R2

By Yip Yi Ling



Hollywood has long insinuated that all we need to make it big in this world are good looks, triple digit IQs, and a fat pay cheque. What they don’t show on screen is that every protagonist has a good dose of charm, impeccable timing, and the benefit of the director saying, “Cut!” in order for them to live successfully and get through the movie in one piece.

What of us lesser mortals who never have to recite from scripts? We don’t go through fantasy lives the way celebrities do, but we are just normal citizens and sometimes wish our lives would bear some semblance to a Hollywood blockbuster. The media complies with this desire of ours only too easily and lulls us into the false belief that the people starring in movies and TV shows are a truthful representation of what we should look like and act. Thus, we try to emulate those ideals we see on our TV sets, harboring the hope that perhaps, we too can mirror such perfection.

Unfortunately, it would seem to many that Mother Nature is not kind and neither is she fair, as she appears to lavishly endow a select few with intelligence, beauty or talent, while stripping others bare. We fall short of the flawlessness we had tried to achieve and develop an acute self-consciousness about our supposed deficiencies. Some of us may finally realize that it is futile to compare ourselves to plastic Hollywood starlets, but then we just start turning to the people around us and decide that they too have qualities far superior to our own…haven’t we all caught ourselves moaning, at sometime or another, “I wish I was more like…” ?

It only goes to show that almost everybody on this planet has yearned to be in someone else’s shoes. Not only is the grass on the other side greener, but there are daffodils sprouting there as well. A friend of mine, for example, can’t stop comparing herself with other people, lamenting the fact that she didn’t have a boyfriend, or wasn’t pretty enough. When she did get a boyfriend, she was always insecure about herself and her ability to attract him. When he finally broke up with her, she crumbled completely and couldn’t bring herself to look at anyone else for fear that she wasn’t good enough for them.

Fortunately, this particular friend of mine had the support of her university classmate, who told her to turn a deaf ear to her harsh inner critic and taught her how to focus on her good points instead of her bad. Upon meeting and befriending my friend’s classmate, I found her to be vivacious and honest with herself. She had no qualms about bringing up her own past mistakes and laughing heartily about how incredibly stupid she was, but on the other hand, never does she try to play down her achievements. She does not quite have the looks of Angelina Jolie, and struggles hard to pass her examinations, just like every other university student. Nevertheless, she exudes a certain distinction which leads the people around her to believe that she lives a fruitful existence.

Individuals such as my friends classmate have great self-esteem and self-worth. They are confident in their skins, which in turn makes everyone else believe in them. Even quiet people may have a fair dose of self-esteem in them, silently contented with themselves as a whole, instead of trying to steal the limelight or show the world that they have something to prove. People with healthy self esteems don’t let society’s lofty standards rule their lives, and are perfectly capable of saying “no” when faced with certain matters that may be potentially harmful to oneself, such as destructive relationships.

Most of us tend to convince ourselves that we never will be good enough, and we continue to subconsciously undermine our own capabilities, keeping ourselves in a rut that holds us back from achieving our full potential…but everyone goes through difficulties and trying times, and even people with high self esteem do sometimes doubt themselves. It is just that people who are confident enough know that they will eventually bounce back after a tough trial, and are capable of handling criticism that may follow failure.

In conclusion, self esteem isn’t about bloated and blind confidence in your own capabilities. It is about knowing two things. One is that ultimate perfection doesn’t exist, so we should never set un-natural high standards for ourselves to follow. The other is that people with self-esteem persevere not necessarily because they're better, but because they know they've got something and they can only get somewhere by trying again. The difference is sticking at it in spite of fear that makes them strong, and that’s all it takes.

THE MISERABLE GIRL'S TOP 9 MYTHS ABOUT SELF-ESTEEM (in no particular order)

By Sharanya Manivannan



Myth #1. An ego is a bad thing.
An ego doesn’t have to be a negative thing; there are times when a stubborn ego is the very opposite of bad self-esteem. Few among us are lucky enough to never have to experience circumstances when all our external support systems collapse and we’re left confronting our challenges solo. These are the times when a synonym for ‘ego’ is ‘courage’; there is bullishness and there us bravery, as long as you can tell the difference, it doesn’t matter what others perceive it as. It’s egos, after all, that give people what it takes to try to publish novels, attend auditions, apply to (or drop out of) top-notch colleges. Sometimes what you think of as your ego’s voice is just your guardian angel’s on caffeine.

Myth #2. I deserve my fate.
The idea of fate can be quite a romantic one. Unfortunately, it can also be poisonous to your sense of ambition – whether that means aspiring beyond mediocrity, or beyond unbearable misery. In the face of overwhelming trial, it often becomes easy to attribute things to predestination, karma (or call it what it you will) and simply give up. Culturally and religiously, too, some of us have been indoctrinated into thinking that the universe (or whatever force) has it in for us. At our lowest points, the idea is tempting, offering the perfect excuse to not climb back on that ladder and keep reaching. But that’s exactly what this is – an excuse. And you wouldn’t want to become an accomplice to a self-fulfilling prophecy, would you?

Myth #3. You either have good self-esteem or you don’t.
Nobody is born über-confident. Every baby is as equally helpless as the next, and it’s the manner in which we are nurtured that makes a difference in how we perceive ourselves. While our early socialization is important, it is not set in stone. The most powerful, and seemingly fulfilled, women in today and in the past, if you care to look attentively, are those who have overcome severe adversity, not those who have had things handed to them in silver platters – Oprah Winfrey was nearly sent to a juvenile prison as an adolescent; JK Rowling endured acquiescing to her parents’ career choice as a secretary (which she hated), a broken marriage resulting in single parenthood, and unemployment before she hit the big time. It isn’t the cards we are dealt that count, but how we play them. A faulty deck, so to speak, could still yield many aces.

Myth #4. It’s not love if it doesn’t hurt.
This one is especially tough, because those who feel this way tend to do so because of past experiences, which cannot be undone. Sometimes the oldest cliches ring truest – you must learn to love yourself before you can expect to be loved, and once you learn that, never settle for receiving any less than what you yourself are willing to give. It’s a painful process, but not moving toward change is more damaging still. Sometimes it’s best to cut your losses, chalk it up to experience, write it off as an anecdote and move on. And next time, sweetie, don’t be afraid to be a little more demanding – after all, you’re worth it!

