cognitive dissonance wrt dressing young and use of the word “girl”
britney’s new video (synopsis), which she starts by pseudo-rebelliously saying “Fuck you” to members of the fake press, lead me to comment that i think it’s sad that after all these years her interpretation of being “edgy” is using the F word and dressing like 19 year old hot topic salesperson while still singing in her baby voice. this video is supposed to be Britney responding to her haters, but to me it seems she got played right into the thing she’s supposedly fighting against. the video does not scream “strong, confident, independent woman” to me.
this brought me back to try to finish my thoughts on this piece, which caused a lot of dissonance for me: http://jezebel.com/5810735/dont-fear-the-dowager-a-valentine-to-maturity
“Women with master’s degrees who are searching for life partners, list “rainbows, Girl Scout cookies, and laughing a lot” under “interests” on their Match.com profiles…
When I shop now, I have to make sure that garments I think are dresses, are not actually rompers. If you don’t know what rompers are, they’re shirts attached to shorts, and they used to be called onesies.
The closest thing Madonna ever did to infantilizing herself was for her 1992 Steven Meisel Vanity Fair cover. Today, KATY PERRY IS POSING IN HEADGEAR. And despite the facade of cliqueishness, and female friendship, and the Romy & Michelle’ness of gal-pal fun times, let’s be real. We all know these manic pixie Muppet Babies are really just in it for the peen. And instead of acting like a woman who might remind a skittish bro more of his teacher or his mother, we’re going for the pubeless, twee, Anime-eyed version of whatever dream girl we assume they want or need.
It’s like how we used to hide our interests around boys (‘I hate math! It’s so hard!’). Now, instead, we’re singing the praises of Skittles Sours instead of emulating, say, Kathleen Turner? Barbara Stanwyck? …
It’s all to the same ends— women are trying to broadcast to men that we won’t bite their dicks off. It’s just that now, instead of lipstick, we’re wearing glittery lip gloss, or that shit you get in the drug store that tastes like Dr. Pepper.
…Because the larger issue is that it is a lot easier for men -or even guys or bros-to demean us, if we’re girls. It’s much harder to bring down a woman, or to call her a moron, when she’s not in pigtails and Ring Pops. Not that his idea of you should influence your style, or your sense of self-worth. But I feel like in a way, it already sort of has?”
this causes a lot of dissonance for me because as a woman who is almost 35, i still often dress what some people would consider “young”. but while i would never be one to say what women over X age should/should not wear, i too agree that it’s hard take a woman over 30 seriously if she’s demanding respect while she is dressed like a girl half her age, and i too have noticed that current mall trends are catering hard to what some would consider “infantilism”. just the other day i was walking behind a female on the street who, from behind, i thought was probably 15-20 due to her slight build and because she was wearing a floral print onsie-romper thing. then i passed her, and noticed she had a pack of cigarettes in her hand and so then when i looked at her face, this woman was at least 40. it was confusing. perhaps this is my social construct, but to me it signaled something about this woman that suggested she wasn’t quite sane.
on the other hand, i also am firmly against the “blame the victim” accusations against women who get raped and then someone says she was “asking for it” because of how she was dressed/she was intoxicated, and believe that a woman should not suffer negative actions based on how she’s dressed. however, i do believe that what you wear matters and how you dress sends messages (intentional or otherwise), so i’m with the Jezebel author in that i have found my self cringing lately when i see other women my age dressing like someone half it. a touch of cutesy – sure. i like playful. i like pigtails, i like striped knee socks and glitter. but there’s a blurry line there and somewhere (usually depending on context) it becomes hard to know if you are just holding onto your youth or if you’re really immature.
also, on this note, of late i’ve been irked by the ubiquity of the use of the word “girls” to describe women of ANY AGE. i was watching a travel show on TV and this hiking guide was with two middle-aged WOMEN, but he kept referring to them as “the girls” and it was driving me NUTS. i get that the linguistic pairing of “guys” and “girls” is basically equal to “men” and “women”, and therefore calling a 35-y.o. male a “guy” and a 35-y.o female a “girl” is the same, so then why is it that the reference to a grown woman as a “girl” seems so much more demeaning to me?
