to distinguish me from a male. So the only time I want to be referred to as female is for statistical and identification purposes! When I was born, the doctor said, “It’s a girl!  Time and experience groomed me into into a young woman, and the tutelage of magnificent mentors blossomed me into a lady. So, why would I settle for the façade of half-dressed femininity when I can fully wear the worldliness of a woman and/or the loveliness of a lady so much better?

VICKI'S "EPIPHANIES" POETRY & PERSPECTIVES (For National Poetry Month)

 Lo gig


His game
a low gig
sleeps with me
behind closed doors

Walks deliberate steps

ahead in public

　　　
once a brick house beauty

I suck back tears

remember tender youth

pour my brittle heart

into his arms　 　frigid　 　insincere

　
he　

gives me bad sex　　 quick　 　painful

cops a crude dime and whine

for rent and cash

dines and wines another

　

thinks me

dumb and desperate

I feel

dumb and desperate

　
bite my tongue as he

bites in his talk

until need rises

then

sweet in his beg

a gigolo

who belittles

and strikes

deathing blows

to my generous

but

closing hand

 

When the Morning Comes


When the morning comes I’ll be there.

How about you?

The sweetness of love,

Afterglow of passion

Gently wakes me.

Where are you?

 
When the morning comes

I’m a woman fulfilled.

Remembrances of your touch

Linger on my body still.

What about you?

 
Remember the love I placed

Upon your face?

Where are you?

When the morning comes

I stretch my body fully

With eyes still closed,

I reach for you.

Hunger sends me to you again,

Body aching, soul crying

 
Where are you?

When the morning comes,

find you’ve left me alone.

Can’t take no more

Mornings without you.

Need your early morning love

Want to kiss you caress you,

Feed you my dew fresh kiss.

 
But where are you?

When the next morning comes

I’m ready for the pain.

When the next morning comes

I’ll learn to love again.

The sweetness of love shared

Lies in ruins, no more with you.


I’m stronger now, decision made

I no longer ask where are you

When the morning comes.


Excerpted from
"More of Life's Spices: Seasoned sistahs keepin' it real"

Release date May, 2013

For more info visit: www.nubianimagespublishing.com


Vicki Ward
Bio:
Vicki Ward’s essays and poetry appeared in several anthologies and collections. A former entertainment writer, covering live concerts, and stage plays, her literary focus shifted to writing books about women’s needs and concerns. She edited Life’s Spices from Seasoned Sistahs, an award winning anthology from the voices of mature women of color. She followed that releasing Savvy, Sassy and Bold after 50, a handbook for maturing women packed with financial, health, and retirement strategies for women reaching midlife. Ward has also presented empowerment workshops at women’s conferences and universities. Now retired, she writes full time focused on strategies to empower maturing women to navigate a new phase of their lives.

Her anthology Life’s Spices from Seasoned Sistahs received the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Award, The Bronze Award from the Independent Publishers Association, and Best Anthology from the Los Angeles Black Book Expo. Savvy Sassy and Bold after 50 received the Best Women’s Self Help Book Award, and an Honorable Mention from the Northern California Publishers and Authors.

 

 

The Scandalousness of Scandal – Part 2

I’m a Gladiator! Scandal is definitely my guilty pleasure TV because I make sure that I don’t schedule anything on Thursdays so that I can watch the episodes as they air. So, when a friend of mine texted me recently on a Thursday and he said he’d talk with me later, and I reminded him that he had to talk BEFORE or AFTER Scandal; my girl friend and I talk about the show  during the commercials. 

My guy friend doesn’t like Scandal. An afro-centric militant black man, he doesn’t like race mixing between us and our former enslavers. So, the storyline of Olivia Pope and the President getting it on is a taboo topic for him. We get into this discussion about real-life interracial coupling, and he shares his disdain for Blacks who date Becky or Brad (his names for white people). And while black on black love brings a smile to his face, he is also accepting of blacks having relationships with people of color. 

And while I get his point of solidarity as it relates to oppression and people of color, the unique position of the history of African Americans in this country, can make inter-racial dating even with other people of color problematic because too many black folks are still fascinated by “other.” This disturbing fascination with people who “look mixed, look better” continues to rear its ugly head as pretend that color doesn’t matter. In too many instances, it does.

