anotheranon | Entries tagged with feminism

Gathered from here, there, and everywhere:

Learn to be a better writer by reading fanfiction - especially the bits about villians needing motivation and using crackfic to get unstuck.

John Cleese on creativity - “Creativity is not a talent. It is a way of operating.” - so true. Hat tip @ITSLENNYHENRY (yes, the real one).

Femme Doctors and crossplayers: not that different - elegant description of the what cross play is and isn’t, and why it’s appealing. Wonderful fun, but also put on your gender studies hat.

Dates to remember for 2013 - first two weeks of May are looking awfully good. And there’s gonna be a 3rd Riddick movie? Hat tip D.

The Star Trek-Middleman crossover you’ve been cautiously excited for - seriously, if you never watched The Middleman, go forth and view now. It’s rather like Firefly, killed before it’s time, wonderfully witty and only 13 hours of footage. Related: Middleman-Doctor Who crossover.

Edit 7:45 pm Links fixed. Dunno what LJ was doing adding extra quotes.

The most insidious earworm EVER [YouTube]; I share in an effort to exorcise. Lyrics NSFW unless sweary sing-alongs are in your job description. The video is deceptively clean. Courtesy D., who I thank (?) for demonstrating that there's something sticker than old Bon Jovi tunes.

Joan of Arc on Stil P1, Swedish radio - probably only tommdroid and sealwhiskers can appreciate it, but I must include the link because the English site where I found it says the show is about juicy, seemingly disparate subjects like "'short hair and men’s clothes' on women throughout fashion history, the power and danger of dressing against the norm, historical re-creations of clothing from the Middle Ages in Sweden, jewelry as armor, and super hero costumes." Someone let me know if it's as good as advertised.

Anarchists of Style: Ann Nzinga, Queen of N’Dongo (1582-1663) - she kicked the Portuguese out of her country with women warriors, and looked GOOD doing it, in men's baroque clothing. Historical kickass woman, but I can't find much else about her on the web!

Eartha Kitt: A Catwoman....or THE Catwoman? FWIW I thought Anne Hathaway was a good choice for Nolan's more realistic, understated Bat-verse, but Kitt made the role her own in the campy 1960s version. This article is actually less about Kitt's acting and more about her anti-war, anti-apartheid sentiments. Another kickass woman, in another way.

Secrets of Geek Mating Rituals - sweet memories of how D. and I got together :)

Any of you who have been reading me for awhile knows that I'm a firm believer in better living through science and therefore the whole current (and recurrent) debate in the U.S. political scene about birth control is on the face of it a non-starter for me. I've been saying for years that it's the 20th (21st!) century, get with the program already!

Turns out I've been naively optimistic. Sara Robinson's article Why Patriarchal Men Are Utterly Petrified of Birth Control -- And Why We'll Still Be Fighting About it 100 Years From Now is a sobering reminder of how slowly the wheels of progress turn.

Given that it's been available my entire life, it's easy for me to forget that the existence of safe, effective birth control has created huge changes in the roles of women, of family, of sex, and in the power dynamic between men and women. We're only 50 years into this huge change so while I think resistance is ridiculous, I shouldn't be surprised that conservatives are still trying desperately to put this genie back in the bottle and will be for [sigh] hundreds of years to come.

I like to marvel at how far people have come in just my lifetime, and it's dispiriting to be reminded how much further there is to go.

Current Mood: melancholy

12:16:47: RT @Alltop Cat hair crafts http://om.ly/BNkYv <- I keep threatening to take shed fur & knit a new cat. Good to know there are other options.
14:18:08: No lunchtime walk today- just missed tiny window of sunny/warm before rain/wind set in. You snooze you lose I guess.
16:37:44: Not a problem, adding to list.
20:48:05: RT @InkAmazon "The #Buffy Effect" podcast for @BitchMedia Buffy's legacy & feminism, pop culture http://tinyurl.com/4gejcnc

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00:42:45: RT @AntiWacko: MT @SandiBehrns: Less than 2% of Planned Parenthood visits involve abortion. A vote to defund is a vote against women's h ...
00:45:40: RT @Kevin_Church If you ever forget how good HOT FUZZ is, watch HOT FUZZ and you will be reminded of how good HOT FUZZ is #hintsforliving

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12:42:52: RT @opheliacat: RT @hudsonette

RT @faraway67: 'Downton Abbey' site Highclere Castle: Victorian arch. fantasy in stone http://wapo.st/ ...
16:03:20: RT @racheline_m: I wish people would stop encouraging women to be afraid as a disguise for their treating the women in their lives like ...
19:46:09: Anyone else going to #govwebcon on 3/17?

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Nothing of quantity to say, so I give you quality outsourced content:

hrj's tour de force on Cross-dressing in the SCA. Chock full of context about the social realities of women wearing men's clothes in Europe during the SCA time period (~600-1600AD) as well as how it plays in to the context of SCA's persona, person, and presentation. With bibliography!
VA congressional candidate speaks out against slut-shaming: "Society has to accept that women of my generation have sexual lives that are going to leak into the public sphere. Sooner or later, this is a reality that has to be faced, or many young women in my generation will not be able to run for office." HT rm.

Originally titled " being ~~pretty~~ ~~ugly~~ female in public but the strikethrough tags won't work in the title :P

Via

rm (where do all your links come from??) Physical attractiveness is overrated. And no, it's not a whiny "poor me, I get so attention 'cos I'm so cute" post.

I've been on both sides of the pretty/ugly divide in different places and times in my life and both suck. When I was considered ugly I got sneers, curses, and ridicule - and more of the same if I didn't respond. When considered pretty I got catcalls, gropes, and pestering, plus hostility if I didn't respond. I figure at least when considered ugly people were less likely to want to touch me and the harassment seemed less likely to escalate if I ignored it.

Neither has happened to me in a long time, a fact for which I'm grateful (no, catcalls are NOT complimentary). I suspect this has to do with being a less frequent pedestrian and aging into invisibility, but I prefer to think it's because I've finally managed to put out the necessary bad vibes :P

I will say that one of the things I loved about the (early) internet was the lack of physical presence. To be judged by what I said and how well I said it without it having to pass through the "girl filter" was (and is) a welcome relief.

I'm working my way down the infinite book stack. I'm finally delving into Alternative femininities: body, age and identity, an academic look at tattooed women, post-teen goths, and other women with non-traditional styles who plan to maintain them past college age. It starts with a description of who (the appendix lists details of all interviewees) and why (how do older women navigate subculture?), followed by a chapter defining a common understanding of mainstream femininity.

Just as I start this I run into Painted Ladies: on tats and trashiness a decidedly less academic source but I'm pleased that it criticizes the notion that Nice Girls Don't.

Both stick in my mind as though I don't have tattoos, I do have body piercings that according to mainstream notions aren't only questionable to begin with, but that I've hung onto long past their sell-by date (and plan to keep doing so). I originally got them in my twenties during a time I was getting pressure from family and peers to look a certain way, as a way of marking my body as mine. I also hoped they'd serve as a kind of filter to avoid judgmental lovers - I figured that if someone was going to pearl-clutch at the sight of my steel then maybe they didn't need to be seeing me naked :P

In other words, I didn't do it for the pretty :P

I guess it's just bewildering to me that it's news to some people that not all women want to look the same, or please anyone but themselves with their body adornment.

Just discovered the Coilhouse blog and it's odd, beautiful, and sometimes thought provoking archives.

One that had me nodding particularly was What does Alt Model Even Mean?. The author rightly points out that even the most "freakish" of alternative models still adheres to at least some mainstream beauty standards: with rare exceptions most are young, thin, and white. IMHO the most obvious exceptions are the "plus size" (I use quotes because a US size 8 is considered heavy in the modeling world) models, who still have thick hair and good skin.

Which makes sense, I suppose: IIRC (can't cite source, regrettably), across all time periods and places, the constants for female beauty are unblemished skin, straight, full set of teeth, clear eyes - humans are animals and it's hard to get outside of that.

Still, I do wonder why Coilhouse's Top 10 Most Preternaturally Beautiful Men still seems to show more variety of facial features, style, and build than their Top 7 Icons of (female) Alien Beauty. To be fair, the uniformity of the latter listing might have a lot to do with styling and photography (the author even notes that #s 3 and 4 look very much alike). Also IMHO most of these women don't look particularly alien, outside the aforementioned styling/photos (except maybe the last, assuming she's not 'shopped).

23:18 RT @MargoEve: RT @allisonkilkenny: #Stupak amendment prevents treatment for incomplete miscarriages bit.ly/1U8h9Y
23:21 Brain is full. Need to download.
14:08 Looking @ Yohji Yamamoto on Gilt. All too tiny/expensive for me, but very inspirational. Have stockpile Miyake patterns, will travel.
15:43 Somehow got fabric dye up my nose. This is probably not healthy.

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Those plugged into the whole Comic Con thing are probably aware of the game company that offered a prize for sexually harrassing their "booth babes".

Well, a runner-up in the contest had something to say about that.

Discovered via

betnoir, who has a delightfully snarky thread going.

There's no way around it - the kirtle skirt is going to come up an inch or so shy of my ankles. I'm going to need to put a guard on the hem - a period solution to a timeless problem, but I'm still a little irked that I didn't (gu)estimate the amount of fabric I needed properly.

