Praise Her, Praise Diana

by Anne Rothman-Hicks

  “Oh, I’ll get the message out,” Judith said. “If only women will listen.”

  “Just remember your audience, Judith. Please. They’re not students in a seminar. They’re housewives and working women. Tone it down a little at first. The message is right and true, but they have to be brought along slowly.”

  “Slowly!” Judith replied, her voice changing as she thought of the days spent sitting at her card table in front of Bloomingdales, trying to get them to listen. “I’d like to take all of them by the shoulders and shake them until their eyes were opened. But I do know what an opportunity this is, Sheila. I appreciate your help, as always. Thank you.”

  “And thank you, Judith. I’ve waited a long time to have a student with your fire. Now just do my lower back a minute more. Then you should go.”

  * * * *

  Susan Hempten was a psychologist by trade who, about four years earlier, had begun a radio program called The Dr. Suzy Show on a local university’s public radio station. Hers was a simple concept, like many other similar talk shows. Men and women called in for advice and in the process told her the most extraordinary things about their private lives, seeking help or vindication or just someone who would listen. But Susan had a particularly young and attractive voice with a sexy undertone, along with a penchant for being amusingly blunt but not offensive with her callers. Over time, she had garnered a large enough audience to attract attention. Most recently, another member of the WPW board, Charmaine Devon, had begun investing money with Susan to try to establish a nationwide network affiliation, or perhaps make the transition to TV. On her one brief TV appearance, Susan had made an excellent impression: pretty, smart and articulate.

  Judith hated her.

  She didn’t begrudge Susan her success, or her pretty face, or the ample curves of her body, or her attractive voice. She was not jealous of her at all. What made Judith want to vomit was the way that Susan used her sex to get ahead. Tonight, the ripeness of her body was squeezed into a dirndl-style dress with a black velvet bodice and a red and black pattern on the skirt. Her substantial breasts, enhanced by a push-up bra, literally poured out of the white, cotton short-sleeved blouse. Why she would be dressed so provocatively for a radio show was soon evident. Aside from the techies on her crew, there was a small group of suits sitting with Charmaine. Susan was obviously using the night’s broadcast to entice these gawkers to invest. Wait until Sheila heard about this silly woman wearing low-cut tops and dresses shorter than a schoolgirl’s. She was playing the game, as men wanted it played, giving them an eyeful or more in return for limited success in their world—and dragging WPW into her schemes as well.

  Judith would not have asked a bimbo like Susan for the favor of being allowed on her stupid show, but Sheila had pressed the point. And Sheila was right, with her usual wise advice. “We have to grab the opportunities available to us until we control all of the means of communications ourselves,” she had said. Most women’s minds were not yet ready for the sort of new viewpoints that Judith and Sheila were espousing. Women had won some rights and were now lazy and self-satisfied. They needed to be brought along slowly to roust them fully from their lives of male domination, and if the only way to reach them was to go on Susan’s show and interact with her maundering palaver, so be it. She should start with the small truths that no one could deny and add slowly, layer upon layer, step by step, until each woman would realize finally the extent to which her life was circumscribed in every aspect by men—ruled by them.

  Waiting for the show to begin, Judith fingered the piece of paper Diana had left her as though it were a talisman of wonderful power.

  Blood will be spilled, Judith repeated to herself. Praise her, praise Diana.

  * * * *

  “Thong underwear is one example,” Judith said, and as soon as the words passed her lips, she knew she had made a mistake. Susan sat up in her chair and leaned forward.

  “You’re joking,” Susan said. “Thong underwear shows women’s subservience to men?”

