Pt 1: Sexism and the World Cup

In celebration of the 2010 World Cup, Lynx have launched a series of 'patriarch' posters, each depicting a 'buxom babe' in a familiar celebratory soccer pose. These will be running in several countries, with the respective flag of each waving in the background.

How RUDE! This really is the final straw. Everyone knows sports bras look nothing like this, and that the woman photographed is probably a model, not a real lady footballer.

Once again, when we were tucked up safely in our beds, snoozing away, dreaming of equality, sexism has struck. Never relent ladies: we must maiden on, never surrendering to the so-called 'hand of man'.

To rebel I have decided to monitor the World Cup in close detail - looking out for any slurs against female kind. I am ready to strike!!

Posie and Out x

Laptops for Girls

After my FWord featured article, Pity in Pink, hit the internet at the beginning of the year, you would have been forgiven for believing that the purveyors of PINK LAPTOPS might have rethought their strategy of tarring all of femininity with the same pinkish brush. You'd have been wrong, however, as this new PC World ad featuring the Dell Inspiron demonstrates.

I can't find a way to embed the video as it's on this slightly creepy Dell based blog (seriously, who cares?) but please follow this link to explore yourself, or if you're not sure, let me give you a run down. The advert begins with a slightly incredulous female voice, who tells us 'My world is fashion', what she means isn't exactly clear - is she a designer? Or a seamstress? Or just really into clothes like, you know, a woman. Either way, it is really quite important to her that everything she owns is colour coded. But how can this be achieved with something like a laptop, which you only generally have one of unlike clothes and shoes and dresses which come in lots of different colours and which you change frequently? Scream! Should she, for example, buy the pink Dell Inspiron to go with her pink shoes? Or the blue one to go with her blue jacket? Shit! Which one? Best go with the pink really. And why? Because MY WORLD IS PINK. And fashion. Her world is pink and fashion. Where does she live? Really, stop keeping us in suspense, what does this woman do??

They don't need to tell us what she does, or why her world is made of Pink and Fashion, because she is Everywoman, a competant and non-individualised figure with whom it is easy to identify. We can identify with her because she likes pink, and shoes, and laptops that are the same colour as our shoes, like us.

ALAS!

For all the girls who are hitting the town tonight, don't spend TOO long getting ready, for you may find that your morne-like christall countenances shall be netted over and (Masker-like) cawbe-visarded, with crawling venomous wormes. Why do ye embellish and adorne your flesh with such port and grace, which within some few dayes wormes will devoure in the grave? Why pamperest thou that carren fleshe so high, whiche sometyme doeth stinke and rot on the earth as thou goest?

Also, Max Factor is bloody expensive. Alas!

De Ridier Battle Helmet!

THE British Musuem have sent me this image of the Ridier Battle Hat atop a willing intern, complete with dried entrails of a Turk from circa the disasterous Fourth Crusade. Pwoar! I just can't wait to take that bad boy out with me to Truckles tonight! Feministe fashions bar rumba!

Fanny art!

Hi gals! Thought you might like this... The one on the right is actually my friend Fran; she just loves tattoos and thought she'd go all out for her thirtieth!

Isn't it pretty?

The Beauty Myth Exposed - embrace ugliness!

As I sat upon my porcelain loo this morning, I was amused to read a feature in G2 concerning women and that terrible word, make up. A fellow feminist, Julie Blindel, had written an article about whether make up, when applied to feminism, masked our hypocrisy like a burkini, or merely slipped off like so much water on oil. Should feminists be allowed to use make up? Should they refuse in principle? Is personal choice part of what feminism was about in the first place? The Guardian featured this story, and were so astonished at the various responses of their surprisingly literate readers (They used punctuation! They can spell!) that they thought they'd glorify them in print by publishing a selection of letters.

The range of opinions through up no surprises: Make-up-attracts-men=bad; make-up-express-self=good; I-have-a-rash-need-make-up-look-terrible etc. What fascinated me was the angle of argumentation concerning the 'beauty myth', and the pressures women are under to look good. See the excerpts below.

We all know the truth of this; most of us have experienced the different reactions when we're dressed up and when we slob out. No one has said that succumbing to the endless pressure to "look good" is a betrayal of feminism. However, I would say that we owe it to ourselves to be honest enough to acknowledge those pressures.

I think the personal choice argument [regarding makeup] doesn't entirely take account of the difficulties involved in not wearing it.

Now, I quite agree that young women are under pressure to look beautiful, and that unobtainable body shapes are thrust in our faces on a daily basis to such an extent that I really sometimes forget that I'm a woman at all. But this isn't the point, is it? The point is that women who go around without make up on are, allegedly, made to feel like pariahs. Perhaps this is the case, but as a woman who doesn't wear make up at all, ever, through sheer forgetfulness rather than to make a 'point', I really can't say I've noticed the slightest bit of difference in the way I am treated, compared to women who wear make up.

And I have yet to see the evidence to prove that this 'truth universally acknowledged', that women encounter 'difficulties' through not wearing make up, makes any difference as to how people actually dress. We may all hate ourselves for our rubbish hair and our un-made up faces, but we go out like that everyday just the same.

Honestly, I haven't seen a person who didn't look absolutely terrible for weeks. I must see one genuinely well dressed, well taken care of individual perhaps once a month, and that's not to say anything about their innate physical attractiveness to start with. Because whatever feminists say, and I say this as a feminist, there is no 'difficulty' concerned with personal appearance that cannot be overcome by simply not giving a sh*t. Now, it may sound drastic, but rather than take on a) the self-censoring media, b) cosmetic manufacturers; and c) global capitalism, worthy targets of our scorn though they may be, it really might be best just this once to accept that looking like crap really is the price you pay for choosing not to look good.

I say this as one of you, a badly dressed and blotchy faced woman, whose only accessory is a cigarette and who hasn't worn make-up since I got my face painted like a zebra at Lovebox. There is no way of getting round the fact that 9 times out of 10 your face will not look like it has make-up on it if it doesn't have make-up on it, just as there is no way of ignoring the fact that 9 times out 10 no one cares if you have make up or you don't.

If you're not that attractive to start with, putting some make-up on is not going to stop traffic, and leaving it off is not going to cause hoards of school children to follow you down the road screaming 'witch' until someone tosses you in a pond just to see if you float: everyone is used to seeing people looking haggard, exhausted and, well, a bit rubbish. One more make-upless face is just one more person to ignore in your meaningless flaneusette wandering around your alienating city in your empty life. Embrace it!

Stuff the politics - I love the Queen!

Of course my heart is with Queen Elizabeth I, but what's not to love about our current sovereign? Purple jacket with yellow tights? What a legend!

And, if her incredible sartorial tastes aren't to your liking, check out this incredible quote, which I know for a fact she said to the Ambassador of the Duke of Wurtemberg.

"I would rather be a beggar and single than a queen and married."

Ha! Posie joke!

Feminist Quote of the Day

"I became a feminist as an alternative to becoming a masochist."

- Sally Kempton, journalist

A very thin model DOESN'T get an award!

One of final 30 contestants for Australia's Miss Universe, apparently. Eeep!

The Guardian, as usual, has something to say about it.

As does the Daily Male: " 'She's Macedonian,' said one official. "

On Model Mayhem, her agency's profile, her friends have rallied to her support. Ella B says:

"Hey Stephanie, you are absolutely beautiful - ignore the media; they are corrupt in so many ways. (What's the bet the story was started by a very jealous female journalist/reporter?) The media are the ones who look bad in all this; the public and
yourself know that you are healthy, fabulous and stunning."

