The New Ladies of Leisure

I was watching an episode of a new MTV show called Awkward recently. In a scene involving a mother-daughter party, an angst-ridden teenage girl described a group of mothers who fit into the mean-girl-turned-trophy wife category. "These women don't work, they work out," the teenager said. As this line was uttered, the women were admiring the toned and tanned biceps of their hostess. It made me think about how the physical traits of status have evolved over the centuries.

On a visit to the Cairo Museum when I was 12, I saw statues of Prince Rahotep and Princess Nofret, each sitting on a throne. Our tour guide explained that the prince was tanned because as a man he was outside, working (or overseeing the slaves); the princess statue was very pale, because a woman of such status did not labor in the sun. I remember thinking at the time how everybody where I lived was tan...on purpose! In fact, the tanner you were, the cooler you were. What a difference a few millennia can make.

Now, as evidenced by the characters on the MTV show and others, women with defined musculature are the modern picture of status. But it's not because they are perceived to be in better health, or admired for their athletic prowess. Rather, it is because a sculpted physique infers an excess of leisure time. Bodies like these require significant time to achieve...and usually money to pay for gym membeships, personal trainers, and trendy private classes.

Take a look at most of those "Real Housewives" shows; those women are competitive in seeing who can lay claim to the most spin classes in one week (in between comparing shoe closets, fancy cars, and private jets). The Bar Method classes I attend have a reputation for attracting this distinct demographic of women. They work out 5 days per week, morning and afternoon, in a different matching designer outfit each class. There's no denying how fit they are, and that in itself is undeniably admirable. Physiques like theirs require committed effort. If I didn't have a job I'm sure I'd work out a lot more. And there's my point.

When a celebrity like Victoria Beckham or Kate Hudson is photographed six weeks after giving birth and already has her figure back to swimsuit model perfection, most of us have the same reactions. First we ask, "How did she lose the weight already?" Then we concede, "Well if I had a couple million in the bank, three nannies, and no job responsibilities, I could spend six hours a day with my personal trainer, too. And then I'd look like that."



Ergo, a thin, muscular body equals leisure time and wealth. Check out actress Julie Bowen's biceps from Sunday night's Emmy Awards. This is the what women in their 30s and beyond are striving for (visible sternum notwithstanding), which is quite different from even my mother's generation.

But as with any good symbol of status, there can be a backlash that follows. A professional woman and mom of three once made an underhanded comment to me that I have the luxury to work out because I don't have children. In reality, I am forced to work out because if I don't I will be in constant pain from a twisted, crooked spine. How odd that I have to defend my habit of exercise. I didn't know if I should be offended by her comment, or impressed that she thought I was so well-off to be able to lead such a luxurious lifestyle of leisure.

While I can't deny the high that comes with a particularly effective workout, I still occasionally long to live just one week in the baroque period, when the height of beauty was having a plump rump. It was an era where leisure time was spent lounging around eating grapes, and not by logging hours on a treadmill.

The Significance of You

Fellow generational blogger JenX67 recently wrote a really smart piece about how her many pairs of Nikes have carried her through the various stages of her life. It immediately reminded me of an old Nike ad I’d torn out of a magazine 20 years ago. It was eight pages long—unheard of in the typical rules of brevity in advertising—and began with the phrase, “You were born a daughter.”






It replayed some of the desires and dreams girls all have when we're little.

























It evolved through many of the typical insecurities girls go through growing up.



No matter what you went through, the ad touched on it. You were included.



When I first saw it, I was 19 years old; I had no boyfriend, no job, had dropped out of college and had just moved back in with my parents. I didn’t know what the heck to do with my life. My ideas changed daily but were backed by no real motivation. I was living in a new town and didn’t know anyone.



And then finally...




"You became significant to yourself."






Yesterday I did a quick Google search for phrases from the ad. I was amazed to find other blogs mentioning it, other women talking about how they, too, had ripped out and saved that ad. One talked about taping it to her wall where it stayed for years…and then dozens of her readers commented that they had also ripped, taped, and saved.

