Issue 1
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Dear Woman Beyond Forty DROP US A LETTER FOR YOUR CHANCE TO WIN SOMETHING GREAT!
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Dear Women Beyond Forty
W
ow! Hard not to be inspired. Loved the ease of the conversations, the flow. It felt better than a coaching call. There is something about women and in the interview with Nicole Brownlee, she sums it up perfectly. Women are generous and kind in spirit. They want to see other women succeed. It is about connection and a genuine desire to push you to see your own greatness in the art of storytelling. I love how Sandy listens and allows the speaker to direct the flow because that is when the real nuggets of gold appear Katie Review: Apple Podcasts The Good Girl Confessional Podcast
I
t’s not nothing as well to be focusing on women who are forty and over. I wrote about that in The Fictional Woman and the stats speak for themselves about how women have a smaller slice of the pie to begin with and in particular in terms of getting public support and notoriety or acclaim... it’s so focused on younger women and we tend to forget women when they get to forty or older. Some women are breaking the mold or doing amazing things and thankfully they’re there as trailblazers, but it’s the norm at all so I really have to say it’s a wonderful thing [Wb40] and I applaud what you’re doing Sandy
W
ow, fascinating female leaders! As a leader myself it’s great to hear an inspiring female leader (Debra Cerasa) tell her journey. I love Sandy’s interview style and how it brought out this magnificent woman’s story.” Mike Review Apple Podcasts The Good Girl Confessional Podcast
Tara Moss Episode 26 The Good Girl Confessional Podcast
Email us at: info@wb40.com.au | Add ‘Letter to the Editor’ in the Subject line
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The Hidden Room BY ANONYMOUS BLOGGER
R
ecently my online dating life has taken an interesting turn. By taking a chance and swiping right on a “different” sort of
profile I’ve found myself in the world of kink. I suppose I’ve had an abstract interest in this world since I was introduced to ”Dan Savage’s Savage Lovecast podcast about five years ago. It’s not that I didn’t know that there was a world of kink and fetish out there but I hadn’t really experienced it or known much about it in my personal life. To be fair I previously had a very brief dating relationship with a man who was into this world and while our fledgling relationship didn’t pan out for other reasons I did enjoy the beginnings of exploring this world with him. A memorable Friday night involved us having very hot sex both dressed as French maids, including stockings and heels.
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The Job Market – Are you feeling lucky? BY AMALIA CHILIANIS
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Cover Artist - Cathy Frank Cathy Frank is an Australian, Coogee-based artist who works in digital and analogue media. Using surrealist techniques, colour and contrast, she creates impossible worlds and dreamscapes that are wistful, melancholy, unique and playful. Her works dissect the essence of memory and pseudo memory - fragmented moments lost in time and dreams, or a place and feeling you have never know. Wb40 is honoured that she has created this extraordinary cover for the debut issue of Wb40 - Women Beyond Forty Magazine. Artwork: The Brave Are Free. An ode, to all the sacrifices that all womxn have made, the pain, the suffering, but most of all their bravery. Background story: During the early hours of just this past Sunday, November 29th, I was dropped by my Uber driver barely two cars away from my apartment gate. I saw two men, drunk, barely 10 metres away. I heard them talking loudly. “Grab her” I didn’t want them to know I heard. I quickly walked up the footpath to my units frantically buzzing to get upstairs and turned around - they were waiting for me at the front gate. The door opened I bounded upstairs and had a cigarette, shaking... I was thinking about if they were still there.
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Was it a joke? They’re just f*cking with me? Or were they going to hurt me, rape me, kill me? The scenarios rushed through my mind - I shouldn’t have worn that sexy dress, I shouldn’t have been alone, I shouldn’t have been out so late. I shouldn’t have, I shouldn’t have - They SHOULDN’T HAVE. I was in front of my house. Is nowhere safe? This one really rattled me, I wish I could say this hasn’t happened before, I am scared. but I can’t afford to be. We can’t afford to be. Making this artwork was incredibly difficult. I would often become so overwhelmed with emotion, holding back tears as I paired images together, having to put my laptop away, regain composure. I don’t feel brave today, I’m still scared. I’m worried men will continue to scare, harass and terrorise. I’m worried that I can’t be alone at night but I need to be brave now. We need to be brave. This artwork means and represents so much, and when I look at it it makes me angry, it makes me proud and it makes me brave. The brave are free. www.cathyfrank.net Instagram: @cathyfrankstudio
Emotional Load BY SANDY LOWRES
When my partner first moved in with me, sharing
equally share the housework, sure, but also the
space with him and my young adult children
emotional load.
wasn’t hard to be honest, as they all get along. When he raised the concept of us moving in
Of course he agreed to all of that willingly, but in
together I must admit that, while I was looking
truth, I had doubts. Why is it that this issue remains
forward to it, I also knew from experience that
one of gender and that women generally end up
cohabitating always involves teething problems.
shouldering the lion’s share of emotional labour in
Having been living sans partner for some years,
in this day and age?
I decided, in the name of adulting, to talk about the things I thought might be potential pot
Emotional Labour , as a term, was first coined
holes. What I really needed was a partner in the
by American sociologist Arlie Hochschild in her
true sense of the word. Someone who would
book The Managed Heart published in 1983. Arlie
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64 Callista Cooper - Mallacoota - Image: Rachel Mounsey
A post-bushfire quest for Joie de Vivre BY CALLISTA COOPER
I’m
ready for some fun! A warm Spring day arrives on cue, accompanied by sounds of the surf and the birds. What a year! Evacuations, floods, two lockdowns, job lost due to covid, kids at home for months (actually that was pretty special), and a community at multi levels of reconnecting. For joy, today I’m meeting a group of women, aged 40 to 75ish, and we’re venturing out on a dragon boat, setting off on Mallacoota’s lower lake this morning. We launch from Karbeethong Jetty and glide out into a vast expanse of water that ebbs and flows as it has for millennia. Paddling along, laughing and giggling, the covid safe group slowly finds its rhythm, rocking and splashing against a wind that’s pretty much in our faces. But paddling upstream is par for the course for we of Mallacoota this year. Out there with these women arises a childlike delight, no phone, no social media, no cameras, no worries. Suddenly I, we all, are feeling empowered, a part of a group of strong women, on the wild, yet desolate and tranquil lake. Paddle up, paddle in, lift up. I’m a world away from a year defined by trauma, with no one to advise me to be more resilient, not while I have this paddle in my hands, anyway, just the wind and waves to make me feel alive. Christmas songs on the lake was my last voyage on this dragon boat, closing in on a year ago, when the approaching summer was a portentous threat to be dealt with as it arrived, when that threat could be foregone in a brilliant evening singing to all around the foreshore from our colourfully lit, floating gazebo. A riotous evening on the lake, voices raised and warbling Christmas carols as we paddled about in a sea of belly laughs, astonished campers watching on, (who,
we all presumed, were delighted by our raucous performance). None of us were imagining that just a week later images of this very lake, strangely alive with glowing red smoked-out skies and drawn ochre coloured faces, would be beamed into lounge rooms around the world, a symbol of Australia on fire. ‘The fire’ raged towards us just a few days later, this lake was one of the places people were ready to jump into as a worst case. Looking back now, I feel again that sense of foreboding in late December when ash from far away fires started to sprinkle down on me, my family, neighbours and friends, as I pottered in the garden. For months, right back into winter, we had watched the east coast of Australia fight a series of burns as bushfires tore through millions of hectares – of bushland, homes and properties. News came that there were not enough “assets” to stop the lightning fire at the Wingan and a wind change was on the way - it was our turn. We all knew what was coming, well, not all the tourists apparently, but when a friend confirmed the projections when the fire was about 50 kilometres away, and Mallacoota unavoidably in the firing line for the cold front to move across the Great Australian Bight. The fire would arrive with it and predicting the time of its arrival became a matter of life – the alternative was not in our options. Our bags were packed by the door, and fire plans firmly in place to walk to the beach when needed. A few realities unsteadied us late in the piece. Best laid plans do seem to change as threats solidify into life and death situations. The “official” advice by now was that it was too late to leave – and the idea of being stranded in south
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Lets talk Vagina
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BY NAOMI RADKE
Imagine for a moment that you are at
Helen Mirren is quoted to suggest
the point of climax ... you know ... the
to her younger self to say “F#$k Off ”
world is fuzzing out, your body feels
more often! It does not matter if there
like it’s levitating, your energetic
are kids in our life or not, we have had
vibration is at an all-time high, and
enough life lessons transporting us to
they say that we are closest to our
where we are at today, complete with
‘sacred feminine’. At that moment,
perfect smile lines. We are organised,
our focus is so deeply on ourselves
we look after our skin (even if it is the
and our urgent need to release.
bare necessities), strive to eat well,
With such bliss within our reach,
know what good friends feel like, and
we should be seeking this feeling as
probably write lists. We are experts in
much as we feel is a healthy amount
prioritising our day to get through, and
for us! However, when we make
we can pat ourselves on the back for
our list of to-dos for the day, where
what mammoth tasks we can achieve
‘must have orgasm’ falls is often
in a single day. However in my humble
somewhere down near number 4
observation, there is one topic that
behind exercise, organise dinner and
as a sisterhood induces an awkward
take the dog for a walk. Ladies, it is
giggle, a retreat from a conversation
time to move our personal pleasure
or without sounding too dramatic
up the list, take a page out of the
... judgement ... and that is when we
book of men as it’s time to ‘think’
dare to talk about or seek intimacy.
with our vaginas! As an erotic storyteller I know that As 40+ women, we are beautiful mish
intimacy is not a dirty word, I know I
mashes of life experience, and as actor
am not a bad person for
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