Heather Thomas based her new novel “Trophies” on Hollywood trophy wives - who, she says “get a bad rap, and there’s a lot of misconceptions about them. But really, there isn’t a hospital wing or a library in this city that wasn’t the result of some trophy wife’s efforts.”

Here is an excerpt from the mediabistro blog GalleyCat:

Thomas readily admits that she and her fellow philanthropist/activists are held up for ridicule, dismissed as intellectual lightweights, sometimes even by the ostensible political allies who come courting the money they control. “If you’re a wealthy second wife,” Thomas says, “you’re like a poster child for schadenfreude…

“But as a feminist, I don’t think we should attack other women. I’ve never met a bimbo trophy wife. I think women label other women because we’ve been socialized to compete with one another—but when we stop attacking each other, we’ll realize how powerful we are.”

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Jamie Lee Curtis says she embraces getting older: “I actually think there’s an incredible amount of self-knowledge that comes with getting older. I feel way better now than I did when I was 20. I’m stronger, I’m smarter in every way, I’m so much less crazy than I was then.

“Years ago my husband and I were at the Golden Globes. I was wearing some borrowed dress that wasn’t me, my hair was done in a way that I never wear my hair, and I had earrings on.

“And my husband said, ‘You know who is the most beautiful woman in the room?’ And I was hoping he was going to say me. And he pointed across the room at Jessica Tandy. She was sitting at a table wearing a cream-colored silk-shantung pantsuit. Single strand of pearls, short white hair, a little lipstick—nothing else. And I thought, ‘He’s totally right.’ There was none of the pretense, none of the trying so hard.

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News journalist Ann Curry [Today show etc] was born in Guam to a Japanese mother and a father of predominantly French and Scots-Irish descent from Colorado. [Wikipedia profile.]

She has talked about how her multi-ethnic background was at times in her life painful, but has also helped fuel her ambition to achieve, along with the inspiration from her parents.

“From my mother, I got an attitude that’s fundamental to me,” Curry said in an interview. “She used to say, ‘gambaru.’ It’s a Japanese term that means ‘Never, ever give up, even if there’s no chance of winning.’

“Gambaru symbolized her life. She survived bombing raids during the war in Japan, starvation on the rice farm where she grew up, racism in America right after the war. From my father I got this ‘be of service’ thing. He’s the guy who said, ‘Ann, try to be of some service.’

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Jenny McCarthy was a guest on the Oprah and Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth Online Class. She spoke about her complex emotional reactions in raising her autistic son Evan.

Jenny: You know, I read this book [A New Earth, by Eckhart Tolle] when it first came out and that was one of my big wake up calls. Realizing that when I was with Evan, all I needed to do was just be with Evan. And our relationship bloomed like you wouldn’t believe, the love connection was there.

He was getting fulfilled because he knew, even when Evan wasn’t able to speak. This is when Evan still wasn’t able to use words. Energetically he felt that I was with him, that I was being with him. And I’m so grateful, Eckhart, that you taught me that.

I do have a question. Okay. It’s long so bear with me. It’s not spelled on but bear with me. One very common emotion that I have personally experienced and that I have seen in many mothers is this emotion called guilt. Mothers today experience a few different forms of guilt and I’m going to explain three different versions where I’m sure moms listening right now, one of them will say that’s my guilt.

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“She was a woman of charm, style and wit, and will and savagery.”

That is a description of Anne Boleyn (second wife of Henry VIII) by Susan Brigden, author of New Worlds, Lost Worlds: The Rule of the Tudors, 1485-1603.

Natalie Portman portrays Anne in The Other Boleyn Girl [right], and says she saw the film as “a cautionary tale about capitalism. All of the characters who subscribe to these values of rising up and gaining power and who will step on anyone to get there are punished. Anne is certainly the most forward about it, but she is following her family’s values…

“I think it’s very different to be ambitious and to be ruthlessly ambitious, which Anne certainly is in the movie. In reality, an argument can be made that Anne Boleyn was witch-hunted because she had so much power.”

Asked by Elle magazine about her own independence and ambition, she says, “It’s definitely complicated. I bury it a lot, which is a very common woman thing to do. They say women often preface their statements with ‘This might sound stupid, but…’ It sort of tempers what you are going to say. It takes the edge off so you can still be seen as ladylike. I think I have a lot of that in me. I’m very nonconfrontational; I’m definitely a pleaser.”

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