Filed in culture and random linkage, fashion | Tagged with britney, jezebel | Comments (3)attn: fiercely old party children
Babylon,
Where bricks of mortared diamonds tower,
Sailors lust and swagger lazing in moon’s beams
Whose laser gaze penetrates this sparkling theater of excess and strobed lights.
Painted whores, sexual gladiators, fiercely old party children,
All wake from their slumber to debut the Bacchanal.
Come to the light! Into the light! The invisible light….
this is definitely the most ridiculously campy song i have ever loved, but the first time i heard it, it felt like some sort of aural anthology, compressing the sound and feel of the late 90s->The Aughts dance culture (incl of course burning man) into one song, it just sums up so much….
Filed in burning man, music | Tagged with scissor sisters | Comment (0)a good reader
i read this short bit in the new yorker about coming of age via Great Books and he reminded me so much of me and how i was and am (i think i even dreamed of going to St. John’s College in New Mexico) and it provoked this thought train:
the summer of 1996 was the first summer i did not spend at home with my family in the woods of Northern Michigan, the first summer i lived completely independent of my parents. i was 19 going on 20.
mentioned here, 1996-1997 were some of the most confusing years of my life. i was somehow totally unprepared for so many things, and on top of that felt a constant exclusion from much of my collegiate culture for reasons i couldn’t quite pin down. i had friends (much beloved, like sisters), but i don’t think they understood how i fit in to that time and place and scene, and neither did i. i know this is not uncommon, but that makes it no less significant to my personal history.
for the summer of 96, i had signed up to be an intern at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington DC as part of UofM’s Public Service Intern Program (PSIP). i remember getting off the train in Washington DC, and my roommate, who had corralled me into going into the Program with her, greeted me there. i was so confused/relieved. i had stayed up most of the night in the smoking car on the ride from Toledo, Ohio reading and talking to randoms and watching the streetlights of the midwest and appalachia roll by, and as i got off the Amtrak, exhausted, i realized, pulling my trunk through the massive, chaotic train station, that i had no idea where i was going. absolutely no idea. perhaps i had an address? i seem to remember panicking that i didn’t.
so when Aimee appeared out of the crowd all i could say was “how did you know to meet me here?!” because i had absolutely no recollection of telling her what train i was on. but she was (and still is) smarter than me. she figured it out. and if she hadn’t been there, in those days before internet and iPhones, i have no idea what i would have done. retrospectively, that was a bad start and an omen. and then on my first day at work i found out that my stipend was half what i thought it was, so i was also basically broke too. i remember Aimee saying she had budgeted a meager $20/day to live on, and when i did the math for 60 days, i realized i had nowhere near enough money and had to call my mom.
besides that, there were (at least) three things that contributed to that experience being depressive for me and not the rollicking good time it might have been for others. First, almost everyone else, including my roommates, were interning at large government orgs and legal firms and had to be at their jobs by 8am. so they all got up early and commuted early together and sort of traveled in packs. my job didn’t require that, and so i was usually alone by the time i got up and commuted. i didn’t have their jovial comraderie all day long. secondly, they would also then go out after work together, but me being only 19 and without fake ID meant that I couldn’t go out for beers after work or go out with them most of the time on the weekends either. so i spent a lot of time alone, wandering the Smithsonians or watching TV at night. third, my internship was kind of a bust in that i did little to no work and learned almost nothing, but i don’t know if that is because they weren’t really organized about their intern program or if when i showed up they were like “this girl can’t help us” and i basically sat the bench for 2 months. so i spent a lot of time alone, and my internship was mostly pointless except to teach me what i did not want to do and how woefully unprepared i was to venture out into the world alone to find something i did.
that following year, my Junior year at Michigan, i grew into myself a little bit more, and i signed up to do something totally different the next summer, the summer of 1997. i applied and was accepted to be a participant in the New England Literature Program, moved to the White Mountains for the spring semester, and like the author of that new yorker piece, that was where i learned to read. this changed my life in that i learned that being literate is one thing, being a good writer is another, and being a good reader is yet another, and a valuable skill. so while i think my writing is average, i do think that i am a very good reader, and i am starting to wonder now, at this juncture in my life and career, if i can do something more than entertain myself with it. i have been looking into (*gasp*) graduate programs in Critical Reading and Writing (example). it will probably take years before i can imagine actually committing myself to applying or enrolling (the money! ACK!), but at least i think i might have found a path to focus on.