The lining and skirt are attached, each finishing the other = no raw edges, yay! Right now cats are testing structural integrity (hiding between the layers :P) I've decided that this is going to be the project in which I finally experiment with knife pleats, which will involve some math to figure out the pleat size needed for the 3:1 ratio.
Said it on Twitter, and I'll say it again: getting the cleaners in has been my best self-indulgence in awhile. What's said about cluttered space = cluttered mind is so true, and my brain has been so freed up for sewing that I'm speeding through this latest project, compared to my usual snail's pace.
Speaking of indulging oneself - something bugs me about this post about women letting themselves go. I may be wearing my feminist hat a bit too tight and totally missing the point (Super Kawaii Mama IS a style/fashion inspiration blog, after all), but why is "letting oneself go" expressed 1) sartorially 2) as unique to women, and 3) in terms of keeping up a very feminine appearance? Seriously girly stuff (all that makeup, all that shaving) is a lot of work and while I like the results I find it hard to frame as a special treat :P

I say this as someone who has been attempting to spruce up a little lately, even on weekends. Even so, I'm not going to start wearing lipstick just to go to the grocery, and a lot of my idea of "me time" involves sweating heavily while playing with weaponry. Though, a pedicure might be nice.
Been keeping up with the "baby carrots instead of snack machine" thing for over a week and I'm liking it. The crunch is satisfying and my mouth/teeth feel cleaner. Now I'm trying to reduce dairy intake - Lactaid works, but why wear bullet proof vest when I can take the bullets out of the gun, so to speak? I'm really missing pizza though. And sour cream.
Current nostalgia trip: M People's "One Night In Heaven":

( cut for space )

A bit more diva-esque than my usual tastes, but Heather Small is a hell of a diva - I believe the colloquial would be "damn, that's a set of pipes!" The video is so golden and summery that I want to go there (turns out it was filmed in/around Barcelona. Spain, anyone?)
Saw "Half Blood Prince". It's pretty good, though knowing how it all turns out from the books the emotional sucker-punches aren't as jarring as I'd hoped.
"Torchwood: Children of Earth", is fantastic, however. Suspense and horror with an excellent villain and the reactions of the characters are believable enough to be truly horrifying. Recommended.
Among the weekends other activities I took a pile of recycling and donations out, and thought I'd got off easy, but sitting at a desk all day revealed the pulls and kinks I put into my back from lifting too much - ow. Think a bit of yoga before bed.

I really wish I were surprised, but I'm not. There's something very wrong when pro-lifers loudly demonize abortion providers and then feign surprise when someone actually acts on their vitriol - freedom of speech comes with responsibilty.

Me, I'm donating to Medical Students for Choice.

Current Mood: grim

15:48 Feminist Friday - Lessons for Girls: bit.ly/u52BU
Wish I'd heard these as a kid! Woulda saved time!

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All Women version of Romeo and Juliet.

( meme: what, no weapons? )

Women wanna be the Big Damn Heroes - I totally get that, and I don't even play video games.

This Is Your Nation on White Privilege from

dustdaughter.

Starters:

Pop Feminist, exactly what it sounds like.

History is made at night, "The politics of dancing and musicking".

Main course:

Club Cultures and Female Subjectivity: The Move from Home to House

Pretty in Punk: Girls' Gender Resistance in a Boys' Subculture

Alternative Femininities: Body, Age, and Identity

Dessert:

Energy Flash blog, showcasing Simon Reynolds' music/club/rave reviews from the 1990s.

Current Mood: tired

t-shirt: My Marxist Feminist Dialectic Brings All The Boys To The Yard

Found here via here.

Explanation of the boys to the yard thing.

Current Mood: amused

Images of elite female athletes and their diverse physiques. Via my constant favorite Stumptuous.

Feeling better today than yesterday - not hard, as my mood was at a pronounced low by recent standards. Turns out less food + less sleep + more caffeine = smoother running A. Non. Huh....

So, What do you wear that makes you feel powerful?

And I thought about it (whilst sitting here in my fencing whites), and came up with the following:

Knee high boots always give me that super-badass Emma Peel feeling. Gotta be flat though - I like to have a firm grip on the ground.
A well fitted corset - a PITA to get in and out of but the tight hold feels like armor.
A tailored duster, because the structured shoulders and flaring skirt take up space, dramatically.
A sword in hand never hurts ;)

Tangential, but not overly so: the Hero Machine but can't find a corset, dammit!

How do you dress when you want to feel powerful?

Current Mood: better

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anotheranon

Inspired Melancholy

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Page generated Sep. 20th, 2017 12:27 am

it's like the eye of a duck

but some people juggle geese

Entries tagged with feminism

linkage at high noon

for a few linkages more

why we're still having this )*()&! conversation

From Twitter 02-25-2011

From Twitter 02-19-2011

From Twitter 02-18-2011

links of note

being female in public

body art and age

alternative to...what, exactly?

tweet(s) of the day

just desserts

tasty miscellanea

On the death of George Tiller

tweet(s) of the day

short collection of neat things

plateful o' pop culture

[snerk]

the female form

dressing for heroism and suchlike

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