by Lisa Congdon
I wanted to learn about women in the developing world. This was the year of the Beijing Conference in 1995. I didn’t go because I was teaching Women in Leadership, at Stanford, in seminars for the Institute for Research on Women and Gender. Because I was teaching women executives at a summer executive seminar, we were watching the Beijing Conference closely. One big piece of news from that conference was that women from the developing world were spending the money they earned to send their children to school. Men in the developing world had the social prerogative to spend the money they earned on things they wanted to buy—like bicycles, radios, and beer.
This was just at the cusp of people beginning to be interested in microcredit. Nobody was writing about it much, and that was just fascinating to me because I’d lived all of my working life in large corporations, and what I wanted to learn next was about women entrepreneurs starting their own one-woman businesses. And so, that’s what I did with one year off, optimistically thinking, Oh, I can do this in a year.
Lisa: You go for this year, you take photographs, you research, you interview women, and then at some point you decide, I’m not going to go back to my job, I’m going to keep doing this.
Paola: I was driving across the breadbasket of Bolivia, standing in the back of a Toyota pickup truck, shooting the sun going down in this beautiful area full of wheat fields, and suddenly in the warmth of that moment, I thought, This is the happiest I’ve ever been, working. I’m not going back. I mean, I was perfectly happy doing what I’d been doing before, and I was very well compensated for it and very senior—I was executive vice president of what was then the largest advertising agency in the world. I really was not having a middle-age crisis at all. And that was really the turning point.
Lisa: Then you get back home and you want to start writing about what you’d documented. What was that like for you?
Paola: Over the course of the next four years, I learned how to find an agent and publisher and write a book. I had to learn how to get a museum exhibit. I joined the board of The Craft Center, which worked with low-income artisans in seventy-nine countries all over the world, and I became, ultimately, the chairman of that board. And I joined the board of the Association for Women’s Rights in Development, so that immersed me completely in the contextual information that shaped the book, essentially.
Lisa: Such a learning curve!
Paola: Yes! I have always loved the idea of doing something I have not done before, and better yet, if it has not been done before. So I am constantly, and have always been my whole life, plunging into the swimming pool, into the deep end, without checking to be sure there’s water first.
So, that’s the story of that first book, and I always have a file of about fourteen book ideas. And when I looked at the file of fourteen new ideas, the one I thought would be interesting for people to read was the idea of doing a book that documented festivals that celebrate women, of which there turned out to be many. In a world in which women are in many places denigrated and discounted, I decided to do a book on festivals that celebrate women. It took me to fifteen countries.
Lisa: Once you finished Celebrating Women, your third book happened somewhat by accident.
Paola: I had been going to Guatemala to do test shoots for all of the books. I spent some time one summer working on a pro bono basis with a museum in Guatemala that wanted me to document the villages where the weaving traditions were endangered. As it turned out, I had slews of photographs of Guatemala, and the publisher asked if I would like to do a book with those. Since I was already off and running with what I thought would be my third book (something totally different), my husband, David Hill, agreed to write that book to my photographs. And the name of that book was Viva Colores: A Salute to the Indomitable People of Guatemala.
Lisa: Your next book focused on some really incredible female leaders.
Paola: Yes, my fourth book was Women Who Light the Dark. It is about women who run nonprofit organizations in fifteen countries, who were just superstars, working on the most intractable problems. I was diving deeper into the lives of women in the developing world, which by this time I had begun to understand more than I did initially. Of course, women are facing terrible problems with trafficking and domestic violence and HIV/AIDS, and are also, in the face of these problems, mounting very creative and energetic campaigns to make life better for themselves, their communities, and their families. And I saw these women as heroic. I still do.
Lisa: And then Grandmother Power came along.
Paola: Grandmother Power was a natural sequel to Women Who Light the Dark. It tells the story about groups of grandmothers who were working together to make the world a better place for their grandchildren. While I was working on Women Who Light the Dark in Africa, I began noticing a number of grandmothers who were taking care of grandchildren who had been orphaned by AIDS. They were everywhere I was, in Senegal and Cameroon, Kenya and Swaziland, and South Africa. And these were very poor women, who, I noticed, were beginning to form a collaboration to help each other. For example, they were starting community gardens so that they could feed the children. They were helping each other with childcare after school. They were helping each other’s grandchildren with homework. And I thought, The future of this continent rests in the hands of grandmothers. So that made me wonder what grandmothers are doing in other places, and of course they are doing a great deal, motivated by their intention and passion for making the world better for their grandchildren in the face of really difficult problems.
Lisa: What do you think it is about grandmothers that makes them so powerful?
Paola: First of all, I should say I think power is not unique to grandmothers, because as you can tell, I’ve been documenting powerful, energetic, visionary women’s work all over the world now for twenty years. But what I think is new about older women’s activism is that it hasn’t happened before. In the sense of political change and engagement, I experienced internationally a degree of involvement that is really quite new.
