I am WOMAN, hear me rant

Kindly forgive the tirade- there is not much sense in the stream of consciousness to follow:

When I was 11 my mother told me the day I got my period she would bake me a cake. We'd have a little party with streamers and candles and celebrate all that is womanhood. Even at such a tender age, my sarcastic streak intact, I balked at the idea of raising joyous glee over something that would bring me monthly excrutiating cramps, emotional swings that would make any and all intelligent people avoid me for 2-3 days, tender breasts, inability to zip my pants because of bloating...and we're not even going to touch on the demon itself. Other women out there, I think, will understand why.

My mother didn't find out I had gotten my period (months before) until a doctor's appointment quite a bit later. To this day, I don't think she forgave me for robbing her of her earth-mother celebratory dance. Hoo-rah, we don't have penile appendages weighing us down and we are the bearers of all mankind...Hoo-rah! OK- perhaps that's a bit extreme, but she was irked. Her return to the feminine mystique at the time makes morse sense when I remember that it's the same time frame she came out as a lesbian. She was always a little granola, that one.

I was talking to a male friend of mine today, and somewhere the topic of his wife's stretchmarks came up. "She only has them on her stomach," he belabored about her post-babies figure, "but they're noticeable...you can see them from like 40 feet away." My instant reaction, given my penchant of late for cosmetic procedures was to tell him she should see a dermatologist, or a plastics guy if there was excess skin they could just snip off. It didn't occur to me until later to wonder WTF?!? since they didn't seem to bother her all that much.

Oh the sufferings we women endure (as I fondly think back to my summer readings of Nora Ephron and her guilt over neck rings). Even if we somehow manage to find acceptance in ourselves, to proudly take our clothes off in the gym locker room without feeling inadequate, too fat, or too thin; to wear that little black dress without a shawl; to manage to conquer our own demons of the non-flo variety, we shall always feel the need for more it seems.

I'm not saying I mind the upkeep, for there is male upkeep to, albeit of a far lower expense and production. I'm not looking to trade my breasts or my uterus (although, in fairness I don't plan to use it; so whose brilliant idea it was to give me one and deny thousands of women their own fair use is beyond me) on ebay for a penis and some testosterone. I like my heels for the power they instill in me when I wear them...the instantly sexy feeling. I would still get my waxings monthly even if I had no man expecting it, just because I like it. I would continue to have my weekly pedi/mani if for no other reason than the stress release of a spa footrub. I would even wear makeup.

But god damn it, if my man; after providing him his children from my ripped open nether regions following 9 months of hell and intense discomfort moaned and groaned at me about a few stretch marks; particularly if he was a little soggy in the middle section, particularly if he were lax in a grooming area...I swear I would raise some holy hell.

Somehow, I think we got the short end of the stick.