dangerous curves:the book

Since attending my first consciousness-raising group in Toronto in 1971, I’ve retained a passionate interest in the lives of women and girls. Freud might well have diagnosed me with ‘feminist intoxication delirium not otherwise specified’ or some other such affliction. These days, the aperture of my zeal is narrowing and I find myself  focusing more and more on our perilous embodiment or – to make up a word altogether – our corporeality. Maybe it has something to do with turning 60 this year, and realizing that after residing almost exclusively in the penthouse suite (my head), I hunger now to aquaint myself with all the reaches of my body whilst I still have one.

I’ve been collecting old books aimed at women (charm, beauty, etiquette etc.) for over 15 years. I now have 101 of them, and although it’s not something a well-bred girl would ever mention in polite conversation, I believe this gathering of misogynist tomes might just constitute one of largest private collections of its kind in North America.

The material in some of these books has been put to good use: Storm Clouds Over Party Shoes, Etiquette Problems for the Ill-Bred Woman was published in 1997, and ten years later almost to the day, I premiered “Charm, Beauty and Poise, Timeless Tips for Girls Who Have Let Themselves Go”, a mischievous mock etiquette lesson delivered with me dressed to thrill in a vintage off the shoulder red taffeta party dress, and sporting a 25 year old Kodak carousel slide projector.

All this time however, I have known I was only dabbling, skimming the surface of the material in my possession. Remember, I said I had 101 books…I never claimed to have read them. I’ve been very busy making my living as a full-time painter, no easy feat especially for an artist with a ‘Y’ in her chromosome inventory.  But these recessionary times have delivered an unexpected gift for me in the form of time.

So with lots more of it on my side, I’m now hard at work on a second book, working title Dangerous Curves. I am reading all 101 dalmations, trolling for passages that target the female body. In DC, I plan to unearth a section of the cultural foundation garment that has hitherto been largely overlooked by female body image researchers. I am convinced that this vintage instruction – alternating between corny and cruel – is one of the bigger smoking guns in the ‘mystery’ of women’s current corporeal unrest. I intend to connect some of the dots between past and present and thereby make the pre-post-feminist point that we haven’t come that far at all baby.

I don’t have an ETA for Dangerous Curves, but I intend it to be released during my lifetime. Getting a manuscript published is hard enough without having to do it from the Beyond. In the meantime, in the interest of public service to women, I will post to my blog any tips that I come across which I feel are in urgent need of dissemination.