Why Don't Girls Come of Age as Often as Boys?

Anna C. said...

I've been pondering why "holden caufield" lived and "esther greenwood" died.

Two coming of age novels, Roman a clefs really, why did the woman barely make it out of her 20's and stick her head in an oven (Sylvia Plath), while the man lives on in god-like isolation, still worshiped though he hasn't published a thing in decades? (it's all kept in a safe in his hermitage in the backwoods of New England, I've read. When he dies, the safe will be opened and out will pour pure gold, or maybe just empty Reese's peanut butter cups n Oodles of Noodles packets)I won't mention his name he'll probably sue me as i'm sure he's copywrited his own name, as well as every sentence he's ever written, including letters TO friends and lovers. The nerve.

Am I bitter? About so few girls' stories being told, I mean. Not anymore. Because I'm going to be too busy. I've survived. Mostly by hiding in bed with the covers over my head. But damn it, I'm still here and I've got a duty, a mission...a messiah complex?

Impossible. I have no penis. How could I be a Messiah? Or even have the delusion of being one? Sometimes it's safer to be a girl.

But now I feel I need to speak for my sisters who didn't make it. The losers, misfits, rebels...the brave ones? The unlucky ones? ...suicides, overdoses, car wrecks, looney bins...
Survivors' guilt maybe. Why DID I make it? I think it has a lot to do with my decision to have cats and not children. The stress of taking care of young ones, when things start to fall apart...I can't imagine how mothers do it-- I am in awe of them.

Mad Men ---that tv series set in the complacent USA 1950's is supposed to be set in the past.

It's 2009. So why does Sylvia Plath's terror of being a 1950's Stepford Wife still resonate so strongly?

Splog (Anna Banana Split Log)

I realized I can't keep doing "under 430-word" posts on my Facebook wall... I need to write and it's pouring out like too much fucking whipped cream on an otherwise perfect banana split.