Another reminder that we’ll never get away from vulgar, dehumanizing behaviour

Once again reduced to an object by a ‘compliment’ tossed from a car window

My 12-year-old daughter and I were in our minivan, at a stop sign. The weather was sunny and breezy, and our windows were rolled down. Two young men in their late-teens-to-midtwenties stopped, kitty-corner to us. The driver looked at me — his window was rolled down, too — said, “MILF,” and then drove away. It was more of a pronouncement than a catcall — he was identifying me, as if I were a species of bird.

My first response was a flush of satisfaction, and then, the shame: “Idiot! You’ve allowed yourself to be interpolated as a sexualized object by the patriarchy. AGAIN.” This is the dance we do, as feminist women: at once pleased with how we’ve earned patriarchal approval, and angry at ourselves for our failure to overcome this conditioned response. I imagine it as an Argentine tango, full of kicking and twisting.

I don’t know if my 12-year-old daughter heard what he said, understood what the term meant, or connected it to me; I drove on as if nothing had happened. This is unusual for us, because since she was little, we’ve had a running dialogue about how women and girls are included and excluded in our culture, and she’s become adept at pointing out all manner of sexism and misogyny.

But this — this, I struggled with. I was being complimented on my looks, but the compliment came in the form of an insult, tossed at me from a car window pulling away, using an aggressive sexual verb in which you are dominated; the thing is done to you — you are f-ed.

Many might think that the category of milf actually represents greater acceptance of women: you can be attractive to younger men even in your 40s! Maybe even your 50s except probably not but you should totally keep trying!

In fact, it means that you’ll never get away from this dehumanizing. Though you’ll outgrow young men — out-learn them, out-earn them, and out-experience them — all you’ve accomplished withers in the presence of a lad’s cursory decision about whether or not he’d have sex with you.

Naturally, there’s no male version — no “filf” — because first, women don’t get that power over men. Second: as we saw with the recent “dad bod” trend, there’s an acceptance that as men age, they are allowed certain esthetic freedoms — grey hair, crinkly eyes, a slight paunch ... No one ever dared have a go at popularizing the “mom bod.” Instead, milf has galloped into popular usage, with its ludicrous suggestion that as women age and become wiser and more complex, it’s laudable for them to maintain a sexuality that appeals to younger men. (Of course this is a catch-22, because if you succeed in being attractive to younger men, you’ve attained the kind of respect accorded to characters like Mrs. Robinson and Stiffler’s Mom. Which is to say: none.)

The idea of being f-ed is just so profoundly disconnected from how I think about my body now. There have been many, many times when I’ve felt as though my body is shared space with my children, not only through pregnancy and breastfeeding, but for years afterwards when it is part jungle-gym, part sleeping bag, part throw pillow, part armchair. My youngest made a habit of clinging to my hair whenever I held him, sometimes even putting strands in his mouth, or winding them around his tiny fingers, or plucking them like violin strings. This was how he used my body for comfort, this tethering, and I considered it his right. By this time, I’d been pregnant and/or breastfeeding for almost a decade, and I was used to thinking of my body as theirs as much as it was mine — as a place, first and foremost, to build and nurture other bodies.

It’s been exhausting, but also pretty powerful. My body has been worshipped by my tender young humans — it has been their whole world for months on end, both unborn and born. It has been their legs before they could walk, and their hands before they could clasp. It has been a balm to them in their stormiest emotions. They have hugged me with glee and climbed into my lap, sobbing with grief. They have learned how to speak by watching my face and listening to my voice. They have learned to read, tucked up against my body.

How sad and how completely predictable that all this power and nurturing, intrinsic to our humanity, has been undermined by slang like motherf-er and now milf.

So, no. No to the guy in the car who called me a milf — you impudent, ignorant boy. You haven’t the slightest grasp of what my body means. Frankly, you couldn’t handle it.