Matriarchal Mexico, Where Women Rule
Wander Women discover the rarely visited Isthmus of Tehuantepec in southern Mexico. For centuries, women--dressed in traditional embroidered tops, voluminous skirts and abundant jewelry--have ruled the roost in this corner of the world. While women run the marketplace, men stay home with the kids; and it’s the women who give their daughters away at weddings. During frequent festivals, the women climb on roofs and throw fruit on the men below. We take gleeful part in the fruit-throwing festivities, dance with the women at the festival balls (in full costume), hang out with them in the markets (some of the most exotic in Mexico) and get their freely dispensed sex tips while learning all we can about their secrets for ruling with a feminine touch.
Geisha Temptations
In Japan, we visit the last of the geishas and try to learn the art of “entertaining” while envisioning life with a sugar daddy. Then we fast-forward to modern Japan and hook up with the girls to hit a male hostess bar, the hottest new trend among successful Japanese women, where we pay hunky young guys to fawn over us all night. We also go apartment-hunting with independent women who no longer wait for husbands to buy property but are lining up to purchase expensive condos in “female-friendly” buildings. To be taken care of or not to be taken care of?
French Women Don’t Get Fat… (Bitches)
Mystified by the “French Paradox” and curious about the French mystique, we put ourselves in the hands of a Parisian fashionista who will guide us through a day in the life of the stylish French woman. Can we mimic her seemingly effortless style? Can Judith keep her hands off every croissant that crosses her path? Can Taylor stick to just two measly glasses of wine? More to the point, if we do, will we get laid more? You promise?
Secrets of the Superwrinkley
In South Korea, we look for the fountain of youth in a mountain village where everyone lives into their 90s, learning that the answer is not the South Beach Diet, but less fat (boo!) and more rice liquor (yay!). We party with the superwrinkley, before we hang with some feminist youngsters in a country where 72% of women go to college, the highest rate in the world. We also seek out women architects on the cutting-edge of design in an art community on the edge of the DMZ.
Kiss a Frog, Find a Prince
How many men does it take to run a business? None! In Peru, we meet the women of Café Femenino, an all-women coffee farmers’ collective, and learn the secrets of their uniquely feminine consensus management style. Agreeing, though, that we still need men for some things, we go on a quest for the latest rage in aphrodisiacs, “frog juice.” Under its influence, Judith starts seeing princes everywhere and Taylor’s wedding band gets heavier and heavier.
It Takes a Village…To Cure P.M.S.
Bloated and cranky, we find ourselves singing the P.M.S. blues in Mali, just down the road from Timbuktu in the region some say is the womb of the Delta blues. We catch up with traditional tribal singers using their art to advance women’s rights and lose our blues at the lively Festival au Desert Timbuktu. It’s impossible to be depressed in a city named after a woman with a particularly large navel! In Bamako we dance to female-led wassoulou bands and satisfy our monthly cravings with the region’s spicy cuisine.
Marriage on the Rocks
In Iceland, Judith considers a second marriage just as we learn that marriage is totally passé in the progressive Nordic north. We then drool over the prospect of state-funded healthcare, childcare and work-leave as we learn to what lengths that government will go to keep up the world’s highest birthrate. We hang with a beautiful blonde former classmate of Taylor’s who anchors the nightly news there—and no, she, like most other professional women, hasn’t bothered to marry the live-in father of her kids.
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