Myth #5. Good things come to those who wait.
And better things come to those who don’t! This, too often, is just a method of procrastination brought on by fear of failure, rejection, or worse. Fact is that life is short, and there’s no such thing as a bad time to do a good thing. Remember, there’s a fine line between patience and pure procrastination. Potential has a shelf life. Use it or lose it.

Myth #6. It’s too late.
Potential has a shelf life, certainly, but why stamp an expiry date on yourself without first testing it? It can be discouraging to see how much of a headstart others may have had, but don’t forget that it isn’t uncommon for today’s prodigy to become tomorrow’s has-been. The harder you struggle for something, the sweeter and more deserved the reward. Just because you missed one train doesn’t mean the next one will never come along. And remember, revolutionaries are known to take their own sweet time ripening – Grandma Moses only began to paint in her late 70’s, Rukmini Devi Arundale only started to learn Bharatnatyam at the age of 32, and Penelope Fitzgerald only took to writing at 60 – but won the Booker prize by 63!

Myth #7. Material independence equals positive self-esteem, as does success, beauty or popularity.
Those of us who fool ourselves this way tend to be exceptionally good at it. The brilliant grades, the impressive career, the exciting social life, perhaps even good looks -- we have most, if not all of it. But hidden insecurity can be just as damaging as acknowledged insecurity, and it manifests itself in a variety of ways – as over-competitiveness, defensiveness and bullying, for example. If you suffer from this, may we suggest that a little internal inventory may be order? If you don’t suffer from this, then the next time you delude yourself into a spot of wistful envy, think again. It may not just be PMS that’s making that Ms. Thing you’re so very jealous of so very very supremely bitchy…

Myth #8. God will save me regardless of my efforts.
God will save you. But somehow we just get the impression than S/He gets a little annoyed by those who don’t understand that S/He would much rather help those who try to help themselves rather than constantly run to the rescue of those who abide by Myth #2 (see above). Girlfriend, by all means trust in God, but don’t neglect to lock your frocking car!

Myth #9. Support is essential.
As painful as it is, sometimes those whom we expect to always have our best interests at heart reveal themselves to be the most unfaithful traitors. Sure, that’s a dramatic way of putting it – but as anyone who’s been there will tell you, few things are as frightening as struggling against the tide. Not many of us have tasks as monumental as Joan of Arc’s or Mother Teresa’s, but most of us at some point – sometimes by sheer virtue of our gender, even today – will find ourselves at odds with the bent of the grain. Cultivating a healthy system of inner strength is a far more purposeful tool than the uneasy comfort of being on the right side of public opinion. Often, what we ask for isn’t support, it’s simply approval. Everybody needs a crutch some time. But once you find your own balance, you’ll also find that sometimes, a crutch is no more than an accessory – nice, but not necessary.

Hey bitch

By Emily Tan

“Hey bitch, why did God make you so ugly?” I look up reluctantly from my book and at the smug, ugly expression leering down at me.

“I said bitch, why did God make you so ugly?”

That’s me, ugly, bitchy, and phenomenally unpopular. Guys fought for the position furthest from me. Girls made a point of telling me I was so not invited. My few friends pitied me and my only constant companion was my dog, who liked me because I was a bitch.

That’s what the world told me. That’s what I fought to disbelieve. And I won.

Self-esteem has to be earned, step by painful step. It’s not something that can be given to you, it’s not something you’re born with. It is a slow process of getting to know yourself inside and out, beauty and flaws alike, and accepting who you are. Then comes the hard part, you have to love yourself despite it all.

For the most part, back in those dark days of high school, I had no self-esteem. None. My confidence was a façade I clung to for the sake of pride. When people were nasty to me, I wasn’t even really hurt because a part of me believed that I didn’t deserve any better.

Fortunately, although self-esteem cannot be given to you, it can be learnt and books were my teachers. At first, I buried myself in them as a form of escapism, borrowing someone else’s life for a few brief hours in an attempt to flee my own. But gradually, I found myself clinging to certain stories reading them over and over again.

Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle In Time’s Meg spoke to me of being shunned, unattractive and insecure, yet incredibly special and filled with unrealised potential. That it is possible to be misunderstood for now because of circumstances and the expectations of others.

The Emily trilogy by L.M. Montgomery was exceptionally dear to me. As much for the wisdom and understanding as for a protagonist that bore my name. Montgomery taught the power of creating a world of beauty for yourself that no one could take away from you. To be at peace with yourself and not need the raucous company of others drown yourself out. To enjoy being alone instead of fearing it. This helped me get through years and years of lonely recesses and free periods. Remember that girl who ate alone, and had no one to talk to in class? That was me.

When I was 16, I believed that if only I was beautiful, everything would be alright. This fantasy degraded to a belief that a boyfriend would “show them all” and grant me the self-confidence I so craved. But my books screamed at me that there was no external answer to my problem. That a relationship involves two very needy people and multiplies your problems instead of solving them. That the time when you need a man, is the last time you should get one.

Another valuable tool I learnt from literature was the ability to self-evaluate. Every now and then I take myself apart as fairly and objectively as possible. I look at each characteristic of my personality and I determine if I consider it to be virtue or flaw, regardless of the world’s opinion. A typical session would go, “Hmm… I’m bossy, that needs to be worked on, tact, diplomacy and patience would definitely be good things to learn. I’m also sarcastic and the world generally thinks it to be a negative trait, but I like sarcasm, I love sarcastic people, so the sarcasm I keep. But not cruel, never cruel.”

By making conscious decisions about my character, I am better able accept the person I am. It’s okay if not everyone likes me, there are people in this world who are inimical to me and I to them. It’s probably for the best that they avoid me.

I could go on listing book after book, text after text, for hundreds if not thousands have taught me and guided me through the years. But I the sum of what I’m striving to say can be found in Emerson’s essay on Self-Reliance:

“What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

My life is for itself and not for a spectacle.… Few and mean as my gifts may be, I actually am, and do not need for my own assurance or the assurance of my fellows any secondary testimony.”

“Hey bitch, why did God make you so ugly?”

Because He wanted the ugly duckling to learn how to be a swan.

A Brush with Popularity

By Elizabeth Gimbad

I remember being popular during my secondary school days.

It felt great. I had a clique of friends, younger students who looked up at me and a couple of cushy positions in several clubs and societies. My social calendar was packed with after-school activities, shopping trips and parties. In school, I would sit around with my friends and talk gossip. Knowing that I was popular gave me a heady sensation which went to my head. It gives one something like a sense of power.

