Outcries from the Seven Hills of Shangralawoody

The interview began on one of the seven aging hills of Shangralawoody.

A WOACA reclined beside a heated pool in a string bikini while a Slop reporter nodded sympathetically and tried not to look directly at her abdomen.

“It’s just been so hard for me,” she said. She lightly touched her glossy hair, almost adjusting an invisible crown.

The Slop reporter nodded harder, he restrained himself from replying, “it sure is.” This wasn’t an intern. This was rarefied royalty.

The accompanying article would use the bikini photographs, naturally. Also the charity gala photographs, where the WOACA stood beneath a wall of sponsor logos in a silver gown cut precisely to reveal a trim waist, sculpted arms, sharp cheekbones, and a neck upon which time had apparently forgotten to leave fingerprints.

No one said plastic surgery.
No one said dermatologist.
No one said personal trainer.
No one said nutritionist.
No one said private chef.

No one said assistant, stylist, masseuse, hormone specialist, facialist, Pilates instructor, or the small army of professionals whose entire livelihoods depended upon ensuring that nothing unexpected happened to the WOACA’s left thigh.

“It’s just been just so hard, Kneel,” she repeated.

The reporter looked devastated.

Shangralawoody had simply stopped knowing what to do with her.

She did not look twenty.
She did not look thirty.

She did not look like what Shangralawoody imagined a mother should look like.

She was mature and sexy and sculpted, and apparently this had created an emergency.

The Slop reporter leaned forward.

“So brave,” Kneel whispered. Maybe he had a shot to tap that. She was older. That was leverage. Surely validation was needed.

Far away, on another one of Shangralawoody’s aging hills, something emerged from a sauna.

There was too much steam.
Then more steam.
Then, for no clear reason, a gust of wind.
A second WOACA stepped out.

She had gray in her hair, and the gray caught the sunlight beautifully.
She was not sculpted to perfection.
She had a stretch mark.
There was a scar across her abdomen.
Her upper arms moved when she moved them.
Her stomach contained evidence that internal organs were stored there.

She had spent years taking care of children, working jobs that did not come with trailers, losing herself, finding herself, losing herself again, surviving winters during which getting out of bed had sometimes counted as an accomplishment.

And lately she had been lifting weights.

She ate protein.
She rode bicycles.
She swam in cold water.
She climbed things simply because they were there.
She had never been discovered at twenty-two.
No one had flown her to Cannes.
No director had ever told a magazine that she was luminous.
No studio had spent six million dollars deciding what to do with her face.

She rolled her shoulders, cracked her neck, looked down upon Shangralawoody, and said:
“I will write it, and they will come.”

And so she did.

The first woman came wearing hiking boots.
She had walked the Appalachian Trail for three months after realizing she hated nearly everyone in her office.
The second had beaten an addiction and now repaired old motorcycles.
The third wore her hair cropped close, dressed in neutral clothing, possessed no interest whatsoever in being called sexy, and could build a house.
The fourth had traveled alone through seventeen countries.
The fifth had left a marriage at sixty-two and discovered that she liked eating cereal for dinner while listening to opera with every window open.
The sixth made jewelry.
The seventh started a clothing company after becoming furious that every shirt for women her age appeared to have been designed either for a toddler or a decorative lampshade.
Then more came.

Women with bellies.
Women without breasts.
Women with reconstructed breasts.
Women with strong thighs.
Women with thin legs.
Women with wrinkles.
Women with smooth faces.
Women with scars.
Women with gray hair, dyed hair, shaved hair, long hair, enormous hair, and no hair whatsoever.

Some wanted lovers.
Some wanted wives.
Some wanted husbands.
Some wanted absolutely nobody in their house after seven o’clock.
Some were glamorous.
Some were androgynous.
Some had never once been described as beautiful and had somehow continued to exist.

They made strange independent films about women who slipped unnoticed through ordinary life.

They made independent songs and videos. Soundtracks of living.

Women who disappeared into mountains.
Women who opened bookstores.
Women who repaired boats.
Women who became obsessed with mushrooms.
Women who inherited nothing and built something anyway.
Women who stopped apologizing.
Women who failed spectacularly.
Women who succeeded privately.
Women who learned that independence could be intoxicating.
And slowly, something peculiar happened.