  Jane and Judith were sitting at a small round table with Susan between them. Susan shot a stupidly incredulous glance at Jane, who had already finished her talk, giving women a short course on how and where to go to get an Order of Protection against an abusive boyfriend or husband, and how to get an order of child support as well. Judith had idolized Martha for years but had met Jane infrequently. In person, the view she had garnered from Sheila and others was pleasantly confirmed. She was wearing a simple cotton blouse, with embroidery along the collar and the front buttons. Her hair was pulled back simply from her very handsome, clear-eyed face and held in place with an elastic band. No doubt she was wearing make-up, but it wasn’t lathered on like Susan’s was. Likewise, she wore tailored slacks that were flattering but not so tight as to reveal every firm muscle in her lower torso. And most significant to Judith was the fact that Jane was not using the radio appearance, and by extension WPW, to drum up clients for her law practice. To the contrary, she had clearly stated that women could get protective orders by themselves, without a lawyer, empowering them and saving them time and money. And when Susan had invited her to give her address and number, she had replied instead that WPW had a list of lawyers posted on their website, and that if anyone wanted the list they could call in and a copy would be mailed to them at no charge. Maggie Edwards (the whore!) and another woman from WPW were assigned the task of fielding those calls.

  Now it was Judith’s turn to speak, and after just a few minutes she was already in trouble. Susan had started off with the greatest courtesy toward Judith, allowing her to talk about the fact that despite the many apparent advances made by American society in the last century, some of the prevailing attitudes today were not all that different from those of previous centuries and of the most backward cultures. Women needed to be educated to see the subtle and not so subtle ways in which they remain oppressed so that change could be set in motion. Then Judith had given the example of thong underwear, lulled into thinking that she was speaking to a friendly listener, only to see Susan’s eyes narrow as though she were a soaring hawk that had just spotted the pigeon that would soon be its dinner.

  Judith knew it was critically important that she maintain her calm in the face of this provocation but her anger at her misstep made her suddenly flustered.

  “Let me—” Judith said. “Let me explain.”

  “Oh, please do,” replied Susan quickly, her bright and sexily sarcastic tone conveying her belief that Judith was a member of some weird feminist cult and causing a titter among those who were in attendance. Ellen was sitting with the suits also, wearing a black cocktail dress with enough folds in the bodice to distract one’s eye from the squarish heft of her chest, and narrowly spaced velvet ribbons along the length of the skirt, which highlighted the surprising trimness of her legs and provided an element of girlish fun that the suits seemed to like. In fact, one of the three, who were all chuckling at Susan’s acerbic wit, couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off of Ellen.

  Her dour husband, Thomas, sat beside her in his brilliant entrepreneur outfit, consisting of a denim work shirt with a silkscreen of the Beatles on the back, stonewashed jeans, and, lest anyone miss the point that he was not really a hippie, a pair of impeccably buffed Cole Hahn boots. From the beginning, he had viewed the proceedings with a skeptical eye, and now he folded his arms over his chest as though to say that the nonsense coming from Judith’s mouth was exactly what he had been expecting.

  Even the support and technical staff, some of whom were young women, openly rolled their eyes. Idiots!

  Judith stiffened with anger; her hands began to sweat, her mouth was dry, and she was at a loss for words. Wasn’t she also an idiot? To be duped by Susan’s appreciative smile, her sparkle toward her, her white breasts, when all the while she was just waiting for the moment to strike at Judith’s throat.

  “But ... but it’s really so ... so completely obvious,” Judith stuttered. “Thongs are totally uncomfortable and bar
ely function for their purpose, and women wear them anyway just to avoid a panty line showing through their pants or skirt.”

  “Are you speaking from personal experience?” Dr. Suzy asked coyly, eliciting loud laughs from her small audience. Judith seethed at the thought of them imagining what was beneath her clothes. She clasped her hands tightly in her lap, struggling for control, trying to think of some response.

  Jane interrupted.

  “In all fairness to Judith,” she said in the calm clear voice that Judith hoped for in herself, with the tone of a teacher who is not yet angry but certainly perturbed with her class, “I’ve never been nailed to a cross either, but I can imagine that I wouldn’t like it.”

  Relief flooded through Judith. She felt like she could breathe again.