I must have been fourteen at that time. A little shy, slightly uncertain, I was willing to go with the flow and follow my friends’ leads. I was afraid out sticking out in the crowd like a sore thumb, of being different. I think all of us were afraid of being singled out in anyway.

Popularity, as wonderful as it seems and feels as first, isn’t all that great. Some of my friends were fearful of waking up one day and finding that someone else has taken their place, of discovering that they weren’t that popular anymore. Others found out that being popular made you vulnerable to a lot of backbiting and vicious gossip.

Gossip, as the old excuse goes, is a woman’s thing. It is natural for a woman to gossip, if she didn’t, it would be unnatural. Popular conversation starters at parties often begin with, did you know what so-and-so did? Or have you heard about what X is doing? Variations along that same line.

Most of our everyday school conversations began the same way. Did you hear about A getting busted by Cikgu B for smoking in the toilet? No? Let me tell you more. Or if you did hear that story, the gossiper would say, ah, but you didn’t hear this part.

As the days went by, the stories got racier and racier. A whiff of a juicy rumour could send some friends running, trying to track a story down. One of my friends built up an impressive network of contacts for the sole purpose of hearing gossip. News, we used to boast, flies faster around our school compared to the internet.

I know people who have made up nasty rumours about others out of sheer boredom. The was an instance when a girl decided to pass around a piece of paper asking everyone to write down what they didn’t like about a certain classmate. I was out of the class at that time but I saw the paper a few hours later and was able to recognize some of the handwriting. Her friends had completely tore her into shreds, leaving her no dignity whatsoever. One entry criticized her dressing. Another implied that she was illegitimate. When the girl found out about that piece of paper, she was very, very hurt and refused to speak to us for a while. As far as I remember, no one owned up to that incident.

Looking back, I wonder why did we create and spread such vicious rumours. Was it out of spite or sheer jealousy? I guess that I will never find out.

Sometime ago, I bumped into the girl who passed around the sheet of paper. After talking for a while, I remembered that incident and mentioned to her. “So why did you do it?” I asked.

She frowned for a while trying to remember. Then her brow cleared. “Oh, that. It wasn’t me,” she answered confidently. “It was someone else.”

The human memory is an unreliable machine.

It horrifies me now, the things that I have done. Although I may not have participated actively in the gossip and back stabbing, I did a fair bit of listening and there were times when I could have stood up for other people but I didn’t.

I must have been sixteen when I saw popularity for what it was. I was tired of the constant socializing, of using my sarcasm as a means of protecting myself, of listening to the same stories day after day. I hated the constant back stabbing, the vicious gossip, the shallowness of it all. More than half of the girls had a personal vendetta against each other yet when they met each other, they hugged and kissed each other’s check as if they were the best of friends. I hated it all and I hated myself for being a part of it.

And so, I decided to distance myself. Instead of sitting with them during my free periods, I did my mathematics homework and talked to the guys sitting around me.

My friends were confused at first. One by one, they would sit next to me and ask if there was anything wrong. I am taking a step back, I told them. They didn’t understand so they slowly drifted back. While my back was turned, I could hear them whispering and speculating.

To my close friends and boyfriend, I was more honest. I just can’t stand it anymore, I told them. The pettiness, the shallowness, everything. There is a bigger picture out there which they aren’t seeing and don’t care about.

But does the bigger picture matter at this stage? I mean, we are only in secondary school. Things like that don’t matter until we are working, some of them told me.

But they matter to me, I replied.

I heard some of the rumours and speculations about my self imposed “exile”. Some said that I fought with one of the girls, others spitefully said that I didn’t need friends anymore now that I was dating. I laughed at the last one. By that time, I realized that I could live without friends like them.

And so, my popularity waned. I still had a group of friends, much smaller in size but much closer; not so many juniors knew me and I held fewer positions but I was much happier and content.

On my bedroom table, there is a gift and certificate from my Girl Guides Society which I refuse to throw away. Written on the certificate is my name and the title of “Best Senior”. It’s a reminder that popularity is in the eye of the individual, not the general population.

Men

By Anonymous



About two summers ago, I compared finding the perfect man to finding that perfect pair of shoes. I thought I knew exactly what you’re looking for but it seems that nothing I saw so far had completed my entire mental checklist. After numerous locations, endless frustration and with or without the help of friends, I was much more likely to have just given up and gone along with something I didn’t really want and would never even think of having around again. Just like men, there are the sexy stilettos. They look absolutely gorgeous but after a while, I figure that they will probably wind up hurting and annoying the hell out of me. Soon enough, I’d just want to kick them out the window. On the other end, there are the sneakers. They are simple, reliable and match most of my everyday needs. Yet somehow, they start to get boring and I can’t help but eye and desire those hot stilettos I just passed by. Men. Shoes. Same difference. When I thought of all the trouble, time and effort I would have to factor in, I’d just have preferred to live life single and barefoot.

Aside from the undeniable fact that some of them are downright scrumptious, I never really saw what’s so great about the opposite sex. In fact, I just plainly hated them. You could say that they were like a pair of shoes that are positively hideous, and in the wrong size. Just like how a bad pair of them shoots your self-esteem straight to hell, men did the same for me. They made me feel ugly, undesirable, and could often hurt me to the point of tears. And it felt like I wore those very shoes all the way till I turned 18.

When you’re in early grade school, almost everyone is your friend. No one really bothers about what race you are, how big your waistline is or even what sex happen to be. But then, puberty hits and high school starts, followed by an insane influx of male jerks. Insults started and kept escalating and I wondered if it would ever stop. ”Sticks and stones…..” That’s what my mom kept telling me to remember. Bring me the dumbass who thought that phrase up and I’ll show you how good my aim with sticks and stones is. Physical wounds heal and you soon forget they were ever there. As for words, you always get told to forgive and forget. Look down at the sin, not the sinner. Well now, forgive me for being human, but do you honestly think that I’ll be able to forget that the boys who called me a fat paria bitch practically every week of high school?

Believe me, I have tried not letting bullying or mere words get to me. But it’s just too damn hard to ignore. Sure, I admit I was overweight (or fat, whichever you may prefer) in high school but I certainly didn’t think too much about something so silly. Hey, if I wasn’t at risk of cardiac arrest, what’s wrong with a few love handles? That’s what I believed at first. Why let stupid boys my age ruin my self-opinion? I told myself that I would not let the immature assholes break me. But then, the insults and bullying just kept coming and coming. “Hey, don’t break the chair with your fat ass!” “When you look in the mirror, does your reflection fit?” “What the fuck? Your mom’s not Chinese like your dad?! You’re a bloody paria! No wonder you’re ugly.” I swear, I tried so fucking hard to keep a deaf ear for every rude and thoughtless comment that came my way. And did I mention the countless number of times I’d come back to the classroom to find a bunch of jerks emptying out my backpack on the floor for laughs? There was no point of reporting them to the school. They’d get detention and I’d just get tons more than I had started out with. So I acted like it didn’t bother me at all. Until I got safely back home to my bedroom.

