Links to Love

It's been way too long since I've done one of these posts. Let's jump on in.

Kim Kardashian Doesn't Realize She's the Butt of a Racist Joke

I don't know enough about Kim Kardashian to have formed much of an opinion about her as a person. She comes across as tone deaf and oblivious, and she's pretty tacky. Maybe it's my tendency to root for the underdog, but despite (or perhaps because of) all the negative press she gets, I don't really dislike her. However, I found this article about the racial implications of her photo shoot really eye opening.
When I was talking about this with my boyfriend, his response was something along the lines of "there are so many bigger, worse things in the world. Why are we even talking about this?" I think the reason why people get so involved in the whole issue is that these photos didn't happen in a vacuum. Black women are devalued in our society, and the way that they are portrayed sexually plays a huge part in that. These photos are not the same things as black women being targeted by a serial killer who knew their disappearances wouldn't be investigated as thoroughly because of their skin color, but it's a symptom of the same problem. No, Kim Kardashian is not black, but she does have the kind of figure that is typically associated with black women, making the parallels obvious.

A Vintage Nerd - Dell Purse Book 1964: 75 Hairstyles

Photo taken from A Vintage Nerd
And onto a subject that's a little less fraught. I love this post from Daphne at A Vintage Nerd about the cute little purse book she came across. My hair is getting long enough that I can set it with sponge rollers, so I'm thinking about giving some of these a try this weekend.

Who is the lumbersexual and is anything about him real?

I was deeply amused by this article. Although I think the actual term is pretty silly, I definitely know guys like this. The Lumberjack look is slowly edging out of Old-Timey Mustache and Pomp look in my neighborhood, but I'm pretty sure none of the guys that used to wax their mustaches to points have picked up any backwoods survival skills in the past six months. Of course, I also know flannel and beard dudes who really could build a log cabin from scratch if they wanted to, so maybe it's just a look.

The Disabled Children Locked Up in Cages
I talked a little bit about the stigma against mental disorders in the post that I put up for Veteran's Day, and this just shows how much worse it can get for people who are considered "abnormal." This is just heartbreaking - it's like baby prison for kids with autism or other disorders that make them difficult to care for.

The Psychology of "It's So Cute I Could Eat It" Phenomenon

Speaking of things that trigger my cute aggression, head over to She Loves Dresses to wish Jenny a happy birthday. She created an awesome project prompting her readers to send her selfies with a note about something they love about themselves. She also makes me want to squeeze her until she squeaks. Weird.
Into it. Apparently it helps us even out emotionally. The more aggressive you get, the bigger decline you have in positive emotions, bringing you back to a normal base state.

The Wrap Dress

Diane von Furstenberg didn't invent the wrap dress, but she was the one who brought them to the masses and made them into the wardrobe staple that they are today. According to DVF herself,

"...the V-neck wrap design fit a woman’s body like no other dress: snug around the chest and arms, tied flatteringly slim around the waist, full enough over the legs for a woman to take an unrestricted stride, yet tight enough to show off her bottom."

Hot stuff.


What do you remember learning from Sesame Street?

I may be the only kid in America that doesn't have fond memories of growing up with Sesame Street. I'm sure I must have watched it at some point, but I honestly don't remember it at all. There was a lot of Warner Brothers in my life that shaped my formative years, though - Animaniacs, Histeria, and anything and everything Bugs Bunny. I'd say irony and hammerspace were worthwhile subjects to discover at a young age...

Gone Girl (SO MANY SPOILERS. ALL THE SPOILERS. SERIOUSLY, I WILL SPOIL EVERYTHING)

Friday night I went to see Gone Girl. I'm sure most of you have heard about it, since reviews and thought pieces are all over the internet. Do I really even need to talk about something so omnipresent? Probably not, but I have thoughts, and I'd like to share them.
Ok, so like the title said, I'm kind of working on the assumption that you know what happens, so if you don't know and don't want to know, you should probably stop reading now.

I think most people agree that it's a good movie. By pretty much any metric, it is good movie. It's beautifully shot, well acted, and even though I'd read the book and knew all the twists and turns, it still managed to surprise me. It is violent at times, brutally so, but it uses it sparingly to drive home the themes of the movie - namely, the ways in which marriage twists us, and the lengths we will go to to get what we want.
What's really divided most people is the same issue that made the book quite divisive: is there a problem with the way that it portrays women?
I'm feminist as anything, and I actually love the way that it deals with women. Amy Dunne is objectively pretty evil, and you know what? She gets the ending that she wanted. I think it's actually pretty revolutionary that she doesn't get the kind of comeupence that, say, Glenn Close does in Fatal Attraction, or Jennifer Jason Leigh in Single White Female. After all, in the course of the movie she frames a boyfriend for rape, ruining his life. She frames her husband, Nick, for her murder. When she decides she wants her life back, she kills the ex-lover she's been dependent on and frames him for abducting and raping her. She is actually pretty terrifying, the kind of manipulative mastermind that you'd expect to see matching wits with Sherlock Holmes, and she comes out of the whole thing smelling like a rose.

