One step up from perfume, the handbag is also the most accessible item an ordinary working woman can afford from a very exclusive house. Status bags are a cheap thrill, comparatively speaking, for those who want business class but are living coach.

It's been very overwhelming, yet nice to know that other researchers here at ISU are willing to work with me on a multitude of projects. This semester I am hoping to get more extension and research focus, in addition to the teaching I did first semester.

In an age when nobility has no true signature, an expensive designer bag is the most rapid social shorthand for status,

Women's magazines punish us with their gorgeous photographs of Cameron Diaz's ass and snappy diet ideas on the next page. I deliberately illustrated the book with generous thighs ... and women in track pants. I speak to the pear-shaped goddess and the perfection-crazed workaholic.

When people tell me to 'get started,' I think they are being incredibly blunt and presumptuous. Not everyone has their planets lined up for marriage and kids by their mid-30s and why should there be a stampede of bad choices because of external social pressures and bald biological fact?

I wonder what marriage does to a woman. I worry about role playing and loss of confidence and having to enact weird domestic rituals in order to be a good wife.