I teach writing to middle school students. And the population is evenly split between African Americans and Hispanics. Recently, we were working on descriptive writing, I asked them to write a description of somewhat they thought was attractive, and I stressed that I wanted to see what the person looked like, so the students needed to describe physical characteristics. 

I was blown away that in 2013, paper after paper specified some variation of “light skin” “nothing darker than caramel,” “black” or “too dark”. Most of them wanted someone with “pretty eyes” meaning blue, green, grey or hazel in color. Some African-American students even went so far as to say they wanted someone Puerto Rican, Mexican or mixed so that they’d have pretty children. A lot of the boys wanted blonde, blue-eyed girls. Here are some actual excerpts from their papers.

Light skin – the color of a pale person with a tan. He has green eyes that’s kind of hazel. Hair is black, silky and smooth. 7^th grade girl African American girl

Long, blonde shinning gold hair. 7^th grade African- American boy

. . . Have to have pretty eyes. They would be either green or blue. Hispanic 7^th grade girl

They have to have . . . good hair cut with like waves cause boys with nappy hair ugly. 7^th grade African-American girl

I like girls that have light skinned, blue or hazel eyes nice attitude, dimples and long hair.” African-American Hispanic boy 7^th grade

I would like for him possibly have beautiful blue eyes . . . not boring brown eyes. Hispanic girl 7th grade

And it’s sad to say that our children learn this from us. I recently ran across the following status of an African American woman on Face book looking for a hook-up: “I like a man who is confident, responsible and goal oriented. . . Physically - I prefer men at least 6 feet tall, light skinned and average builds.”

I believe that we love who we love, but I also know that who we are attracted to is dictated by society’s standards. And as long as we think white (and anything close to it) is right, brown skinned black girls and women with dark brown eyes don’t stand a chance against the exotics. The only difference between those of yester year and those of today is now they have to have big booties—an asset that until recently was deficit or black women and girls . . . but that’s another post for another day.

We may come in every shade from alabaster to ebony, but until we stop looking for validation elsewhere and learn to love all of ourselves—colorism will continue to be a problem even in our coupling with other people of color.

Happy Birthday Barbie!

Some of my Barbies

Wow! The icon Barbie doll made her debut 54 years ago today! And like a fine wine, Barbie has definitely gotten better with time! I loved dolls and I grew up with Barbie and her counterparts. I had Barbie, her boyfriend Ken, PJ, her black friend Christie and Christie’s boyfriend Brad. Barbie and Company was an essential part of my childhood.

 I had all types of dolls. I had baby dolls to play Mommy and Barbies to play Grown Up. I had Julia, the African-American nurse from the TV Show Julia's character. Even though the character was a widow, I borrowed my neighbor's GI Joe when Julia needed a date. I entertained myself with  Barbie and friends well into my teen years. And alas, when I had to give her up along came the doll house of doll houses—the Barbie Dream House. Lucky for me I had nieces who had their own share of Barbies.  So, when they got a Barbie Dream House I could play along under the guise of playing with them—wink, wink--much like those of you who are dragging kids to the movies so you can see the remake of the Wizard of Oz. 

I’ve followed the backlash against Barbie--women who refused to let their daughters play with Barbie because of her unrealistic body measurements, and women of color who didn’t allow their daughters playing with white Barbies—all of which is supposedly tied to self-esteem and body image. Then there was the recent Face book campaign to push Mattel to make a bald Barbie to appeal to those young girls have lost their hair to cancer or alopecia. I understand the criticism against Barbie as an adult, but as a child, Barbie was simply Barbie. I played with Barbie and I don't think I suffered any damage to my self-esteem because of my doll play. 

This Barbie-under fire concept is akin to the feminist rejection of girls' infatuation with Princesses, and while I get the ideology behind the not wanting our girls to be damsels in distress waiting for a man to rescue them, I have mixed feelings about it. But I'll save my thoughts on that for another time. Today is about Barbie.

Barbie is no stranger to controversy as it is something that has followed her from the beginning. When she debuted, she was a departure from the baby doll and represented a different kind of woman who didn’t have to settle for being a homemaker and mom. Barbie was single, childless and very much independent. Barbie was and is me. 

Like Barbie, I neither married nor had children. And the substantial sized rack held up by the small back, and the small waistline is definitely me. Over the years, I always wondered why Barbie had everything but a good bra. Sure, she has some cutesy lingerie, but a bra that lifts and separates is not to be found among everything Barbie. But I understand. As a woman who looks like Barbie from the waist up, I know how hard is to find a bra that fits and perhaps that is why Barbie doesn’t have one, but more realistically because unlike me—she doesn’t need one. She is the first of her kind with a boob job, so hey! there you go.

Even now, I still have an affinity for Barbie as evidenced by the collection of Black Barbies fighting for space in my house. And I’m not the only one. There are Barbie dolls for adult collectors with numerous of sights for collectors to buy and sale Barbies. I recently watched a clip of  Barbie Man , a man in Florida who owns more than 2000 Barbies! Barbie has been around for a while, and with so much that comes and goes, it's nice to be able to hold onto a piece of something that marked the innocence of my childhood.

There are  feminists, reading this and shaking their heads. Yes, I am a feminist and I will not turn in my feminist card because there is no one-size fits all brand of feminism. Barbie and feminism represent the complexity of life, and I embrace that. So, Barbie is alright with me. Happy Birthday Barbie!

A Woman’s Breast Friend

What better way to kick off Women's History Month than by paying homage to what should be every woman's best friend - a good fitting bra!

Why is it that the one thing women should be able to count on to lift us up, often lets us down? If a dog is man’s best friend, then a bra ought to be a woman’s breast friend. But for an estimated 70 to 80 percent of us, it’s not. Bad bra wearing is so rampant that media mogul Oprah Winfrey, has devoted time and attention including a bra revolution and intervention to help address this sagging issue.

 A yahoo search for bra fitting yielded 77,900,000 thousand hits in less than 1/10^th of a second and yet despite Oprah’s dedication and the influence of the World Wide Web, the majority of us are not wearing bras that are right for us. How can you tell? Here’s how. Have you ever seen a woman whose bra band is so far up her back that she looks like she’s about to parachute out of a plane?  Or what about the woman who looks like she has four breasts or even six as she spills over the top and out of the sides of the bra cup? Susan Nethero, a professional fitter, who gives bra fitting tips on Oprah.com, offers other signs that your bras is the wrong size: cups that dimple and straps that fall down. Nethero says that exposure of the dreaded back fat can also be attributed to a bad fitting bra.

How hard is it to buy a bra? A 36C is a 36C right? Wrong! And therein lies the problem: the bra industry does not have standard sizes, so a woman who thinks she’s a 36C  maybe a 36C in one brand but wears another size in a different brand or even style of bra. Cayla Bender and Avis Zimbler, professional fitters and owners of Sally Ann Corset Shop have been in business since 1973, and they understand that the biggest misconception women have about bras is size which is especially problematic in an industry that does not have uniformity. Size is not a good gage for fit because size varies based on manufacturer, fabric, cut or style. “Size is relative to the bra. You can buy three bras in three sizes and they’ll all fit,” says Zimbler. “But everybody thinks they can have a generic fit and find the same size everywhere and it will fit.”

First located in Bridgeport, they moved to the Beverly Morgan Park Area in 1999, and business is doing well; it’s up 67 percent with one manufacturer. The seldom quiet chimes signal a steady flow of regular, new, and potential customers during the week, and on Saturdays the four dressing rooms are revolving doors for women looking for a good fit. The women crowd into the small space and wait patiently as the sisters promise to service each of them bringing bra after bra after bra, taking their time to help their customers find the right fit. “We don’t talk size, we talk fit,” Zimbler quips.

Another problem women face with buying bras is how they’re made. Quality matters. “Good bras are engineered, Bender says."Places like the big box stores sell bras that just look pretty hanging on the hangers -- fit doesn't take first place." Bender and Zimbler say they’re part of a dying breed. “We’re like dinosaurs. There are very few of us left,” Bender says. And that’s unfortunate because wearing an improperly fitted bra is not just a matter of style; it benefits our health as well.

Charles Newman, a professional massage therapist can tell if a client wears ill fitting bras. “When I see or feel deep underwire indentions, or deep ridges from shoulder straps and redness or red lines around the back, I suspect an improperly fitted bra.” Newman also says that wearing bras that are too tight do not allow the breasts to breathe. “A good fitting bra does not impede circulation and lymphatic drainage.”

Our breasts change as we change, so we needed to be fitted regularly. “The best sag and drag prevention is a well fitted bra,” says Newman.

Sally Ann Corset Shop 10501 S. Western. 773-298-1031. www.sallyanncorsetshop.