There were days when I would lock myself in my bedroom for hours. Sometimes, I’d just lie in bed and stare at the ceiling quietly, trying to not think of anything at all. Other times, I’d turn up the music so that my parents wouldn’t hear me cry while I sat on the floor of the room. It may sound pathetic some but it’s something that I couldn’t hold back. I hated them. I really did. I just hated boys. And soon, I even started to hate me. There’ll be days in every girl’s life where she’ll glance at the mirror and frown at a bad hair day. For me back then, there were days in my life where I’d look at the mirror and just hated the entire person I saw looking right at me.

I looked past whatever nice things I’ve ever heard about me and just dwelled on the negatives that seemed much more abundant. I would get overly depressed for not having the so-called perfect body or looking cover-girl gorgeous. I despised the fact that I was multi-racial and didn’t fit in any one category according to some. I thought of myself as a pretty hopeless person as a whole. Whatever physical shortcomings I thought I had, they negatively affected whatever self-esteem I once had. Not only did I feel ugly on the outside, I was a rotting corpse on the inside. I was a fucking wreck. And I’m amazed that I survived myself for that long.

I made the decision to lose weight as soon as I got out of high school and moved on to A-Levels. I started off with small efforts such as cutting off from sugary stuff. When I realized I wasn’t getting the results as quick as I wanted to, I started taking diet supplements. I have tried over five different diet pills, multiple diet shakes (that were supposed to be your entire meal for the day) and even turned to herbal slimming teas. I went absolutely nuts. On top of that, I ate less and less. It came to a point where my food intake of the day would only consist of a bowl of Campbell’s mushroom soup and a small plate of stir-fried vegetables. It went on for a few months till I couldn’t stand it anymore. I loved good food too much. A big thanks to Haagen Daz stopping me from driving myself to extreme anorexia.

By early 2002, I was pretty satisfied with my weight loss. I started to like the way I looked and felt and built back up my self-confidence. A male “friend” of mine bluntly commented, “So what? Not like you’re Cindy Crawford or anything.” Coming from someone whose face pretty much resembles that of a Freddy Kruger’s ass (with acne), I was closer to maniacal laughter than I was to tears. Insults and bullying were pretty much experienced at minimum levels. In case you’re wondering…Yes, I still hated men. What’s the deal here? For 6 freaking years of my life I get bombarded with insults. Suddenly I lose 30 lbs and you bastards are actually talking to me like I’m a human being? Well, screw you.

I didn’t care if men were actually paying more attention to me. In my opinion, the ratio of assholes to keepers was something like 100000 to 1. Sorry to all you true nice guys out there, but the scum of your fellow species has overshadowed the teensy percentage of you that exist. If I ever wanted a man at that point in life, it was just so I could lead him on, screw him up good, and leave laughing. Coming from my point of experience, I didn’t see how they should deserve much better. To me, love was a bunch of crap that the hippies made up.

You know how you spend weeks hunting down the perfect pair of shoes? Just after you stopped caring and just don’t need them anymore…there they are. Same thing happened to me…with a man, anyway. I didn’t even really want one to begin with. But somehow, one just popped into my life. Actually, he sort of popped back into my life.

Let me tell you about a boy who followed me around church grounds on occasional Sundays before and after service when I was 7 years old and he was 10. The boy who mortified me in front of all my Sunday School friends on my first Holy Communion at age 10 by walking up to the altar after the group photo and kissed me right on the mouth. The boy who was a mixed little Eurasian kid just like me. I stopped seeing him around church when I was about 14. I hated boys back then too. But that was mostly because of the whole cooties issue. I didn’t really think twice about the whole thing and what the heck was going on.

Sometimes, there are things that just happen and catch you totally off your guard. Just like that one rainy day in the summer of 2002 after church service, when the boy showed up out of nowhere after 4 years and scared the crap out of me. I hardly thought much about it but weeks went by and there he was again and again. Each time, with his flirty conversations and physical advances that forced me to hide from my parents for 5 minutes just to get my face back to its natural color. (Who says church isn’t interesting?) The persuasive boy kept on his charade for about three weeks until I finally gave up my cellphone number one fine Sunday. In return for brownies at a bake sale. So sue me, I’m cheap in that way. However, to go on and tell every anecdote of us over that summer would take a whole book.

I look back at my journal entries from that summer and I cringe at how childish I sounded at first. I talked about all the events that happened but nothing about what I was really feeling at the time. I was absolutely confused. I’ve never had a boyfriend before and after all those high school horrors, I didn’t even want one! But there was so much more in between those lines that I typed over 2 years ago. Even when I knew he was infatuated with me, I was too hard headed to let myself go with the flow. I wanted to stick to my firm beliefs about the whole men are evil deal. I even told him upfront that if anything happens, don’t over analyze it because I was only willing to have a go at some fun, not a relationship. I was heading off to university in a few months anyway. No way in hell was I going to fall victim to a long distance relationship. I made myself play the part of an ice queen and simply brush off most of his compliments and actions. But honestly, there were more times when I just wanted to melt.

It was in the way he talked, the way he touched, and the things he did. He was the first guy to appear that liked me just the way I was. Besides the occasional mutual jokes, not a single insult left his lips. I kept wondering whether it was all some stupid game men played to trick women into things they’d later regret but whatever we had, it didn’t feel that way at all. It felt legit. I finally felt was it was like for a guy to honestly care about me. I felt loved. I felt sexy. I felt safe. The list goes on. I didn’t realize it then, but he boosted my self-esteem to levels I never thought possible. I’ll never forget the one time he held me close in front of a mirror and told me to just look at myself and smile. It’s such a movie cliché kind of thing but I felt confident, attractive and most of all, I was just satisfied with the person I was. It was more than tempting to just give in and fall in love, but I made the choice ad forced myself to believe that most of it was lust.

When I started typing this article, I initially meant to write about how my first and current boyfriend helped me in so many ways with my self-esteem. As you can tell by my last sentence, the boy that I have been talking about all this while and I never wound up as a couple. Three months went by and I had to go off for university. Just when I thought I made the biggest mistake ever, life threw me a second chance with my first real love. While I’m overly grateful for the current man in my life and all he’s done for me for the past 2 years, I would just like to go back and finally admit how appreciative and thankful I am for that one boy who turned my life around forever. Thank you, hun…I mean it.

As for us women, so what if you haven’t found exactly what you’re looking for in a man yet? Don’t give up hope that a nice guy who will love you for yourself could be lurking amongst those shelves and shelves of duds. Look at how freaking hard it is to just find the perfect pair of shoes. They’re far less complicated than men and I have yet to find the perfect pair of white sandals after 3 bloody years of hunting.

I Don't Want a Boyfriend

By Emily Tan

I don't want someone who I dress up for.
I want someone with whom I'm comfortable enough to wear old clothes and no make up.

I don't want someone who treasures every moment with me - like it's his last.
I want someone who takes for granted that I will always be with him.

I don't want someone who I must always be at my best with.
I want someone who can take me at my worst and still love me.

I don't want someone with whom every outing is a date.
I want someone who I can just be with.

I don't want someone who keeps me hanging around the phone, hoping he'll call.
I want someone who I know will call when he can.

I don't want someone who makes passes at me, and pressures me to give more.
I want someone I can curl up and fall asleep with knowing that he'll never take what I will not give, or let me hurt myself by giving too much.

I don't want someone who will religiously remember our monthly anniversary.
I want someone who will forget our yearly anniversary, because the passage of time is irrelevant when you have forever.

I don't want someone to insist on paying for everything when we go out together.
I want someone who can take, knowing he'll always have chances to give.

I don't want someone who will go home after a fight, heartbroken because he knows it's over.
I want someone who although furious and hurt will never consider breaking up.

I don't want someone who treats me like a fragile flower.
I want someone who can relax around me.

I don't want someone who pays me compliments.
I want someone who tells me the truth because he respects me and knows I can take it.

I don't want someone who composes a poem for my eyes, a song for my nose and a sonnet for my mouth.
I want someone who writes about me.

I don't want someone who says he loves me every hour of the day.
I want someone who I know loves me without having to be told about it.

I don't want someone to hold my hand because he wants to show the world I'm his.
I want someone who holds my hand because he wants to feel my touch.

I don't want a boyfriend.
I want a partner.

Untitled

By Lam Oi Yen

“So ladies, what do you think?”

I yawned, shaking away the remnants of my nap. A pair of generous breasts greeted me, as they jiggled in their lacy jails a few inches away from my eyes.

I did a double take, thinking that I was trapped in a Freudian nightmare.

Mrs. Brandy took a deep breath and monitored the effect in the full-length mirror. Her little surprise for a mysterious suitor was rather impressive. Being exchange students in her Cape Town home, my classmates and I became privileged witnesses to her life.

As my host mother began to ponder other lacy numbers, her daughter Bibi decided to entertain us with her driving skills. Prayer took a new dimension for me when Bibi swerved wildly from the white suburbs of Rondebosch towards the famous beaches.

Bibi pointed out the hillside bungalows, the yachting playgrounds and the avant-garde drinking holes. She showed her favorite hangout areas, her fashion school and Cape Town’s surreal sunset. Her face beamed until the car lurched past the highway stretch that marked Langa, a black township. Robbery prone, she announced, as her foot inexpertly slammed on the gas pedal.

Oh? But we’ll be living there next week.

Bibi clucked. Who would ever want to do that?

The following week, we found ourselves pottering amidst the treeless landscape and shanties of Langa. It was a striking contrast from the leafy white suburbs. Lacy lingerie were not the norm in our new host family, as Mrs. Vanda proudly showed us her hand stitched Xhosa dresses-- huge expanses of cloth with striking geometrical patterns. Baby Kangelani happily drooled on his grandmother’s handiwork.

No one knew where the baby’s father is. His mother is in Johannesburg earning a future for her son. Female-headed households were common in this part of town, as were the dozens of little informal businesses that women like his grandmother operated. Unemployment was rife. And so was the terrible disease too, so terrible that the living were tired from spending their Sundays attending multiple funerals.

In terms of measuring differences in the levels of female empowerment, I have chosen examples of two extreme opposites to highlight my point. Many South African women occupy various degrees of empowerment between my two host mothers’ positions. Even more are increasing their control of their livelihoods since South Africa replaced apartheid with democratic governance and socio-economic development. Cape Town’s business district and waterfronts sparkle with the bustle of daily life and investment inflows. Economic initiatives and programs are rapidly budding in the townships, accompanied by the vibrancy of the local communities and healthy political discourse.

Despite the country’s improvements, my personal observations of racial differences in economic empowerment disturbed me. The country’s lack of formal employment opportunities, increasing poverty and its consequent social problems has been largely reflected upon the historically oppressed Black populations. The legacy of apartheid manifests itself in the forms of large socio-economic inequalities. A Black woman’s life choices are still heavily influenced by a system implicitly divided along racial lines, even as she struggles to fulfill her roles in African society as the bond that her community together. She has considerably less economic control than her white sisters, and yet, she faces higher rates of crime, violence, disease and discrimination.

It was impossible to detach myself from the unequal reality that had transpired from South Africa’s long-standing racial ideologies. I believe that the unkindest cut is when modern governments create artificial inequalities on the basis of racial and ethnic identity.

My observations led me to look deeper into the many communities that I have lived and studied in. I drew parallels between the status quo for African Americans in the United States and Afro-Brazilians in Brazil. But more importantly, I saw the similarities between the South Africa of today and the Malaysia of 48 years ago.

We have come a long way from the economic dualism and racial division of the British colonial period. The National Economic Policy, designed to promote interracial income equality after the May 13th incident, is now a model for South African economic redistribution. I shall not hark on the economic achievements of the country; one only needs to read the daily papers for adequate information.

I appreciate the efforts of the generations before mine. However, my role as an impartial observer of racial realities in South Africa made me wonder if I could ever view Malaysia’s racial reality in a similar manner. As a child of Malaysia’s liberalization period in the 1990’s, I believe that racial inequality in Malaysia is a relic from my parent’s generation. I have been indoctrinated in the Bangsa Malaysia syllabus, in the belief that every Malaysian has equal life chances and opportunities.

But have we done enough? Is the current system sufficient to address the changing needs of Malaysian society? I am relatively aware of the racial discourse that takes place, albeit in somewhat hushed tones. But as I grew up in the comfort of my middle class Chinese background, I have never thought of looking closer. The women in the buses, on the streets or in the post office queue, how are their life chances affected by the way they ticked the box next to Melayu, Cina, India or Lain-lain? Will the impact of a woman’s race on her empowerment be as apparent as what I have seen in Cape Town? Or is the effect almost negligible, as all Malaysians are (almost) equally entitled to economic opportunities?

These are the questions that flash across my mind when I arrive at the glittering halls of KLIA. My only regret is that it took me almost two decades to actively question the status quo and embark on my search for answers.

Career Choices

By Wong Luen Yan

My sister wanted to be a doctor. At least, she thought she wanted to be a doctor. That’s a long time ago now. At the time, my ma suggested something a bit easier, like teaching, for example. Ma’s logic has always been that women often have babies and spend lots of time at home, so why choose such a demanding career as medicine? Pa didn’t say much, but his actions have always hinted at his desire for all of us to be doctors.

My sister listened to those who pushed her to do medicine. After all, she is a nice caring girl; she is smart and did well at school. It is only natural that she should do medicine, right? Who wouldn’t want to do medicine? Think of the money, the prestige, the respect from friends and patients alike.

So my elder sister is now a doctor, but she is miserable. She never really counted on bitching and politicking within hospitals. She is a bit too nice for a dog-eat-dog world at work. Within a few years of graduation, disillusionment set in. My sister is now committed to a very demanding job, but not for her own reasons. Where she lacks conviction, she finds it difficult to cope when things go wrong. She now freely admits that she felt pressured by my father to study medicine.

Parents do have good intentions, however misdirected. And misdirected they can be, as I can remember how many friends were pushed into careers so that they can fulfil their parents’ dreams. So often, parents and children have different ideas of a fulfilling career. In pleasing my father, my sister had neglected her own wants. Unfortunately, she was honest with herself much too late.

Obedience or rebellion is not the issue here. Finding a career that one can be satisfied with is the main issue. Money and prestige might be what a girl wants, but being a homebody can equally appeal to others. If you can see yourself enjoying a certain job ten years on, go ahead and do it.

For your own sake, don’t repeat what my sister did. You have to make the decision and not anybody else. The world is a big place and your parents are only ever going to know one small part of it. Whatever problems you face there’s a whole world of information out there! Take any word or phrase you like and type it into google, you get back hundreds of results. Mind you, there are problems with google as well; to be frank most of the sites are (a) rubbish; (b) porn; or (c) in another language.

I suppose what I’m trying to tell you is to make sure you do some research on the sort of career you are aiming for. Don’t just look at the money you might earn, or whether the course is easy or not. Consider the working hours and the sort of people you have to deal with. Most importantly, ask yourself if a job allows you those moments when you know all the difficulty was worth it. Those moments when a patient responds to a doctor’s treatment; when a student finally understands a teacher’s lesson; when a lawyer wins that case; when a stockbroker does a good deal. Different people get a buzz from different situations, so choose something that you will find fulfilling.

Get advice, and lots of it! Find people who are working in the careers you are considering, and ask them what it is like. Find out what prospects a certain job may have in the coming years. Ask for the honest opinion of those who know you best, your relatives and friends. Those who are familiar with you might point out bits of you personality that make you more or less suited for certain jobs.

By all means, be respectful towards your parents, because they do want the best for you, but ultimately the choice should lie with the person who has to face the consequences. As far as careers go, make your own mind up. My sister would have been spared a lot of anguish if she had known herself a little better when making such decisions.

An Educational Perspective on Self-Esteem

By Voon Shi Jing



Central to most definitions of self-esteem is a person’s positive or negative evaluation of himself or herself. It is a die-hard habit of mine to focus on the negative. Contrary to what some might think, I did not have an unhappy childhood. Fortunately, I was gifted with an extremely effective self-esteem therapist. Not just one, but in fact a host of them for eleven years. Growing up, my therapists were the children my mother teaches at her kindergarten. Teaching them has taught me a lot about how one should look at life. Whenever I wake up on the wrong side of bed or have an argument with my boyfriend, going to the kindergarten never fails to cheer me up and put me back on the right track. Their happy faces and pure thoughts humble me.

As an early childhood education major, my studies at university are proving true in relation to the experiences I have had with the children and myself. Academically, self-esteem covers five domains: scholastic competence, social acceptance, athletic competence, physical appearance, and behavioural conduct. At the ripe old age of 21, I still experience the need to evaluate myself from these angles.

In 1922, social scientist Charles Cooley wrote that

Each to each a looking glass
Reflects the other that doth pass.

His explanation: “As we see our face, figure, and dress in the glass [or mirror], and are interested in them because they are ours… so in imagination we perceive in another’s mind some thought of our appearance, manners, aims, deeds, character, friends and so on and are variously affected by it” (p. 184). Cooley assumed that other people are the mirrors in which we see ourselves. Our thoughts about ourselves are affected by how others react to us. When I was younger, I evaluated myself as I thought other people evaluated me. As the looking-glass metaphor implies, I perceived my social acceptance was related to my popularity. I slowly learnt that it was not entirely true. Being a new kid on the block was a ‘cool’ thing. People want to know you more and hence you would have more friends. I was popular in primary school and I thought it was because of that that I had lots of friends. I assumed that my high scores and good rapport with the teachers had a lot to do with my popularity. I later found out that I was popular for other reasons – not so good reasons. Unknown to myself, I was a show-off, and a really big one at that. And living in Seri Kembangan (which made me notoriously famous in both primary and high school for being late for classes) pushed me even further up the ‘popularity’ ladder. I was considered an outcast as everyone else lived in high-class Taman Desa while I was from a village outside Kuala Lumpur.

The looking-glass metaphor suggests that our opinions of ourselves are influenced by the opinions of those around. From a teacher’s perspective, feedback students receive regarding academic achievement should directly affect their self-evaluations, and vice versa. This I have found to be true. Not only through my own experience but also from what I have observed in the children I have shared my life with throughout the years. Positive remarks and words or encouragement motivate children to improve performance. Good performance in turn, lifts the spirits. We have all experienced the adrenaline rush after acing an exam, or winning a competition.

A close parent-child relationship shapes how parents interact with their children and well, parent. This influences the overall well-being of the children. Attachment theorists have proposed that the security of young children’s attachments to their parents affects their general self-esteem. This implies that young children do form some idea of their overall worth. Children who are more securely attached to their parents have higher self-esteem. In other words, children who had learnt to trust in their parents’ acceptance and responsiveness had also learnt to value themselves.

Parents’ behaviour is likely to have strong effects on children’s general self-esteem. Parents of children with higher self-esteem are more affectionate and more involved with their children. These parents make decisions democratically, thus showing their respect for their children’s views. They tend to avoid physical punishment and to rely on reasoning with their children. By doing so, parents show how much they value their children and respect their judgment. The parents of children with high self-esteem are also strict. They set rules for their children’s behaviour and enforce them consistently. Such strictness probably helps develop self-control. In addition, these children will probably learn socially accepted behaviour. By contrast, children with permissive parents probably show “out-of-control” behaviour that is disapproved of, leading to low self-esteem.

When parents provide such a “looking glass” for their children, the children have high self-esteem. In a looking glass, children can see their vices as clearly as their virtues. They learn to look at things from different perspectives, which explains why children with an advanced theory of mind would have high self-esteem. They are able to see the goodness and badness in themselves and are willing to overcome their weaknesses. With this ability, they are able to understand how other people feel and think in different situations hence explaining why children with high self-esteem would have more friends and are able to cope under stressed environments.

Generally, self-esteem shows a significant degree of continuity between childhood and adolescence. Children with low self-esteem would most likely continue to be an adolescent with low self-esteem. The same would be for children with high self-esteem. However, self-esteem can change dramatically over a period of two or three years. This is contrary to the widespread assumption that self-esteem develops gradually. I did not realize this until very much later on. Self-esteem develops quickly during elementary school, as it is the time when children are developing their own personality in accordance to their peers’. I had very high self-esteem in elementary school despite my wrongly acquired popularity. My report card would explain why. I was the top student in school, standing at first, second or third every year for 6 years. I was a school prefect and I was every teacher’s pet. However, as rapidly as I gained my good sense of self, I lost it just as easily if not quicker. This is a normal progression from elementary to middle or high school. I had a very low sense of self-worth in Forms 1 through to 3 as I was not performing as well academically and I felt threatened by people from other schools. Yes, all it took for me to switch from high to low self- esteem was the thought of me not being able to be ‘popular’. It sounds naïve and self-engrossed but there are many teenagers around the world who suffer the same fate. If it were not for my childhood friends, I would have drowned in the sea of self-pity and depression. My parents were my pillars of strength, especially my father who until today is my best friend.

Parents play a vital role in facilitating the growth of positive self-esteem. It is never too early to start teaching a child that he or she matters, or how to socialize with others in a way that is comfortable. The ability of a child to interact well with others is taught from the home. The very self-esteem of the man or woman the child will be depends on it.

Geek Chicks and the Ghost of Rosalind Franklin

By Hwa Shi-Hsia

It’s late one night in the middle of the winter holidays, and the science building is nearly deserted. I’m about to head up the stairs for some worm-herding work when I hear a whisper of movement down the corridor. First thought: Aaargh! it’s haunted! Second thought: this is Science Hall, stupid. Who would be haunting it, the ghost of Rosalind Franklin? I enjoy the silly moment before dashing up to the third floor research lab (I’m just the lab coolie, not researching anything myself).

Here’s another thought: maybe we are haunted by the ghost of Rosalind Franklin, but in a less supernatural way. Five decades later, the image of this physical chemist whose work led Watson and Crick to propose what turned out to be the correct structure of DNA remains the stereotype of the woman scientist in pop culture: plain, cold, snappish, work-obsessed, and sexless.

At least, that’s what Watson thought of her, writing as much in his book The Double Helix. He did manage to expose scientists as being competitors as human, avid, and sometimes predatory as businessmen and politicians, but the skewedness of the portrait he presented of Franklin wasn’t exposed till much later. Franklin’s biographer Brenda Maddox records her as being a lively conversationalist, a lover of the outdoors, a fashionable dresser (colleagues at King’s College saw her only in plain work clothes), a Francophile (England bored her), and a warm friend to many despite her suffer-no-fools attitude.

Hollywood still clings to the caricature. Female scientists in movies tend to be bespectacled and wear lab coats with ponytails or bobs. If they’re not middle-aged and wrinkly, then they’re schoolgirlishly naive and boring until the hero comes along and transforms them into princesses, usually to be saved from a metaphorical dragon at some point. (I’m thinking of Seven of Nine in her pre-Chakotay days and the chick who co-starred with Jackie Chan in “The Tuxedo”…my memory for movies is bad.)

All right, you say, movies are silly. We all know that. The problem is that stereotypes perpetuate themselves by influencing our behavior in real life. For young children, the appeal in stories about doing experiments and ‘discovering’ things may be enough in and of itself. As they grow older, girls may be discouraged by thoughts that they’ll be too busy to have a social life, boys will be scared off by their intelligence, and so forth. The simple fact that there are many more males in certain disciplines can be somewhat intimidating, as with many other fields.

Compounding the problem is that the news media and people in general seem to think of ‘scientists’ as being not quite the same species as the rest of Homo sapiens. One of my friends (a pianist) was making fun of a post-tsunami article reporting that “animals may have other senses which human beings, even scientists, don’t have”. “As if scientists aren’t humans,” she laughed. It’s all right for some guys to set themselves on a different intellectual plane, but girls? No, you stay down here with the rest of us who don’t understand this stuff.

I visited the Science Museum of Minnesota last week, and coming out of its excellent Human Body Gallery saw a stall in a corner, the sort usually seen at “expos” where people try to sell you digital cameras from China. I thought it was for some kind of fundraiser, but on closer inspection, found a banner draped across the front asking “Why are Women Important in Science?” A child visitor might wonder why indeed, if the grown-ups relegate the issue of women scientists to a couple of pamphlets and a cheap documentary on a small TV, in a big museum full of fantastic and ingenious exhibits.

Certainly I’d rather live in a world where gender was irrelevant when teaching children about the past and present contributions of women to the body of knowledge, but the idea that science and maths are primarily male disciplines persists, in Malaysia where I come from, in the United States where I now study, and probably in most other parts of the world. This despite the rapidly growing proportion of females who work in the physical sciences and maths. In my college – probably atypical because it’s a small school – there are as many women as men majoring in sciences. In the USA, in some applied sciences like medicine, the number of women is drawing level with the number of men, and in veterinary medicine has outstripped them.

Computer programming used to be a female-dominated field early in its history, because it was seen as simple, secretarial work. When people realized that it was challenging and involved advanced problem-solving skills (i.e. cool) men jumped in. So now, the local computer science club has about two dozen guys and two girls. It probably is true that men, in general, are better than women, in general, at certain types of abstract processing that are useful in the physical sciences and maths, but by no means should generalizations be used to discourage the many girls who are talented at these.

My college has a program called PRYSM (Partners Reaching Youth in Science and Math) which pairs female college students with interested girls in middle school (5th to 7th grade, the equivalent of Standard 5 to Form 1). In February, the college hosts GEMS day (Girls Exploring Math and Science), a bigger event where the participants get to play with numbers, ideas, experiments, and make tie-dyed T-shirts. Oo…tie-dye…pretty. These are eleven- to fourteen-year-olds, and they get to come to a real college campus and take lessons with real professors and tinker around in real laboratories. Aiyo…if only someone had given me a chance to do that.

The importance of putting children in contact with role models is twofold: first, it shows them that there are people in the working world who are doing the things they’re thinking of doing, and that those things are as cool as they hope, and not quite as difficult as they fear. Second, allowing kids to talk to adults about their jobs gives them a more concrete picture of what those jobs are, thus equipping them to make better decisions about what to study in school and what careers to investigate. Our education system really doesn’t prepare people to deal with anything other than taking exams, let alone the complexities of adult life, yet every year across the country schoolchildren are assigned to write compositions like “Cita-cita Saya” and “My Dream” without any realistic idea of what they’re talking about.

Anyway...how real is the stereotype? I find the first-name-basis egalitarianism of an American liberal arts college still a bit odd, but the openness of this small community brings students into closer contact with their professors than would a large public university. The female science and math faculty could be described as:
a marathon runner
mums with kids
a rowing coach who bakes good cookies
a loopy philosopher
an artist turned ecologist
pet lovers who bring baby squirrels and big hairy dogs to work
In short, people who have lives as interesting and multidimensional as anyone else’s, or maybe even more so. Career probably is a high priority for them, but so it is for professionals in any field. No one makes a big fuss if a girl says she wants to be a lawyer or an architect—the traditional moneymaking careers that half the kids in my Standard Five class cited as their ‘cita-cita’. Research scientists (as opposed to people in applied sciences like medicine and engineering) are just people with jobs—a special kind of job, perhaps, but they’re still just people.

Why does the idea persist that science is some sort of all-consuming vocation that cuts a woman off from having a real life? Perhaps it’s just that we haven’t quite assimilated the notion that women can be smart without being freaks. Perhaps it’s because the real role models, the women who are working in these fields and having friends and families and hobbies, aren’t visible enough for the distorted camera of pop culture to have recorded them yet.

Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA by Brenda Maddox http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060985089/qid=1105685024/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/102-5911652-1230501

The PRYSM and GEMS website: http://www.lawrence.edu/community/prysm/

A news article about PRYSM and GEMS: http://www.lawrence.edu/news/pubs/lt/summer04/gems.shtml

Review: The Vagina Monologues

By Tai Ling Ling


“I don’t really remember how it began.” quoted Eve Ensler in the introduction of her Obie-Award winning playwright, The Vagina Monologues. “…her saying contemptuous things about her genitals that shocked me and got me thinking about what other women thought about their vaginas.” It was from this moment, Ensler started her mission… to celebrate, liberate and empower women by reclaiming the much vilified word “vagina”.

The Vagina Monologues is based on interviews with 200 women from diverse backgrounds about their vaginas, presenting to the world a masterpiece of roughly 30 literary episodes, including vagina facts and Ensler’s frank yet witty narratives.

Vagina monologues came a long way from its first publishing in 1998. Since then, the monologues have been awarded the Obie Awards and the Guggenhiem Fellowship in Playwriting. Her monologue have been translated into over 24 different languages and has been performed in over 20 cities and 200 campuses all over the globe (2000), by local and international celebrities, by politicians, by activists, by diverse groups of women and men. The most significant achievement of all is that it had initiated the V-day, a global movement to stop violence against women. For 5 consecutive years on Valentine’s Day, the V-day movement held sold-out concerts and campaigns raising money for grass root communities and groups all over the world that supports victimized and abused women and struggles to end violence against women.

“I say it because I’m not supposed to say it. I say it because it’s an invisible word – a word that stirs up anxiety, awkwardness, contempt and disgust,” boasts Ensler. Proudly, she summons and draws out every woman’s need to share and confess their private and most intimate vagina stories, be it from her interviewees, readers, audience or for anyone who has experienced the Vagina Monologues.

Poignant, hilarious and clever, it must always provoke a response—of amusement, horror, anger, delight, humor and pleasure. Ensler addresses all her subjects of birth, sex, rape, lesbianism and abuse with much respect and equal candor.

Her literary episodes are a salad bowl of first person narratives in their many different accents (Jewish Queens, Southern, English, etc…), long lists of answers for her quirky vagina questions, myths and facts about the vagina, personal vagina accounts in the form of short stories or compiled in a short poetic piece.

From her light-hearted and symbolic questions such as “If your vagina got dressed, what would it wear?” prompted a list of interviewee’s answers, ranging from the dramatic “An electric shock device to keep strangers away”, to the amusing “A leopard hat”, the mediocre “A bikini” and the forgettable “Cotton”. Her piece “My Vagina was my village” tells the heartbreaking story of Bosnian woman, a rape camp survivor as a “systematic tactic of war” in mid-Europe of 1993. This tale emanates much anger, anxiety, sadness and shame, easily aggravates anyone to tears or red hot temper. Then, there is a rather disturbing depiction of a 13 year old discovering her “coochi snocher” with the eager help of young working women.

Although, the only gripe about reading this monologue is that much of its expressive and visual textures seen from a live performance are lost when translated to words being read from the book. However, readers don’t lose out on all the excitement as there are lessons, such as learning the importance of a good moan (doggy moan, baby moan, machine gun moan, tortured Zen moan and etc.) and the proper pronunciation of the word “cunt”, that are taught very vividly and thoroughly in her monologues.

The best way to savor and devour this monologue, if you are unable to watch its live performance, is to have someone to read it with you. By the time you reach its final page you’d be all too eager to share your “Vagina Monologue”. Only, you have no one to share your stories with except with Eve Ensler, wearing her black tank top and donning her neatly cropped hair, on the cover of the “The Vagina Monologues: The V-Day Edition”.

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