  “Well, Jane,” Susan continued. “Since you’ve taken up the argument for Judith, let me ask you this. What’s wrong with not wanting to show panty lines? Do you find panty lines attractive?”

  “That depends on whose panty lines we’re looking at I guess,” Jane replied. Once again there was laughter among the guests, but this time it was not at all malicious. Susan smiled; she knew it was coming across well even if she had lost her patsy. “But seriously,” Jane continued. “This is Judith’s point, I think. If women choose their underwear only to make their rear-ends sleek and sexy, they’ve fallen into the trap of acting like objects and deriving their sense of worth from the approving glance of a man.”

  “So anything that might attract a man, or, God forbid, turn him on, is taboo?” Susan asked. “What about make-up?”

  “You’ll have to ask Judith that one. I haven’t thought this through with the care that she obviously has. But let me raise another example of the difference between men and women today that I have been thinking about lately. The woman who calls herself Diana has now killed two men in apparently random style, after luring them for sex. And it seems to me that if the victims of this sexual predator had been women, a chill would have gone up and down my spine that I frankly was not feeling with Diana. And it seems to me also that this time it’s the man’s turn to be worried about going home with his date—to be afraid of being attacked for no other reason than he is a man.”

  Jane paused. Those listening were completely silent.

  Then Susan said, “But I get to keep my make-up?”

  “I’ll vote for it!” Jane replied.

  The tension was broken. Susan was grinning again, as was the audience. Judith wanted to reach across and throttle Susan. Jane had said something incredibly important about Diana—that she was reversing the established order, striking out for women everywhere—and Dr. Suzy was deflecting its impact with a big joke. Shame!

  “Well, this is all very interesting stuff, Jane,” Susan continued. “But it raises another question. What if the woman is wearing thong underwear to attract another woman? Is it still wrong? Judith, maybe you could answer that one for us?”

  Susan’s whole manner changed again from the bantering joviality that she had engaged in with Jane to cloying condescension. But Judith had recovered herself by this point.

  “I could,” she said. “But frankly your question offends me. Whenever a woman stands up and tries to speak her mind, the first defense of a man is to call her a lesbian, an emasculator, a butch! And your question does the same thing, Susan. It shifts the focus from something important that Jane said, to something silly—a woman waggling her ass to attract another woman.”

  “Are you saying that women don’t try to attract other women?” Susan asked belligerently.

  “I’m saying that they attract them with the strength of their minds and the suppleness of their thoughts, not with their bodies.”

  “Well that’s an insight that I’m not sure I agree with, Judith,” Susan said, interrupting her again. “But we’ll break for a few minutes, and when we come back the switchboard will be open for questions from our listeners.”

  The signal light went off. Susan pushed herself away from the table and stood up, stretching her arms above her head and moving them from side to side, so that it seemed her breasts would spring free of their containment at any instant. Had she any concept of what a fool she was?

  “That was really good stuff,” Susan said. “Take a couple of minutes to have a drink of water, or whatever. And try to relax a little, Judith.”

  “I’ll relax when I’m among my friends.”

  “Stop the nonsense!” Susan replied. “You’re here to answer questions; that’s what the show’s all about. If you don’t want to be on it, feel free to go.”

  “No, I’m staying,” Judith replied angrily. “Now that I know the ground rules.”

  About ten minutes later, Susan returned with a list of names of callers who were waiting to talk.

  “Okay,” she said in her cheery voice. “The Dr. Suzy show is back. And now we’re going to have questions from our listeners. The first caller is from Manhattan, and her name is Rosita. Rosita, what is your question?”

  “My question is for Ms. Larson,” the voice said. “And the question is, what do you do when the system fails?”

  Jane frowned. She’d thought she recognized the voice, and now she knew that the caller was the older sister of her client, Mariana.

  “In what way, Rosita?”

  “My sister, Mariana, did everything you told her to do. She went down and got an Order of Protection from the Family Court against her boyfriend, Jose Torres, a New York City policeman. She had him served. And now she is missing.”