In many countries, grandmothers today were part of the activism of the ’60s. They know they can change the world because they did. When you think about the changes that happened with gender and racial equality, changing gender roles, racial preconceptions, discrimination, LGBTQ rights—there have been huge changes since the ’60s in large part due to student rebellions that occurred then. These are the women who grew up then.
Older women are also healthier than they have ever been in the history of the planet. There are more of us than there have ever been in history. We are living longer. In fact, if you look at the number of new grandmothers every day, it’s something like four thousand in the United States alone. And we have had careers, which makes us, essentially, more effective strategically than we’ve ever been.
Lisa: You started your photography and writing career with little or no formal training when you were 55, and since then you’ve published five really important books. What advice would you give to women who are considering or embarking on a big change later in life?
Paola: Have courage. I trusted that doors would open that I couldn’t anticipate. That was a huge adjustment in attitude for me, because I’d spent so much time working for huge corporations where you set objectives, and then you set strategies, and then you set tactics, and then you got there. There is just no deviation from the path from here to there if you work in that kind of an environment. So it was a great surprise to discover that as I stepped out of that context and began to follow my own path, my own path was quite a meandering one! Who knew that I would end up making books? I never imagined that when I started out to take what I thought was a sabbatical. So you have to keep your eyes open to the options and the possibilities as they begin to present themselves. I had to learn to watch for them, and then to muster the courage to follow them.
Lisa: Most women your age are not only retired but have been for ten years or so. What inspires you to keep working?
Paola: It never occurred to me to
stop. What for? I can’t imagine not using what I know and what I can do to try to change the world. It would be a waste. I used to have a recurring nightmare and it was that Baryshnikov came to me and said, “I’m not going to dance anymore,” and it just used to make me weep with fear and desperation, because it was such a waste of talent. And that, of course, was a reflection of my own fear. I just can’t imagine, if you can still do important work, why you would stop.
was making fine French cooking accessible to the home cook with her memorable exuberance and extensive knowledge long before celebrity chefs and food show stars were the norm. Her own late entrance to the kitchen—she did not begin cooking in earnest until her late 30s—helped her connect with viewers and share her passion.
Julia was born in 1912 in Pasadena, California. After graduating from college, she had aspirations as a writer and craved experiences beyond her conventional upbringing, but she still hadn’t found her calling at the advent of World War II. At 6 feet 2 inches, Julia was disappointed to learn that she was too tall for the Women’s Army Corps, so she enlisted in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and was stationed overseas. In Ceylon, she met another OSS employee, Paul Child, who would become not just her husband but also her manager, photographer, proofreader, illustrator, and greatest cheerleader.
Julia’s path to becoming an icon of cuisine began when the State Department gave Paul a placement in France and she ate the first of many transformative French meals. Raised in a privileged environment where cookery was left to the help, Julia set about learning to cook, taking classes at the famous Cordon Bleu and discovering what would become her life’s work. Julia wrote to her sister-in-law: “Really, the more I cook the more I like to cook. To think it has taken me 40 yrs. to find my true passion (cat and husb. excepted).” She started a cooking school and began collaborating with Simca Beck to tailor French recipes for American audiences. Meticulously researched and rejected multiple times by publishers, Mastering the Art of French Cooking took ten years to complete.
By the time her labor of love was published, Julia was entering her 50s and Paul had retired. After audiences were charmed by a television appearance she made to promote the book, she was offered her own show, The French Chef. Her fluttering voice and occasional spills made her seem affable and ever-human to her audience, but she prepared tirelessly for her shows, putting in hours of research and practice to ensure the best techniques were represented. Julia continued to write cookbooks and produce and star in a series of television shows, winning a Peabody and multiple Emmys, and actively working nearly until her death in 2004 at the age of 92.
TRUE ROOTS
by
As I took a seat beside my colleagues at a business meeting in Washington, D.C., to discuss toxic chemical reform, I could already feel my scalp tighten. The environmental scientist we were listening to began discussing low-level chemical buildup left in our bodies by personal care products. As she rattled off a list of chemicals, I was struck by a profound contradiction in my own life.
I work for a large environmental organization. In three years, I would turn 60. For more than twenty-five years, like many women who care about their appearance, I had joined the ranks of the 75 percent of U.S. women who color their hair. My personal aim for coloring was “natural-looking” hair to complement my natural lifestyle. To achieve this, I spent hours upon hours, and thousands of dollars, attempting to embody the hair color company’s slogan, “Hair color unique to you.” But who was I kidding? Whatever was unique to me was buried under layers and layers of hair dye.
“Phthalates, parabens, synthetic dyes, stearates . . . We’re just beginning to understand how these chemicals compromise long-term health,” the science writer intoned.
“Why do we subject our bodies to questionable chemicals?” a young coworker asked, simultaneously wiping off her lipstick.
“People ignore potential risks for convenience, cost, beauty,” she replied. “Many of these products promise a fountain of youth.”
