Wild Women Talk Back: Audacious Advice for the Bedroom, Boardroom, and Beyond

By Autumn Stephens

The Meaning of Life as Told by Wild and Brave Women

Wild Women Talk Back is for any women out there looking for inspiration, empowerment, or even just a laugh. The iconic women quoted in this book are sassy, full of wisdom, wickedly funny, and just what you need to remind you that girls run the world.

Motivational words from the greats. These women—movie stars, politicians, musicians, and writers—remind us to be unapologetically ourselves. Their power-packed words cut to the truth of femininity and reveal what being a woman in this world looks like, not shying away from the harsh realities as well as the joys and pleasures. The inspirational women quoted here offer their own brash brand of counsel and commentary on themes common to women's lives and act as a guide, comic relief, and a source of empowerment for all women.

Rejoice in your wild side. This book is more than a compilation of inspirational quotes for women—it’s an invitation to embrace and live out your wild and beautiful feminine self. Not only will these empowering quotes lift your spirits, but they will make you stop and think about the meaning of life and women’s invaluable role in the world. Wild Women author Autumn Stephens introduces each section, shedding contemporary light on the collection of quotes from awe-inspiring and unforgettable women such as Madonna, Lucille Ball, and Mary, Queen of Scots. Open up this book packed with quotes about being a woman and learn more about:

• Insight into everything from sex to motherhood, physical appearance to self-esteem, and coping with a career to finding wisdom
• The hilariously and shockingly relatable experiences of women throughout the ages
• The timeless wit and wisdom that women have to offer

Readers of books such as Badass Affirmations, In the Company of Women, That’s What She Said, and Great Quotes from Great Women will love Wild Women Talk Back by Autumn Stephens.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Conari Press
• Release date: Sep 15, 2004
• ISBN: 9781609253196

Autumn Stephens

Autumn Stephens is the editor of Roar Softly and Carry a Great Lipstick and the Wild Women series of biography and humor. Her work has appeared in the New York Times and various newspapers and magazines. A former book reviewer for the San Francisco Chronicle, Autumn leads book group discussions and conducts writing workshops for women with cancer. She lives in Berkeley with her husband and two children.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Please give me some good advice in your next letter. I promise not to follow it.

—Edna St. Vincent Millay

One-size-fits-all usually doesn't—a rule that applies equally to pantyhose and pertinent advice. And why, indeed, should it, given the teeming multitude of female forms, the panoply of human psyches? Of course, if you find it impossible to squeeze 60 percent of your body mass into a miniscule bit of fragile, flesh-colored nylon tubing, it is probable that you will lead an interesting and useful life nonetheless. Queen Elizabeth I, after all, never heard of Queen Size. Madam Curie didn't know from Control Top. Isadora Duncan managed to turn modern dance on its head without ever purchasing a single garment labeled Nude, Size B.

Likewise, we can all survive just fine without any more one-size-fits-all advice of the horizontal stripes make the midriff appear massive, and never let a strange man have his way with you ilk. As for the first statement, wouldn't that mondo midriff actually be an asset in fending off amorous attentions? And as for the second, as feminist author Robin Morgan once noted, "All men are strange." Zero population growth is all well and good—but do you really want it to start with you?

This, however, is not your mother's advice. Ten to one, Mama never mentioned that some women are only interested in one thing. (To wit, the actress Valerie Perrine, quoted herein: I don't care what a man thinks of me as long as I get what I want from him—which is usually sex.) Unlike comic Roseanne Barr, your mother probably also failed to point out the positive side of PMS: I think of it as the only time of the month when I can be myself. And unless your maternal progenitor was the essayist Amy Krouse Rosenthal, she almost certainly never urged you to polish off that second slab of pie, cooing that Nobody's last words have ever been, ‘I wish I had eaten more rice cakes.’

From sex to motherhood (not, incidentally, unrelated phenomena), from physical appearance to self-esteem, from coping with a career to attaining wisdom, the dozens of Wild Women in this collection offer their own brash brand of counsel and commentary on themes common to most women's lives. Unlike those pesky pantyhose, the following tips and quips will do absolutely nothing to flatten your tummy. But surely they will lift your spirits.

CHAPTER ONE

Self-Esteem: On Being the Bee's Knees

Along with a few million other Baby-Girl Boomers, I was fortunate enough to grow up in an era when it wasn't a crime for a young woman to call attention to herself. Scholastic achievement, in particular, was an okay way for a girl to get her props. Yet outright showing off, at least in my household of origin, remained taboo. I still squirm to recall my mother's reaction when, during the course of a Girl Scout meeting which she was leading, I fell histrionically to the floor and lay there flopping like a landed flounder. I no longer recall the reason for this bit of childish buffoonery (I was perhaps ten or eleven at the time), or the reaction of my cookie-selling compatriots. But my mother's disapproving face and stern admonition reverberate through my memory cells to this day. Why, that's just like saying, ‘Look at me! Look at me!’ she scolded.

Okay, so I adore my (loving, funny, shockingly smart) mother; I really do. And in the early sixties, with the sweeping cultural changes of that decade scarcely spawned, no doubt her reaction to a crassly attention-seeking daughter was the norm. Yet why, I now wonder, in a world where the wind can so easily be knocked out of a woman's sails (whether