Elana Sztokman

Madonna with her daughter Lourdes

Like many other women, I imagine, I have a love-hate relationship with Madonna. Some days I find her liberating and inspiring, while at other times, well, I guess I’m just jealous. For sure, Madonna gets women thinking and talking about themselves. But recently, I must say, I have been just a little disappointed.

The liberating part of Madonna’s persona comes from her uncanny ability to disregard social convention. She decides for herself was is right and appropriate for her as a person, as a human, as a woman – and always manages to brilliantly defend herself, often in the face of severe opposition. Fundamentalists of all major religions in a few different continents have called for banning her music and her concerts – and it all merely strengthens her resolve. Madonna has something to say and she says it, with her entire body and soul, and to hell with institutions. I’ll bet we all wish we had some more of that in our lives, the ability to say to society: I don’t care what you want me to be, because I have my own ideas. How Madonna has managed to be so successful while bucking almost every social norm is frankly, empowering.

I also love how freely Madonna evolves. Madonna invented the reinvention. She goes from pop dancer to children’s book author, kissing Britney Spears one night and launching lessons in Kabbalah the next night. Only Madonna can do all that without feeling conflicted. Like I heard her say in one interview, “You can be spiritual and still have sexy lingerie.” Only Madonna. It’s not just how fluid she is with her value system – it’s also that she allows herself to go with what she feels is right. Her apparent sincerity in addressing real issues such as motherhood, spirituality, and poverty in Africa, offers a rich example of living and learning.

Of course, not all women agree with this. Susan Bordo, in her extraordinary book Unbearable Weight on gender in popular culture, notes that even as Madonna bucks trends, she also sets them. She is hardly one to appear overweight or less than perfectly in place, and her standards of fitness are far beyond what most women are capable of achieving.

Moreover, Bordo brilliantly shows that in the ongoing dispute between feminism and post-modernism over fluidity of values, Madonna offers a case in point about the limits of post-modernism. That is, whereas post-modernism says, pretty much, all values are equally legitimate, feminism argues that there are certain values that are more legitimate than others – i.e., “equality” is a core value and “patriarchy” is not. Madonna, in promoting a very post-modernist example of all values being equally legitimate, uses bondage, for example, as sexual play, and generally uses her body as a commercial tool. Not sure that I would consider these values equal to, say, love and commitment. When it comes to values, Madonna goes anywhere and everywhere, and that’s not necessarily good for women, or other people.

Recently, my awe of Madonna has waned. It began when she said last year, “There’s nothing sexy about turning 50.” Hmmm…. I would have thought that the woman who can be anything would find a way to be sexy at 50 – if anyone can, Madonna can. This anti-aging attitude has taken over her professional work as well: her new songs are bland rehashes of music from 20 years ago, which she sings with a guy half her age. I certainly don’t expect Madonna to be a prude, but it’s just a little gross. And some of the sounds in “Four minutes” come straight out of her old songs. It’s just not all that impressive, and possibly a little sad. She seems to be obsessing about reclaiming her twenties, and that’s just a shame. She was doing so well evolving.

Frankly, I think that her uber-youth as it were is damaging to women. The admiration bordering on jealousy that women feel when encountering such an undamaged, unaffected, non-aged woman has a heavy price. I really think that the increasing rates of anorexia in women over forty are related to women like Madonna who keep us insistently defying nature. Even at an age when we are supposed to be getting comfortable with ourselves, we are stuck trying to be something else. Will women never get a break!?

I’m going to be turning 40 next year, and I would like 40 to have its own meaning. I don’t want to be 20 anymore, or 16. I don’t want to be idolizing rock stars and trying to pretend my body hasn’t given birth a few times. I want to be able to tell the difference between my daughter and myself. I am the one who has been through life. I am the one who has some knowledge, some wisdom, and some experience. And I think that women over 40 can certainly be sexy and sensual and beautiful, but not by looking like a twenty-year old.

Madonna, you have disappointed me. You were doing so well, seeking spirituality and meaning and allowing yourself to become older and wiser. I wish you would stop trying to be something you used to be and allow yourself to be the incredible woman you have become. Then you will go back to being a role model for me.