As an environmental writer, I knew that since World War II more than 80,000 new chemicals have been invented. In the mid-twentieth century, baby boomers sought “happy days” in what DuPont advertised as “Better living through chemistry.” It wasn’t until Rachel Carson’s groundbreaking tome, Silent Spring, was published in 1962 that the cautionary principle of preserving what we need to physically survive—and loving what we must protect—was raised.
Most people assume that chemicals in consumer products have been tested and proven safe, but that is not the case. Carson would most likely be shocked to learn that fifty years after her environmental wake-up call we are still dithering with dangerous chemicals. Why? Because we work on the assumption that something being on the market means it has been cleared or vetted in some way, when in fact the overwhelming majority of chemicals—and particularly those in beauty products—have never been independently tested for safety at all.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) “regulates” the safety of makeup, moisturizers, cleansers, nail polish, and hair dyes. But according to its own website, “the FDA does not have the legal authority to approve cosmetics before they go on the market,” and, further, “. . . companies may use almost any ingredient they choose.” Personal care products are a $50 billion industry in the United States, and the cosmetics industry is expected to police itself. We expect our elected officials to pass strong regulations to protect citizens from those who would benefit financially from poisoning us, but those expectations don’t always translate to reality.
That Washington meeting was my wake-up call. It was time, I realized, to own up; time to reconcile my knowledge of the consumer toxins underworld—a deep sinkhole masquerading as the fountain of youth—with the reality of my own day-to-day life and what I was doing to my body. I vowed then and there to stop dyeing my signature beauty asset—my long, densely dark hair. As soon as the meeting was over, I dashed from the conference room and made a call to the salon. I could only hope my vanity would find a way to catch up to my deep-seated environmental health beliefs.
Convinced my trusted hairdresser would have a “going gray” strategy in her back pocket, tucked next to her scissors—yet another chapter in her seemingly endless store of antiaging knowledge—I hit the salon. I was surrounded by the familiar buzz of simmering hair dryers, the concocted chemical scents of hair dyes, and the sight of those creepy circle swatches of artificial hair in various shades—all of it now seeming like the choreography of an old, out-of-step dance.
As I planned how to phrase my cease and desist order, I could see my hairdresser in cape and protective gloves behind a half wall. She was slapping her magic wand into brackish glop in preparation for my root covering.
“Just a trim today, I’d like to stop coloring.” I held my breath as she intensely examined my roots. Those roots. The ones that would start growing the minute I walked out the door.
“How would you like to do that?” she asked sweetly, as though I hadn’t just thrown a Molotov cocktail into my world of bottled hair color.
Looking around for answers, I noticed the posters on the walls featuring a youth-quake of models in silky, sexy hair, enticing me to embrace “vibrant, fade-resistant color with amazing shine.” Where were the stylish and fashionable older women who recently graced the pages of the New York Times? The interesting ones described as “. . . women who have fun. [Gray hair] reflects their confidence, their ease with being who they are.”
It dawned on me that I had been reading those posters for years—the fact of hair dyeing as such staring me right in the face—and yet I had never asked to examine the ingredients in my own hair dye. In retrospect, I really wasn’t sure how I had managed this level of denial—me, the environmental activist who reads every label like an FBI agent reopening a cold case, poring over it for new clues.
. . . phenylenediaminepersulfateshydrogenperoxideleadacetate . . .
Now, finally reading the chemical names on the safety data shee
t, the boundaries between words bled together in one chaotic blur. In my tunnel vision, I could barely hear my hairdresser’s transition plan.
“You have two choices: lowlights or chop. Ronnie. . . ” she said with an intimacy that brought on goose bumps, “you’re all about your long hair, and gray hair will wash out your complexion. So I suggest we give you a multitonal effect, a few lowlights, and a shorter cut. Or else, you’ll look like you’ve given up.”
Women don’t let their hair go gray. It grows gray. Covering up is an illusion to show we haven’t given up. My hairdresser held an outsized role in my beauty, in my life. Listening to her, it was easy to believe that one false step could send me spiraling down an endless stream of bad hair days. Afraid of losing my nerve, I blurted, perhaps a little too loudly, “I’ll just let it grow out! Natural. No color.” Even over the drone of blow-dryers, heads turned.
I left the salon with just a trim, fueled by my no longer buried conscience. The fact that my notions about beauty and identity could come back to bite me at the cost of my health was suddenly real. I was faced with finding a way to take my high-maintenance mane from darkest brown to “natural” (whatever that was) without the interim help of dyes.
I knew it would only be a matter of days before a skunk line took up residence on my part. Despite my yearning to be chemical-free, the story of my soon-to-depart “youthful looks” raised troubling questions:
Do I check this off as another menopausal moment of surrender? Is there a way to solve the puzzle of how to deal with my roots that will soon shine their moon glow? Can I resist the temptation of a color intervention, a fix . . . a not-so-bad elixir that ultimately will only compel me back to the sink with blackened water circling down the drain? Has the wretched dark slurp already left its compensatory damage on my body? On my planet? And . . . really . . . how old will I look?!?