Feminism VS Fashion

I want that bustier

It didn’t occur to me until very recently that fashion and feminism don’t go hand in hand. But when you think about it, it’s easy to understand why some people think that you can’t be a feminist who likes fashion. Let’s count the ways:

• The fashion industry is obsessed with women’s looks
• It promotes a certain look for women. By this I mean ridiculously thinness (one which definitely isn’t me)
• Women are nothing from than faceless clotheshorses
• It encourages women to spend their money on utterly ridiculous and expensive items of clothing and shoes which cause you to wish you had no toes

But this isn’t fashion. Fashion isn’t about which celebrity was wearing what at Coachella or wherever; that’s fashion media. Fashion itself is more than the slimy upper layer which sadly gets all of the attention.

To me fashion, actual fashion is about self expression – what a woman chooses to wear is a feminist action because she chose to wear it. And I don’t see anything wrong or unfeminist about a woman spending the money she has earned on something which makes her feel good. Arguing that women only feel happy because they are dressing to please The Man is insulting to women. Women are intelligent enough to tell the difference between liking an item of clothing because it pleases them and liking an item of clothing because it pleases a man.

The fashion industry – one dominated by women and aimed towards women is too easily dismissed by the media (male media perhaps?) as being frivolous, not serious and not deserving respect or silly. I am not saying not to criticise the fashion industry – in some aspects it sorely needs it – but it’s not a feminist action to dismiss the whole thing altogether.

I know that the feminist movement as it currently stands isn’t very cohesive in its aims and goals but what all factions agree on is wanting women to have better lives, and whatever the definition of better is, it definitely includes women having the choice to enjoy themselves. And this has to include enjoying their clothes and enjoying fashion.

 

Image credit: Talytha Pugliesi in “Brazil Dazzle” by Eduardo Rezende for How To Spend It, May 2013

 

Skinny-Shaming

(NB: If you are going to criticise this piece please read it all before you do. I have had too many people tell me off because I use sarcasm in the title and they don’t understand it as sarcasm and read it as truth – idiots)

I am going to admit something here which many people don’t agree with – I like the movie Salt. There I’ve said it, it’s off my chest. I feel lighter already knowing it’s out there. I. Like. The. Movie. Salt. Now I’ve said it twice!

I love spy movies, and I love spy movies with a female lead even more. When that female lead is Angelina Jolie, a little part of me dies with happiness. I can understand it if people don’t like the plot/acting/believability – and many people don’t like this movie for those very reasons – what I can’t understand is when you don’t like the movie because the female lead is too thin.

And by too thin, I mean skinny, that new word which is beginning to take on the same connotations as the word ‘fat’. Once upon a time both of them were just adjectives. Now ‘fat’ means something far more disturbing and hateful and scary, and skinny is starting to fall along those lines.

Angelina Jolie is way too skinny to be believable as Salt in Salt. The whole movie was taken over by this debate – AJ leanness in the movie. And she does look thin but it’s to be expected; after training for however long however many hours a day she wasn’t going to be rocking the double chin was she? This isn’t the first (and sadly will not be the last time) an actor (usually female) has been screeched at because of their body shape. However if the actor was fat, would anyone actually call them so? Or would they just call them curvy? Or being more ‘real’?

Pointing out to someone that they are fat has become a cruel form of torture. So is skinny-shaming.

I know that the fashion industry has a lot to answer for and one is their fetishism of skinniness. On one hand models are sought out because of the amount of bones we can see and they become instant role models for thinspiration, on the other we hate them for their skinniness. It’s a fucking strange dichotomy and has somehow meant everyone under a size 10 is a loathed thinspiration role model.

Is it just from jealousy? Is the green-eyed monster so massive that we hate the fact they are thinner than us? And jealousy doesn’t seem to be the cause of fat-shaming. That seems to be rooted in a deep fear that we will become like them. Where has this nonsense come from? Why are we willingly letting ourselves be judged by ourselves? Is there nobody else out there who thinks that’s a tad fucked up?