This was a brilliant campaign, not just because we all remembered the slogan of JUST DO IT, but because we internalized the core message. It successfully appealed to the deep motivational pit in the souls of women across America, from teenager to middle age. Apparently even Oprah herself read it on an episode of her show.

It was written by then-32-year-old copywriter Janet Champ, whose message was that women who take responsibility for everyone else needed to take care of themselves. Later Nike ads written by Champ (how perfect of a name is that?) further championed the power within women while simultaneously challenging outdated beliefs on the capabilities of women. Not only did she inspire the athlete within us, she inspired legions of burgeoning writers, myself included. Don Draper could learn a thing or two from this chick!

Over the years when I'd rediscover the pages in my notebook, I would mentally check off the items in the copy that I’d reached in my life thus far. If I found that I’d reached another one, I think it reassured me that maybe my life wasn’t so off track after all, that I was just running through the normal milestones at my own pace. Many times the ad's message was in the back of my mind when I made a major life decision; when I ended that relationship that felt too confining, when I enrolled in graduate school at 37, when I started putting my writing out there for the world to see.

I think that becoming significant to yourself has different meanings at different ages. Early on it means finding your voice, standing up for yourself. Later it means letting go of outside influences and negative peers, following your dreams. Later still it can mean regaining an independence you might have set aside for years when you chose to devote your energies to family.

In any instance, it's a profound realization to make the commitment to be significant to yourself...for the first time, or once again.

"Because you know it's never too late to have a life. And never to late to change one."

Reality Check$

As a kid in the 1970s and ‘80s, there were a lot of different things I wanted to be when I grew up. First I thought I’d be an Olympic gymnast, then a flight attendant, psychologist, and finally a news anchor.

While my friends and I actually wanted to have “normal” careers, so many girls today have only one ambition: to become famous on a reality show. It makes me want to bang my head on my desk.

They don’t care what they have to do, whether it’s eating a live slug, cat-fighting with 19 other women over some single guy they just met, or living with a houseful of other ill-behaved, scantily-clad drunk girls vying to see who among them is the most ill-behaved. All that matters is that they do it on TV, consequences be damned.

There’s even a dreadful pop song by the Pussycat Dolls about this very topic. Some lyrics:

When I grow up
I wanna be famous
I wanna be a star
I wanna be in movies

When I grow up
Be on TV
People know me
Be on magazines

Ok, I admit that part of the reason I wanted to be a news anchor was because I wanted to be on TV. But I had every intention of going to college, actually studying hard and obtaining a degree in a legitimate subject, and working for the privilege of seeing my face on the evening news. It never occurred to me that I could bypass all that pesky educational stuff and make a profitable living merely by donning a push-up bra and behaving like a selfish entitled brat.

On one episode of MTV’s “True Life” show, a 19-year-old was bummed out because her parents were on her case because she didn’t have a job and wasn’t in school. She just lived at home, went out with friends, and ... I don’t know what else, not much. But she had big dreams: her goal was to be in Maxim magazine. So she found a sleazy photographer whom she paid several hundred dollars to do a “photo shoot” so she could send the shots to Maxim. Because, as we all know, this is all it takes to become a famous model.

The poor girl couldn’t even formulate a sentence without using “like” four or five times and she still never got a real point across. But nothing was going to stand in the way of her dream, certainly not lack of communication in her native tongue.

Now I’ve got a confession
When I was young I wanted attention
And I promised myself that I’d do anything
Anything at all for them to notice me

I don’t know who I’m most annoyed at: the girls with no ambition, their parents for not having a lick of influence over them, or the people who invented reality television in the first place. What I do know, though, is that listing “last girl standing from Bad Girls Club, season 5” on a resume isn’t going to push anyone over the top for that law clerkship job. Those appearance paychecks run out quickly, but the after effects of many of those shows linger far longer than their participants might prefer. The public’s collective memory is quite clear and has a penchant for remembering embarrassing detals for years.

Unbelievably, I would have to agree with the Pussycat Dolls here...

Be careful what you wish for
Cuz you just might get it
You just might get it
You just might get it.