October: Post of Awesome by Laini, Beauty

Didn't want anyone to miss this. The quote is PERFECTION! Here's Laini:

Laini Taylor said...

Yes, I think that when we're younger we're more prey to the very most basic ideas of beauty, the kind of "catalog model bland pretty", the cheerleader look. But I know that my own notion of beauty has evolved into an appreciation of uniqueness -- strange eyes, interesting coloring, severe features, etc. And then there's the whole other issue of how perceived beauty is affected by character, like the great Roald Dahl quote from The Twits:

"If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until you can hardly bear to look at it.

A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts it will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely."

I really think that's true! And I think we learn to appreciate that, and to look at people in a different way, as we get older.

Thoughts?

November: Marlene's Second Post of Awesome

Marlene is just knocking these out of the ballpark! Wanted to make sure you caught this response to being told girls can't. Here you go:

Unfortunately I’ve had way too many experiences with this issue, although as a young woman during the feminist movement of the 1960s and 70s, I learned quickly to assert myself. It may be hard to believe, but as a female high school teacher in 1971, I was expected to dress appropriately for the classroom, which meant a dress or skirt but NO slacks. This was ridiculous (especially when I look back at some of the mini skirts I wore – yikes!). So one day I wore slacks and in the middle of class, one of my junior boys raised his hand and asked if it was okay for teachers to wear slacks. I told him we’d find out, wouldn’t we? Well, there was lots of buzz but nothing official was said to me and two days later, half the female teaching staff wore slacks.

Sometimes people don’t even realize that they are promoting limitations. When I graduated from high school, the expectation largely was that I would move on to become a secretary, a nurse, or a teacher, and that would be only until I got married. Well, I have three older sisters: 1 was a secretary, 1 was a nurse, 1 studied to be a teacher. So what was left for me? (I wanted to be a writer but I didn’t even dare verbalize that dream.) Well, to make a long story short, I did become a teacher, but the irony was that when I told my father I was getting married, his major concern was that I would still finish my college education. This may seem insignificant today but in 1969, his position had changed 180 degrees from three years earlier when he was a man who wasn’t sure going to college was important for his daughters.

As a teacher in a public high school and a private college, I witnessed many situations where girls were denied opportunities, especially in extracurricular activities and sports. (I even overheard coaches telling their male team members that they played like a bunch of girls. Ouch!) I feel very fortunate, however, to have also seen the changes that have taken place, and by the time I retired, girls were receiving equal opportunity both in and out of the classroom. I also felt blessed that my sons grew up in an environment where having a girl for a friend did not mean she had to be a girlfriend and understanding that there is no such thing as men’s work and women’s work. (My husband won’t let me do the laundry. Cool eh?)

October: Post of Awesome in which Libba rips it up!

Oh, my! I can't let anyone miss this POST OF AWESOME by Libba. Seriously! Here's her first, which cracks me up, followed by her second. Let it rip, LIBBA!

Hello, ReaderGirlz! I am technologically unsound. It took me two hours to figure out how to post. It is a wonder I am allowed out in public. So this is a test comment. If it works, the real comment will follow. If it doesn't work, I'll cry. Wish me luck!

October 4, 2009 6:07 AM

Libba Bray said...

Awesome sauce! It worked! Okay. My comment. Obviously, we've come a long way, baby, as the ad used to say. But...(there's always one of those, isn't there?) I think there are still many issues with which we are grappling in 2009. Certainly, a woman in Saudi Arabia doesn't have the same rights as a woman in America. Women in the Congo are the victims of horrific war crimes. And when people talk about the "feminization of poverty," it's more than a catch phrase. An inequity in wealth distribution certainly hits women and children hardest. That's the global picture.

But I always think, to quote the feminists (I believe it was Gloria Steinem?), that "the personal is political." I think it's important to be aware of and think about the way messages are conveyed to women, through magazines, advertisements, commercials, politicians, etc. Have you ever noticed that all the commercials about cleaning feature women and are aimed directly at women? So no matter what, in our culture, we take it for granted that the women will do all the housework. Same with ads for Children's Tylenol or kids' cereals. They are aimed at women. Then think about fashion magazines (and hey, I'm a shoe addict--I look at them). But the body messages are so mixed up: On the one hand, every magazine has some article about "loving yourself" and "accepting yourself," along with scads of articles about losing weight and getting in shape. You juxtapose that with pictures of extremely thin, tall women who represent about 1% of the population, and you've got a sort of crazy-making scenario. No wonder we're so confused!

The thing to keep in mind is that this is big business: weight loss, fashion, self-help, the "idealization" and objectification of women and their bodies and lifestyles. By keeping women in a perpetual state of feeling that they are not "okay" that they must constantly "fix" something about themselves, many businesses stay in business. Many people who hold power over women continue to hold power over women by making them feel inherently "not okay," or at least doubtful. And it's doubly so for women of color who don't see themselves represented on the covers of fashion magazines or on TV shows (how many WOC are on "The Hills"? Just wondering...) or in commercials supposedly featuring "average Americans."
Anyway...

Yesterday, I was at Target. I needed some moisturizer for my face. No joke--there were eight whole shelves devoted to a gazillion different products, all of them couched in crazy language like "correcting" and "lifting" and "sculpting," like the moisturizers were strict nuns trying to whip our naughty skin into shape. I was totally cracking up. And I was completely overwhelmed. Then, in one corner, was the only moisturizer targeted at men that I could see. It said, "heals dry, chapped skin." That's it. Men apparently do not need to have their skin reprimanded. Their skin needs healing. So did mine. So I bought that.

Anyway, I have loads of thoughts about this, but mostly, I encourage you to be aware of the way that society and industry shape the world's perceptions of women and the ways in which we buy into that. You don't have to do anything but be aware, keep your eyes and ears open. But my guess is that once you are aware, you will start rejecting the standards imposed by others and start feeling freer to love yourself as you are. And then you can spend time thinking about things like how to stop global warming or end poverty or champion the rights of those who need champions or write amazing songs or books or make art or learn to surf or travel to Iceland or read philosophy, all of which sound much more interesting than worrying about the calories in a cookie.

Ah. That felt SO GOOD. Now I'm going to eat a bagel. With cream cheese. And I'm going to enjoy every bite. Also, my skin is very moisturized. Thank you, Vaseline for Men.