Filed in autobiographical | Tagged with NELP, new yorker | Comment (0)Ephemerisle: Worth Your Investment?
Ephemeralization, a term coined by R. Buckminster Fuller, is the ability of technological advancement to do “more and more with less and less until eventually you can do everything with nothing”.
Some futurists think only theoretically and wax philosophically about the possibilities for humanity from the comfort of their libraries and leather chairs, rarely, if ever, testing their assumptions. Others only read the directions on the box, if that, and head out into unknown territories with little more than power tools and some rope to answer such questions as “Is ephemeralization possible?”and “If climate change causes global flooding, could me and 10 of my friends live on a boat?”
Hundreds of years of literature (Lord of the Flies, Robinson Crusoe ), movies and television (Survivor, Cast Away, The Book of Eli and obviously Waterworld) have traditionally concluded that, with limited resources, human nature eventually retrogresses into an Orwellian unfun form of protective tribalistic survivalism, not any kind of Utopia. But most futurist works do not take in to account the emergence and determination of modern survivalism-IS-fun types who take such conditions as a meta and physical challenge to investigate the possibility of non-violent ephemeralism (one exception being Huxley’s Island, a specifically written utopian counterweight to Brave New World, the pair of which I encourage every Burner and Ephemerialist and Futurist to read).
The term “futurist” is also misleading, as many current prognostications about the future involve a complete lack of computers and robots and are not unlike the happy, healthy, self-sufficient cultures of indigenous tribes and vikings of yore (only a light sprinkling of which still exist today). As many dystopian novelists and revolutionary, countercultural and experimental communities of the 1960s have asked: could we ever get back to a balanced, natural state if necessary, or have we gone too far?
Anchored just outside of Stockton, CA in the expansive and windy network of natural and unnatural waterways of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the most important question the floating festival Ephemerisle, now in its third year, wants to investigate — besides whether you would live or die — is this: Can being trapped on an island be FUN?
On June 9, 2011, False Profit sent a recon team to this local real world test of such theories and questions regarding emphemeralism in the particular context of seasteading. About 20 boats were tethered together to form an island, thereby forming a community of approximately 200 residents of various ilk. Community and connective platforms were built, and collective energies and resources were pooled. The result was 4 days of sunning, swimming, dancing, diving, teaching, sharing, and learning within an enthusiastic, ambitious and industrious community bent on creating their own world. As a contribution, we brought a boat full of speakers and DJs.
Learnings:
- “Missing the boat” isn’t an expression for no reason. However, if you do happen to miss the boat, do not give up. There are other ways to reach your destination. Having a stash of cash or other highly valuable tradeable goods helps. A lot. River people can be very helpful if properly persuaded.
- Driving a boat isn’t hard, but you do have to pay attention.
- Dropping anchor sounds easy — you just throw it overboard and your boat stops moving, right? WRONG. Due to collective ADD and inability to commit, we moved our boat approximately 7x, so we are experts on how hard it is to drop anchor.
- If you want freedom, do not tie yourself to anyone. Literally or figuratively. Otherwise you may end up listening to lectures when really you’d rather be having a danceparty in your underwear on the roof.
- High speed watercraft are highly enviable and worth procuring.
- Pirates are easy to distract. See item 1.
- Blasting other boats with a wall of sound is an effective method of takeover, so if you don’t have cannons, have subwoofers.
