Tag: culture

Pan Historia

/ Deanna / Leave a comment

Pan Historia is:

[A] community for collaborative fiction and role play writing. Whether you just want to browse and read, or whether you want to write one or many different stories from the point of view of your characters this is the place for you. In addition to the stories there are fun discussions, games, contests, and many opportunities to make new friends. Inside you can find all your favorite genres: science fiction, fantasy, horror, history, and more. You can explore over one hundred different collaborative novels, join in, create your own home pages for your characters, learn from others on how to design great homes, create fabulous graphics, or just hone your creative writing skills with others of like interests.

Pan Historia is run by librarians and researchers, rumor has it.

And Pan Historia is blowing my mind.

But Pan Historia is also a bit too intimidating for a girl like me. I’m down with the ; I’m just not a fiction writer or a gamer, so I don’t think I can . Unless my character is a Medieval fish out of water in a post apocalyptic desert. And possibly mute.

Or maybe I’ll wait for the board game version.

The “Cherry Bomb” Bomb: An Ignorant Hetero Midwest Girl Reviews The Runaways Film

/ Deanna / 4 Comments

Cherie Currie and Joan Jett, back in the days when they were Runaways.

I don’t ever claim to be first with the reviews (I deal in old stuff, so why even rush to hop on the bandwagon with films about retro bands?), so you’ve likely already heard about, read reviews of, or even seen 2010’s The Runaways, starring Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning. Anyway…

The Runaways is an incredible film. You should see it. My only real comments are really about my impressions of myself…

I wasn’t actually going to write any sort of a review, but then I stumbled onto Susie Bright’s commentary:

“What is this Little Debbie BULLSHIT?” I said. “This is a disgrace.”

Director Floria Sigismondi’s “pretty-in-glam” Runaways promo wasn’t the underground punk scene I remember from Los Angeles in the 1970’s.

And then I thought, “Hey, someone needs to speak for the rest of the un-cool kids here in the Midwest.”

You see, I didn’t know of The Runaways until after there was Joan Jett and the Blackhearts’ I Love Rock and Roll.  That made it on the radar — and radio waves — in Midwest suburbia.  Heck, my mom was a HUGE fan of that song!  (Rock on, Mom!)

Before Bright’s commentary, I’d viewed the relationship between Jett and Currie as a more complicated version of the college lesbianism experience, mixed with drugs, celebrity-too-soon, and, sure, what looked in the film like a bit of opportunistic, if not predatory, moves on Jett’s part — which seemed more natural and less creepy than it sounds, really. And I don’t suppose Bright’s commentary really changes any of that. ( Or that my interpretation of the film is accurate; or even that the film was entirely explicit about many intimate aspects of their personal lives. It was, after all, a film; not a documentary.) But I feel it’s worth noting that Los Angeles is, and was, a million miles away from my Milwaukee suburban experience. Or even my imagining.

I was in gay bars in the 80’s. However, I’m sure they weren’t anything like the punk scenes you big coastal cities had. I’m sure even the leather and dungeon rooms would have seemed comical (at least by comparison at the time). But my point is that even though I wasn’t phobic, wasn’t ignorant, and therefore wasn’t shocked or put-off by anything in The Runaways that would have freaked my version of the world at that time, the sort of cultural context Bright feels was a necessary part of the story has me thinking… Maybe too much.

Yes, it may be accurate to say, as Bright does, that, “The Runaways band would not have happened, could not have been conceived, without the Underground Dyke Punk Groupie Slut culture that stretched from the San Fernando Valley to the bowels of Orange County,” but is it necessary to understand or appreciate the film, the story of (at least two of) the girls in the all-girls band?

Maybe it’s some sort of “ism” for a heterosexual chick to say it doesn’t matter; or at the very least, I’m being insensitive and dismissive to a movement. I certainly don’t mean to be.  Yet, I thought the film was about forging ahead against the odds, the isolating experience of individuals — of female individuals — and maybe all that cultural context wasn’t integral?  Then again, I’m always harping on the context of things, and certainly the counter-culture is as important in the story of where this band, these women, sat as the cultural norms I was carrying in my own head.

I just can’t decide.

Because fundamentally, I felt the tidal waves of emotion of abuse (self, drug, management, the industry, etc.), dreams gained and lost, friendships, trust, creativity, and being a woman with little respect through it all… And I’m not sure that being more precise in the documentation or depiction of what Bright described as the scene at the time is would have enhanced that ride. Though I guess I’ll never know because that film hasn’t been made.

At the end of The Runaways, I was left wanting to discover what others already had; the music of the band itself. (And the music each made with other bands and in solo careers — save, perhaps, for Lita Ford.  Hubby had a crush on her, so her discs are around… Plus, at the end of The Runways, I didn’t like her. Sure, I understood what motivated her snits; but ick.)   Though, what Susie Bright said now not only colors my thoughts about the film, but thoughts about the music as well.

Such is the plight of one who thinks too much, I suppose.

Can I continue to rock to Crimson & Clover without having any such thoughts of celebrating a “dyke rock’n’roll legacy” — and not have that be dismissive or exclusionary, not have it be a political or social statement at all? Yes, I think I can. So I think I can enjoy The Runaways as a film without any of that too.

I think that’s the question, and the answer.  For me.

I’ll tell you how that works as I listen to more of the music.  …Maybe watch the film again.

