I really enjoyed doing this podcast with Josh & Sara, so I’m pleased to say it’s up on their website as an MP3 now.
She’s Still Right
I hope Hillary Clinton calls Gloria Steinem to say thank you.
Top Ten of 2007
Yours Truly was interviewed for an article on “Ten Hot Sexuality (and Gender) Issues of 2007 by Naked on the Internet author Audacia Ray. My bit is mostly the “(and Gender)” part of it, about ENDA & the Hate Crimes Act.
I think it’s the first time I’ve been interviewed for anything that was also about pole dancing.
The Uses of ‘Pretty’ – Part II
A long time ago, I wrote a piece about “pretty” that eventually became a section of She’s Not the Man I Married that in turn, our resident board moderator Donna recently referred to when recounting a moment where she looked in the mirror and actually saw herself as pretty.
What made me think about it – and my reputation of being Helen “pretty is a mug’s game” Boyd – was seeing an episode of What Not To Wear which featured a nurse from Arizona who wore her scrubs and sweats everywhere & anywhere. They even had to do affirmations with her, like “I’m beautiful and I want to share my beauty with the world” which the woman couldn’t say without getting teared up. But by the end, she had transformed: it was obvious she felt not just pretty but confident.
& What I’ve been thinking about is that it’s a whole different thing to experience yourself as pretty – in a positive way – than to be told you’re pretty when that’s not wanted. The woman on the show was so obviously floored by actually feeling pretty that I was struck by what she was experiencing in feeling pretty, and so I was struck too by the times feeling pretty meant something good to me.
& It still can, of course.
Growing up as me meant when I was smoking a cigarette near the subway, five men would go by & say “you’re too pretty to smoke” or “you’re too pretty not to be smiling” or “you’re too pretty to have a mohawk.” etc. It was all kind of – the only word that comes to mind is <<interdit>> – about what I couldn’t & shouldn’t do because I was “pretty.”
Looks can become the only thing that women think is important and/or valuable about them, too, & even the pretty ones often discount so many other good things about themselves when they’re not feeling pretty enough. Not buying into pretty was a good way for me, at least, to break through a lot of the gendered boxes I might have been trapped in otherwise. When you feel like you’re not pretty enough to go outside without makeup, & men do every single day, there’s something wrong that needs to be – well, accounted for.
I don’t necessarily love the cattiness of shows like this, but I also know how it can feel to put on something & just feel good – even pretty! – when you’ve otherwise been feeling grungy / dumpy / inept. It’s another case where I think my experience being raised female might be quite different from the way a trans woman might relate to the same issue – that is, an acknowledgement of difference & not cause for hierarchy – because trans women grow up being told you can’t be pretty, you won’t be pretty, and you’re not allowed to be pretty, which is quite different indeed from being told you can be pretty but you can’t be anything else. But all of us, I think, in this lookist culture, have to step back from the shitty feelings of self-doubt – and even the euphoric feelings pretty can bring – and pay attention to pretty being a lot more valuable when it’s something you feel, not something you are (or aren’t).
Good Riddance, 2007 – #17
2007’s Best ‘Full Circle’ Career Moment:
Vincent D’Onofrio playing Robert Goren playing Private Pyle (in the penultimate show of this season’s Law & Order: Criminal Intent)
Save the Whales
Today on CNN, they’re talking a lot about the Japanese having responded to protests about their planned whale hunt; that is, for the first time ever, the Japanese government has agreed not to hunt humpback whales. But they’re still planning on hunting more than a 1000 other wales, including Fin Whales, which they’re doing with the bullshit explanation that the hunt is for “scientific purposes.”
On CNN they interview some Joe who says, “Well eating veal could be considered cruel too, so where do you draw the line?”
The line is that whales can’t be raised domestically as a food source. They are only wild, and they are endangered. Veal are not. Would it really be that hard for CNN to find someone who is born a carnivore & a concerned animal lover to make that point?
Good Riddance, 2007 – #11
2007’s Most Depressing Feminist Moment
Discovering my well-loved Harper’s, to which I’ve been a subscriber since 1986, had the lowest percentage of by-lines by women writers. (I switched to Atlantic Monthly.)
Do You Feel Like A Woman?
In Solidarity
(courtesy of www.unitedhollywood.blogspot.com)
& If you haven’t seen The Front, now’s the time to do it. & There are more speechless shorts, featuring the likes of Tim Robbins, Alan Cumming.
& Go here to sign a petition to tell the FCC we don’t want more media consolidation. You only have until Tuesday, 12/11, to sign it, so go do it now.
Good Riddance, 2007 – #3
2007’s Most Insipid and Exploitative Yet Compelling Like a Car Crash TV Show:
A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila