Happy birthday, Rhoda May Biddle

Yesterday, July 26th, 2012, marks the one year-anniversary since I first started doing @HipsterFeminist, my once-daily joke Twitter feed. I have missed a few days here and there, as evidenced by the fact that one year later Rhoda has 358 tweets rather than 365, but I've been pretty good about posting something most days-- even if it's not the funniest thing in the world, I try to put up SOMETHING. Lately I've even managed to be topical!

I am currently up to 59 followers, which I think is the highest stable number I've ever had. Sadly the number goes up and down with ad accounts appearing and disappearing, and I lost a handful-- including Holly Pervocracy, alas --I think when I tried to do my first attempt at a plotline, when Rhoda stalks her ex's new girlfriend. I'm just guessing, but I think the humor may have gone to much to the "haha, Rhoda's actually a crazy woman" with that string for some people's taste. I want the joke to be primarily "Haha, Rhoda's doing feminism wrong!" and come off that way rather than implying to anyone "Ha, feminism!" or "Ha, women!" Ah, well, I did my best. But it's made me reluctant to try another plot thread for fear of resorting to lower-grade humor out of the need to keep the story going somehow in the very limited 140-characters-a-day format.

Not sure where I'm going from here. I do plan to continue, as I am enjoying the challenge and that fact that 59 people do in fact find it funny. If you are among the subscribers, thank you very much for indulging my little project. I am always interested in suggestions if you have any, and of course joke ideas. blendedchaitea* suggested I have Rhoda read Fifty Shades of Gray, which could be really funny... except it might mean I have to read it myself. And even for the sake of my art, I'm not sure I could subject myself to that...

Some reasons why I love Movie-Cap

As I’ve mentioned, I always found the comic book Steve Rogers to be completely boring. I understand that they wanted his true power to be his unerring moral compass, but he’s perfect in every other way too—he is always sure of himself, he has no fears, no psychological damage… no personality, really. Some like Bernie will debate this to the death with me, but that’s how I see it. But now that he's been depicted on the big screen... I am in love. I find the move version of the character fascinating, and I wanted to ramble a little bit about why. And I swear, it's not just because I want to jump his perfectly formed bones.

Traditionally in comic books, male characters are depicted as masculine self-insertion fantasies. They are extremely strong, emotionally invulnerable, and of course they are very attractive to the women in the universe. This is not because they are depicted as what women actually find attractive, but because the female characters are acting in the service of the masculine fantasy. They look like what male readers supposedly want to look like, and the women are attracted in the way the readers would like them to be.

But this tendency is what contributes to that huge big problem that comics book have in how often they give off a powerful vibe to women of “THIS IS NOT FOR YOU.” Superhero comic books often indulge hypermasculine fantasy concepts— such as high violence, low emotion, powerful men and sexualized women —and most of the people who are conditioned to find those fantasies appealing are men. And if you don’t have that conditioning, you don’t often find shaved bear men built like refrigerators to be all that relatable. I mean, in one particularly egregrious example, take a look at how notoriously terrible artist Rob Leifeld depicts Cap:

Um... yuck? This is exaggeration, not idealization. And yeah, this is worse even than usual, but it's the extreme of a ubiquitous problem. And I find it stomach-turningly offputting.

Given this theory of what masculinity "should be," there is a long history of when a lot of women find a certain man particularly alluring, other men start deriding that man on the grounds that said alluring qualities make him unmanly or even gay. Often it's for excessive prettiness, or just for not being as traditionally masculine as a desirable man should be under their schema. I read that Rudolph Valentino got a lot of that back in the day, and modern day examples include Orlando Bloom and even Justin Bieber. It stems from a combination of envy for their desirability with ideas about how caring about one's looks is supposed to be a feminine responsibility, how men can't be hot because only men care about hotness, so if a man is hot it's gay.

But to play Captain America in the film, they didn’t find a shaved bear of a man with a shape like a refrigerator. Quite the contrary, they found an exceptionally beautiful man. And the difference that makes is unbelievable. It’s not just the fact that I’m a shallow person who really enjoys looking at beautiful men. (Though I am.) It's that in presenting me with a person who is pleasing to my eye, as opposed to an earlier conception of the same person who is less so, they are acknowledging that my eye and others like mine are in the audience. And more than just acknowledging me, they are are courting my viewership. This beautiful man makes me want to come look, to join that audience. For rising out of a medium that has so much history of scaring the female audience off, that is a remarkable turnabout.

But that's not the only subversive, even progressive aspect of how the film portrayed Steve. For how sexy and gorgeous he is, and how we are allowed to regard him in that capacity, he is not excessively or inappropriately sexualized. He's actually a virgin, pretty explicitly so. This is in the face of the enormous cultural stigma against men with no sexual experience. But the film does not portray this as a negative, unmanly thing; far from it, it is one more thing that shapes the admirable man Steve is. Yeah, he was the kind of dork that some associate with being a virgin, but more than that, it's about his personal value system. He has his own strict code of conduct, something that's very important to him. He's the sort of person who wants to wait for the one, for real love, and anything less isn't enough for him. It's so earnest and decent that we respect him for sticking to this belief system even though it doesn't conform to our own. I find that massively progressive. I mentioned this in my initial review of the film, but it bears repeating: how cool is it that they made a tough, masculine action hero that dudes want to be like with VIRGIN stamped on his forehead? And frankly, I find incredibly attractive.

And you know what, I just plain like beautiful men. Not even necessarily in a stroke material sort of way. I DESPISE how often it is a asserted that by "objective aesthetic sensibilities" the female form is inherently more beautiful than the male one. That's such male-gaze-influenced garbage. I love the masculine figure, and even beyond sexual attraction, I just enjoy basking in the beauty of it. Especially a man like Chris Evans. Dreamy blue eyes, perfectly styled good boy hair, full lips, lovely cheekbones, strong jaw. And that body-- well, suffice it to say, like a work of art, I could just look at him all day.

There are other small adjustments that make the character more human and appealing. This Steve Rogers is young. In the comics he’s a more mature presence, but in the movie they made him more of a boy. This I think was an excellent decision. (Especially in contrast with Tony, who is more of a man, but that's another discussion entirely.) Young people are less formed, have had less time to grow past their issues and figure themselves out. This allows for Steve to not be totally sure of himself, to not have a complete handle on the things that he's insecure about. And he's insecure here, in a beautiful, human, sympathetic way. Leading up to the procedure, he was a complete dork. Even when people are no longer the person that they used to be, the self-image created by their previous state doesn’t just disappear. Having spent more than twenty years as a skinny, awkward nerd that got picked on and ignored, a modest guy like him is not going to shake feeling like that nerd right away. Even after a magical transformation into his current Adonis-like state. That insecurity adds a dimension of humanity, that he may look perfect on the outside, but on the inside, he sometimes feels awkward, unsure, and not very special, just like real people do. And you know what else? Sometimes even perfect Captain America is awkward! Steve Rogers is not a smooth operator. I find it unbelievably cute that he's not worldly, doesn't know how to talk to girls, and sometimes trips over the right thing to do or say. I get the feeling that we sometimes think really desirable guys often have a really arrogant attitude in regards to other people, like "I can have any woman I want, what makes you good enough for me?" But there's no superior attitude there at all-- in fact, he sometimes isn't comfortable with himself. So he would never make anyone feel like they're not good enough.

Finally, I was reading a well-written article on The Good Men Project that was about how female dominants more often exist in the form of desiring the position of control and comparative emotional strength, rather than the classic image of the smacky woman in black leather. I was not so interested in the BDSM aspect of it, but I did connect with how it posits, quote, that “The key component of the female gaze… is vulnerability.” Emotional nakedness rather than emotional armor. I had never thought about it that way, but upon reflection it feels true to me. The fact that they included that youth and insecurity in this conception of the character confers a real vulnerability on him. I love that he's such a good man, the fact that that goodness is his real power. He's endlessly courageous, self-sacrificing, and decent. But he's not always sure of himself, not full of himself despite his own goodness. And yes, yes, that vulnerability is SEXY.

This has gone on way too long, so best to stop there. But those are some of the reasons I can't stop thinking about Movie-Cap. <3

Best Dad ever

This is a father and daughter dressed in matching Wonder Woman outfits at WonderCon. I hope that little girl knows how big a man her daddy is. <3

When lust shuts down your brain

Pondering some things lately that I want to explore here. I've been having thoughts on standards of beauty and dynamics of attraction again, spurred by certain things I've been finding lately in myself.

When women are objectified, they tend to be objectified as sex objects-- that their value lies in their sexiness. When men are objectified, they tend to be objectified as success objects-- that their value lies in their monetary and career success. I get that men get stuck with that lot because society expects them to be providers, but what I wonder is why they get away with being sexually objectified so much less frequently. Women have sex drives and eyes just like men do-- why don't they provide enough demand for pretty men to show up in the media?

I hate to say it, but it seems like in most cases they don't. One thing that's always troubled me in my pondering gender equality is the fact that in my personal experience I have found women to be significantly less invested in the physical beauty of men than vice versa. I know that of the men I have been most attracted to, it wasn't necessarily because of the way they looked, and how far, far more often I have seen couples where the girl was significantly more attractive than the guy than the other way around.

This bugs me because it supports those unequal expectations of beauty that I wrote about once before. It seems to verify the idea that women need to be more beautiful in order to be attractive to men, while men can be less beautiful and still be attractive to women. Which leads to women having to work harder on their appearance, to stay fit, to work on their hair, to dress better, to "put on their faces," while men can get away with putting on weight, or presenting themselves with less polish. That's really unfair, and it encourages women to think that desiring male beauty is basically pointless-- or worse, that there's something weird or unnatural about desiring it.

But still-- it does happen. Maybe less often, maybe less universally, but it does happen. On the rare occasions I DO find myself really, really struck by a man's physical beauty... the feminist in me is kind of happy. Yeah, I know nobody should sexually objectify anyone, it's definitely not feminist to do so, but I must confess I feel weirdly pleased when I find myself drawn to do it. It supports the idea that women and men AREN'T all that different after all, that it probably happens to all of us in differing amounts, and maybe women are just socialized not to do it as often as men are allowed to.

Right now I really really like Chris Evans Captain America. Like, whoa, a lot. Like I'm wasting entirely too much time browsing for NSFW photo edits on DeviantArt I like him so much. I like pretty people, sure, but frankly, any feeling of attraction based solely on appearance occurs rarely for me. Hell, there aren't that many people I feel attracted to at all! What's funny is that with me, there must be a perfect storm of little details about a man's appearance for that to even happen. I couldn't care less about Chris Evans when he looks like this...

But when he looks like this, it knocks the breath out of me. :-)

It's not that I can point to anything in particular, like, oh, I like him clean shaven or whatever, because that's not it. It's just there's a particular confluence here that works for me in a big way, helped along by the "I am a super good guy but also a little awkward" built into the character he's playing. Actually, that's one of the reasons why I don't think it's fair to us straight ladies that guys get to toss off how they present themselves, because sometimes sometimes little details as small as how somebody dresses or parts their hair (see above, heh) that can make the sexy difference.

What's also funny-- or creepy --is how much it makes me lose my mind. I can actually feel it pushing out higher thought. I have heard of this phenomenon, men are accused of giving in to it all the time, but it's a relatively infrequent experience for me. As I said, I'm attracted to very few people in general, much less to the point where I find myself objectifying them. So it's kind of freaking me out how strongly looking at Chris Evans Captain America threatens to push me into thinking like an absolute pig-- to let the feeling in my guts and elsewhere completely overtake the working of my brain. I am at the point where I can't even watch the ads for the Avengers without being all, "Fuck this noise, just take off your shirt and stand there." That, my friends, is pretty much textbook sexual objectification. Who even am I, that that's something that I do? Jared has actually been kind of weirded out by this, saying things like, "What if I did this about Scarlett Johansson? Wouldn't you think I was being tacky?" Hmmm, maybe I would. More likely what I'd think is, what's the big deal? Why so strong a reaction? And yet here I am, having my sensibilities and my good taste swept away by something that in normal circumstances wouldn't be that big a deal for me.

And yet... and yet. Lousy as it is, I am glad that it can happen. I'm glad for the proof that this is something I can experience. There's this one ad for Marc Jacobs cologne that looks like... well, I guess I'll just post it, despite what its presence may do to my blog traffic.

I mean, look at that. Wow, that's... unsubtle. I have a very complex reaction to it.

It's sexualized so blatantly. The man is ripped, naked, and oiled up with just some fake cologne bottle hiding his junk. On one hand, it's tacky. I tend to dislike such unsophisticated, nuance-free depictions of sexiness, and find them more gross than appealing. But being of an idealized standard of beauty and put on display to appeal to sexual interest, this sort of depiction is a rare example of a man being sexualized in a way that is usually reserved for objectifying portrayals of women.  I am very very pleased to see something equalizing in that manner, as well as something that tries to appeal to the female gaze for a change. (Presumably. I have a vague memory of reading that cologne is mostly bought by women as gifts for men.)

Also, I have to say... I find it kind of hot. I really shouldn't, see above about how such depictions are usually gross instead of sexy to me, but for some reason I do. I'm embarrassed to be taken in by such a display. I wonder if this is what it's like when men don't really find exaggerated porn actresses with fake breasts and stylized faces attractive, but are turned on enough by them anyway. But at the same time, for reasons of equalization there's a part of me that is pleased that I am. The argument that men aren't sexualized because women don't like them to be falls flat.

I'm curious-- how often does that happen to other people? When you gauge someone's raw attractiveness largely divorced from their actual self, how often does anyone experience that feeling of lust that you feel it pushing out your higher thought (whether you allow it to or not)? Does it happen to men as often as we seem to think it does? And does it happen to women as infrequently as we think it does? As with the stereotype, I will admit that it happen to me very rarely. But sometimes, one rare occasion, it definitely does happen.

Musing on body image drawn out of an unlikely place

A couple of years ago, Jared introduced me to an Internet reviewer of movies and video games who calls himself Spoony. He's pretty funny and has a good eye for evaluating media, so I've come to be a follower of his site, The Spoony Experiment.

For a while, he was dating a woman who helped him produce his videos during the course of their relationship. Spoony projects an air of being a lonely, horny gamer geek as part of his reviewer persona, so I hadn't been aware that he even had a girlfriend for most of the time I've been watching. Apparently a lot of his fans developed a distaste for her, I'm not sure why. I guess some of them started disliking things Spoony began doing in his work, and in typical misogynist Internet troll fashion, they started blaming her influence despite her probably having nothing to do with it, calling her "Yoko," because of course they couldn't just disagree with their hero's artistic choices, it had to be the fault of that harpy in his life. And of course, they starting running down her appearance because you can't criticize a woman without bringing that up. She showed up in one of his videos once, and was immediately met with a flood of comments about how fat and ugly she was. There are not too many images of her on the web these days, I gather because of a purge in response to that outpouring of cruelty. They are no longer together now, but I only just heard about this stomach-turning little saga. Which has gotten me thinking about something tangentially related that I want to talk about now.

I will say that the woman is not beautiful, at least not to my tastes. Coarse features, a little too heavily made up, and kind of a blocky build. I am not bringing this because I am in any way suggesting that they way they treated her was acceptable. It's one thing to hold a private opinion, it's quite another to treat someone like they've committed a trespass against you simply for daring to appear in public when they don't conform to your personal aesthetic. She's not here to decorate your world, assholes.

The reason I bring it up is because, also as part of the lonely, horny gamer geek persona, Spoony spends a decent chunk of time going on about how hot various female characters are in the course of his reviews. And in general, given that these are media figures and artists' renderings, those characters tend to conform to the very mainstream notion of beauty, suggesting that slavish devotion to the ideal that makes so many women feel like they can never possibly measure up. And yet, for as much as he goes on and on about characters that look like that, he was involved, and apparently happy, with a woman who was in no way like that ideal.

The extremity of that contrast has got me thinking, and this is the reason I'm writing this entry. Because of the omnipresence of the tall thin stacked woman with delicate features held up as the beautiful ideal by the media, a lot of women struggle with the notion that this really is the best kind of beauty. This is something I certainly wrestle with myself. I have a hard time letting go of the notion that the current beauty ideal has attained its primacy because that's what people, at least most people, genuinely like best. And that if I don't conform to it myself, then at best someone who wants me is "settling" for being less attracted?

And yet. How often do we encounter people attracted to woman who drool over media figures and yet are in a relationship with a more average-looking woman who they clearly adore? Where does that come from? That's not the message we have driven home all the time.

Jared's take on it was that, at least for him, there are many kinds of beauty that he finds attractive. Yes, Airbrushed Skinny Stacked Celebrity Woman is definitely appealing. But she's just one kind of appealing, perhaps one that he is less likely to encounter in real life and so much be enjoyed in her media context. But she's not better than the other kinds of appealing that women can be. He just enjoys her as well as all the other kinds.

That's it for Jared, anyway. I'm sure it's different for other people. But I do think a fairly universal truth of it is, as much as the media and advertising may suggest to the contrary, I think most real people genuinely don't hold up one notion of beauty as the "best" or "most desirable." And even if a person does find a "more idealized" appearance technically more attractive, appearance becomes genuinely less important in the wake of more the more significant qualities of personhood. It may be that we don't actually need to teach each other to stop fixating on unattainable beauty, because we're not actually all that fixated on it. We just need to keep from internalizing the idea that that's actually what others want and expect us to be.

No one in my life thinks I'm not good enough the way I am. So I need to stop being afraid of something that's not there.

It's not a new idea I'm talking about here. It's just a hard one that I, and I think other people as well, have a hard time holding in my head. But there's evidence of it everywhere, if we just believe the evidence of our eyes.

Writing good literature as a good feminist

I want to bring my feminism into my writing. With this residency, as it was in the last, occasionally something comes up in texts that strikes me as unfeminist. In one fellow student's script, the main female character was leered at by literally every male character in the story. I found this to be an unfair portrayal of men and gratuitously sexualizing to the woman. I could say "I think you overdid it with the leering, it feels unrealistic," because that's a critique of the writing. But because we're not here to judge the social responsibility of the script, it would not have been appropriate for me to say, "I think this is an unfeminist portrayal."

Still, I do actually feel that stronger, more fully realized characterization will necessarily be feminist. So I have a responsibility to myself to monitor my writing for it. Now, I would not say that just because a piece is not Specifically Feminist that makes it Unfeminist. Sometimes the story you need to tell is not going to have those markers we are encouraged to look for As Proof of Feminist Sensibility-- an easy example would be passing the Bechdel Test --just as a matter of course. Doesn't mean it takes place in an unegalitarian world, or is evidence of unegalitarian thought. In an ideal world, we'd all be so feminist that you could just choose in a vacuum what to include and it would always come purely from the demands of the story; respect for people of all genders would be taken for granted. But sometimes this comes about because we are conditioned to not think to include those things, so at times we need to make efforts to be mindful.

So I should make efforts. In Just So, for example, the two fussy, pretentious main characters were modeled off Frasier and Niles Crane, so my first instinct was to make them men. But it occurred to me almost immediately that there was literally zero reason why they had to be. And I've resolved to myself to not just go with male characters by default (as many of us are often inclined), so in a case where it mattered so little I decided to take the opportunity to switch. Now I personally think they're much funnier as middle-aged, out-of-touch society woman than they would be as anything else. Now I have an interesting, unusual piece to my credit-- something funny, with women, where the characters' genders mattered so little that, hey, if you wanted to have them played as men, you totally could. Bechdel would be proud. ;-)

As a side note, during the in-class workshop on a whim I chose two male classmates as my readers. They "played" them as women but didn't affect themselves in any way. It pleased me how smoothly it worked. It also struck me that they would probably be hilarious as drag roles. I love the notion that you could play my little show so many different ways-- straight up, as two middle-aged ladies, gendered-swapped as equally stuffy, pretentious middle-aged men, or dragged with two male actors dressed up as women. Maybe I should add an author's note to that effect. :-)

Of course, sometimes I screw up. Fallen, a piece that has a lot of personal significance to me and one I hope I get to work on in my scifi/fantasy independent study this semester, has a pretty blatant example of what some refer to as "manpain," when a female character suffers and the truly important emotional response for the story's trajectory is not from her but from a male character who cares about her. Perhaps what falls under "Women in Refrigerators" Syndrome in it, when a female character undergoes trauma specifically in order to facilitate the emotional journey of the male character.

But being aware of it, I can work to subvert it. I can acknowledge the unfairness of such a situation. Now, Gabriel is my main character, his reaction IS most important to the story I want to tell, but that doesn't mean I should make Rachel into a less complete being by denying her a reaction to her own suffering. I can make her feelings, her journey because of this terrible thing happening TO HER, important as well. It can be about her too, not just what it does and leads to for my male protagonist. In being mindful about what our storytelling choices can mean, we can tell the stories we want to tell in a way that allows feminism to keep our characters fully realized.

Why I love Jaime and Brienne in ASoIaF (spoilers!)

I'm sure if we've ever talked about A Song of Ice and Fire before, you know I love the dynamic between Jaime and Brienne. I love the way it subverts heroic story tropes, and I love the remarkable understanding of the feminine condition that it displays. I can't seem to do LJ cuts right now, so it's probably best not to read ahead if you've not gotten through the whole series.

It's such a pleasant surprise for me to find this, a growing affection between a gorgeous man and an unattractive woman based on mutual respect and shared struggle, coming from a male fantasy writer. I've written before about the phenomenon of how women who feel that they've never been attractive enough for our screwed-up society to really deem Valuable often develop awestruck feelings of unworthiness in regards to beautiful men, because since society doesn't require beauty of them they have achieved some sort of superhuman status above and beyond simple Valuable. It's not something I've really found men to be aware of, so I was incredibly impressed to see it portrayed in Brienne. I suppose that's a bit patronizing to Martin, as I've generally found him to write with solid understanding of women and otherwise-not-hegemonic perspectives. In general I think he writes very believable and well-rounded female characters, as indicated by the fact that he could believably write a woman like Brienne at all. I also think he makes it clear that the misogyny in the books comes from the setting and isn't bleeding in from his own biases. Still, the man isn't perfect; he tends to use feminine aging as a punishment for badness (see Cersei, Lysa) and something this delicate I would be wary of how any writer, male or female, feminist or not, would handle it.

But I must say, I've loved the direction so far. It's such a strange, unexpected turn of events. Gorgeous, superior, scornful Jaime Lannister, already enamored of his beautiful sister, is likely to have nothing but mocking contempt for an ugly, hidebound girl who tries to act like a man. And honorable, wounded yet starry-eyed Brienne should despise the arrogant, incestuous oathbreaker. But when two people suffer together, and suffer for one another, that brings them closer, all the while gives them the chance to demonstrate to each other their true characters. They've seen each other be brave, tough, loyal, and self-sacrificing. It is odd, requiring a shift in mindset for both of them, but it was gone through in such a way that felt very believable to me.

The amount of growth it has caused in both characters really pleases me. I started out the series thinking Jaime was disgusting, a monster with no redeeming qualities. But I love when books can change my all-to-often hard-set first impressions. Now that we've been in his head I understand him and sympathize with him, if not totally excuse him from his actions. He's committed many sins, certainly, though I hardly think killing the monstrous Aerys should count among them. His complexity may have made him surpass even Tyrion as my favorite character. And I loved what his growing feelings for Brienne indicate about him. I don't believe you can love what's good without there being some good in you. His admiration for what she is, honorable, faithful, brave, redeems him somewhat, shows what there truly is inside of him, and what he could possibly be himself. As for Brienne, her growing understanding of Jaime shows her moving away from her black-and-white view of the world, that there are heroes and there are villains, and that people can be shades of gray and still have value. She is also as caught up in appearences as anyone else; she is fixated on her own lack of beauty as a real lacking in her, and those who have it, which I think was the root of her idolization of Renly, leave her in self-hating awe. I want her to come to a place where she realizes that it makes no one any better or worse than anyone else, and just because she's not beautiful herself doesn't mean she couldn't deserve an otherwise worthy man who happens to be.

I love it because it speaks powerfully to me, and because I find it extremely feminist. It's greatly equalizing that sometimes the man can be the beautiful one and still be drawn to a woman who's not. A woman's worth depends on her character, not her appearence, and that it can pierce even the most self-absorbed veil of superiority to win acknowledgement for it. Bravo to Martin for building something so believeable and meaningful even within a genre one would never expect to find it in.

I wonder how far Martin will go. I am sure beyond a doubt that they will never actually come together in any way. But will he ever get either of them to the point where they can acknowledge romantic feeling for each other? On one hand, I want it-- I want him to make golden, arrogant Jaime Lannister realize that he has come to love, at least after a fashion, that stubborn ugly valiant wench. And I want Brienne to grasp that people are not black and white, that we're complicated when it comes to the measure of our worth, and there can be a good man, a man worth loving, even in a sinner like Jaime. But on the other hand, I feel like resistance to either of them acknowledging it would be in character. Neither would see it as a viable pursuit for their lives, and it's not like either of them wanted to feel that way. But still, the feminist romantic in me wants a moment where they own it, and affirm it to one another. Brienne, at least, has earned the esteem of knowing someone loves her for who she is.

I know there isn't going to be any happy ending for those two, at least not with each other. I fully expect Jaime and Cersei will in fact die together as they were born together, as has been mentioned a time or two in passing. I think Jaime is actually the valonquar, or little brother, that was predicted to kill her by Maggy the Frog, and he will strangle her with his golden hand. The whole thing would probably be most artfully and realistically portrayed if they never really get to any solid resolution of Jaime and Brienne's feelings. But beneath my cold hard exterior beats a squishy squashy pussy heart, and I can't help but want a little something that way.

As a post scriptum, I'm a little sorry about the fact that they cast a good-looking actress as Brienne for the HBO miniseries. I think they picked Gwendoline Christie primarily for her height, and though they'll probably ugly her up some, it bugs me that they chickened out that way. I don't blame them for casting a handsome actor as Tyrion because he's basically perfect and you get the point of his dwarfism anyway, but I love the reversed dynamic with J and B. I am very much looking forward to see how they portray it. I like the actor who plays Jaime, so I expect the interaction will be good.

I love Hipster Feminist

I have been really loving doing Hipster Feminist lately, my once-daily joke Twitter feed on the thoughts of Rhoda, a girl who finds the only thing more exhausting than the patriarchy is the mainstream. I'm enjoying the challenge of having to come up with an on-point joke for it every day, and even though not everything I've come up with has been comedy gold or trenchant commentary, a handful of them have turned out to be really fun and funny. I am getting interested in developing the character of Rhoda (given that name by morethings5*, along with some my favorites of her jokes). She needs a funny last name, and funny life details, and I might just do my hair up stupid and get a pair of black plastic glasses and skinny jeans and take a picture of myself as her. As it is, her character is kind of inconsistent, particularly in how much she flips between being a good feminist and a bad feminist, depending on what joke I want to do on a given day. But perhaps that in itself is funny and a comment on her nature; in case it's not obvious, she is not intended to be a bastion of self-awareness or true social consciousness. Having to stay within a hundred and forty characters does of course make it tough to really deeply explore her, but it's a good format for one-liners, and I like the challenge of working within the limitations.

I just got a whole bunch of new followers lately, too, bringing me up to an awe-inspiring twenty-six! ;-) This is special if only because these new people are people who don't know me and most likely aren't following me to throw me a sympathetic bone. One of those followers is, amazingly, Holly Pervocracy, who write an excellent feminism blog that I started reading a few months ago. She also writes a great deal about sex and kinks, which is fine but not really my cup of tea, but even so it's totally worth following if only for the feminist writing. I wonder how she found it! I also wonder if she noticed that a couple of my HF jokes were drawn from things I read on her blog. :-) At any rate, I'm flattered that she's interested, because she's pretty funny herself and definitely knows her shit when it comes to feminism. Gives me a little confidence that my jokes are sharply observed.

Only mainstream hegemonic assholes don't check it out. ;-)

Musings on beauty standards across the genders

 
This piece is a little disjointed, and doesn't really make a strong point, but here's a little bit of feminist rambling that's been in my head recently.A huge part of gender inequality is when there is an expectation of one gender that there isn't of another. For example, in this country there is much more social pressure on women to be physically beautiful in order to be valuable than there is on men, and the standards a woman must meet in order to be considered beautiful are much stricter than any set for men. This inequality troubles me, but I think I'm even more bothered by wondering whether or not I perpetuate it.

Though it's by no means a firm rule, to a large extent I buy into the purported female beauty standard. Thought not sexually drawn to women myself, I tend to most enjoy looking at those women who conform to it, and I certainly strive to cultivate it in myself. But in the men I'm attracted to, there is way, way less of a pattern. I may be able to say I tend to find women most beautiful when they're sleekly-built and delicate-featured, but even if I described what I might think of as my male beauty ideal-- strong-built, traditionally masculine, features on the broader and squarer side --that has hardly defined what men I ended up feeling attracted to. Hell, I can name features I actively don't like that I have not minded and not seen as a detraction in the slightest on certain men.

It bugs me that in feeling this way I might be holding women to a higher, more difficult standard than men. Sure, part of it may be that I like a dichotomy. I like women one way and I like men another; I tend to not, for example, like excessively delicate features on men whereas I might fine the same pretty on a woman. I guess when you like a dichotomy you can't expect that the same standards could apply to both. But it bothers me that some of those things that I like in women require a lot more work of than the things I like in men. Body hair removal, for example. I despise body hair on myself. But on men, well, even if I don't specifically like it, I guess it doesn't really bother me. On the other hand, even if we say I like thin women and muscular men, and that still usually involves extra effort and work put in to their appearence since they probably don't look that way naturally. In that sense the standard and expectation is the same. But a man who is a little bit chunky gets a lot less criticism for it than a woman who might be the same amount chunky. Again I, and the rest of society, tend to make the man's beauty a nice bonus to gettting the Attractiveness status while the women's beauty is a requirement for it.

I remember back during the height of The Sopranos' popularity that James Gandalfini, the actor who played the boss main character Tony Soprano, became an extremely mainstream sex symbol. I was quite shocked. Can you possibly imagine this happening with a middle-aged, overweight, not-conventionally-attractive woman? Not in a million years. The handful of female sex symbols who've held that status into their forties and beyond were the ones that kept their figures and didn't look their age. Of course, nobody said James Gandalfini was beautiful. They just thought he was sexy because of his attitude, his bearing, any number of intangible things that women latched onto. Because in our society, it's a hell of a lot easier for men to be unbeautiful and still attain that status than it is when you're a woman.

Sometimes I think that if I were a straight man I'd be an awful one. Assuming in that case I'd be attracted to the same sort of things I find beautiful in myself, my notions of feminine beauty would be pretty unfairly demanding. I wouldn't be able to keep a girlfriend because I'd probably make her feel awful about herself. "Sure, honey, of course you could stand to lose a few pounds. Wait, where you going?" "Hmm, been a couple days since you shaved, huh? Hey, come back!" It's not quite so bad if I'm just applying exacting criticism to myself, but I think I'd be disgusted with myself if I insisted on it from anyone else. Especially since I don't have nearly as exacting standards for attractiveness in men. Yeah, he might have this feature I'm not objectively into, or something that's obviously less than my ideal notion of attractiveness, but it doesn't really affect the fact that I am attracted to him anyway. With women, though, I'm much more likely to fixate on little imperfections.

I remember having a conversation with morethings5* (one of my best feminism-talking buddies) once about how critical we could be about the appearances of people of our own gender, noticing all kinds of little flaws that could compromise an assessment of that person as "beautiful," and wondering if that tendency would remain constant if we were attracted to that gender. But he thought that if we switched genders, our critical targets would switch too; if I were a man, my harsher standard of beauty would apply to men, and I wouldn't need perfection to be attracted to a woman, while he would be the same with the opposite. His point being, I think, that attraction may be influenced by a lot of things, but we tend to be drawn to the whole rather than the sum of the parts.

I hope Jonathan is right. I hope that this doesn't mean I've actually really internalized that men are just fine as they are, but women need to conform to an extremely narrow beauty standard that they must go to great lengths to alter themselves to fit. I hope it's that when attractiveness is a personally relevant question on the table, you tend to answer yes or no, but when that's not an issue on the table you focus more on the parts because the whole has less impact on you.

I was out a little while ago with Steph and Chris Knight, and when the subject of male and female expectations of beauty came up in passing, Chris said something that I thought was a profoundly insightful way to conceptualize it. Basically, he said from his perspective men care about the broad strokes of a woman's appearence, and don't really pay attention to, or worry about, the details. They might want to see a woman with a particular nice shape, but they don't notice the small imperfect lumps and bumps. Or they might prefer a woman with shaved legs, but they don't notice a little stubble or a few missed hairs. The details aren't important, just the general effect.

I actually like thinking of it that way. I mean, you can make all the jokes you want bitching about how we pretty ourselves up for men in countless little ways and then they don't even have the presence of mind to notice it. But I like the notion that while there is a desire for us to be attractive, being just "attractive" is absolutely good enough, and we don't have to worry about being perfect. Because in the real world, perfect isn't a necessary component to being attractive. It makes the expectations less oppressive, because it eases the sense of demand laid on us. Pretty or attractive is attainable. Perfection is not, and in that paradigm the burden of the unattainable is not placed on us.

In case this doesn't go without saying, I don't feel like enjoying, or desiring, pretty is a bad thing. It shouldn't be the ONLY thing we enjoy or desire, but I think it's normal and acceptable thing to like. The problem comes in, in my opinion, when the value placed on pretty supercedes the value of other things that are more important, or becomes the sole indicator of value. And it's particularly troublesome to me when that not only happens but is applied to one gender but not the other. Hell, I am bothered especially by the notion that a Valuable Man must be smart, strong, brave, and good, while a Valuable Woman must be smart, strong, brave, good, and BEAUTIFUL.

See the relationship between Jaime and Brienne in A Song of Ice and Fire for a fantastically observantly-written example of this phenomenon in our culture. Brienne is AWED by Jaime, even though at first she thinks he's a monster, because he's an extremely beautiful man. Since our sensibilities state that men are not required to be beautiful in order to be Valuable, Jaime's beauty makes him seem ABOVE AND BEYOND even simple Valuable status; to her, he's almost superhuman. She regarded Renly, also a remarkably beautiful man, the same way. And Jaime, in turn, is fascinated by the extremity of Brienne's ugliness, because sensibilities dictate that for a woman to be Valuable she MUST be beautiful. To not only be not beautiful but to be downright UGLY makes her almost subhuman.

One thing I know makes me feel better is when the standards are the same regardless of gender, even if though standards might in themselves be high. I was messing around on the Internet looking idly for pictures of Chris Evans (shut up) and one thing struck me. Well, two things, the first of which being I am significantly less attracted to him when he's not Captain America. The second thing, though, was that in various pictures of him, it became clear that he normally has a fair bit of body hair. But for his role as Cap, they waxed his chest. I am a little bit embarrassed to confess that this possibility did not even occur it me, though it totally should have. *eye roll* But I found that to be an interesting moment of equalization for me. I am a lot less bothered by the idea that PEOPLE are considered prettier when they don't have body hair than when it's an expectation that is only applied to women. Again, it's fine to enjoy looking at pretty things, but what's good for the goose should be good for the gander. It's really not fair to say that women are only attractive one way while men can be attractive lots of different ways.

I would like my sensibilities to fall somewhere in the middle. That yeah, maybe we all do look better if we go to some lengths such as shaving or something like that, but even when we don't that doesn't mean we aren't still attractive, aren't still desirable-- both women and men. And maybe throw in there that if men can be desirable even if they're not pretty, then we need to expand that so that society starts to internalize that women can be too.

It's MY phone, dude, talk to ME.

Yesterday I went to the Apple store to get my phone fixed. I called my dad on Bernie's phone but didn't get him, asking him to call me back at that number because I wanted his opinion on how I should handle the various possibilities for fixing the phone. After that the service guy came to talk to me about the problem. He explained it decently well, but I noticed he kept looking over to Bernie as he talked to me, making a particular effort to include him in the conversation. Before long, I was getting the distinct impression that his looks that way were basically meant to convey "Are you listening, dude? 'Cause you're probably going to have to help her with this later, so you'd better hear what's going on." Like he didn't trust that if he only spoke to me that I'd understand well enough for the problem to get resolved. And I am extremely offended by this.

I might have read the situation wrong. He might have just been trying to politely include Bernie in the discussion because Bernie was standing right next to me and it was either that or ignore him. But I've gone to the Apple store with Bernie many times before, usually to deal with Bernie's machines, and I don't remember any of the technicians trying to engage ME in the discussion just because I happened to be there.

It's probably not just that I'm a girl. It's probably just as much about being a girl that looked the way I did. I certainly think my clothes worked against me. I was wearing what I wore to work, which was nice even for my normal work standards, a white eyelet wrap dress, silver jewelry, black heels. It's an expensive dress and it looks it; I got it as a handmedown from my mother. I happened to be carrying my black patent Gucci bag, a lucky consignment find which I normally save for special occasions, because it matched my shoes. Very feminine, very upscale-looking. In addition to being a man, Bernie, by contrast, looks a significantly more practical person than someone in heels and eyelet. Maybe I should have worn jeans and a nerdy T-shirt (:-P) instead. Maybe if I hadn't been dressed in a way that screamed "I care about clothes and the way I look," maybe he would have given me more credit for being able to understand my technology. Because apparently these two things cannot exist in a person simultaneously.

And then, to top it all off, as the conversation was winding down but was not yet over, my Dad called me back. I had to pick up because I'd asked him to call Bernie's phone, and I didn't want to leave him hanging, but I had to excuse myself from talking to the guy... which allowed him to fully engage the conversation with Bernie... so I could talk to my dad. This bugged the hell out of me. I mean, Dad didn't do anything, I'd called him and asked him to call me back because I wanted his opinion, but Jesus Christ, did I feel like the Little Girl while the Men talked technical stuff while I had to go get instructions from Daddy.

I am pissed at this guy, and I am pissed at myself. It occurred to me more than once to say, "Don't talk to him, talk to me, it's my phone." But I didn't because I didn't think the guy meant any harm, and I didn't want to come off as a bitch in case he was just trying to be polite by not totally ignoring the other person present. But I wish I had said something, very nicely and not aggressively, asking him to please tell ME about MY technology and not the MAN standing next to me.

No, I don't know technology as well as Bernie does. But it's not because I'm a girl, it's because I'm less interested. If I cared to, there is nothing stopping me. Don't make presumptions about my intelligence because of my gender, or how nicely I'm dressed. It's not okay to assume that pretty girls must be dumb

It's rare that I feel treated differently for being a woman. But this time I very much did, and it's really upsetting to be patronzied like that. This guy treated me wrong, but I failed too by not standing up for myself. And I am pissed at myself for not saying anything.

From the Department of Bad Ideas... @HipsterFeminist!

So a little while ago I got the terrible idea to start a daily joke Twitter feed called Hipster Feminist-- "She buys into the masculine hegemony ironically." But now I've actually decided to do it. Along the lines of Feminist Hulk or The Goddamn Batman, it will have a daily post of whatever joke I can come up with on the subject that fits into a hundred and forty characters.

If you care to subscribe, the name is @HipsterFeminist and I have just begun today with its very first joke tweet. Follow HF in her daily defiance of the mainstream and the patriarchy.

Let's see what nonsense I can do with this. ;-)

Scripts I could write

One nice thing about getting into a stage and screen program is that I might just be able to write all the scripts I've been wanting to write for ages but never could justify committing the time to.

You all know I love the classics, particuarly Shakespeare. I've always wanted to attempt a full-length five-act play in the style of Shakespeare, shooting for the poetic blank verse dialogue in iambic pentameter and telling a suitably epic story. Not that I think I am a poet on that level by any stretch of the imagination, but I love the style and would love to try to see if I could make something decent. Though To Think of Nothing was not written in verse, it was an exercise in writing poetic dialogue, and I have always been pretty pleased with how it came out. It is pleasing to the ear, suitably old-sounding, and yet not excessively difficult or unnatural to say. In fact, I found it easier to write good dialogue in that style than I do in modern style. So maybe if I worked hard enough, I could produce something in blank verse iambic pentameter that wasn't half bad. I was thinking of using the story of the Byzantine rulers Justinian and Theodora as the subject. I always liked them and their romance, set against the backdrop of the Byzantine political struggles. I don't know, maybe that's final thesis material.

At the other end of the spectrum, my distaste and dissatisfaction with the Vagina Monologues has made me want to write my own version. Not exactly women talking about their vaginas, but women talking about life, sex, gender, relationships, friends, work, family, motherhood, and other aspects of how living as women intersects with feminism. But, as I see it, more genuinely feminist than the VMs. I haven't thought it out much, but I thought it might be interesting.

There's also some of my previous work, like the screenplay I wrote the first part of for class at Brandeis, or Paschal Moon, the other one act I wrote for Playwrighting. Maybe I could submit it for credit, and work on completing, improving, and revising. I never really was happy with the screenplay, which was inspired by the childhood of my grandfather and I would really like to be good. Who knows? Maybe my teachers will want specific things, or maybe I'll have the freedom to use what I want.

Random feminist grumblings

I am no longer as amused by Feminist Hulk as I was at first. The formula is pretty facile, and I've grown weary of the fill-in-the-blank messages of "HULK SMASH (insert reference to patriarchy, masculine hegemony, gender inequality, whatever)". How helpful, physically breaking down a concept with no physical manifestation. :-P Also, it conflates a lot of things-- veganism, genderqueer, alternative sexuality, nontraditional relationships, and all manner of hippy-dippy things --into the definition of feminism as if they were intrinsic parts, which I dislike. Adding all these unrelated conditions turns feminism into some kind of exclusive club that you can only join if you agree with all these leftist politics that don't even factor into it. Feminism is not a lifestyle, it is a simple straightforward belief. The only "thing feminists do" is believe in the inherent value equality between the genders.

By the same token, I must point out that it feminism and being pro-LBGTQ do not necessarily go hand in hand, nor, I feel, should one necessarily enter the definition of the other. While I certainly believe you should ALSO be pro-LBGTQ and it may be a related issue, it is not in fact the same issue, and I think that the simple, elegant, effective definition of feminism gets clouded enough without giving it corollaries.

Just fucking call yourself a feminist, already. I know many people who refuse to identify as feminists because they dislike the implications. But all it really means is belief in the inherent value equality between the genders! I know the word might kind of imply something different, but that just means more people need to be educated as to the real definition. GET YOURSELF EDUCATED ON IT ALREADY.


I am so tired of people for whom their desire to construct a feminist image for themselves obscures the point of feminism. While you are out there talking about sex toys and objecting to the word "pussy" as a derogative and all the other trappings of feminism you assume, you are not always remembering to act, in all ways, on the belief that there is an inherent value equality between the genders. THAT is all of feminism that matters. The minute you treat a man like he's less or bad because he's a man, or the minute you treat a woman like she's not responsible for her own choices and actions, you are failing in being the thing you are trying to wear the costume of.

I am all about personal responsibility. I believe being a capable, discerning agent of your own actions is part of being an independent and important member of society. Therefore, any notion of feminism that does not expect personal responsibility from women offends me deeply. Either we are adults who owe the same level of responsibility as any other adults, or we are children and cannot be held responsible. So, for example, if I don't want to have sex with someone, I need to SAY SO. Unless I am being forcibly held down and violated beyond my power to control, if I just allow someone to interact with me sexually in a way I do not desire, I am at fault for my own bad situation. The man's at fault too, if only because he should be able to tell when his partner is not into it. But if you're not giving him any indication, what, he was supposed to read your mind? The average man is not a rapist; he is almost certainly going to stop the minute you say something. If it is at all within your power, by not speaking up, YOU deny yourself that agency, NOT the other person in the equation. Be your own advocate, do not make yourself into the victim.

The fact that I am a woman does not need to factor into every decision I make about the way I live my life. I am a person first and a woman second. I swear, the way some of these people see the importance of my having a vagina, they want to reduce me to the sum of my girl bits more than the knuckle-dragging cavemen-types. My vagina is not the most important part of me. I am the most important part of me.

I don't like the Bechdel Test. It's got an interesting idea on it's face, ostensibly intended to encourage female characters who are more than just foils to masculine journey and activity. That I can get behind, but I find this particular presentation flawed. I believe it is possible for women to talk about men (who, we must not forget, are human beings as well) in ways that are not subservient to a male character's narrative, and in ways that contribute to her being a full and complex character. The implication that women just shouldn't talk about men at all because it means they are inherently subjugated in such contexts is offensive to me. Way to encourage the notion that men and women just never can get along in equality.

I also don't like the Vagina Monologues. I don't understand why it is the premier women's performance piece that gets done again and again; is there really nothing better out there? The misandry running rampant throughout it is pretty disgusting to me-- there are so many recollections of horrible things done by men to women, but very, very few depictions of positive, loving men in the speakers' lives. Also, "The Little Coochie-Snorcher That Could" is so offensive I cannot believe anyone puts up with it. That one portrays in a positive light the sexual predation of a young girl by an adult woman. Apparently it's okay if A WOMAN SEXUALLY ABUSES ANOTHER WOMAN, while if it had been a man the Monologues WOULD CRUCIFY HIM. Disgusting. Disgusting to glamorize sexual assault so long as the sexuality is lesbian. A screaming, sexist double-standard. Feminism is about equality, NOT superiority! Gah!

In short: stop being anti-man, stop shirking personal responsibility, stop corrupting the definition, stop wearing it's like it's a trendy outfit that makes you cool, stop thoughtlessly playing at empty girl-power games that accomplish nothing.

As a final note, I am sorry for how often violation of these notions causes me to scream, "AHHH NO WONDER MEN HATE YOU I HATE YOU AHHHH." It is flawed and unfair to assume that men generally hate women, and it is also not good for me to hate women. I acknowledge this. I will probably not stop doing it.

Quit pretending your idiot meme is feminist

HEY, EVERYONE. THERE IS SUCH A THING AS BREAST CANCER. IT'S BAD AND WE SHOULD DO STUFF TO FIND A CURE ABOUT IT. NOW YOU'RE AWARE.

I find this a more effective way to get people thinking about breast canncer than a stupid Facebook status meme THAT DOESN'T EVEN CONNECT TO CANCER IN ANY WAY. See, see, it's really kickass GRRL POWER answering the question of "Where do you like to put your handbag when you first come home?" with statuses that sound vaguely sexual, like "I like it on the floor," or "I like it on the kitchen table" without every letting anyone (except other girls, of course) know what the hell you're really talking about! Doesn't that like raise so much awareness of a disease that's NOT EVEN MENTIONED?

But see, here's the really awesome part! We don't explain it to men. So we get to laugh at them all like, "Buh?" That way they think we're talking about how we like it during sex and get all turned on by us. Then we get to feel sexy and desireable AS WELL as all superior to them because we're manipulating their base caveman urges when in fact we're doing something RIGHTEOUS FOR THE SISTERHOOD YEAH.

BECAUSE MEN CAN'T CARE ABOUT BREAST CANCER. Men can't hurt because they have mothers or sisters or wives or daughters who got the disease. Men only have one use for tits, am I right?

I'm sorry, but IT IS STUPID. Stupid to do something cryptic to raise awareness about something, particularly when couching in in false feminism. Oh, yes, let's all us women have our little solidarity meme, but let's not explain what we mean by it except to each other who ALREADY ARE AWARE and keep its meaning secret from men, because that's how you raise awareness-- you only let people who are already in the know in on it! Yes, this makes the most sense in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD.

It is NOT feminist. It is ELITIST, SELF-SATISFIED, and SEXIST. And if in its current form it does a damn thing to help even one person in regards to breast cancer, I'll drop dead of shock.

Sorry, but I'm in a BAD MOOD and this tweaks my feminist nerves.

The last straight girl on Earth

Sometimes I feel like the last straight girl on Earth. As more and more of my nominally straight female friends decide that they're at least a little bit bi, I am continually blown away by how few girls I know have that aversion-to-physicality-with-women that I used to think was a hallmark of feminine heterosexuality. And while if this is your genuine setting I wish you Godspeed, but I must confess a slight irritation with how it ties into a certain kind of sexual politics that has always gotten on my nerves.

I've never been a big fan of the expectation that all girls are just a couple appletinis away from a picturesque lesbian encounter. It's almost become the norm that if you go to a certain kind of party that frequently happens on college campuses, chances are you're going to see at least one instance of non-gay girls making out. And when this happens, you're going to have at least some of the guys in attendance hanging nearby enjoying the view. And I find this kind of gross, for a number of reasons.

I guess it's not like it's really my business; people have a right to be into whatever they're into, as long as it doesn't hurt anybody else. I don't even have a problem with guys thinking girl-on-girl is hot. Hell, I think guy-on-guy is hot, so I certainly don't see anything weird or wrong with it. The thing that does bother me is the cultural standard that girls are becoming expected to feel and express some level of bisexuality, in which men are allowed to have pornographic interest, because that's the way men want it.

I guess if the girls are willing to do this stuff and allow it to be watched, who am I to tell them they shouldn't be doing it, but are all these girls really totally okay with interacting sexually with other girls while guys look on to be titillated? The fact that so few of these girls actually ever date other girls gives me a bit of pause, but that's not necessarily an indicator of attraction. Heh, I was REALLY attracted to a certain black-haired friend of Alain's, but that didn't mean I wanted to date him, after all. And I certainly think you're still responsible for your actions-- I don't care what kind of pressure is being laid on you, you have a responsibility to yourself to refuse to do anything sexual that you don't want. Nobody can make you do anything just by encouraging you. But I have a hard time believing that no desire for validation and to be considered desirable factor into it, which is incredibly repellent to me. Are none of the things the girls want being compromised?

And worse, it's never the other way around. Guys never make out for the viewing pleasure of girls. It's just not done-- straight guys are straight, God damn it, they don't go in for that fag stuff. It doesn't matter that maybe I'd like to get the chance to watch two guys who don't look either like twinks or like Tom of Finland models. And really, that's fine, but that girls don't get the same respect for the rigidity of their sexuality is not fine. It's a double standard, one I am very much not okay with.

Apparently emerging research suggests that while men's sexuality tends to be rigidly defined, women are more inclined to blurring whatever lines they fall between. In other words, men are more likely to be inflexibly attracted to one gender and one gender only, while women are more likely to feel some level of bisexuality. Of course these are just trends, and plenty of people don't conform to them. I invite you bisexual men out there to raise your hands with me as exceptions to the rule. But this kind of pisses me off because this emerging viewpoint validates that double standard. Yeah, maybe it is true, but I feel like that people will use that to say, "Well, it's okay for me to lay that expectation on girls because that's just what girls are like. But it's totally not okay to lay that expectation on guys, because guys aren't like that."

That is such phallocentric bullshit. I'm not normally the sort of feminist who wastes a lot of time railing against the patriarchy, but here's one case where I will gladly make an exception, because basically, all the standards and expectations are set up by men, for men. Men's sexuality is consider inviolate because men want it that way, and women's sexuality is considered flexible because men want it that way. I mean, talk about being a victim of the male gaze.

What this comes down to is, as a person with a rather rigid sexuality, I dislike that fact not being respected. Since if that rigidity were compromised it would be actively damaging to me, I dislike when its existence is dismissed with "Oh, all girls are a little bit bi." I want to be like, "No, fuck you. Why don't you go stick your tongue down some other guy's throat for my amusement instead?"

People of course should do what they want. Just because the number of girls who are okay touching each other seems to be going up doesn't change what is true about myself. And of course nobody can make me do anything I don't want to do, no matter what their assumptions or expectations might be. But that double standard gets under my skin, and unfortunately even genuine things that seem to support it are going to get under there as well.

Confronting No Makeup Week

There's a blogger by the name of Rabbit Write, known for exploring topics of gender and interpersonal relations. I don't often read Rabbit Write, but I have added her to my blogroll, as I am interested in those subjects as well. Recently she has put out a call to all women to stop wearing makeup for one week. Her intention in this is to challenge us to examine our relationship with cosmetics.

I don't wear makeup in my regular life. Never have, not a stitch. No powder, no shadow, no liner, no gloss. The only times I ever do are onstage and to go goth. I, then, will examine not why I wear makeup but rather why I do not wear makeup, because many of the same issues are at play.

I used to feel very virtuous and superior about it. I congratulated myself on being free of neurotic concern that I needed makeup to be attractive, that I did not succumb to society's insistence that women must falsify themselves in order to be acceptable. Like it made me more evolved and indepedent. Society has a conflicted view on makeup, and while I do think women are strongly encouraged to wear it so that they look the way they "should," at the same time there's also points awarded to the girl who looks great without it. I still can't help but roll my eyes at the "except" girls-- "Oh, I don't wear any makeup. Except foundation." "Except eyeliner." "Except lip gloss." Don't give me that. Either you get to wear makeup, or you get to claim the status of not needing it, you don't get to do both.

I have evolved in my perceptions since then. I can acknowledge that makeup has a use and a place, and is not inherently a sign of insecurity or of conforming to unfair external expectations. I will probably wear makeup to the next formal event I attend, if only as an acknowledgement of the formality. But still, I don't particularly like it, and for a number of reasons plan to continue my avoidance of it in all but the most specialized of situations.

There are practical objections to makeup, of course. That shit is expensive, especially the good stuff, and when I see the price tags firsthand I frequently am relieved that I don't need to buy the stuff more than once in a blue moon. Makeup is often very toxic, containing trace amounts of any number of unhealthy compounds like lead. And there's the whole feminist angle. Are we making women's bodies unacceptable when we decide they are better when they have a layer of paint on them that makes them conform more closely to a supposed beauty ideal? Are we telling ourselves that are faces are not good enough as they are and need to have redder lips, more defined eyes, and clearer, more even skin? And that leads to an even more basic ethical level where we come back to my age-old opponent, the temptation to place too much stock in the value of beauty. Does makeup encourage vanity and contribute to that notion that beauty is not just something nice, it's something IMPORTANT, and not just important, SO IMPORTANT that we have to do whatever it takes in order to have it, even if that means buying expensive toxic compounds to obscure your real face and make a better false one?

I consider these things. But the most personal level to me, tied up with the things I have the least personal resolution with. For me, it comes down to the fact that even now, I still cannot help but see makeup as "fake." If you find something beautiful about me, I want it to be real. Not something I had to put on, something that without I would not be as beautiful. It's the same reason I don't dye my hair or get extra piercings. I wear my hair in such a style that it looks just as good on me mussed from sleep or wind or activity as it does freshly done. I work to keep my figure in such a shape that I am just as proud of it bare as the day as I do when dressed in the most flattering clothes I own. And by that same token, I wear no makeup because I want you to know that this face is my face, no tricks, no deceptions. One of the most treasured compliments I have ever received was from Jared on one of the earliest occasions we'd slept in the same bed and woken up together. "Wow," he marveled. "You look just as good first thing in the morning as you do all the rest of the day."

And I do. I do wake up looking this good. This is me. Not my clothes, not my makeup, not anything I put on. I really am this beautiful. You could take me in front of everyone I know, strip me down, and blast me with a firehose, such that everything was taken away but me, and I would be ashamed of nothing.

In recent years I made a little joke, designed only to display my own self-confidence, but in practice carelessly cruel: "Makeup is for ugly girls." I would say it with a self-satisfied smile and an arrogant toss of my head, the intention being to say that of course someone as beautiful as me would never need such a thing. I didn't really mean it the rest of it, the implication that clearly there must be something lacking in you if you wore it. It was, like all too many of the things I do, all about me-- without considering that yes, I may be fortunate to look this good without it, but not everyone is so lucky.

And a lot of it is all accidental. Why do I like this natural beauty so much? I tend to prefer to be judged on my merits, and I must admit, my natural beauty doesn't have much to do with anything I do. Maybe I work out and take care of myself, but my good metabolism and pleasant features are things I was born with and had no control over or input upon. Do I really deserve validation for an accident of good fortune?

There is a likely evolutionary explanation. An attractive person is a person whose genes are desirable enough that you would like to combine your own with, as well as a person who is likely healthy enough to bear the offspring. If my beauty is natural, then you have a good basis off which to judge my suitability as a mate. If my beauty is not natural, then to a certain extent you have been tricked, and therefore thwarted in your biologically-driven attempt to find the most desirable genetic material.

Still, it isn't as if I can't relate to some of the things makeup is supposed to provide. Pleased as I am with my appearence, it most certainly isn't perfect. If nothing else, my skin has never been the greatest. I have had acne and blackheads to varying degrees of severity for pretty much all of college, and the tone is somewhat uneven. One of the major things I dislike about the way I appear in pictures is how greasy and blotchy my face appears, way more so than it does to me when I look in the mirror. Probably wouldn't turn out that way if I wore makeup. I certainly have admired in the past when friends more skilled in makeup wear it so well I can't tell whether or not they're wearing it all, like blendedchaitea*.

And it's not like I don't make any alterations to myself in the name of vanity. A different cosmetic choice I make is how I take something of a scorched earth approach to body hair-- get rid of it, all of it, by any means necessary. I am ruefully amused by the contrast sometimes, between my delicate, finely-shape figure and my bear-like level of body hair. So I get rid of it to suit my aesthetic. But that's not very natural, now, is it? "Taking away," I suppose, feels more real to me than "adding." Everything remains is still mine, still real. And for some reason, that matters to me.

Sometimes I do think makeup contributes to society placing too much emphasis on the importance of beauty. Sometimes I think that we'd be better off if we didn't feel like we needed it so much. But I also am fairly certain that my aversion to makeup is not me having any less of a connection to that over-valuing, it's that connection expressing itself in a different way-- perhaps in the way of the "have" versus the "have not." Maybe I should have a Makeup Week to see what the difference would be.

Feminism PSA

Just a little heads up to everyone that might be wondering, sparked in part by a recent experience of blendedchaitea*.

You may be, at some point in your life, placed in a position where you are forced to ask yourself if you really are doing feminism right. To this I say, simply ask yourself-- do you believe in the inherent value equality of men and women?

Yes? Then you're not a bad feminist.

Insofar as "good" and "bad" even enter into it, I feel like if you do the things that feminists do, then you're doing it "right."

What do feminists do? They believe in the inherent value equality of men and women. Therefore, things that enter into the definition of "good feminist": believing, supporting, agreeing with, et cetera, the concept of the inherent value equality of men and women.

Things that do not enter into the definition of "good feminist": your gender, your sexual orientation, your religion, your nationality, your economic status, your ethnic background, your education, what you do for a living, your aesthetic preferences, your political views, the jokes you laugh at, your diet, what you do for fun, how much sex you have, the media you consume, and a whole host of other things.

"Good feminists" don't need degrees in gender studies. They don't need to have read Stein or Faludi or Dworkin or anyone else. You don't need to stage protests, write letters, go to rallies. You don't have to hate men, be attracted to girls, shave your head, or stop shaving your legs. You don't need to apply the goddamn Bechdel Test before you see a movie or watch a TV show. You don't need to view every single social injustice, perpretrated against women or otherwise, as a personal assault, and if you do, you don't need to hate anyone else who doesn't.

Until and unless one of those things necessarily makes you cease to believe in the inherent value equality of men and women, none of those things are any indication of whether or not you are a bad feminist.

Until and unless you stop believing this, nobody in the world gets to tell you "FEMINISM: UR DOIN IT RONG."

The kind of woman I want to be; the kind of woman I'm afraid to be

I want to be the kind of woman who supports and is kind to other women. I want to not let my insecurities lead me to feeling threatened by the virtues of other women. I want to celebrate and build them up instead.

I am afraid of being the kind of woman with a generalized contempt for women. As much of a feminist as I am, I am inclined to prefer the society of men, and most of the personal flaws that bother me most are the ones that tend to be found in women more often than in men. I don't want to let these facts turn me into anything that does not support women.

I want to be the kind of woman who doesn't let herself go. No matter what I'm doing, what my circumstances are, what's going on with me or what's happening in my life, I want to never become dowdy or frumpy or believe that the part of my life where I am attractive is past me.

I'm afraid of being the kind of woman that doesn't age gracefully. I am incredibly afraid of aging, of losing the physical beauty that has meant so much to me and to others, and I worry about trying to cling to my youthful aspect in ways that aren't dignified because I won't know what to do without it.

I want to be the kind of woman who doesn't confuse real love with the accoutrements of love, and knows that the first is infinitely more important. I will not measure love by self-serving qualifiers with only external significance-- "If he loved me he'd do X," "If she cared she'd think Y," -- but place importance only on the expressions that truly matter.

I'm afraid of being the kind of woman who doesn’t ask for what she wants. I don't want to feel like I don't deserve the things that I want, or that I cannot count on people to want to give them to me because I'm not important enough.

I want to be the kind of woman who never lets anyone forget that she can be and is both beautiful and smart. I want to be admired and appreciated for everything that's good about me, and never allow myself to be sold short.

I'm afraid of being the kind of woman who allows her beauty and sexuality to vulgarize her. I want these to be part of the appeal of the package of myself, not things that obscure my qualities that are ultimately more real, more lasting, and more important to my value as a human being.

I want to be the kind of woman who takes responsibility for herself. I want to be capable of handling myself and my own life and be seen by those around me as such. I don't want to depend on other people, and want all the credit and blame that implies. I want to succeed due to my own effort and ability, and accept that if I fail that lies with me as well.

I'm afraid of being the kind of woman who always blames herself. I am inclined to hold myself to such a standard that when someone does do some wrong to me, I am likely to feel like I failed for allowing it to happen. But this can lead to allowing others to take advantage of you for fear of always being in the one in the wrong.

I want to be the kind of woman who walks the line between the feminist dichotomy well.

I'm afraid of being the kind of woman who lets it push her too far one way or the other.

"Real women" don't have to set narrow definitions for "real women"

I hate the trope of "real women have curves."

Perhaps I hate it because my biggest feminist pet peeve is when people try to lay a narrow definition on what constitutes a "real woman." Perhaps it's because it's not fixing a prejudice but the equally toxic practice of turning it around so that somebody else is the target of vilification instead. Perhaps it's just 'cause I'm a skinny chick who says fuck that. But I hate that chestnut "real women have curves."

I don't have a curve on me-- all sleek lines and clean angles. Am I not a real woman? Not a chance.

This trope takes our culture's standard assumption, that thin women are more beautiful and desireable than heavy women, which makes so many women who aren't thin feel inferior and less valuable, and turns it around so that heaviness is the ideal and thinness is undesireable and wrong. Reversing a prejudice and making the formerly "superior" group into the target of disgust and vilification is not making things better; turning the victims into victimizers makes them just as bad. It's basically saying, "You made me feel bad. Now I want to make you feel bad. I want to hurt you the same way I've been hurt."

The "real women have curves" trope was not come up with by women who like their bodies. No woman who actually loves her beautiful feminine curves would ever need to create something to reduce someone else to lesser status. Sure, there are some pretty people who refuse to acknowledge the beauty of others, but those people have other problems and most likely aren't secure in their opinions of themselves.

But no girl who knows she is a voluptuous goddess invented or repeats that. No, this trope is the work of the chunky girl who would KILL to have the lean thighs and flat tummies of her slimmer sisters and resents the hell out of them for it. She says it as a balm against old wounds, as a punishment of those who she blames for those wounds.

But two wrongs don't make a right. I get that some people have suffered a long time for the fact that their culture impressed on them images and standards of beauty that they can never meet. I feel very sorry for those people, and it should change. But that doesn't make it okay to take out that hurt on other people. It can't be that the only change is that a different group must suffer instead. There's something vengeful about it, and God knows how destructive seeking vengeance can be.

And it doesn't do anything to encourage people being generous enough of spirit of acknowledge each other's beauty and value. I know that when I hear it, my hackles raise. While no one's word can render me unbeautiful or unfeminine, there's still this inherent unkindness in declaring that if you look like me you're not a "real woman" that I don't respond well to. And when someone treats me with malice, it makes me feel mean. I want to be mean back to the person who was mean to me. Again, I know two wrongs don't make a right, and I should feel sorry for a person who obviously isn't as happy with their appearence as I am with mine, so I know it isn't an acceptable response. But my instincts tell me to bite back. I want to say nasty things like, "You know what curves I like? The ones on the zero on the size tag in my dress."

Nobody should get to feel good by making someone else feel bad. Nothing destroys the soul so fast as destroying the value or goodness or well-being of someone else. I think this is one such case.

Feminist rant on appearence reactions

I recently read an article about women's fear of dressing "sexy" because they're afraid of not being respected and being viewed as inappropriate. And I gotta say, some of the thoughts really irked my feminist anxieties.

First of all, I thought the article did a poor job of defining what it meant by "sexy." Do we mean "looking really good such that people think we're hot?" Do we mean "showing a lot of skin?" Do we mean "with the intent to elicit a sexual reaction?" Because in my opinion, those things are very different, and while there may be some overlap, I do not believe there always is.

I always aim to look attractive, both to my own standard, to general opinion, and to the opposite sex. So I would say I always try to "look hot"-- I want people to think I'm hot. I don't think any woman should be at fault for that; who doesn't want to look good, even attractive, as they define it? Maybe it's going a little too far if you're trying to get any real, immediate sexual reaction out of people in a context where that is not appropriate. But I honestly I think you'd have to go pretty extreme in how you're dressing in order to get a lot of that. And I feel like that extremity makes it is pretty easy to identify when that intent is present.

honestly, I don't really agree with the notion that skin automatically is about eliciting sexual reaction. I'm sure all of you know by now that I like showing skin. I think there's a degree of it that people are not such animals as to be totally revved up about when they see it. Being small-busted, necklines have to be pretty damn low in order to seem even vaguely provocative on me. I do tend to show my midriff a lot, at least the little strip of it between my waistband and the hem of my shirt. Is my typical inch-wide band of skin there really anything more than a fun and cute little touch? I think it looks hot, sure, but as I said, there's a difference between looking hot and actually looking like you're trolling for arousal.

Now, make no mistake, I'm not saying every look is appropriate for every situation. And sure, there's a limit of when some is too much. Save the plunging decolletages, the belt skirts, and the crop tops for having fun with, not anywhere that sort of thing would be inappropriately provocative. Though honestly I don't find any of my dressing habits to be that extreme, even I tone it down a little for, say, going to work. I've thrown on camisoles under low necklines and buttoned a few more buttons than I might otherwise. But I really don't see anything wrong with showing a moderate bit of skin. My workplace isn't all that conservative about dress, and if there's a different standard at yours, you should of course observe it. Heh, when I asked about the dress code when I first came to work there, literally the answer I got was, "Uh... no mirco-minis?" Well, okay, then. I've never heard a word about my belly, and I can't remember any serious context in which I felt less respected due to how much skin I was showing.

Maybe it's just that I have never felt terribly bothered by objectification. I've only felt I was being objectified a handful of times in my life, and I found these occasions to be moronic rather than hurtful. I know I'm not an object-- nobody has the power to actually turn me into one, regardless of how they see me. Yes, I am very pretty, thanks for noticing. I'm sorry that you're too much of a moron to realize that I'm smart too. Perhaps it might have been different if the objectification ever came from anyone with any power over me-- a boss, for example --to make consequences come of their reduction of me to object status, but in general, I find it to be that person's problem, not mine. As I said-- I'm not an object, and even if they treat me that way, nobody on earth has the power to make me into one.

And that brings me to another point-- these days, are men in general inclined to that kind of behavior? It's not the fucking fifties anymore, people. Maybe I've just had unusually fortunate experience, but I have found most men I've interacted with have internalized the notion that women are more than just pretty sexy things. That a woman dressing pretty, even sexy, does not automatically negate the possibility that she's got a lot going on upstairs as well.

I feel like this is predicated on a pretty offensive assumption about men as hyper-sexual beasts such that an attractive girl showing a little more skin than usual equals an automatic horny reaction that blots out all thought of that girl being a human being. Yuck. So sexist, so unfair, and I pray to God, so inaccurate. Do people really see men as lust-landmines that are going to explode with inappropriate behavior the minute something they find sexy sets them off? How patronizing! They're not animals, for Christ's sake. And if there ARE actually men like that, whose attraction to a woman cancels out any regard for her intellect or personhood, those men are creepy and fucked up and THEY are the problem and the ones that need to shape up, not the woman they're reacting to.

And I gotta say, I really hate this panic-reaction so many women have about, "OMG, he thinks I'm hot, now he won't respect me as a person!" Oh, get over yourself. WHY is it assumed that respect and attraction can't coexist? That being sexy and being smart mutually exclude one another? I find that not only insulting to men, but to women as well! Women can either be seen as respectable and capable, OR attractive and sexy? Screw that! I am a beautiful, smoking-hot woman who acts, directs, cooks, designs, organizes, and writes everything from larps to plays to poetry! Don't you forget for a minute that I've got beauty AND brains!

Is an inch-wide band of skin that I think is cute going to light the fires of brain-consuming lust? Nuh-uh. Is my being seen as a sexy woman negate the truth that I am also an intelligent and capable one? No on your life! And while yeah, it's important to hold men to a proper standard, we need to not turn them into the enemy when they don't deserve it.

And that's today's feminist rant. Your thoughts?