- Aquatic wildlife is way easier to catch and avoid than mainland predators (e.g. the prismatic leopard of the temperate rainforests of northwestern america). The only non-avian fauna spotted were river otters, and they’re just cute.
- Put sunscreen on your ass if you’re going to lie around naked.
- I’m On a Boat is not that hyperbolic. It really is like that. If you’re on a boat with us, anyway. Champagne wishes and caviar dreams.
Conclusions: Ephemeralization seems possible, but we will still need GPS to figure out where the hell we are unless we all learn how to read starmaps.
Recommendations: Invest. More boats + more people = more fun at Ephemerisle 2012.
dylan (non-resident), jess, nicole, whit, me, lydia (visiting), jay, larisa (newest recruit), ben (1st mate), eric, jordan, alex
Sidenotes: Growing up in the Great Lakes State on the shores of Lake Michigan surrounded by inland lakes, you would think I’d have spent a lot of time on boats as a child. But alas, no one I knew had a boat, or, at least, invited me to come on it. I recall being on boats only once or twice as a child. So I know nothing about boating. Particularly, I did not know that I would still feel the world rocking gently back and forth two days after disembarking, but perhaps that is specific to the workings of my inner ears and not a global experience. Secondly, I realize that this is not so much a summary of the experience as a literature review. But honestly: you don’t do a lot while on a boat. That’s the point. So other than the above there’s not a lot to report that would make any sense at all if you weren’t there. So if you really want to know what happened, join us next year on a motherfucking boat.
Filed in friends, things you can do, travel | Tagged with dystopia, ephemerisle, false profit, orwell, utopia | Comment (0)slip
there are some things i wonder if i should write about here and this is one of them.
i think one of the hardest things about falling in love with someone and committing yourself to them is that depending on your disposition, your internal balance of optimism vs pessimism, silently, you also simultaneously know, can see coming, what one of the worst days of your life is going to be. the day that they are gone. they day they don’t come home. whether by choice or by fate.
perhaps this is symptomatic of a latent fear of abandonment, but i think about this more than is probably healthy.
and then i think about how i will get on with out him. and if i will be ok. and it’s hard to see myself as being ok. i am almost 35 years old but i do not know how well i can take care of myself, alone. i see myself on certain days, days when he is away, days when no one is paying attention, days when i have no where to go/no one to be, and sometimes i don’t even bother to get out of bed. like i don’t even exist. and that if left alone too long, i would disappear. dissipate. without meaning.
others days are stronger, and i realize how alive i am. ramona puts into words something i have been feeling a lot lately:
It’s weird when you realize you’re actually doing okay. Living your life, everyday, not visibly breaking down, or even invisibly breaking down more than once a week. You’re not perfect. And I don’t mean not perfect in that faux self-deprecating way of people who didn’t make the frosting from scratch. You’re really not perfect. You’ve made some mistakes, and there was that one time. But you’re moving past that now, and by moving I mean time is moving by without any help from you whatsoever. There’s nothing you have to do to make your life go by, because that’s what it does. Go by…
…And you feel good basically, which is no small feat, but feels pretty small when you’re feeling good and realizing you need to get another hobby besides making yourself feel good.
it’s hard to balance – impossible some days – this helpless feeling of time going by and the desire to make something of yourself so you can feel good about it.
Filed in me myself and i | Tagged with optimism/pessimism | Comment (0)tomorrow never knows/she’s so heavy
favorite Beatles song: it’s pretty much a toss up between this and I Want You (She’s So Heavy) for me. it’s possible She’s So Heavy has a slight edge because of a certain momentary experience back in college. i didn’t have that kind of experience until much later with Tomorrow Never Knows.
Turn off your mind, relax and float down stream
It is not dying
It is not dying
Lay down all thought
Surrender to the void
It is shining
It is shining
That you may see
The meaning of within
It is being
It is being
That love is all
And love is everyone
It is knowing
It is knowing
That ignorance and hate
May mourn the dead
It is believing
It is believing
But listen to the color of your dreams
It is not living
It is not living
Or play the game existence to the end
Of the beginning