PS The end of the movie left you rather feeling like Cherie had relegated herself to, or was even happy with, some sort of boring mainstream life after the band split. Clearly the film focused on Jett. (Odd because the movie was based largely on Currie’s autobiography, Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway — originally published in 1989; reprinted to coincide with the film.) But Currie’s life indeed went on.  Cherie also went on to play more music; to marry and divorce from Robert Hays (of Airplane! — what an odd pairing in my mind) — they even had a son, Jake Hays, who accompanied his mom and dad at The Runaways premier, and to rock the art as a chainsaw chick.

Share & Share Alike: Why Posting Your “Junk” Is Worthy Of Your Time

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In 2010, I was a presenter at the first Bookmark Collectors Virtual Convention, encouraging collectors not to be embarrassed about their collections (bookmarks or otherwise). And recently I discussed how I believe collectibles can — and ought to be — used to teach. Today I present an incredible example of the marriage between two these concepts.

In 2008, author Midori Snyder posted a photograph from the 1940s of her maternal grandmother at a crowded kitchen table, drinking and smoking with friends:

It was a cute, rather sentimental post, not only laden with nostalgia but whispering of stories and potential stories; charming, but nothing earth-shattering. Then, in June of this year, something happened…

On June 8, 2011, Snyder posted an update involving that vintage photograph. Snyder received an email from a middle school English teacher who’d been teaching poetry to sixth graders. This teacher was trying to move the students past the “misconception that all poetry is cryptic and impenetrable by nature,” including the use of photographs as inspiration, instructing the students to “bring in a picture to which they are emotionally connected in some way.” Knowing the err, limitations and penchants of students, the teacher had gone to the Internet in search of photographs for students who failed to bring their own in. Along the way, she had found Snyder’s photo. That photo became the “back up” photograph so that students could continue their classwork.

That was the moment of intersection between the teacher and Snyder.

This would be cool enough on it’s own. But what’s cooler than that, was the intersection between Snyder’s grandmother and her adult gal pals from the 1940s and 11 to 12 year old kids in school — and how that fictional “what if” emotional connection bridged a gap to inscrutable poetry. In the teacher’s words:

We wrote. I wrote one too, alongside them. We read them, we clapped, we nodded our heads, we listened. The purpose of this email is to let you know that the act of putting that picture out there changed some of us. It helped us look deeper. It forced us to connect. It made us listen to each other and see things the way we wouldtn’ve on our own, perhaps.

If Snyder had been too “embarrassed” or otherwise dismissed the idea of sharing such a little thing as an old family photograph (and some thoughts about it to assist searches), this magic may not have happened. Yes, the teacher is to be applauded; I make no mistake about that! But she and others like her would have lots less to choose from if the rest of us didn’t offer up our photographs, scans, images, etc.

This time is was a school teacher. And one who took the time to inform Snyder how great her act of sharing was; no small thing to those of us who do share. But every day, lots of other intersections and connections are made from the bits of “stuff” and pieces of “junk” that everyday folks and collectors share. These images and objects help connect students to literature, journalists to stories, researchers to proof, collectors to information, people to memories, individuals to their ancestors in family trees, nerds to history… People connect for the first time to abstract theories. People rediscover individual intimate connections. People reclaim the past, work toward a future. People find answers; people like me find more questions… Heck, people even just find more objects and photographs they must have (often in pursuit of much loftier things than materialistic motives).

The moral of the story is this: No matter what you have, no matter how big or small, how Big Picture or insignificant you think it is — someone is just waiting to see it, learn from it, remember it, be inspired by it.

PS You can read one of the student’s poems at Snyder’s post.

Crunk, Talking Genitals & Childish Fashion Crimes (or, A What I’ve Been Reading Link Round-Up)

/ Deanna / 1 Comment

Just a good old fashioned link round-up — yee-haw!

1.) At The Crunk Feminist Collective, a thought provoking post on self care for the feminist or liberal activist:

Talk about crunk. Bambara gives the side eye to the notion that you can attack capitalism, racism, or other systems of dominance out in the world without challenging those same systems (especially hetero-patriarchy) within one’s own relationships. That, in fact, leaving your own house “out of order” not only jeopardizes but it, in fact, undermines both your potential for good work and your potential for intimacy and happiness. Indeed, for me, Bambara’s call for us to essentially get our ish together charges us to recognize how important—how revolutionary—it is for us to love (and love on) each other and ourselves fiercely and fearlessly.

I started a group for just this sort of thing at Bliss Connect. It’s called Seeking Progressive Social Bliss; so far it’s a circle of one. *sigh*

2.) I was meaning to write about the horrible Summer’s Eve “Hail To The V” Campaign, but then Stephen Colbert did this:

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Vaginal Puppeteering vs. D**k Scrub
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

I felt nothing could really top that. (Especially as I have a thing for puppets. Really!)  However, I highly recommend this post about the hideous ad campaign at Sociological Images. It’s especially good to show those who don’t understand satire; it’s a mental illness, you know.

3.) As I’ve oft complained about the sexualization of children, especially when it comes to clothing (NWS), I found this bit of fashion news across the pond fascinating:

The review, conducted by Reg Bailey, chief executive of the Mothers Union, was published in June. Bailey’s report, ‘Letting Children be Children,’ looked at cultural influences on children and children as consumers but particularly significant for the clothing sector was its examination of clothing, products and services for children.

The report stated that the marketing of “sexualised and gender-stereotyped clothing, products and services” for children were “the biggest areas of concern for parents and many non-commercial organisations contributing to the review.”

[sic]

As the report was published, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) unveiled a set of guidelines governing the design, commissioning and marketing of clothing ranges for children under 12 years old.