Hmmm, jealous journalist? Ella, per-lease. I'm basically a journalist and I spent a morning waiting for a friend while she got rejected from various modeling agencies. One thing I noticed was the models I did encounter were frankly funny looking. I don't understand why being a model is supposed to be a desirable trade, or is seen as some kind of skill. I frequently get 'talent scouted' when out in Covent Garden, and am met with appalled looks when I walk away disinterested. As far as I can see, the only thing you need to do to be a model is to stay awake. And we all know how difficult that is!

I digress. What I really think about this issue is - poor duck! Can't we feminists bring ourselves to humanise the super skinny too? I mean, she is so thin! This media outcry is like shooting an eel in a bucket. I am desperately in favour of girls not being pushed into cycles of self-loathing due to exposure to unobtainable body shapes and their normalisation, nay, valorisation. But Stephanie Naumoska surely is the exception, not the rule? And it's not like she won the competition...

Oh sod it, what did we expect from an all-female beauty contest? There's no way these forums can be used to promote positive role models of any size, and no body shape is 'normal' - we're all different sisters!

Police brutality all too familiar?

Over the last week, we have seen two instances of shocking police brutality. Against both the G20 protestors and the Tamils, horrified at the violence in their ancestral home, police have used force and violence against peaceful protesters, utterly disregarding the safety of the public and their rights to gather and demonstrate, all in the name of maintaining the status quo. Am I disgusted? Yes. Am I surprised? No. It looks all too familiar to me. Remember, all yea who take the vote for granted, the Suffragettes were considered radical and subversive once too.

Spot the odd one out...

It's this one.

More trendy pictures from Ulrike Ottinger's films: Cross dressing in her version of A Picture of Dorian Gray and Ticket of No Return.

Ulrike Ottinger: Feminist Film Director!

Hello lady readers! Last night Melody Wittgenstein and I made the unfortunate mistake of attending a film directed by the prolific feminist (lesbian) film maker, ze Berliner, Ulrike Ottinger.

Now don't get me wrong, I am all pro expressionism in film, but too much is sometimes too much. Melody had been enjoying the sunshine that day landscaping Nigella Lawson's new patio terrace in Holland Park, so I'm sure you can imagine, being crammed into a cinema with a pile of queer theorists for two and a half hours was quite a shock. To me on the other hand the whole experience was like water to a fish, or so I had thought. For if I were a little salmon I would certainly not swim into those seas occupied by Madame X, the title role of the film' s protagonist pirate.


Apparently according to the site Women Make Movies:

Ottinger achieves her enthralling visual effects through innovative and expressionistic use of costuming, composition, and unusual settings. A versatile talent, she assumes many of the creative and administrative functions on her own films; beyond directing, her credits include that of screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, and set designer. She has also worked as a theatre director and ethnographer; her photographs have been exhibited in numerous venues, and she has published several books.


Okay yes it's all very impressive. One woman decides to subvert the didactic norms of feminist film, to complicated notions of beauty and to continue Mulvey's project of disseminating the male gaze. True, the outfits were fab (see below/above etc.) HOWEVER, the plot leaves somewhat to the imagination. Let me set the scene: seven women board a boat and sail away. They are wearing nice dresses on. The end.

I am sorry, but when are feminists going to realise that deconstructing cinema CANNOT GO ON FOR THREE HOURS without a f*****g plot? Needless to say Melody and I had to leave when the cast started reenacting the Freudian exploration of the female subconscience using a large sea bream. I really resent films that force me to leave and make me feel like a philistine. I am very intelligent: how would very thick people cope?

Fine: go and make your arty movies. I on the other hand have far too many important things to do than to indulge your whims on a Tuesday evening. I could have read Middlemarch cover to cover AND The Tenant of Wildfell Hall in that time (the first book ever to tackle the problem of domestic violence in herstory).

Anyway here are some pretty/cool/weird pictures from her films.

She is rather good though. More of her stuff is playing at the BFI, this week.
Bring a strong bottle of scotch and you might get through it and it will make you look rather cool.

MADAM X: