(Nancy Friday's first visit to Power Surge)
 
OnlineHost:     Nancy Friday has entered the room.
 

Dearest:     It is with great pleasure that I introduce you to my guest tonight in 
Power Surge, best-selling author and media personality, NANCY FRIDAY.

As most of you know, Ms. Friday has authored seven books on the relationships between
men and women, and within the family. Her books have sold more than 8.5 million copies.
some of which are:

My Secret Garden, Forbidden Flowers,   My Mother, Myself, Men In Love, Jealousy
...and her most recent book, "The Power Of Beauty," published this year by
HarperCollins (revised edition renamed "Our Looks, Our Lives: Sex, Beauty, Power,
and the Need to Be Seen." 

The Power Of Beauty deals with the dynamics of physical appearance and the power it
wields,  even in today's intellectually enlightened society. The POB is the result of
ten years of research.

In Power Surge, some of us may feel our own beauty waning as we trek through the process
of menopause - at least, according to *our* definition of "beauty."

The focus of tonight's chat with Nancy Friday is not on the medical aspects
of menopause but, rather, on our concerns about the psychological dynamics associated
with beauty and appearance, especially at this volatile time in our lives. Kindly reserve
the usual medical questions about menopause for future Power Surge chats, so we can take
advantage of Nancy's expertise. Thanks :)

Dearest:So, without further ado, let's begin the Q & A session with Nancy Friday.  


Dearest: Nancy, would it okay if we address you by your first name?  We're all friends 
here in Power Surge :)  Also, would you like to say a few words before we begin the Q & A session?


Nancy Friday:     Absolutely- call me Nancy! 


Nancy Friday:  I would like to say that I consider the last chapter of POB.
which is about women and aging to be the most important.


Dearest:    Thanks, Nancy - it's wonderful to have you here tonight...
             let's begin the Q & A Session...
  

Postrain:    How do we build self esteem during this time? 


Nancy Friday:   We begin by having built it long before menopause, which can be a great 
time for regaining parts of ourselves we left behind. 


Jean:   During your research, did you find that women worry more about physical aging than 
men do?


Nancy Friday:   Absolutely yes. Think of money in the bank. That is how many men think of 
aging -- the longer they work, the richer they are, the more powerful they are. We are
accustomed to seeing very old men, rich old men, with very young women. We understand the 
deal. I believe that women today are beginning to age in that same way if they choose to.
We don't need to choose a young man, necessairly, but it is we, ourselves who must see 
ourselves as vibrant and sexual and the rest of the world will see us that way too. GA


LERLAU:    What inspired you to write this book?  


Nancy Friday:   I have always been aware, from the time I was a little girl, of the power that 
women's beauty had over other people.  When feminism began in the 70's and beauty was thrown out
and then returned in the 80's, I thought, "WOW, these are going to be fascinating times, watching 
women use their new political and economic power...

 
Dearest:  Nancy, there are many successful women who are also physically beautiful, but their 
beauty is often more a liability than an asset. Do you suggest they deny their beauty?  Play it 
to the hilt?  How does one deal with this? 


Nancy Friday:   What powerful women have to understand is that being women we begin life powerful.

We raise the human race. If, in addition, to that we have economic or beauty power, we arouse a 
great deal of envy in others, both women and men.  So yes, sometimes it is good to cool it, but 
if you have the balls, by all means play it to the hilt. Then we arouse a great deal of envy.  
 

Dearest:    Fascinating, Nancy. Sstot, go ahead.


SStot:   I'm a big fan. Do you hear from more women wanting or not wanting sex during/after menopause? 


Nancy Friday:   I would hesitate to answer that because I haven't asked women directly, but I would 
venture that just as women expect more of everything in life today, they expect to  have sex as long 
as they want. 
                   
 
PZukow:   True beauty comes from within and radiates externally. 
      

Nancy Friday:   I think that is far more true than the old line that beauty if in the eye of the
beholder.  In fact, both are true. But if a plain woman has a wonderful opinion of herself and 
openness to those around her, especially today when people are so hungry for contact, she will have 
all the friends she desires. 

The key is -- we must honestly look in the mirror, or in the window we are passing on the street
and like that person we see. 


Postrain:   Will Americans ever think women over 50 are physically beautiful?   


Nancy Friday:   My husband just said loudly. "I do!" (Nancy's husband is Time, Inc's Editor-in-Chief,
Norman Pearlstine). I think it will not change in our country until women carry into what I call the
third act of our lives. Everything we have learned about ourselves and about others. We have numbers 
on our side today.  Women must stop the intrawomen bitching at one another. Must stop knocking off 
the other woman because she's with a younger man, or has had some surgery and take her as a benchmark, 
a model instead.

I'm not saying you have to have surgery, just give her credit for making her own decisions. 


LMossholde:   According to your research, who is the most critical of women's appearance, the woman 
herself, other women, or men? 


Nancy Friday:   It begins so early in the nursery, within the family. That it is often difficult
to know where the seed was planted as regards our opinion of our looks. If your mother didn't love 
the way you looked, or if you were plain, and had a beautiful sister or brother, all these things 
factor in to how you feel about your looks today. 
 


Zmbz:   What holds women back from working together to be politically powerful, and what can each 
of us do?


Nancy Friday:   Again, I think this answer goes back to our earliest ties to other women. It is why 
every book I have written begins in the earliest relationship with our parents and our siblings.
There is a saying among mothers that three little girls can't play together. Two always gang up and 
leave the third out. This kind of behavior is the kind that must change because it continues throughout 
our lives. 


Prncssjd: What is the most striking/surprising finding of your research from which your current book 
is based? 


Nancy Friday:   I think the most powerful finding for me was my conviction that men getting more and 
more into the mirror -- meaning into looking good is going to change not just the man woman relationship,
but also the role of beauty within the home and the workplace. Men will handle beauty's power differently 
than we do.  


Dearest:Nancy, what do you think has/will surprise the reader most about your newest book, "The Power 
Of Beauty?" 


Nancy Friday:   I think that the realization that our feelings about our looks and about aging begin at 
the bery beginning again in the nursery opposite mother, father, siblings. I can not emphasize enough how 
much I would encourage all of you to go back and think about yourself just prior to the advent of 
adolescense.  You were not interested in sexual beauty then. You probably judged yourself by athletic 
prowess, intellect, leadership. 

Our job is to find that girl now. Reclaim her and become the best part of her. 


Dearest:  Lovely. I'm mesmerized by your answers, Nancy :)  


FBriggs113:   I once was a nurse and then for a nurses' union so worked primarily with other women
and have been occassionally surprised by the phenonema of other women being jealous and engaging in 
what I have heard referred to as horizontal violence. That is, being ungenerous to peer who strive 
to do better.  I have found this to be most depressing - I wonder if you have any comments on this. 


Nancy Friday:   Competition between women is one of the great themes of the Power of Beauty. We were 
not raised to compete in a healthy way. And so we compete and deny that we are doing that.

We love our best women friends, but when they get past us, we envy them, we are jealous of them

Remember, the first suspect in a murder is always someone in the family. Love and rage know each other 
well. 



Postrain:  If you could "prescribe" a "day of beauty" for any of us, what would that day entail? 



Nancy Friday:   How to feel good about ourselves.  When we have a good opinion of ourselves the lines 
of tension in our faces dissappear. The look of anxiety is the look women hate most. If women could, 
as I said above, find that admirable girl that we were prior to the competition over sexual beauty
that moment would become our day of beauty. Women haven't yet realized that the Patriarchal Deal is 
finished meaning.  We have other things to trade for the friends, lovers, that we want in our life. 
 


Jean:  Is there any difference in the way European Americans and African american women see the 
issues of aging and beauty?.


Nancy Friday:   I would say from the little I know about this, but simply from observation, that African 
American women believe more and rely more on the early Matriarchy on which they are raised. I'm not saying 
envy does not exist there.  But that these women have had to rely on one another to survive   


Zmbz:   Please talk about your interpretation of mass media's impact on young women and girls.  


Nancy Friday:   Oy vay. It is so enormous and so endorsed by society and the economic engine that runs 
that society that it must be torture to grow up female in this age of what I call THE EMPTY PACKAGE.
By which I mean, we value people for their surface appearance and care so very little for the good, 
kind, generous person who is inside that package. 


LMossholde:   As the young girl you were talking about above, I was athletic, leader, etc. But mother 
wanted a young lady  Lady= pretty, quiet etc.  How do you handle this mixed message? 


Nancy Friday:   You must go back and accept the importance of your mother's expectations, the importance 
it has had on your life. I'm not saying blame your mother which is a total waste of time, but our mother's expectations, 
all of us, shaped our lives.

Until you accept her, accept you probably still love her, you will not have that space in which to live 
up to your own expectations of yourself. I can assure you your mother would deny today that she had 
those expectations especially if you have made something of a success of your life. 


LMossholde:     Thanks Nancy. Your answer brought wonderful tears to my eyes. 


Dearest:    Nancy, why is it that competition, jealousy and envy is so *ugly* among some professional 
women? 


Nancy Friday:   Because we do not admit by name what we are feeling. Nice Girls aren't competitive. 
Nice Girls aren't envious. Surely, you have heard women say, "Who me?" "Jealous?  Oh no, she's my best friend." 
 

FBriggs113:     How do we learn to compete in a healthy way at our age that allows us to be supportive? This 
is an extension of Dearest's question in part? 


Nancy Friday:   It is never too late to be competitive in a healthy way Athletic coaches today have a 
very difficult time teaching young women athletes to play the game flat out. These girls are afraid that 
their best friends will hate them if they beat them. That is learned behavior.

We have to raise a new generation of women who are taught to win, or to lose and then to shake hands in 
the full knowlege that tomorrow they might win.

Modern feminism, as good as it has been in many ways, still dictates that women "will not be competitive"
How can we be in the workplace and not compete?  


RMA123:  Are you saying we should of stayed the girls we were instead of the women we are?  


Nancy Friday:   No.  What I am saying is that we should have carried into adolescence our bravery, our 
speech, our intellect, and the ease with which we looked in the mirror.

We abandoned our best selves back then because we thought boys didn't want a walking dictionary as she was 
called in my school. Those were patriarchal days. These days belong to us women. We must shape them and 
we must include men in that design or we will regret it.  


Postrain:  I have been burned by women co-workers' jealously of my work and the games they play.  How do 
you shake hands with people you don't trust? 
 

Nancy Friday:   In my opinion, you call them on what they are feeling towards you and if they can't handle
your frankness, you simply walk away from them. I'm not encouraging "Nice Girldom."  Nice girls used to 
bury all their true feelings and smile that dreadful, frozen smile. 


CAJASS:  My daughter, 10, has the body of a 15 yr old. She's very self-conscious, she was once so
confident. I now see it slipping away. How do I help? 


Nancy Friday:  Talk to her!  Be as honest, as well as loving as you can be.  Explain to her why other 
girls may be feeling envious of her.  Explain envy to her.   It is so important for young girls to 
understand envy.  It is important for girls/women to understand the duality of our emotions. It is 
possible to envy someone and still love them. You must do everything you can, being as honest as you 
can be with her, because she knows how you really feel and let her know that she can talk to you
about these things.

She is going though the hardest time of a girl's life. Surrendering her real self to become a beautiful 
girl that a boy will choose. Tell she doesn't have to! But tell her why. Give her "My Mother Myself" to 
read. It will open the conversation between you. 


PNelson4: Thanks.  I have a younger daughter, she lives at a distance and will not communicate.
She has returned my mail.  I would like to know that she is doing well.  She is married.
She is 36, and at one time, we had a good relationship. Can you suggest any way that 
I can at least have a minimum of contact?


Nancy Friday:   I am no sooth sayer. But I would imagine that she will simply have to contact
you when she's ready. Maybe it isn't you that has caused the breach. Maybe she simply needs to resolve
something on her own - all by herself. Somehow, just let her know you are waiting for her to make the 
first move and that you love her and will never judge her. 


PNelson4:       Thank you.  Wonderful answer.  But my heart still aches. 


Dearest:    Wonderful answer, Nancy.. thank you. Sorry for your sadness, PN.


Zmbz:  My mother died when I was ten. What other kinds of effects come from this? There was no 
other support. 


Nancy Friday:   All I can say is that I grew up without a father. I was told he was dead. One day when 
I was twenty, a lawyer telephoned to say that he had died and left me certain things. 

I suppose I'm saying this because the life I made without my father, who I have missed so badly I can not 
describe -- is a life that I am proud of. I think I am "a Daddy's girl" and I didn't even have one.


Dearest:    (sigh)


CAJASS:     How sad :(


Zmbz:          Thank you.  How difficult. You make me cry too. I guess my mother would be proud of me.


Nancy Friday:   This isn't much of an answer but is is all I can offer. 
 

Dearest:    Thank you for sharing that, Nancy. Let me ask you
this, don't you think a great deal of 
our successes, failures, and thinking in general, have a lot to do with "attitude" and not how beautiful 
or ugly we are?  Or even how ambitious?   


Nancy Friday:   Absolutely! For instance if you were "seen" within your family and the way you experienced
this image of yourself in your parent's eyes was positive. It was the most incredible energy to grow on. We
don't need to be seen as beautiful, simply "good enough"  and of course, it's the love that matters.

That kind of person grows up satisfied with what she sees in the mirror because the gift has been 
internalized. 

 
Dearest:    Nancy, you're better than a shrink!  :)


LMossholde:     I have tears in my eyes.


Nita:       Besides being a role model myself, how do I help my two young, adult daughters become someday 
older women who accept themselves for what they have accomplished in life and not what society sees older 
women as? 

 
Nancy Friday:   By being the best model for them as you can be. You are the older woman.
Also, introduce them to women you admire who are older. Tell them why you admire these women
If you can, allow them to see admirable older women moving through life effecting other people
Let them see these older women's power and they will believe. Everybody, all women, would love 
to believe that life goes on and on. Only in seeing that in other women will they take that 
optimism as something they can believe in, put their weight on, imitate.  


Syrndipity:   How many generations do you think it will take before we see all these positive changes 
take hold that you speak of? 


Nancy Friday:   I would like to say -- the more we believe in this kind of optimistic, but realistic, 
thinking, the quicker it will happen. That may sound like Pollyanna but today, we have speech, we have 
some political and economic clout and we only have to solve some of the old intrawomen problems that 
exist and we will become an invincible army.

Feminism has placed too much blame on men for too long. Many of our problems lie within Women's World
There is nothing wrong or shameful in admitting it. The only wrong thing is denying that we women are 
at least in some part respondsible for where we are today. How can we change our lives? Until we admit 
that maybe, just maybe, we too have made some mistakes. 


Dearest:    Wonderful again, Nancy.


Nancy Friday:   Dearest???


Dearest:Yes, Nancy?


Nancy Friday:   I have to go in a few minutes.


Dearest:    Of course, Nancy :) I know we've gone overtime. Just one last question from Palla. 


Nancy Friday:   Okay, one last answer.


Palla96:  What do you see as current Sexual/Feminist movement goals? You find they clash? Why? 


Nancy Friday:   Because it is so important. There have been differences within feminism for a 
long time beginning with the sexual revolution. But let me skip ahead to today.

Young women, in their 20's for instance, are reluctant to call themselves feminists today
What they say is they love sex, they love men, enjoy looking good, and they can't see a place for 
themselves within the word or the group called feminism. I think what we need is to sit down and 
have a semantic talk. Women's World is being divided by this one word which means something different 
to every woman. It is so very important.


Nancy Friday:  I have to go now but I want to say how very moved -- no not moved -- excited I have 
been by our conversation.  You are a wonderful group.


Dearest:    Nancy, thanks so very much for taking the time to join us in Power Surge and for so
articulately fielding our questions about "The Power Of Beauty" and the issues surrounding it.  
We all hope you'll come back again very soon, and want to wish you and yours a very Happy and
Healthy Thanksgiving :)


Nancy Friday:   Sweet dreams Dearest : ) Good night everyone!


Dearest:    Thank you, Nancy. You were wonderful!!! 


LMossholde:     Your answers were absolutely wonderful Nancy. Helped me with some issues I 
                 have had for years.
CAJASS:         G'nite nancy
Postrain:       Thank you Nancy for a great evening.
Syrndipity:     Thanks Nancy, Happy Thanksgiving!
Zmbz:           Thanks Nancy
LMossholde:     Thanks You
LERLAU:         Thanks Nancy
CAJASS:         Great chat
JUDITH LEE:     THANK YOU FOR THE GREAT CHAT
PZukow:         Thanks Nancy
LPooler:        Thank you so much
FBriggs113:     Thanks. Great guest!
Vickisells:     Thank you, Nancy
Palla96:        Thank you Nancy!
JNastor386:     Thanks NANCY
Nancy2Nyc:      Thank you Nancy
L7672:          Thanks so much Nancy
LQ425:          Great. Thank you
WINDOCK1:       Good chat
B flyfish1:     THANK YOU SO MUCH
Tempo88:        Thank you!
PNelson4:       Great chat, Nancy
Jean:           Thanks for your visit. It's been very stimulating 
Nita:           Nancy thanks very much, what wonderful answers.
Dearest:       Thanks, Nancy. Do come to Power Surge again :)
Mettaphor:      Thanks Nancy!
Zmbz:           I think she hit the nail on the head. many of us were not raised to feel good enough 
                and had to overcome all that
Palla96:        Seeing the depth of Nancy's answers, I look forward to reading her book(s)
Dearest:       I dunno, Zmbz.. I was raised to feel quite good about myself :)
                Doesn't always work, but I was
CAJASS:         Me too Dearest
Zmbz:           Your show it --you are great Dearest.
LMossholde:     Going to book store tomorrow.
Dearest:       My mother always told me, "Alice, anything you set your mind to do, you can do!"
                Doesn't always work, but I sure keep trying! :)
WINDOCK1:       Thanks Nancy. That childhood stays with us forever. Book store coming up.
Jean:           I always spend more money in bookstores after these chats
Dearest:       Haha.. me, too, Jean.
Zmbz:           She was terrific, dearest.  thanks for inviting her.
Palla96:        Ditto, Jean LOL
LMossholde:     My mother, I beleive, felt that I could do things.  But she
                encouraged the 'be pretty', be a lady more
Postrain:       Dearest is great at getting the best guests. Let's hear it for Dearest.
Dearest:        Awwwwww....
WINDOCK1:       Thank you Dearest for another VERY enlightening evening..
Dearest:       The *best* FOR the *best*!
LMossholde:     ~~~~~~~~~Dearest~~~~~~~~~~
Syrndipity:     {S applause
Dearest:       (blushing)
Postrain:       {{{{Dearest}}}}
MsLizzieB:      I missed the beginning tonight--by the Power of Beauty, does 
                Nancy mean power of women?
PNelson4:       Thank you
CAJASS:         clap clap 
Syrndipity:     Take a bow Dearest :):)
D Wintrode:     thank you dearest.
LMossholde:     It was comforting having a guest that made you think and not worry about "carrot" 
                juice (giggle)
Dearest:       Hahahaha!!!
Postrain:       It will be interesting to compare this new book with others 
                Nancy has written.
Palla96:        Nite all, special thanks Dearest for another great enlightenment :)
Maya Moon:      Good night Surgettes.


Dearest:    Night, everyone. Thanks for coming :)


Read Nancy Friday's second transcript
Read Nancy Friday's third transcript


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Dearest
aka Alice Stamm
Power Surge
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