The article continues to discuss the practical and impractical issues involved. As citizen of the USA, I’m left wondering if such clothing prohibition is the answer. After all, the problem isn’t the garments glutting the market; it’s the consumers with horrible judgement who pay for clothing in such poor taste. At what point does the law need to protect us from our bad choices? Or, more pointedly, at what point does the government need to protect children from the bad choices of their parents?

Image Credits: Via eBay. (You’d have already seen it if you visited my Tumblr.

Resist, And You Are Called Confrontational. Or Mentally Ill.

/ Deanna / 2 Comments

Remember the Nirvana song Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle?

Here’s Kurt Cobain’s response to, “So why was Frances Farmer such an inspiration?” (Melody Maker, August 28th, 1993)

“Well, you know, I’d read some books about her and I found her story interesting. She was a very confrontational person.”

Extremely confrontational.

Selfish, maybe. “That’s not what I got from the books I read. Actually, I did from two of the biographies I read about her, but there was one, ‘Shadowland’, the best one, written by this PI from Seattle who researched it for years, and I didn’t get that impression from that one. She was obviously a difficult person, and got more and more difficult as the years went on, as people started to fuck with her more and more.

“I mean, she was institutionalised numerous times and, in the place in Washington where she ended up, the custodians had people lining up all the way through the halls, waiting to rape her. She’d been beaten up and brutally raped for years, every day. She didn’t even have clothes most of the time.

“Courtney especially could relate to Frances Farmer. I made the comparison between the two. When I was reading the book, I realised that this could very well happen to Courtney if things kept going on. There’s only so much a person can take, you know?

“I’ve been told by doctors and psychiatrists that public humiliation is one of the most extreme and hardest things to heal yourself from. It’s as bad as being brutally raped, or witnessing one of your parents murdered in front of your eyes or something like that. It just goes on and on, it grinds into you and it’s so personal.

“And the Frances Farmer thing was a massive conspiracy involving the bourgeois and powerful people in Seattle, especially this one judge who still lives in Seattle to this day. He led this crusade to so humiliate her that she would go insane. In the beginning, she was hospitalised – totally against her will – and she wasn’t even crazy. She got picked up on a drunk driving charge and got committed you know. It was a very scary time to be confrontational.”

Though nothing could excuse what was done to her, even the most reverent accounts of Farmer’s life don’t attempt to deny that she was on extremely difficult person, that her much-vaunted independence often amounted to a ruthless self-interest that left her indifferent to the suffering she caused. So she was no martyr.

But Farmer – beautiful, arrogant, creative, destructive and destroyed –does appear impossibly glamorous, especially from the safe distance of a few decades.

Is that what drew you to her?

“No. No, not at all”

The song, especially if Geffen have the good sense to release it as a single, may succeed in glamorising her.

How would you feel about that?

“I’d feel bad about that. I just simply wanted to remind people of tragedies like that. It’s very real and it can happen. People can be driven insane, they can be given lobotomies and be committed and be put in jails for no reason. I mean, from being this glamorous, talented, well-respected movie star, she ended up being given a lobotomy and working in a Four Seasons restaurant.

“And she hated the Hollywood scene, too, and was very vocal about it, so those people were involved in the conspiracy, too. I just wanted to remind people that it happened and it has happened forever.”

Most of your songs are, in one way or another, about suffering. A popular liberal notion is that suffering ennobles. Do you think there’s any truth to that?

“It can, it can. I think a small amount of suffering is healthy. It makes your character stronger.”

Do you think you’ve suffered on a large or small scale?

“What do you think I think?”

Don’t know.

“I’ve suffered on a large scale but most of the attacks haven’t been on me, they’ve been on someone I’m totally in love with, my best fucking friend is being completely fucking crucified every two months, if not more. I read a negative article about her every two months.”

Why read it? Why torture yourself?

“A lot of the time I can’t escape it because Courtney gets faxes of articles from the publicist all the time. But also it’s a form of protection. It enables you to remember … and to make sure you never deal with those people again. And another reason we like to read it is that we can learn from the criticism, too. If I never read any of the interviews I did, I’d never be able to say ‘Jeez, that was a pretty stupid thing to say. I’d better try to clear that up.’”

I was first introduced to Frances Farmer — and subsequently fell in love with both her and Jessica Lange — in Frances (1982).

The book Cobain “recommends,” Shadowland, by William Arnold, and the ensuing (no pun intended as Arnold sued regarding the film) Lange movie may not be reliable, according to journalist and researcher Jeffrey Kauffman who has spent decades unraveling the Frances Farmer story. However, this doesn’t change much for me.

It’s not that I refuse to accept fact or Kauffman’s research; quite the contrary.  I find all the representations and misrepresentations as detrimental to Farmer as the life she did lead. Mental health, especially then, was not kind, no matter what the ignorant intention. The media has only become worse. Her life as a creative, passionate woman was painful, co-opted.

Happily Ever After?

/ Alessia / 2 Comments

In Wedded Blisters, Neely wonders if marriage is something she even wants to enter into. With the media, as she writes, “depicting marriage as this energy-sapping, miserable way of life, where husbands have to practically beg their wives for sex and wives feel like they’re not being validated enough by their husbands” she’s not enthusiastic:

But what about this daily bombardment of television shows and movies, depicting marriage as the root of all evil? The truth is that these comedies and films play off of real life, and we know this to be the case because we laugh at their humor. We laugh because we recognize truth. People love shows like Everybody Loves Raymond because a depiction of an average guy dealing with the daily struggles of marriage is true to the way it is outside of that rectangular, silver screen. Unmarried couples may not entirely relate to the humor but they understand that this is what they’ll eventually encounter once they walk down the aisle. Are we destined for the same path as Ed and Peggy Bundy, we wonder.

So we turn off our televisions, looking elsewhere for signs of encouragement, only to be bombarded by another reality check on the state of marriage today: the nation’s divorce rate, which towers over us at all times, giving us very good reason to doubt that we will escape the odds.

The media’s reflection of our marital problems may be exaggerated ~ but as Neely points out, it’s funny because it’s true. Marriage is a tricky thing, and certainly our libidos aren’t magically put in sync just because we live together. But if I were to look at our media for answers regarding how we’ve got to this place where Ed and Peggy Bundy are more typical than representative of our greatest fears, I’d say the problem lies with the fantasy of marriage.

From early on we are fed fantasies wherein once love is found they ride off into the sunset. If the story is supposed to be saying “and they lived happily ever after,” they never show it. In film, finding one’s mate is the end of the story when in truth it should be just the beginning.

While we often are entertained by (and feed-off of) the drama of ‘the chase’ and the obstacles faced in the pursuit, we forget that ‘ever after’ is a story complete with dramas of its own. There are obstacles, chases and pursuits to be found in every marriage and I think we should thank our lucky stars for that ~ for each one is a chance to reaffirm our love and dedication.

In the romantic movies, our heroes and heroines do not crumple at the first (or even the 10th) problem presented ~ instead they keep their eye on the prize and fight for the chance at true love. Shouldn’t we view and pursue our marriages with the same ardor, passion and dedication?

Work, bills, children, household chores ~ surely none of these is as difficult as the matter of finding, competing for, and securing your mate. (And in truth, now that we are a couple we can attack these problems together; it’s you and me against the world, kid.)

He’s a morning person while she’s most definitely not, he’s stressed out at the job, she’s afraid she’s not as lovely as she once was ~ surely these will yield to the holding of hands, a quiet shared look in a crowded room, a secret slap on the bottom…

We are presented with a myriad of opportunities to sweep our partners off their feet, seduce and charm our ways into their beds, and show that obstacles mean nothing in light of our love.

We need not be complete drama lovers and go overboard creating chaos or imagining things ready to tear the marriage apart, but we can view the problems, difficulties and obstacles with more passion. We can treat each obstacle as the romantic lead does: as a chance to prove our love and win our mate.

And of course, at the end of the day we should be as eager to fall into bed.

Image via.

The Sexual Segregation Of She-Ra; Or, Why I Love Thundarr

/ Deanna / 4 Comments

I’m too old to claim to have logged hours of watching She-Ra or He-Man — or any childhood memories from that MOTU period. But that won’t stop me from having an opinion.

In The Problem With She-Ra as a Feminist Text, Renee Martin considers the retro ass-kicking cartoon vixen in terms of various female identities:

As adult, I can look at She-ra and still appreciate the positive role that she filled for some young girls. I say some, because as a WOC, She-ra is not a show that I would particular encourage my children to watch, and even more so if I had a daughter. You, see when feminists start talking about women’s advancement, my first question is which women are we talking about? If we’re honest, no matter how many times the great unified sisterhood is pitched by feminism, there are always going to be some women, who somehow don’t fit the mold, because they are poor, of colour, trans, lesbian, older, disabled etc.

…I love her even though she is flawed and continues the erasure I feel as a marginalized woman in many spheres, but I will not dismiss her, because I don’t have the right to take away heroes from little White girls, who need their heroes too. Even though their challenges will be much different than mine, I will not deny that these challenges exist, and by so doing erase the threat that they pose to me. There are very few positive role models for young girls of colour to look up to but erasing the few White images will not change that.

When I read Martin’s post, I found myself nodding my head in understanding and agreement; however…

I’m still struck by something Hillary DePiano, author of The She-Ra Collector’s Inventory: An Unofficial Illustrated Guide to All Princess of Power Toys and Accessories, said in my interview with her:

Interestingly enough, I started somewhat backwards. He-Man predated She-Ra by quite a few years and as a kid I just LOVED He-Man. I had quite a few of the toys. But when the spin-off show, She-Ra came out, my parents decided that since there was now a “girl version” that I had to give all my He-Man figures to my brother and that he would play with them and I would get the She-Ra. God, was I bitter about that. I think there is some feminism lesson in there.

I can’t help but wonder, then, if She-Ra was a means of sexual or gender segregation.

She-Ra was part of the Master Of The Universe world but she was relegated to her own corners of it, kept out of the “Males Only” areas just because they had lady parts. (The usual over-emphasized comic book figure lady parts, of course. He-Man had his own exaggerated maleness too; it’s the earmarks of such works.)  I can’t say that watching the complete She-Ra series and all the He-Man episodes, we could count how many bubblers water fountains She-Ra and crew couldn’t drink from, how many buses these sheroes rode in the back of; it’s far worse than that.

The simplicity of making an “all female version” of the popular Saturday morning cartoon series completely removes coexistence. Women on one side; men on the other — the original side.  Almost like parallel universes, really. What does that say about gender equality?  Not much. Especially if parents, the kids’ overlords, were interpreting these two shows and their accompanying toy sets as “one for boys, one for girls.”

(If there were any super-cross-over MOTU episodes, those might be more interesting; but I doubt I’d be surprised.)

That’s maybe (partly) why I liked Thundarr The Barbarian. There may not have been complete equality, but at least Princess Ariel and Ookla the Mok existed along side leading man Thundarr.

Sadly, there were no Thundarr The Barbarian toys. *heavy sigh* Which means I cannot discuss the parental interaction. Nor can I collect the toys.

PS For the record, I was — and forever remain — an Ookla fan. Ookla was a formerly enslaved a leonine humanoid with fangs and yellow eyes. Whatever a Mok may be in this cultural equation, I guess that’s how I’m identifying.

While Ookla’s guttural, growling language may seem unintelligible, and therefore not appear well suited for blogging writing, “he” is also, according to those who know, “the most likely of the heroes to charge right into an enemy attack or to be enraged by unusual nuisances or threats.” And that, my friends, is how I see myself. (Plus, I will also go quite out of the way to avoid water on my face as well.)

Image credits: Photo from Hillary DePiano’s book and used with permission.

William’s Always Wanted A Doll

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Remember William Wants A Doll from Free to Be, You and Me?

Well, William — and millions of little boys just like him — have wanted dolls through the ages. Some were lucky enough to have had parents who weren’t freaked out and let them have dolls. Some parents even took photographs of their boys with their dolls, like these from 20s and 30s.

Images via bondman2 @ eBay.

Sign Of The Times: 1922 & Today

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Message in Washington, D.C., July 28, 1922; message to Washington, D.C. today.

Don’t let the tea party-ers or republicans fool you: the hold-up on the debt ceiling has nothing to do with balancing the budget or creating smaller, less intrusive government. Despite running on such slogans, or “jobs,” those who were swept into office also swept in their own dirty under-the-rug ideologue agendas. Look at restrictions on abortion, for example. Fear, misogyny and racism rule; using legislation to create more government intrusion to benefit wealthy white men. Meanwhile, these elected conservative officials pass on the lies and deny the reality of the Bush tax cuts which, by the way, blew-through Clinton’s surplus and, along with deregulation and cronyism, created this mess.

Other shades and shadows from the 1920s which are today’s boogeymen:

Photo via Library Of Congress.

Think Global, Act Local

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Stabilize The Economic Status Of The NEgro Through Directed Spending

“Think Global, Act Local” is more than an old saying or mantra; it’s a philosophy. Thinking globally while acting locally is a way to take huge problems, like racism (as the image shows), and break them down into manageable, individual, acts. It motivates anyone who believes “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.”

I was reminded of this when Nazneen Hamilton wrote about the importance of buying locally produced items. It’s not only a wise thing to help your local economy — and generally helps your own household finances (something you know I care about) — but it also has a huge impact on the environment.

Heck, buying locally grown food and/or locally made products is a far greener thing to do than getting a newer less-gasoline-guzzling car or even getting one of those hybrid or electric cars — because the cars and batteries are brought over the oceans on freighters, freighters which leave far larger carbon footprints (or wakes) than most of us can imagine.

So I have to ask you, when’s the last time you checked the labels to see if you could buy local?

And, if you do and find your favorite shop doesn’t offer a local alternative, have you pushed them to do so?

Suffering A Man In A Dress For Suffrage

/ Deanna / 1 Comment

On the front of this 5 3/4 X 3 1/2 “snapshot,” which the seller says is circa 1915, someone has printed “AN ARIZONA SUFFRAGETTE.”

As I cannot handle this photograph, I am not certain of it’s age — but I  am certain that the “suffragette” it is a man wearing a dress and apron.  Something about the photo feels more modern than 1915… Maybe it’s just that men putting on dresses to mock women for being too masculine to be pretty, that equal rights for women is as silly as a man wearing a dress, that the whole thing is just too-too familiar.

How To Dress For Success: Suffragette Edition

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In The Washington Post, November 1, 1909, an unidentified “London fashion designer” gets bitchy and judgmental about how suffragettes dress. Yes, even though I don’t know if this possibly fictitious designer is male or female, I say “bitchy.”  For even should ye olde fashion designer be both real and male (gay stereotypes aside), the fact that this item appeared at all in the Society pages, is proof of the bitch factor.

But perhaps most importantly are the number of appearances of myths, stereotypes, and general mean spiritedness which are preyed and played upon today:

The worst blow the cause of equal suffrage has received is the charge that its champions are careless in dress. Women who are not neat in attire and care nothing for personal adornment cannot hope to attract or influence men, and the future is gloomy for the British suffragettes at least. A London fashion designer has divided the suffragettes into four classes, each one marked by distinctiveness in dress.

“In the first is the woman of independent means,” says this fashion critic, “who can can and following her habit does dress well, and also the woman of limited income with an instinct for clothes Secondly, there is the working suffragette, who, as a rule, is a typewriter, and goes to the office in neat shirt waist and skirt She does not differ in any way from the woman clerk in any ordinary office, or the school teacher and secretary Thirdly we arrive at the thin, corsetless esthetic type, the modern development of the love-sick maiden who adorned Bunthorne These ‘willowy’ suffragettes adopt the empire and pinafore gown, with strange embroideries and sometimes strange results Last of all comes the suffragette who looks as though she had just returned from the wars and was still in fighting kit She generally wears a green costume of skimp design and rough material, a purple scarf, an impossible complexion, ‘something’ on her head and ‘something’ on her feet Few suffragettes have the faintest idea how to dress their hair Either they have not the time to spare from work for the great cause to give their hair ordinary care or attention, or else the languid drooping style and the straying wisps of hair are meant to illustrate the down-trodden station of women”

All of which should make the most ardent suffragette pause!

Suffragette Soap Ad

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This ad, for sale from MAINE-ARTEMIS, shows how products were marketed to suffragettes.

Enoch Morgan’s Sons Company ad for Sapolio cake soap:

A suffragette is Mrs. Brown
Who’s cleaning up in Spotless Town
When she discovers wrongs to write
The mails assist her in the fight
De=voted readers high and low
Are voting for
Sapolio

Vintage Gold Diggers, 1952

/ Deanna / Leave a comment

I’m sure this pair of vintage advertising pieces from/for the Hi-Shear Rivet Tool Company were intended to be humorous, in that oh-so-popular risque way of 1952; but I find them predictably insulting. It’s not that they’re nude — I collect vintage nudes and risque materials. Or even that “he” is allowed modesty while “she” wears the gloves and smile of a burlesque performer. (Frankly, as nearly every woman has noted in the Anthony Weiner affair, the less male genitalia seen the better.) But it’s what else is seen inside these “Top Secret” cards when they are open…

He has a number of dependents — dependents, not children; she has none.
He has a payday; she has none.
He has a car; she has none.
He has a hobby; she has a pastime — with places to check “yes” or “no”?!

*sigh*

Maybe women wouldn’t be seen as gold diggers if they had the opportunity to earn their own paychecks, own their own cars, not be seen as dependent children… Have a legitimate hobby even.

Both vintage pieces from the collection of Jim Linderman.

Rethinking Pink (Or Girls Don’t Need Pencils)

/ Deanna / 1 Comment

Speaking of suffrage colors…

A news clipping from the New Brunswick Times, October 15, 1915, about Miss Ellen Murray who threw an anti-suffrage party:

The house was decorated in the colors of the antis, pink and white and anti-suffrage posters were in evidence. The girls were given anti-suffrage pencils and the boys anti-suffrage buttons. The prizes were dolls in the dolls in the suffrage colors and the refreshments were also in these colors. One of the games was an election in which the antis won.

I can only assume that there was an error and that the dolls and refreshments were in anti-suffrage pink and white, right? And good heavens, why would girls need pencils?! Silly Ellen; only boys need to write!  Plus, buttons are like pins, which is jewelry and more girl-like.  Sheesh.

If You Believe “Good Guys Finish Last…”

/ Deanna / Leave a comment

It’s easy to be pessimistic today, especially when it comes to business. Those of us not in the upper two percent, those of us with little in our pockets but our sweaty palms, those of us who don’t just feel beaten-up by big business but have the financial and even physical marks to prove it, those of us who are the “other” under the heels of the “us” that is Corporate America, we can easily draw the conclusion that the only time virtue comes up is when the fat cats greedily giggle over their “there’s no virtue in business besides money” mantra.

These feelings infiltrate, or, if you prefer “trickle down” (the only time the principal actually appears to work) into every aspect of our world, at every level. From realized fears of neglect and victimization in our political system to the mentalities of school bullies, controlling abusers, and national “pro-life” terrorists., it seems we are increasingly forced to live in a black & white world of virtue — and to consider which side we are on… Should we remain the down-trodden good guy who will finish last, if at all? Or should we give in to the dark side, just to survive?

I hear this echoed in discussions everywhere.  Activists wondering if they should adopt the same tactics their opponents successfully use.  Entrepreneurs who cringe at identifying themselves as such because of what “being in business” implies. Parents wondering how they can continue to teach their children to be “good,” “fair,” and “generous,” when their children see what the rich and ruthless reap.

It seems hopeless.

Enter hope. Or rather enchantment.

Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions, by Guy Kawasaki is primarily touted as a business book — a small-business or entrepreneurial manifesto. And sure, it works for that. But more than that, Kawasaki’s book explores the power of enchantment.

Enchantment can occur in villages, stores, dealerships, offices, boardrooms, and on the Internet. It causes voluntary change of hearts and minds and therefore actions. It is more than manipulating people to help you to get your way. Enchantment transforms situations and relationships. It converts hostility into civility. It reshapes civility into affinity. It changes skeptics and cynics into believers.

Firstly, Enchantment is a breath of fresh, good, air; it’s an affirmation that good guys and gals don’t have to finish last. And there are real stories, real cases, of real good people who are examples.

Secondly, Kawasaki outlines the principals of enchantment — sound psychological principals and insights into human behavior that are easy to read and even easier to comprehend.

Thirdly, the book inspires action.  Heart lightened with the affirmation and validation that Good is indeed good, heart warmed by the examples of Good successful people, and armed with the knowledge of how it all works, you, the reader, are inspired to live enchantingly.

It’s good that you are inspired because the author is now going to offer you opportunities to implement the strategies.

Kawasaki provides a checklist of things to consider and opportunities to explore, rather like self-help books do. (In the book’s Coverphon, there’s evidence neither the author nor the publisher would like this “soft” self-help comparison; but I think the work is to be commended for it’s uplifting, affirming, readily understood, easy to incorporate strategies as well as it’s “hard” business acumen.)

And, yes, the author includes plenty of tips and methods for businesses and entrepreneurs to put to work online (i.e. push and pull technologies such as email, Twitter, Facebook, websites and blogs, etc.).

While nearly all stories, prompts and checklists are business related (including chapters on how to enchant your boss, resist enchantment, etc.), there’s no reason the information couldn’t be applied to any facet of your life, including parenting. Where else does one need to model integrity more?

(There are even concrete stories for you to counter wise-ass remarks from kids who dare you to prove that greed and might are the only ways to get ahead — in fact, stories and examples that suggest that life ought not to be viewed as a race in which one must “get ahead,” but rather how to work for the betterment of many.)

In short, Enchantment is just the breath of fresh air that good guys and gals need to reaffirm their vows to be a person of delightful integrity. It gives us the tips to enchant — and the permission to be enchanted with ourselves.

PS If you do buy a copy of Enchantment, you might want to know about this enchanting offer from Guy:

When people anywhere in the world buy a copy of Enchantment in any form (paper, recording, or ebook), they can get a free copy of Garr’s book called Presentation Zen.

Presentation Zen is one of the best books ever written about making great presentations. Seth Godin said this about it: “Please don’t buy this book! Once people start making better presentations, mine won’t look so good.”

Disclaimer: I was given a free review copy of this book. While the free copy was appreciated and enjoyed, the fact that it was free has no bearing on this review or the contents of this post — other than the legal requirement to make such a statement.

Punished For Parenting, Blue Laws, 1884

/ Deanna / Leave a comment

Jim Linderman presents this original court document from Williamsport in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, dated June 3, 1884 in which Mrs. Susan Johnson was arrested and charged with being “addicted to scolding,” including the habit of using profane, vulgar and abusive language.” Given that, it seems obvious — or odd, depending upon your parenting views — that Mrs. Johnson also instructed “her children to insult, abuse and injure children and persons in general.”

At the bottom, or second page, of the court document, it is also noted that Mrs. Johnson dared to keep her business establishment open on Sunday, “the Lord’s day” — in violation of Blue Laws.

Me thinketh the open store, the audacity of a woman to make money on the sabbath, was the real problem.

But I’m a biased feminist.

In fact, without anything else to go on, I daresay Mrs. Susan Johnson was a strong woman, an independent woman with her own business. One who didn’t tolerate crap from anyone and was raising her children to do the same — in a time and place where women were like children and so should be seen and not heard.

But I have no proof of this.

According the arrest warrant, Mrs. Johnson had to pay bail in the amount of $200…

Despite my best attempts at research, I could not find any report of how the court story ends. However, it appears that poor Mrs. Johnson died shortly after tornadoes struck and leveled her house along with several others — “not a timber left standing” — according to a newspaper story in the Daily Gazette And Bulletin, Williamsport, Pennsylvania, on February 23, 1884.  I can’t be absolutely certain this is the same Mrs. Susan Johnson, but it’s the only trail I could find. Rest in peace, Susan.

Mocking Marketing To Women

/ Deanna / Leave a comment

An awesome video from BBC’s Look Around You on The Petticoat 5: The first computer designed just for women. “The computer was created by Patricia (her surname is silent).”

Watch and be amazed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GThtMAZGYU

While clearly satire, I love how this precisely hits so many key points about products for/marketing to women.

We All End Up Paying For It, Celebrities Or Not

/ Deanna / 3 Comments

Gawd I love Roseanne. There are about one million reasons to; here’s one more.

A very special quote from a very special article, And I Should Know, Barr had published at NYMag:

Based on Two and a Half Men’s success, it seems viewers now prefer their comedy dumb and sexist. Charlie Sheen was the world’s most famous john, and a sitcom was written around him. That just says it all. Doing tons of drugs, smacking prostitutes around, holding a knife up to the head of your wife—sure, that sounds like a dream come true for so many guys out there, but that doesn’t make it right! People do what they can get away with (or figure they can), and Sheen is, in fact, a product of what we call politely the “culture.”

After seeing one episode of Two and a Half Men, I (no prude, mind you) was aghast that this subject matter was on during the first hour of prime-time, a slot usually reserved for family programming.  Even if I didn’t have children, or it aired later at night, I wouldn’t have watched it because I don’t enjoy misogynistic television.

I also eschewed the show because I dislike Sheen. I knew the allegations about Sheen and his abusive behavior were true. Even before I experienced domestic violence in my first marriage.  And I have no problems not backing an abuser, no problem refusing to add my consumer clout to a celebrity brand — especially when they refuse to get help, continually mock their victims, and act entitled to their “right” to control and harm others.

And I don’t understand why more people don’t do this, don’t refuse to line the pockets of violent losers who hurt people.

I don’t know what Sheen’s entire problem is; and I really don’t care because he has a wealth of resources and people to support him in his hour lifetime of need. But even if it’s only due in part to the “culture” Roseanne refers to, we all end up paying for it; so why perpetuate it?

Rape Isn’t So Bad If It’s For Lust & Not Money

/ Alessia / 2 Comments

My area of the Twitterverse is a-fire with tweets about this idiotic post by Roger Helmer MEP:

Words like “rape” and “murder” cover a spectrum of activities, and degrees of culpability. Let’s consider a couple of murder scenarios.

First, suppose a kidnapper seizes the son of a wealthy family, and extorts money from the parents. Then after the ransom is paid, he seeks to cover his tracks by deliberately murdering his hostage.

Second scenario: a young husband returns home to find his bride in flagrante delicto with the milkman. In a fit of blind rage, the husband attacks the milkman, who dies of his injuries.

In both cases the assailant is guilty of murder, and deserves to be convicted and punished. But the cases are hugely different. In the first case, the murder is calculated, premeditated, deliberate and undertaken for money. In the second case, none of these comments applies. In the first case, I’d happily hang the murderer (I’m part of that retrograde majority which still believes in the death penalty). In the second case, a much more lenient sentence would be appropriate.

In the same way, let’s consider two rape scenarios.

The first is the classic “stranger-rape”, where a masked individual emerges from the bushes, hits his victim over the head with a blunt instrument, drags her into the undergrowth and rapes her, and the leaves her unconscious, careless whether she lives or dies.

The second is “date rape”. Imagine that a woman voluntarily goes to her boyfriend’s apartment, voluntarily goes into the bedroom, voluntarily undresses and gets into bed, perhaps anticipating sex, or naïvely expecting merely a cuddle. But at the last minute she gets cold feet and says “Stop!”. The young man, in the heat of the moment, is unable to restrain himself and carries on.

In both cases an offence has been committed, and the perpetrators deserve to be convicted and punished. But whereas in the first case, I’d again be quite happy to hang the guy, I think that most right-thinking people would expect a much lighter sentence in the second case. Rape is always wrong, but not always equally culpable.

My two scenarios also give the lie to one of the popular over-simplifications trotted out by the feminist tendency in these cases: “Rape is always about power and control and domination, never about sex”. In the first case, that may well be true. In the second case, it is clearly not true.

Let me make another point which will certainly get me vilified, but which I think is important to make: while in the first case, the blame is squarely on the perpetrator and does not attach to the victim, in the second case the victim surely shares a part of the responsibility, if only for establishing reasonable expectations in her boyfriend’s mind.

All I can say I’ve said before. So here’s a, “Thanks for giving males permission to be dumb animals with no ability to control themselves, jerk,” to Roger — and anyone else who agrees with his dangerous bullshit.

The Irony Of Jimmy The Greek (He’s Rolling Over In His Grave)

/ Deanna / 1 Comment

In January of 1988, Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder was fired by CBS for racism after he made the following infamous comment to an NBC affiliate, station WRC-TV:

The black is a better athlete to begin with because he’s been bred to be that way — because of his high thighs and big thighs that goes up into his back, and they can jump higher and run faster because of their bigger thighs. This goes back all the way to the Civil War when during the slave trading, the owner — the slave owner would breed his big black to his big woman so that he could have a big black kid.

[I remember, as a kid at the time, thinking it was odd no one was offended by the nickname, “The Greek” — especially as it, and even “Jimmy,” likely came from the general (lazy) inability to pronounce the man’s real name, Dimetrios Georgios Synodinos.]

I won’t deny there were more tactful ways to communicate realities of racism (it was, in fact, a breeding program; let’s not deny the horrors), but it seems “Jimmy” was also onto something… Something biological. Something which sounds even less, well, probable.

In a study published last year in the International Journal of Design and Nature and Ecodynamics, Professor Andre Bejan of Duke University, Professor Edward Jones of Howard University in Washington, and Duke graduate Jordan Charles, found that there’s a biological physical trait at the center of athletic performance:

The navel is the centre of gravity of the body, and given two runners or swimmers of the same height, one African origin and one European origin, “what matters is not total height but the position of the belly-button, or centre of gravity,” says study lead author Professor Andre Bejan of Duke University.

“It so happens that in the architecture of the human body of West African-origin runners, the centre of gravity is significantly higher than in runners of European origin,” which puts them at an advantage in sprints on the track, he says.

The researchers charted and analysed nearly 100 years of records in men’s and women’s sprinting and 100-metres freestyle swimming for the study.

Individuals of West African-origin have longer legs than European-origin athletes, which means their belly-buttons are three centimetres higher, says Bejan.

That means the West-African athletes have a ‘hidden height’ that is 3% greater than Europeans, which gives them a significant speed advantage on the track.

“Locomotion is essentially a continual process of falling forward, and mass that falls from a higher altitude, falls faster,” says Bejan.

The science, physics, of belly-buttons gets weirder…

In the pool, meanwhile, Europeans have the advantage because they have longer torsos, making their belly-buttons lower in the general scheme of body architecture.

“Swimming is the art of surfing the wave created by the swimmer,” says Bejan.

“The swimmer who makes the bigger wave is the faster swimmer, and a longer torso makes a bigger wave. Europeans have a 3% longer torso than West Africans, which gives them a 1.5% speed advantage in the pool,” he says.

Asians have the same long torsos as Europeans, giving them the same potential to be record-breakers in the pool.

But they often lose out to Europeans because Asians are typically shorter, says Bejan.

Many scientists have avoided studying why Africans make better sprinters and Europeans better swimmers because of what the study calls the “obvious” race angle.

While the study “focused on the athletes’ geographic origins and biology, not race, which the authors of the study call a ‘social construct,'” it seems Mr. Georgios wasn’t too far off the mark…

Jimmy The Greek

I should stop this now before I step into even deeper stereotypical waters.

But I can’t help but think that our hyper-sensitivity, our unwillingness to deal directly with racism in this country, leads not only to problems with firing the admittedly-tactless messenger (be it Jimmy The Greek or some angry comments to this blogger), but in any sort of rational discussion…

In even hearing this sort of news…

I mean this study was out a year ago, and if it weren’t for my visit to Chris Cruz’s blog, I never would have heard of this research.

“There’s nothing gays hate more than when people treat us like women.”

/ Deanna / 7 Comments

Cameron:There’s nothing gays hate more than when people treat us like women. We’re not. We don’t want to go to your baby shower. We don’t have a time of the month. We don’t love pink.
Mitchell: You love pink.
Cameron: No, pink loves me.

I had mixed emotions about this past week’s episode of Modern Family… I don’t think gay men are women or should be treated like them, but the attitude about women was practically sneering, as if, again, there’s nothing lower than being a woman.