Take a Load Off...

These are my boys :) Well, I call them that because Dan (bass) is my Ohio boy, and I'm working on getting him to come to Pittsburgh and be my BFF; Nathaniel (vocals, guitar) & Jim (aka JimmyGroo; guitar) were pretty much the only two people I hung out with all of DrunkFest Savannah, GA Style / McJunkin-Hoover Wedding Weekend, AND they took care of my drunk ass multiple times I'm sure. And I just adore them all. Good, good people. GREAT musicians. Anyway. I thought this was really awesome, even if my iPod videography sucks haha :) Tribute to Levon Helms on the day he passed, coincidentally the day that Cry Fire played Club Cafe. I just share this everywhere hah :)

Cuties for sure.

Last Post!! For Intro to Women's Studies, anyway.

The most important, or most recommended, ten reading selections:

1. Romance: Sweet Love - bell hooks, page 186
2. Feminist Politics: Where We Stand - bell hooks, page 33
3. The Social Construction of Disability - Susan Wendell, page 91
4. The Social Construction of Gender - Judith Lorber, page 126
5. I'm Gonna Wash That King Right Out of My Hair - Elisa Albert, page 203
6. If Men Could Menstruate - Gloria Steinem, page 238
7. Love Your Fat Self - Courtney E. Martin, page 265
8. My Fight for Birth Control - Margaret Sanger, page 310
9. Eyes on the Prize - Selden McCurrie, page 347
10. Lisa's Ritual, Age 10 - Grace Caroline Bridges, page 542

PS- I do plan on continuing to use this blog for my feminist/political/ED related writings that I'm not sure I necessarily want on the other blog (belleofthebullshit) which I mainly use to whine about pretentious, whiny, emo things haha. Just saying, if you wanna keep reading even though class is done, I'll be posting.

funny or die? yeah, die.

This is one of a few disgustingly sexist got milk ads. Not sure if they're real or fake, I assume fake, but it doesn't matter - they're out there on the internet for everyone to see. This one in particular made me cry. No joke. Not only is the entire idea of a web site warning men about how they should force feed women milk because women with their hormones and bitches be crazy entirely appalling, but THIS one is just inexcusable. THIS is the kind of stuff that makes people think rape is funny, excusable, and not something to be taken seriously. Teenagers are the most frequent visitors to sites like Funny or Die, and instilling this kind of "humor" into their minds... it literally makes me cry.

See the others
(it's easiest if you select "view all on one page" at the bottom of the first slide)

DO NOT read the comments. You'll barf.

*facepalm*

 

I didn't know if this was a joke or not when I first saw it.
I don't know if I can write 150 words analyzing it... it pretty much does it on its own.

So, why isn't it for women? And what's wrong with just Diet Dr. Pepper? Do you need 10 calories when you're shooting guns and jumping in jeeps in the jungle, but only 10 so that you don't get fat off of the other 150 or so that are in regular Dr. Pepper?

I'm just... confused? Offended? Shocked? I don't get it.
And WHY IS THIS STILL ON THE AIR?!

NEDA had Yoplait stop running an entire ad campaign because all of the commercials were so eating disordered. I'm pretty sure there are enough women around who are offended by this to petition it off the air. I think that's what surprises me more than anything - it's so normal and fine to be sexist that things like this are just scoffed at but accepted. That's worse than the profoundly in-your-face sexism.

Schlitz!

 

I think it's extremely interesting to look at advertisements for beer from the 50s or so in comparison to beer advertisements now. The blatant sexism [literally] written out for you vs. the more subtle (for lack of the right word), borderline subconscious sexism. I personally find this advertisement for Schlitz absolutely hysterical - I even have it as a set of greeting cards. But it's easier to find humor in the chauvinism of past generations when it wasn't affecting or directed at me personally. In my head, I continue the dialogue just for goofs. "Don't worry darling, you didn't burn the beer! So go ahead and make some not burnt food while I drink this, and if it's on the table before I finish all my Schlitz, then I won't drunkenly hit you for not being a good wife!"

I know that's not funny, either. Just a thought. And I'm sure in some households, that's pretty close to how it went down.