I don’t want this post to turn into a ‘be who you are supposed to be’ type of piece because if you want to change yourself then go for it – be more intelligent, thinner, fatter, fitter, stronger – whatever but why loathe and envy people who are different from you?

Poor Angelina Jolie (don’t worry my pity for her stops when I try to begin to comprehend her bank balance and wardrobe choices) she doesn’t deserve to have criticism of her movie (good and bad) be wholly dependent on her twig-like arms. No one does. And whether you like it or not, not having a noticeable bosom does not make you a fake woman.

Cover Loves – Episode 10

Female comic book lovers (me included) don’t want much from comics books. What we want are excellent female characters in excellent stories. Doesn’t seem that hard does it?* Male characters are always going through really tough, mentally and physically scarring issues whilst fully clothed, while their female characters aren’t. Male characters never have to do the boobs-and-butt pose, and they always seem to have spines and normal sized waists.**

Male characters are seen as being inspirational figures, with their spandex clad muscles prominently on display. Female superheroes are seen as objects to fuck with their spandex covered nipples prominently on display. Because women totes go around fighting crime without a bra on. Totes.

I think that one of the ways for readers to relate to female characters and understand them is to have them be more prominent and realistic. This was why the all-female X-Men line up had me jumping for joy as did the news that Marvel are planning to release long-fiction stories for some of their female characters.

This, I thought, is excellent. This, I thought, is brilliant. This, I thought is a brilliant medium for reaching new readers and fleshing out female characters***

I was a naïve little ray of sunshine.

While the idea is still excellent especially since I love books, this is what Hyperion’s editor-in-chief Elisabeth Dyssegaard. Dyssegaard said: (Hyperion is the book publisher Marvel will be using)

“Marvel has had tremendous success with recent hit movies, and we think it’s a great time to explore what happens to superheroines when they are dropped into traditional women’s novels. We think the books will definitely appeal to comics readers – male and female – but also draw a new crowd of women readers who will be introduced to superheroes through a medium they already love.”

Riiiight. OK. This seems fine though ‘traditional women’s novels’ makes me worry – what are traditional women’s novels?? I like the fact that they are targeting female readers, which is a potential new audience the size of half of the world. 

And then there was a more, soul-crushingly more.

The She-Hulk Diaries follow Jennifer Walters, a corporate lawyer and sometime green rampager who is looking for love. Marvel added that she:

“Juggles climbing the corporate ladder by day and battling villains and saving the world by night – all the while trying to navigate the dating world to find a Mr Right who might not mind a sometimes very big and green girlfriend.”

And then there is Rogue Touch where Rogue is:

“a young woman trying to navigate the challenges of everyday life and romance“.

Rogue puts her first boyfriend in a coma, then meets “the handsome and otherworldly James…Stealing a car, they head out on the highway and eventually, Rogue has to decide whether she will unleash her devastating powers in order to save the only man alive who seems to truly understand her.”

Dyssegaard adds:

“In addition to threats to the universe, She-Hulk and Rogue have challenges that women readers know well, including finding the right guy. Our heroes are real people first and super powers second, which is why fans connect with them. These books delve into what happens if dating challenges also include turning huge and green or having a lethal touch, offering readers a unique perspective on superpowered high drama.”

I’m crying.

These fantastically strong, brilliant characters can’t seem to function without finding Mr Right and for each book their superpower is the hindrance – it is the thing turning them into old lady-spinsters.

WHY?! Why is this a ‘traditional’ female story?? These novels relegate the stories to seeking happiness and love, as if they go hand in hand and are the only things ALL women care about. Comic book industry, here is a thought which may be new and shiny for you: why don’t you first make your female characters more than spray-painted spandex boobholders meant to titilate and audience you don’t realise is changing and want something different?

Rogue Touch is written by Christine Woodward and The She-Hulk Diaries by Marta Acosta. While the cover for Rough Touch isn’t out yet, The She-Hulk Diaries’ is. Yay.

The cover of the She-Hulk Diaries

*Sarcasm

**There are a few exceptions

***And not with bigger boobs.

Also, Happy Valentine’s Day everyone.

Reasons to Shave Your Head

According to certain members of my extended family there are none. So their reaction to the Japanese pop star Minami Minegishi shaving her head in an act of mea culpa was both infuriating and just. Just because, ‘she did what?!’ and infuriating because, ‘but her hair was so beautiful!’ The fact that she did it because she felt guilty about spending the night, and presumably having sex, with her boyfriend was really not the point.

But it is the point, it is, it is!

Maybe I should be glad. When I explained the whole situation to them, at least they thought the whole thing was ridiculous – a news story straight from the planet WHAAAAAT?! While the whole situation did get me thinking about Japanese attitudes towards gender roles especially in their pop industry, it also got me thinking about what would get me to shave my head, especially after reading Vagenda’s piece on this issue.

So here is my list of reasons why you should shave your hair off:

1. Cancer
2. Head injury
3. The cash you’d get from selling your tresses
4. Having a public breakdown
5. Becoming a monk
6. Fancy dress party
7. Stop it falling in your face all the fucking time
8. A bet where you stand to win more than £50 (or the cost of getting it shaved off frankly)
9. To check if you dented your skull every time you hit it
10. You want to know what the exact shape of your skull is
11. Exactly what colour is your skull and how much does it differ from the rest of your skin which is exposed to the sun
12. Getting a tattoo
13. To get an Indian head massage without all that annoying hair getting in the way
14. So hairdressers can’t rip you off (especially applicable if you are a woman)
15. Phrenology
16. Because you want to

I think the last reason is the best.

While also thinking of this I have also come up with a list of reasons as to why you shouldn’t shave your hair:

1. Because of someone else

January, in other words the month to diet

This is the time of year when magazines do a roaring trade in telling people (normally women) that they are wanting – ironic really since in this case you can only be wanting if you are not wanting. In other words, you are too fat. Everyone is too fat and everyone can only loose weight with the help of magazines. Who/what else does the incredible, worthwhile job of telling you repeatedly that you are not a Victoria Secret Model but can be if they go on the Air Diet/No Food Diet/Soda Water Diet?

And because I’m not blind enough to ignore this cash cow when I see it, I have penned my own diet book. You can all thank me later because this is tried and tested, this is the only way to loose weight which works each and every time, and I mean EVERY time. I think I am onto something huge here because the mags definitely can’t say that about the diets they write about.

Chapter 1

Throw the magazine away.

Chapter 2

Do more exercise.

Chapter 3

Eat less crappy food.

 The End

Works every time, so magazines you can all fuck off.

 

The Perfect Woman

Drum roll ladies and gent….DRUM ROLL

I have now written 200 posts on this blog!

Definitely drum roll worthy* yes! Yes? Yes. Good.

Anyhoo when I was contemplating what I should write about to celebrate this lovely fact I came across the picture below from the bastion of all that is good and pure, Men’s Health.** This is, according to them, the anatomy of the perfect women.

The Perfect Woman

As I am sure you all may have guessed I do have some issues with this. In fact I also have issues with the article underneath the picture which expands on all the points. Take this illuminating paragraph:

Remember that ladies NOT TOO MUCH SUCCESS

So I am allowed to be intelligent but not too intelligent? Well thank you very much Men’s Health for recognising that we are in fact in 1897. Woe is me for I have a brain. Actually woe is me for I am more than happy to use my colossal brain and gigantic intelligence. WOE IS ME. I also have size 6 feet on a five foot one inch frame. There is so much woe on me right now I don’t know what to do. ***

I am suitably dejected at not having the perfect anatomy, or if this picture is to be believed, the perfect skin colour.

OH THE WOE.****

What I absolutely love about this image is the assumption that I (as a woman) have no say in who I date – I should be happy for him to want me. Over the moon happy because I am defined (thanks to the image above literally and metaphorically) by the man who wants to fuck me.

As I can’t speak on behalf of a man, to all my male followers I really want to know – do you prefer your partner to be (or at least appear to be) less intelligent than you? Really?

*mental drum rolls definitely count.

**nope, I have no idea why I was there either.

***this is a lie. I know exactly what to do – not buy Men’s Health. And then party like it’s 1897 and education for women is all the range.

****I’m a poet and I did know it. Because intelligence is sexy and I am intelligent. But not too intelligent so don’t worry men, I’ll be the main breadwinner but never tell you.

The Hawkeye Initiative

“How to fix every Strong Female Character pose in superhero comics: replace the character with Hawkeye doing the same thing.”  –Gingerhaze who started The Hawkeye Initiative.

Artists all over tumblr have started fighting back against broken-spines, huge-breasted female comic characters by replacing them with Hawkeye. I have become so used to the boobs and butt pose that seeing Hawkeye in the same ridiculous position made me remember that boobs and butt = a broken spine not sexiness.

Just have a look at the images below – I think this is pure genius. Maybe all those who complain will be so angry that they’ll start drawing female characters in normal, anatomically correct poses. Until then may the Hawkeye Initiative live long and prosper.

Hawkeye, do your thang!

This is only one of the amazing drawings they have on The Hawkeye Initiative. Have a look and laugh at the stupidity. It’s about time things changed because whether you like it or not, women read comics too and unless I can start seeing men drawn in the same way as their female counterparts, I am going to have something to say about it.

It’s all about prostitution (for a good cause though so it’s all fine)

WARNING: Heavy sarasm and loads of anger.

I hadn’t heard of Sponsor A Scholar UK until today which is surprising since twitter exploded when it came to the world’s attention. Since then it has gone ‘down for maintenance’ – doubt it’s because demand to join up is so high. Unless ‘demand’ equals ‘scathing criticism’ and ‘mass ridicule’.

I never had the chance to visit the site before it was taken down (shame on me) but thanks to The Independent I know it offered female students the chance to get their hands on £15,000 worth of ‘education sponsorship’ money in exchange for some private meetings in a hotel room with businessmen sponsors. Of course, the site hastily added, the money only covers companionship – anything and everything else is between consenting adults. However, it did then add below that sponsors would expect a ‘high level of sexual intimacy’ with their students, which heavily suggests that money is exchanging hands for sex. 

Since the UK’s lovely (sarcasm), wonderful (more sarcasm), perfect (you guessed it, sarcasm) Conservative Government decided to raise tuition fees for higher education, sites like this one providing a helpful, helping hand (actually they’ll want the female student to do that so that they can then come in her face) have cropped up. Last year John Specht, UK VP of the ONLY sprip-joint to be at, Spearmint Rhino (the name is just weird) was quoted as saying in The Telegraph, ‘Some… girls are on their own, and their parents can’t help them or are unable to help them. With the rising student fees, the students know they can come in and earn the money they need to survive. Why not? We don’t force anyone to come in.’ 

There you have a point Specht, you have a point (which I assume is your throbbing member). You are not going to go out onto London’s student filled Christmassy streets and drag the hotties into your Rhino (if I knew what the pun was when they named the place me using it there would definitely be an intentional pun). You don’t and won’t do that, just like David Cameron isn’t going to make it law that all ladies of a certain age are given Santa-esque nipple tassels (using tax payers money of course). Even the creator of Sponsor A Scholar UK isn’t going to give tips on how he/she/it best enjoys a blow job.

And none of that matters because they might as well do because if you are female and want a degree then this might be your only option. So thank you Conservatives for pimping out the future (they better be because you bloody dinosaurs all suck and it’s too late for my generation because we are full of qualifications and unemployed).

I can only imagine what the business gentleman will want for the money and how much your vagina will be worth, though of course you’ll have to grin and bear it as that lovely (yet more sarcasm) banker rubs your PVC clad body.

Government’s job isn’t to make our lives perfect – easier and better certainly but not perfect. What is shouldn’t do is implement policies and procedures with consequences like this. Well done Dave, old man. Well done.

Malala Yousafzai

Malala Yousafzai started her blog about being a girl trying to get an education in the Swat Valley when she was 11 years old. On Tuesday (yesterday) at the age of 14 she was shot in the head by the Taliban because she ‘promoted secularism’.

She is currently in hospital, alive and recovering after surgery. This girl is the bravest girl I know because she stood up for education for girls. And do you know what makes this story even more disgusting? That she has to do this at all in 2012.

Malala Yousafzai

My thoughts and prayers are with her and her family.

Shopping for Your Vagina

The shittest advert I have ever seen

I don’t even know how I got into this but once I started it was like a black hole – there was no way out and having been sucked in I want you all to share the wonder that comes from shopping with your (or your lady friend’s) vagina in mind. Who knew there was a whole world out there developed specifically to tell women that their vaginas left alone are really not good enough. In this post I am only going to talk about one particular product though I plan to revisit it in the future (you lucky sods).

For those of you not in the UK, Femfresh decided to create, market and sell a vaginal wash which stops your vagina smelling like, well, a vagina. Longing for Summer Breeze and Lavender Blooms or Midnight Jasmine with Lilies then Femfresh is the product for you and your nooni, lala, kitty, and frou frou.* To think there was a time when I thought calling it down there was infantile. Now we have the bloody Tellitubbies. I’m sure they thought women all over the country were longing, nay praying for such a product. I’m sure they thought they were the answer to all of our, and our partners’ prayers (because who wants to go down on a woman with a vagina smelling like a vagina? I mean, totes gross. Totes). I’m sure they thought they would win Product of the Year**

Instead what happened will live forever in the history of this country as one of the biggest marketing cock-ups. There were three things they didn’t realise:

1. Women and men don’t call a vagina something that sounds like a children’s TV character. I have one vagina and one vulva – no idea what a frou frou is and pretty sure I don’t want one – it might try to sing to me.
2. Shockingly men (and women – whoever a woman’s sexual partner is) like the smell of a vagina. Because it’s a vagina. It’s not heavily scented detergent. Why would anyone want their/their partner’s vagina to smell like a ‘cheap taxi’?*** In the immortally brilliant words of Jack Whitehall, why would any man go down on a woman and think it needs recordation?
3. If your vagina smells bad then the chances are you need to see a doctor and the crappy chemicals found in Femfresh will probably make it worse. Why use something which could harm you when you can use water?****

The final nail on Femfresh’s coffin was self inflicted – they could have addressed the problems and chosen to stand by their product, defending their creative and marketing decisions. It would have still been ridiculed but at least there would have been a proper debate. They could have taken some control of the situation. Or they could have apologised, rebranded it as something safe to use, and called a vagina a vagina. What they did instead was delete comments they found rude on their FB page before deleting it all together.

Which means that Femfresh will never, ever die. I don’t know what it is with companies and their universal belief that vaginas are icky and need to be cleaned. Why do they fear and loathe them? In case this particular company still doesn’t get it, I’ll leave it with a couple of angry Facebook users who retaliated when Femfresh deleted a comment because they found the word ‘vagina’ offensive. Really and truly.

Will they listen?

*I made up those ‘flavours’ – no idea what they really are and can’t bring myself to check.

**No idea if this exists

***Actual criticism said by a male Facebook user on their Facebook page before the page was deleted

****They may have actually achieved more success if they tried to sell ‘special’ water

Image Credit: top – Femfresh, bottom – FB