An Ode to New Womanhood.

The new woman: an ode.

Dear, sweet sisters, let me start by saying thank you for using plastic applicator tampons. Deep undersea, a cloud of white oblong tubes swells and sighs, then settles on the ocean floor. . . a permanent plastic shrine to a moment of your intimate convenience. Like a cloud of lily petals, your plastic applicators turn and tumble with grace. Thank you for choosing “silk glide” plasticity over the intruding brutality of your own finger. Thank you for being in terror of your own juices, in fear of your own vulgar meats. Thank you, new woman, for your fastidiousness.

Thank you, new woman, new liberated woman, for your toilet seat coverings, precisely manufactured from pulped, waxed and bleached trees. Thank you for demanding these toilet seat covers, so that your buttocks might never touch the same plastic as another’s buttocks. New Woman, what better destiny for the spreading thicket, the arms of forests, than a sheath for your perfect, untouched, superior buttocks? Thank you for your exemplary cleanliness.


Thank you new woman, for reclaiming the prerogative of the village healer through Whole Foods endcaps and “aromatherapy candles.” Thank you for taking back the power men stole from us and giving me organic eye-shadow. Thank you for reviving the words “spurious,” and “cupping,” ear candles, homeopathy. New woman, for your astrology—sweet, sweet exotic and marketable astrology, I thank you. What guidance could I possibly have found in this male-dominated patriarchal society if not for your sisterhood bookstores, your Mother Jones classified ads, your leftist vibrator boutiques? All hail the new Woman, for she is Healer, Witch, wise crone, herbalist, amazon.com preferred shipper and keeper of arcane knowledge.

Oh, new woman, OHHH!--let me thank you again for the sex toys. Masturbation no longer means “shallow, meaningless auto-gratification”—thank you, new woman, because of you, masturbation is “empowerment.” Masturbation is something I choose—not the default setting of loneliness, a bad personality or ugliness. Thank you for training me to make myself come—men cannot be taught or trusted to do so. Men and their five minutes of kissing, their too-fast pulses of pearl jam can’t possibly please the new women. She is a sex goddess, a sex machine-- thus only a machined, motorized, brightly colored vinyl fuck-stick pleases her.

A woman’s natural mate is not a pork-sworded, complex, stinky meat-slab, a woman’s proper mate is a motorized, hot-pink, bunny-shaped piece of silicone. All hail the multi-orgasmic new woman! Lo, how she hath nobly gotten her groove back all over a bouncy chew toy. All hail her pussy you may ejaculate inside of again and again without unseemly odor or pregnancy! All hail her jerking off alone with a blue plastic bird while her callous mate showers or snores! Hip hip! Hurray! New Woman wins again!

Thank you, sister new women, new WOMYN, for radical feminism. Thank you for officially codifying, reinforcing and re-defining all male stereotypes about women under a new brand. Thank you for “eco-feminism,” that no one might think of earnest, womanly workers for the earth without snickering-- therefore we can go on working un-noticed and un-funded. Thank you for the “stay-at-home-mom” that command-within-a-role, for that we all thank you.

New Woman! I hail you and your tamed body- waxed, toned, proana, promia, all hairs under direction, fat liposucted, controlled! I hail your amphetamines and lap-band surgeries! Your implicit trust of all advertisements, your sweet innocent acceptance of images of other human bodies, your naïve and adorable striving to be and look and feel just like the woman in pictures, forever.

Hail “Seasonale”! Hail “Yaz”! Viva “Norplant” and “Nuvaring.” You are truly a pioneer—turning your body into a machine. Turning fertility on and off like a light! Today’s lady doesn’t take orders from her menstrual lining-- she’s the one giving the orders! On our marks, get set. . . Menstruate! Ovulate! Now quick—conceive! Ready. . . set. . . give birth! She, and only she, controls each of her functions with a pink pill, an injected wash of proteins, hormones and enzymes are her handmaidens. New womankind has total medical and technological mastery over her fully submissive body. Her body is the Conception Clubhouse--no boys allowed! Should science prove impotent, and New Woman accidentally conceives—it’s cool, because she has also preserved her “choice.”

Oh, new Woman, this most serious capital C, I especially hail your Choice, your Right to Choose-- the abortions you crave, the privacy you deserve. The only moral abortion is your abortion, good New Woman, good New Wife; you are free to return to the pro-life picket lines as soon as you’ve cleared the recovery room. No one will rat you out to daddy or hubby. Choice! It’s your choice! You don’t even have to TELL the poor sucker who knocked you up before you clean out that womb. It’s YOUR choice, girls, not HIS!

You and only you, have the power of giving life or choosing death. You can always light a “focus” aromatherapy candle. Play some Alanis or Cat Power “post-procedure,” groove on Ani after the “appointment.” Buy a new iPod docking station or some weed and forget about it, kiddo! Hip hip Hurray! Pink is back! Glitter and marabou are back—heels and pointy toes are back, but now we wear them not just to balls, but to work! YES! You can get lumps inserted into your humps. You can get lumps taken out of your humps. You can- truly- have it, ALL: big tits, perfect teeth, voluptuous lips, wide eyes, unlined skin, thick hair, no hair, all these. Woman’s bodies are more beautiful and powerful than ever—slitted and sewn-tight faces, stitched and tightened vaginas, fat suctioned out, ribs cracked off and removed, broken and re-molded jaws, cheekbones and noses, metal and glue and ceramic and silicone inserts under her skin.



This is the dream of the New Woman. Corsets are back, but it’s because we like them now! Nipped-in waists and missile-tits are more popular than ever! Now we get to dress like the 50’s, not have to dress like the 50’s! We’ve come a long way, baby. The New Woman, she is verily—A Superwoman. Isn’t it so much better than the dumb old days, you know: reclining nude in moist brothels, or posing up on that pedestals. . . so much better than the rule of thumb, the barefoot and pregnant days, when they called us the weaker sex?