Women's Work

I feel that in our class discussion pertaining to the chapter "Women's Work Inside and Outside the Home" there was an option that wasn't discussed. We talked about stay at home mothers, we talked about working mothers, we talked about the financial influence of those kinds of decisions, but I wanted to bring up that there's another choice, and it's what my mom did and does still: work from home mother. My mother was always the bread-winner, she was even my dad's boss for a while, and she has to work. Financially, it has never been an option for my mother not to work. She was vice president of a company for a long time, going into my teen years, and I barely ever saw her. When my sister and I fell into dark places in our own ways, we went into therapy. In a family therapy session (that only my mother and I were at), I was asked what I wanted from her. I shrugged and said, "I just want my mom back." When we left, she went back to work, walked straight to her boss and gave her two weeks notice. They didn't want her to leave the company, so they basically made up a job that she could do from home and she's done it ever since. She still works from home for the same company that's based in Texas. I think there's too much emphasis on the binaries, the black-and-white, the homemaker or the breadwinner. We can do both.

Paradox of Perfection

Ever since reading "Don't Give Up Your Day Job," I can't stop squirming over this notion of perfectionism. I frequently use the word "perfect," but then I'll go off on some linguistic philosophical rant about how there's no such thing as "perfection" and it's a myth and the word and idea is a massive paradox and I hate it. (I'm a hypocrite, I know. What can I say? I'm not perfect!) When Bennetts said, "Perfectionism is the bane of women's existence. Everything out there is just harping on women to perfect various aspects of themselves. The message is always: you should be better, and it's the wrong message." I just about jumped out my chair and yelled, "YES! THIS! EXACTLY!" It IS the wrong message for a multitude of reasons. "Should" is a horrible word. It's kind of like when Yoda tells Luke, "Do or do not. There is no try." Do, be, say, or don't. I'm not going to get into that any further right now. Next: perfectionism is the bane of anyone's existence in whatever area they're trying to be perfect in because it's a goal that is not achievable. So, you "should" lose ten pounds and you'll be perfect. Okay, so you do lose ten pounds, and you're still not perfect in your own mind, in the society's standards, in all the various institutions and influential forces that are telling you to be perfect.

"Perfectionism is the bane of women's existence. Everything out there is just harping on women to perfect various aspects of themselves. The message is always: you should be better, and it's the wrong message."
I just love that quote so much.

happy union

I thought this was a joke when I first saw the image. Like, photoshopped and put on the internet kind of "joke." Turns out the brand Madhouse really did put this on their tag. What's really sad to me personally is how many men I've known who never learned to do laundry until they went to college (I taught my boyfriend AND his roommate at my first college), and I'm sure I know some full grown men, parents or grandparents perhaps, who never learned to do laundry because their mothers did it for them until their wives did. I like doing laundry, personally. My father does most of the laundry in our home, and I have to hide my hamper from him because I actually WANT to do my own haha This is not funny as I'm sure it was intended to be. I got particularly steamed (no pun intended) when I read the comments left on the blog where this image was posted. I'll just let you see for yourself.

Sexist trousers blog entry

I would like to shake this woman's hand, and then I would hope we could use those hands to smack some of the commentators.

Eyes on the Prize

Of all the essays in chapter 6, I found Selden McCurrie's "Eyes on the Prize" to be the most intriguing and inspiring. Besides that it's written beautifully ("On July 29th I was initiated into a vast unwilling sisterhood..."), it does a great job of chronicling the entire journey of breast cancer. I now know so much more about what a woman faces when she is diagnosed. I didn't know there were so many different choices pertaining to surgery and post-surgery breasts/bras, and I didn't know there were so many different kinds of breast cancer. McCurrie tells the story so that you feel her fear and confusion and frustration and, in the end, happiness with her through the whole piece. Of course, it has a happy ending (she wouldn't really be able to write the essay if it hadn't gone well, I suppose), which is not the case for most breast cancer patients, but then again that's a bit of the point she was making: this is a very scary thing, her situation was particularly serious, she could have died, and now she's a proud survivor, a stronger woman. I laughed out loud when I read the last line of the 2nd-to-last paragraph: "I still tear up when I think of all the women who opened their hearts and their shirts to me, as I made a difficult decision." Love it!

Lolz at Rush Limbaugh

SNL: Cold Open

Sad Day For Austinites

When I was a little girl, there was an Albertson's grocery store up the road from my house. A man started living out of a trailer in the parking lot there, and we'd see him in all sorts of risque and/or women's clothing: wedding dresses, bikinis, so on and so forth, always with some sweet high heel pumps. My friends and I dubbed him "Bikini Man." His real name was Leslie Cochran, and he became an Austin legend. He was at every event that we proudly held as Keeping Austin Weird. He kept Austin weird. He even ran for mayor once. If you saw him on the street, he'd say hi to you, he'd take a picture with you, he was everyone's best friend.
He's recently had some health issues, and he had to have brain surgery last week.

Today he died from complications with the surgery.

Austin is a lot less weird without you, Leslie Cochran.

Rest in peace, my hometown cross-dresser. You will be missed.

haunted

I find it ironic, for lack of a better word, that I'm having a fantastic day (well, "fantastic" is a bit of an overstatement, but a good day nonetheless) until suddenly, out of friggin' NOWHERE, I'm hit by a wave of... nothingness. Pure absence hit me like a ton of bricks. I was putting homemade chocolate chip cookies into a tupperware container to give to my neighbor, the Jane Doe I wrote my essay about, and I froze. My eyes fixed on the wall in front of me, but it was like I was looking far past the wall, not necessarily through it, just.... past it, at something else. But I wasn't looking at anything at all. I dropped a cookie off of the spatula in my hand, and as it hit the counter I snapped out of my.. trance, or whatever. Since then I've felt entirely dissociated. It's not sadness, it's not anger, it's not depression, is just... nothing. Nothing at all. But not the good kind of nothing. Not the throw-my-arms-up-and-laugh-because-I-don't-feel-a-thing, or the narcotized bliss kind of nothing, it's really, really nothing.
I finished putting away the cookies and put some laundry in the washer. I grabbed a beer from the fridge, deciding that a nice Yuengling and a hot, hot bubble bath would make me feel so much better. It always does. I turned the faucet on hot. Very hot. My close boy-friend called right as I was sending him a text message to say that I was feeling out of sorts and needed a bath. He's the only person who has never made me angry, never left me without at least a smirk, if not a full smile and laughter, on my face. We spoke as I drew my bath and climbed in. He wasn't helping. When we got off the phone, I threw mine down into the tile floor and said, "Leave me alone." I was surprised. At his annoyance, at my getting annoyed, but mostly at the ten tears that followed.
Yes, I counted.
Three from my right eye, seven from my left.
3/7
Huh. Funny. Isn't that today's date?

NEDAwareness

 

Everybody knows somebody.

NEDAwareness Week 2012 theme: Everybody Knows Somebody.

It hurts my heart to think how many I know.

My best friend.

At least ten other friends (not exaggerating).

My mom.

Potentially my cousin (I'm praying for her.. trying to be a good role model, too)

Me.

My sister, may she rest in peace.

 

And, unfortunately, I'm sure there's so many more.

I hate eating disorders.

Corporations are people. Women, not so much. (Law, pt. 2)

continued from the Texas legislature entry. Moving on north, to the great state of OK...

"Lawmakers in Virginia and Oklahoma approved “personhood” legislation last week to recognize that human life begins at conception... Analysts say neither of the bills would immediately ban abortions, but a prohibition would kick in if and when the Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Waderuling is undone" (The New American, Feb. 20, 2012). I actually didn't know that Virginia had passed one, too. I only saw about Oklahoma. I will have to do further investigation into the Virginia situation, right now I will scream about Oklahoma.
There are currently two bills in OK being called "Personhood Bill," both of which state that life begins at conception. This one that just passed the Senate and is more than likely going to pass the house without a flinch, apparently doesn't outlaw abortion...? I have yet to find a clear explanation for that. How can a bill state that life begins at conception but still have abortion legalized? Isn't the point to make it illegal? A Senator from Tulsa, Senator Brian Crain, says that this bill doesn't outlaw fertility treatment or abortion because that would go against Supreme Court rulings (News on 6, Feb. 20, 2012). So basically they're just waiting for Roe v. Wade to be overturned. I see. The other Personhood Bill in OK states that life begins at conception and it DOES seek to outlaw contraceptives (Plan B, birth control, fertility treatment) and abortions in all cases, rape and incest included. [Jackasses] Oklahomans For Life say that this bill is a "philosophical statement." WTF? If this philosophy is approved by OK Lawmakers, it will be voted on by state citizens in November.

Sick, sick, sick to my stomach. Speechless. I'm... scared for many, many women. I'll leave it at that.

LOOK. LOOK AT WHAT YOU'RE DOING. (Law, pt. 1)

I find it perfectly fitting that we're reading the chapter on Reproductive Rights and healthcare right now when the stuff is hitting the fan in politics over women's reproductive rights.

Texas legislature passed a bill last year that amended the "Women's Right to Know Act" and it was signed by Rick Perry in May 2011.  I was just leaving the state when this happened, glad to get the hell away from that man. The bill also, "altered the process through which physicians obtain informed consent to perform abortions in the state. Physicians can lose their licenses for violating the provisions, which place several requirements on the doctors, such as making them conduct a sonogram and provide the patient with images and sounds of the fetus" (Courthouse News Service, Feb. 8, 2012). So basically it is mandatory that a woman seeking to terminate her pregnancy hear a heartbeat and look at a sonogram. If the patient declines to look, the doctor must give her oral description of the image. This must happen at least 24 hours prior to the procedure. A health service provider in San Antonio filed a federal class action against the bill, calling it unconstitutional. A couple of weeks ago, a federal judge ruled in favor of Texas' responsive appeal, saying that the bill is NOT unconstitutional [as pertaining to women's reproductive rights] and will be enforced. He said that it was not about reproductive rights but more about doctors' rights to practice medicine. I'll add that it's a TRANSVAGINAL sonogram. Definitely sounds like a doctor problem and not a patient problem to me...? I'm so disturbed and disgusted by this that I wanted to vomit when I read article after article, trying to find clarity in the legal jargon. I used to live there - I very easily still could. I know women who have had abortions in that state. A decent number of them, actually. I know women who were traumatized by the decision they had to make and didn't handle it well afterward. I know women who would probably have attempted/committed suicide if this bill had been in effect when they had their procedures done. If not, then they would probably have a child right now because they didn't get the procedure done at all, which I think is the point. So, way to go, Texas - don't just take away women's mental health over the abortion they're seeking, let's physically assault them, too!

This entry is getting too long to continue with the next Southern State travesty that I wanted to rant about. To be continued...

one more robot learns to feel

I found this in... I think it was Allure? December 2011? Whatever - it was recent, and it was one of those evil "women" magazines that really serve no purpose for women other than making them feel like crap.

This is supposed to be a fragrance ad...? Yes, I totally get "smells like applesauce" from this image.

The seductive bedroom eyes; the apple symbolizing Eve and the forbidden fruit; her shirt's falling off, I guess so you can smell her better; but the wind is blowing her scent away with her hair; and I think it just rained on those apples. Sidebar: there was no sample smelly thing to accompany this ad. I checked the rest of the magazine - every other fragrance ad had a sample smelly thing (some of the ads towards the beginning did not, but the same fragrance was advertised again throughout the magazine with a sample). Ironic. There were much more demeaning and "how-the-hell-do-you-get-fragrance-from-that?" ones, like Natalie Portman topless with a big bow in her hair like a little girl for Dior, but this one is not only offensive through imagery, it has the ever-so-helpful instructions to guide young women: Be Delicious. 

The last time I checked, "delicious" was an adjective that referred to taste. Does this perfume taste good? That would be messed up on an entirely different level, but assuming that it does not have a flavor meant to be tasted, the objectification of the woman is sickening.

Be the forbidden fruit. Be seductive. Be beautiful the way we think you should. Be Delicious.

Beating Anorexia and Gaining Feminism. Me being angry with ED assumptions

I will give you a fair warning now, I will use some harsh cursing in this post.

I appreciate the message of Marni Grossman's 2010 piece "Beating Anorexia and Gaining Feminism" but it made me want to scream a little, too. First off, the title pisses me off. I don't know why, but the particular word "beat" implies that there is a fight, which eating disorders are, but I don't think anyone wins.. ever. Kind of like 'once and addict always an addict'? My sister once told me in reference to eating disorders, "Pick a number. Stick to it. After long enough, you will be completely crazy. And you never come back from that." I think each day of recovery can be a small victory, but I don't think anyone ever fully "beats" their eating disorder. Okay, so anyway. There are lines and chunks and passages in this essay that I adore and think she hit right on the spot, like, "Brains are irrelevant. Beauty reigns supreme. The patriarchy depends on our acceptance of this myth." Beautifully stated, short and powerful. And then there are things like, "Because when you are anorexic, you're always failing." Wow, really? Eff you, too. Doesn't that support the EXACT statement I quoted before? If you have a MENTAL DISORDER that is manifested through the body, then you're a failure, period. You can't achieve shit if you're actively battling an eating disorder? Rereading it, I think I get that she didn't mean it that way; she meant, "when you're anorexic, YOU THINK you're always failing." But that's not what she wrote, and it's confusing, and it really pissed me off.

In reference to the chapter's section on Eating Disorders in general, I think a lot of things need to be made more clear, but oh well, that's just.. my opinion. One thing I think is particularly important is the point that just as overeating and purposely becoming fat can and has been used to avoid sexuality, as a kind of, "stop looking at me" thing, starving yourself into amenorrhea is sometimes done to achieve the exact same effect. Take oneself back to prepubescence, back to a childlike state, where control is not something you have. I hate this bullshit that eating disorders are all about culture and the media and teenagers' only way of having control. All of that can be true while simultaneously NONE of that can be true. Culture and media do not genetically predispose anyone (of any gender) to eating disorders - biology does that. Yes, society encourages it. Yes, the media is society's tool in encouraging it. But no, they are not culprits, they are not causes. They are enablers and justifiers and horrible, horrible reinforcers, but they are not solely responsible for eating disorders. And fuck the notion of "beating" an eating disorder as being the most political statement someone can make. Maybe it is for some people. Good for them, I'm really, honestly happy for them. Maybe some people want to recover because they just simply don't want to die. Maybe the thought, "screw you, society - I'm going to recover!" never crosses their minds. AND (last thing, I promise) the oh-so-profound theory that focusing on controlling our bodies to distract ourselves from real economic and political concerns... I will return to my response about anorexia meaning always failing. Yeah, okay. So someone who is ill, DISABLED, with an eating disorder cannot achieve anything meaningful, nor can they care or partake in real social issues? So, if you're anorexic, can you not be a feminist? That's pretty much what I'm gathering, and that's a bunch of b.s. Binaries, binaries. Everything's gotta be a black-and-white, right? Eating disorders are white privileged women's problems, and politics are white privileged men's area, right? Screw that. I do not agree, I will never agree.

Save your dignity and ignore this

 

As a woman and as a vegetarian, this makes me sick. First of all, let's look at just the text. I think Peta really was trying to make a literal "save the whales" statement, but if so, they've failed. "Lose the blubber: go vegetarian." Vegetarianism does not make you thin or even healthy in some cases. And I can't say I know a lot of people who eat meat and go fishing for whales to satisfy their protein needs. Setting aside the Peta and animal aspect, just the message of "lose the blubber" is offensive. It's another weight loss advertisement, pure and simple. That's why I say Peta failed if they were actually trying to make a political statement. Now, add in the image to the mix. Err.. what blubber? That could be any woman. That could be a painting of me. So, not only is there a giant billboard telling women that they are fat because of their diet of choice, there is a giant painting that is distorted so that it doesn't even attempt to be realistic telling women that they should be self-conscious in a bikini because they look like a whale. I could go on and on about how badly I want to punch everyone associated with this advertisement in their necks, but I will stop. I'm appalled.

feminist politics: a response to bell hooks's definition of feminism

 

 "Simply put, feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression... I liked this definition because it did not imply that men were the enemy."

Here, here! Something that's always driven me nuts about a girl I went to high school with was her insistence on dropping the f-bomb at any given opportunity and her sheer lack of understanding on what in the world she was talking about. She once told me that I was not a feminist because I wore make-up and didn't hate men. No, I did not punch her in the nose, but yes, I did want to.

I prefer the bell hooks definition of feminism above all others because it is simple and does not have the word "woman" in it anywhere. Woman are not necessarily the good guys, just as men are not the enemy. I don't know why this is so hard for so many people to understand. Equal opportunity, the breakdown of gender and sexual stereotypes and hierarchies, of oppressive institutions and privilege power structures - that's what we want, right?
"Concurrently, there can be no such thing as 'power feminism' if the vision of power evoked is power gained through the exploitation and oppression of others."

gender branding

We had a sale on Celestial Seasonings tea at my place of work that resulted in several of us buying several boxes of tea each. I got one called "Tension Tamer" and I was showing one of my co-workers/friends the box, which features a saucy woman in red sitting atop a beautiful dragon, their castle in the background. He immediately said, "Tension Tamer? Like for menstruation problems?" I hadn't thought about that, but suddenly the hot lady's deep red dress and her place perched on top of the dragon all seemed to scream "MENSTRUATION SYMBOLISM!" Disgusted, I said, "eww, I got the period tea!" We then proceeded to have a discussion about whether or not I should keep the "period tea." My co-worker Alex said, "yeah but it's not like it TASTES like period..." That clenched my decision and when my shift was over, I switched out the Tension Tamer/period tea for a nice box of Madagascar Vanilla, featuring a jovial looking lion drinking tea while his jungle minions graze in the jungle scene behind him.

Funny story from a friend of mine. I'm kind of disappointed that she switched out the "period tea." Especially since the tea she replaced it with had male symbolism of the lion and his minions (the dominant male and his underlings). Still, a story of the way we blindly accept the genderization of commodities, and the commodification of gender.

You sure you think that?

 

This picture made me happy at first glance. I love "I am beautiful" statements. It didn't take long before I just got pissed off, though. If you believe that you are beautiful, then why are you crunched up on a little ball on the floor covering your face? Why does your body language say, "I want to curl into myself and hide from the world"? Why are you in a child's pose? Are you crying? Do you really think you are beautiful?
Maybe that's the point - we feel one way but show something different. Maybe she's trying to convince herself that she really is beautiful but still doesn't think so. Maybe this is just a really dumb picture trying to be artsy and original and failing miserably.

Unfortunately, I think it is true of a lot of young women that we do not feel beautiful, or we do not feel beautiful enough. We hear it outwardly, but to internalize it and truly believe it brings us to our knees in a heap of confusion and tears.

Privilege and Marginalization: Intersectionality

I am an able bodied white woman. I come from a two-parent household. I had a sister. We grew up in the suburbs. I'm pretty, well educated, spoiled, privileged in every sense. I'm also a troubled individual. I stumbled my way through my teen years, in and out of doctors' offices and hospitals. I dropped out of high school twice. I've been diagnosed with clinical depression, ADHD, generalized anxiety disorder, substance abuse and dependence, EDNOS. I've been labeled a slut, stupid, a whore, fat, ugly, a junkie, a drunk, a bitch, a waste of space. I've never really been able to determine how I can be so privileged and so outcast simultaneously. There are many inner struggles, but the all encompassing one is just that: where do I fall in society? I am a woman which marginalizes me to an extent. I am mentally unstable at times - stigmatized. I dropped in and out of school, leaving me behind my peers - uneducated marginalization. I have a criminal record - marginalized. I think I feel guilty for the troubles I've had in my life. I wasn't supposed to struggle; I'm a thin, pretty, heterosexual white girl from the 'burbs, boo-freaking-hoo. This is my biggest insecurity. I should be, and I very much am, grateful for the privilege I was born with and born into. So why do I feel like a freak?