They stopped auditioning for roles.
Not just movie roles.

Roles.
Mother.
Wife.
Pretty woman.
Good woman.
Young woman.
Older woman.
Thin woman.
Acceptable woman.
Invisible woman.

They simply became themselves.

The WOACA from the sauna stood before them one evening on a windblown ridge overlooking Shangralawoody.
She raised one fist.

“Their reign of terror over the female body is over!”

The women cheered.

“We decide our own fate!”

Somewhere across the valley, inside a windowless boardroom, twelve small men who looked suspiciously like rats and mice stopped clicking on their little tablets.

One slowly removed his glasses.
“How do we tap that market?”
“You mean tap those asses?”
“Raw dogging!”

One of the men blinked, unflinching before the misogyny, performance, and mimicry of masculinity.

“What market?”
“The women.”
“It isn’t a market.”
“What is it?”
“A movement.”
The room went silent. One smile spread to the others. There was laughter.
“That’s unsustainable. To the charts, screens and dials!”

The mice began scurrying.
Charts appeared.
Screens illuminated.
Dials descended from the ceiling.
There were hundreds of them.

BODY ANXIETY.
AGE PANIC.
SEXUAL RELEVANCE.
MATERNAL GUILT.
THIGH CONCERN.
NECK AWARENESS.
ARM FLAP VISIBILITY.
BIKINI URGENCY.

One mouse grabbed the BODY ANXIETY dial.
“Turn up overweight women!”
Another slapped his paw away.
“No! That sells acceptance!”
“Then turn up the volume on thin women too!”
“That sells diet fads!”
“AND body-shaping undergarments!”
“Injectables!”
“Anti-injectable authenticity!”
“Natural aging!”

“Invisible supportwear for the bikini body!”
“AGE-DEFYING NATURAL AGING!”
The dials spun wildly.
They had the perfect system.
Divide the market cleanly, then use one half to seesaw it back toward the other.
Forever.

They overshot everything.
Always.

Women became more anxious.
Then more exhausted, as if that were possible.
Then more irritated, which was definitely possible.
And then something happened that the mice had never anticipated.
Women began leaving their herds.

Even the Asian women! Who they thought they really had pinned down with all their “secretes of the orient” narratives and stereotypes.

One at a time.
Then ten at a time.
Then thousands.
They stopped clicking.

Even. In. Asian. Countries.

Holy of all fucks. This was most concerning.

The internet was everywhere. Measuring markets. Tracking trends. Watching.
Simply existing gave them no useful feedback at all.

The click farms were the only thing raging.

“Shit! Some of actual real live people turned off their routers!”
“Fuck!”
“WTF?!”
“Some real people went OFF THE GRID!”
A terrible silence.
Then—
“Shhh. Never mind. That was just a moment.”
Relief.
But some—
most definitely—
stopped comparing.
They stopped purchasing solutions to problems they had not known existed until Tuesday.
They started listening to one another.
Witnessing one another.
No judgments.
No ranking.
No insecurity contests.
Acceptance.
Radical acceptance.
They climbed mountains.
Opened studios.
Made films.
Started businesses.
Took naps.
Lifted weights.
Left marriages.
Stayed in marriages.
Dyed their hair purple.
Stopped dyeing it entirely.
Ignored narcissistic family dynamics.
Killed their scapegoat roles.
They became harder and harder to categorize.
Harder to predict.
Harder to track.
They became iWOACAs.
Women with self-awareness and intention who shaped their lives according to their own peculiar measurements.
Shangralawoody barely noticed.
The bored men did.
And in their little rodent hearts, something dark began to grow.

If the iWOACAs could create their own pantheon of independence—
then perhaps the bored men could create one too to combat them and their influence.

And theirs would be better. It would have stock options.

(Later they would buy their way to domination, purchasing radio, news outlets, cable networks, and eventually THE INTERNET! They would buy offices and install potatoes that would do and say what they wanted to keep THE INTERNET CLICKING!!!! It was an unbelievably good plan. Completely UNBELIEVABLE!)