Ladyparts is Deborah Copaken’s memoir (a 435-page
opus) of her challenges as a female journalist and single parent. Her
experiences are horrific. At one point she lists over a dozen violent incidents
starting at age thirteen which include sexual harassment, rape, and muggings. She
was involved with #MeToo only to see her high-profile harasser pardoned by our
45th president. Her indictment of the U.S. medical system is two-pronged. First is the difficulty of getting healthcare in the U.S. and the
second is the ignorance of female medical conditions everywhere. Her first-hand
experiences include a dozen operations, including some you might not have heard
of: trachelectomy and vaginal cuff dehiscence repair.
Other societal issues which receive her scorn are predatory employers, failing
schools, divorce, childcare, post-internet journalism, drug companies, at-will
employment, middle-age dating, American capitalism, privilege (white, male,
rich), and politicians.This book is an indictment of the treatment of women with a focus
on the structural problems specific to the U.S.
She tried to end on an upbeat note but didn’t. The final line
reported that her slumlord would evict her from her rent-control apartment. In
two months, we will receive written notice from our landlord’s lawyer, saying
our two-year lease will not be renewed.
My youngest has informed me he will not be
celebrating the Fourth of July this year because the signers of the Declaration
of Independence owned slaves; and Blacks in this country are still not free;
and women are still paid less than men; and Indigenous people were murdered so
that we could take over their land; and there’s a fascist in the White House
holding unmasked rallies and keeping immigrant children in Covid-infected
cages; so what, exactly, is there to celebrate?
Her alphabetical list of operations:
I’ve actually had to jot down all of my
surgeries in alphabetical order in the notes section of my iPhone, otherwise I
can never remember them all: adenoidectomy (1972), appendectomy (2006), D&C
#1 (1983), D&C #2 (2000), frenectomy (1988), hysterectomy (2012), inguinal
hernia repair (1997), meniscectomy (2018), Morton’s neuroma repair #1 (1995),
Morton’s neuroma repair #2 (2020), trachelectomy (2017), vaginal cuff
dehiscence repair (2017).
A summary of violence:
I’ve also endured: the policeman in Mexico who
grabbed my prepubescent breast while I was asking him for directions (1979);
the older teenage boy who placed my young hand down his pants (1980); the large
stranger who broke into my college dorm while I was in it typing a paper and
threatened to rape me (1985); the combat boot kicked into the left side of my
skull from an unseen assailant on my way home from the library (1986); the two
classmates in my documentary film class who mistook my enthusiasm for our film
for consent to have both of their hands under my clothing (1986); the first
thief who robbed me at gunpoint (1987, probably crack-related); the second
thief who robbed me at gunpoint (also 1987, also probably crack-related); the
group of drunk college boys who collectively assaulted my body outside the
video store near my dorm before I beat one with the hard plastic shell of A
Clockwork Orange—homework for a seminar on men and violence—and escaped (also
1987, when I was twenty-one, a bad year to be in my body); the fellow student
who raped me on the night before our college graduation (1988); the
white-bearded rabbi in Israel who stuck his tongue down my throat and placed
his hands on my breasts when I was interviewing him (1988); the Frenchman who
took advantage of a Métro strike in Paris to fondle my ass (1988); the
businessman, in an angry rush, who pushed me down the subway stairs when I was
seven months pregnant (1997); the countless frotteurs I’ve had the
not-so-unique displeasure of witnessing (1985–present day); and the creepy
older dude from Tinder who followed me home on the subway and felt it was his
tongue’s right to enter my mouth without asking (2015). Women, maybe you know
what I’m talking about when I lay it all out like that.
Her indictment of capitalism:
laws and policies favoring landlords over
tenants; a deliberately inflated housing market; the 2008 recession; a 40
percent rent hike; the for-profit divorce racket; a for-profit health insurance
industry; the outrageous cost of an American college education; the gig
economy; private equity takeovers, which stomp on workers like so many
underfoot ants; historic levels of income inequality; and a government too
corrupt, incompetent, and mired in partisan acrimony to keep dog from eating
dog.
Privilege:
White privilege and male privilege no doubt,
but also sheer monetary privilege which, as the divide between rich and poor
grows ever wider, becomes increasingly crucial. The summer after my sophomore
year at college, I applied for and got accepted to an internship at NBC that I
ended up having to turn down, not having realized it was unpaid.
“As an Amazon
Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.”
Check out https://amzn.to/2SpaDMN to see my books.
Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for book recommendations.
Myrtle Hardcastle was a 12-year-old Victorian
Lady of Quality. Adults called her “precocious,” “curious,” and
“irrepressible.” She was a scientific detective. Her father raised her to be “clever
and inquisitive,” but at times he regretted this decision. When the next-door neighbor
didn’t appear in her garden one morning, Myrtle investigated. The woman was
dead. The police surgeon declared this a natural death. Myrtle had other ideas.
“Old ladies in good health didn’t just suddenly drop dead in the middle of the
night… Maybe I couldn’t call for an inquest, but I certainly found Miss
Wodehouse’s death suspicious. More than suspicious, in fact. It was murder!”