  “What do you mean?” Susan interjected.

  “She is missing. Her neighbor found the door to her apartment open this morning and her little two-year-old boy wandering in the hall calling for his mother. Something has happened to my sister. She would never willingly leave her little boy alone.”

  “Have you called the police?” Jane asked.

  “The police? You mean Jose’s friends?!”

  “Well, you have to start there.”

  “I did start there. I demanded to talk to the commanding officer. I told him that my sister’s neighbor would testify that Jose was there last night. She heard him in the hallway, talking to Rosita.”

  “Then he violated the Order.”

  “Yes, for sure. But he denied he was there. And when the police talked to my sister’s neighbor, all of a sudden, she wasn’t remembering anything. She now says she never talked to me about it. You see? She’s scared. She has a son who is always in trouble. She doesn’t want him put in jail because she wants to help Mariana.”

  “Look, I’m sorry for what happened,” Susan said. “It’s heart-wrenching. But we have to move on with the show. Do you have a question?”

  “Yes, I do. The question is, how can you tell women to get a protective order, when the piece of paper is so worthless?”

  “That’s not a fair question,” Susan said. “You have no idea what happened. She may have let him in.”

  “That’s right, blame the victim,” Judith said.

  “I’m not blaming the victim!” Susan shouted. “I’m saying we have no facts.”

  “Rosita,” Jane said then. “Come to my office first thing in the morning. There are steps we can take. I know people I can call to get some help here.”

  “And what if I can’t wait? What do I tell her little boy? What can I do tonight? I can’t wait until tomorrow, or next week, when my sister is missing. What can I do now?”

  Susan signaled her assistant and the line went dead.

  “Our next caller is Louisa from Brooklyn and she has a question for Judith.”

  “Oh, thank you for taking my call,” the young woman said. “My question is for Judith ...”

  “Okay, Louisa, hold on just a moment,” said Judith. “I want to respond to that last person, if I may. I don’t know exactly what she should do either. No doubt, Jane has done everything that a lawyer can do for her sister. I don’t question that for a minute. But I think it is clear that we can only find solutions for her si
ster and others like her by fighting back in radical new ways. That’s why I’ve founded a new women’s group that I am calling the Eumenides, and like the Furies of Greek mythology we will pursue and badger every unpunished male who hurts a woman.”

  “I agree with you completely,” said the voice over the phone. “And it seems to me that the woman who calls herself Diana is already looking at this society in a different way. And I just wanted to add that I think Diana would know what to do with this guy who hurt Rosita’s sister.”

  “Yeah,” Judith said. “She’d cut his you-know-whats off with a dull knife.”

  “Let’s have our next caller,” Susan said, glaring at Judith. “Denise from Manhattan.”

  “Yes, hello. Question for Judith. What does your new group think about the WPW exhibit at the Iphigenia Gallery?”

  “We think it is a shame that WPW has been perverted from its stated purpose to put on such a thing. In general, most art is just an excuse for men to look at pictures of nude women with society’s full stamp of respectability. These so-called self portraits are pathetic attempts by weak-minded women to be understood by men.”

  Across the room, Ellen cursed under her breath. Her lips were pressed together in a thin, angry line. Her fists were clenched at her sides. Seeing this, Ari went over to her and placed a calming arm around her shoulders.

  “Let her talk,” Ari said softly. “It can only help you.”

  “Fucking little bitch,” Ellen said.

  “What about Diana’s self-portrait?” the caller asked.

  “It’s the only thing in the gallery that’s worth seeing,” Judith replied. “Believe me.”

  When the show was over, Judith gathered her things together quickly and started to leave. Susan said nothing, but it had been obvious that several callers were ringers—friends of Judith who had phoned in with questions apparently arranged beforehand. As a result, she’d had a number of opportunities to deliver her message about men and women, and about her group, the Eumenides.

  On her way to the door, Judith was cut off by Ellen.