I'm not saying that I like it when terrible people get away with terrible things. I think one of the reasons that people go to movies is because of the rule that bad guys usually get what's coming to them, which is generally not the case in real life. However, Amy Dunne has clearly decided to say fuck it, the rules do not apply to her. When she feels like she has been wronged, she takes cold, calculated, exacting vengeance, setting things up in such a way that the other person knows exactly what happened, and why, but no one else would believe it. Am I a terrible person for rooting for someone like that? (Yes. Yes I am.)
Something else that Amy has that female characters rarely get is agency. When she doesn't like her world, she remakes it in a way that suits her better. Yes, a lot of what she does is a reaction to something that a man does to her, but she is obviously the one deciding what the final outcome will be. She is the prime mover in this movie, and everyone else is just dancing to her tune.
Some of the criticism leveled at the movie is fair. I do think Nick does get set up as the protagonist, sort of by default - yes, he cheats, yes, he lies, yes, he's generally kind of a shitty person, but compared to Amy's malevolence, it would be hard for him not to come out looking like the good guy. Part of that, as others have pointed out, is that in order for the twist to work, we have to get more of the movie from Nick's point of view. Nick has to tell his story to other people, so he has more opportunities to reframe his actions in a positive way. We also get a little less of what's going on in his head, so the misogynistic undertones to things he thinks and says are largely left out. On Amy's side, everything is internal. She's hiding,  she's still manipulating the people around her, so she doesn't have the opportunity to comment on what's going on in the same way that Nick does. That's a fairly substantial difference between the book and the movie, which ends up weighting things towards Nick, but I think it's actually balanced out by a very tiny difference - in the book, Nick points out to Amy that she has to live the lie with him. She has to be perfect forever now. In the movie, that line is never said. To circle things back around to my initial point, what's different about this movie is that in the end, Amy gets what she wants.

I really liked something that Gillian Flynn, the author of Gone Girl, said in an interview with The Guardian. "The one thing that frustrates me is the idea that women are innately good." I think she has a really legitimate complaint. There are a million flavors of good girl, but bad women always have to have a backstory that explains why they're bad. They rarely get to just be evil because they're evil (and when they do, a la Disney, the Prince Charming is almost definitely going to skewer her with a sword before marrying the poor, hapless good girl), and they never get to be anti-heroes, spiraling down towards to their own destruction and making it look really cool. There are plenty of scary, truly bad women out there in the real world, and films should reflect that reality.

Has anyone else seen the movie, or read the book? What did you think of it?

Domestic Violence Awareness Month

I'm going to make a pretty controversial statement, and I'd like you to bear with me while I explain myself. Are you ready?
I think we should cancel Breast Cancer Awareness month.
Honestly, it's not because I'm some kind of terrible person who has no empathy for those fighting breast cancer. Really, I promise. Cancer has been serious business in my family, and it's not something that I take lightly.
However, before October was chosen as Breast Cancer Awareness month, it was Domestic Violence Awareness month. I feel like that issue has gotten lost in the shuffle, despite the fact that it's something that is actually affected by increasing its visibility.

Let's start off with some good news - intimate partner violence has declined significantly in the past 20 years, ever since the passage of the Violence Against Women Act in 1994. We have made a lot of strides towards keeping women safe, and giving them the resources they need to get out of abusive relationships. Since people raised in households were domestic violence occurs are more likely to become abusers themselves, it seems likely that it will only continue to decline in the future.
However, there are some segments of the population that are still at much greater risk of domestic violence. Women with disabilities are 2 to 4 times more likely to be victims of domestic violence, and it tends to last longer and be more serious than in the general population. African American women are 2.5 times more likely to be murdered by an intimate partner than white women are. An astonishing 40% of Native American women are subject to domestic violence, putting them at a 50% greater risk than the next highest population. So while progress has been made, there is still a lot of work to be done to ensure the safety of vulnerable members of our society.
In some ways, breast cancer is an easy thing to talk about, an easy thing to rally against. It is unequivocally bad. It strikes at random, and anyone, good, bad, or indifferent, can get it. There's no controversy to it, so people like to get behind the cause and the funny, slightly racy slogans and events that come with it. 
It seems like in the month of October, any company looking for good PR with the ladies runs some sort of promotion related to breast cancer awareness. The market is over-saturated with pink - pink ribbons, pink dresses, pink lipstick, pink water bottles, pink yogurt cups, pink necklaces, pink sunglasses, pink belly button rings, pink armbands on NFL players (more on that in a minute). I don't doubt the sincerity of the people who choose to buy these items, but I can't help but think that it's little more than a cynical marketing ploy on behalf of many of the companies that sell them. At this point, I'd say we're about as aware of breast cancer as a society can be; in pop cultural, it's devolved into little more than a cutesy slogan. While I'm sure many survivors appreciate the support, I have seen some women who hate that the vicious disease that has caused them so much pain and fear has become "Save the Boobies!", something cheeky and winking.

One example of the issue that I take with using Breast Cancer Awareness as a PR prop to get in good with the ladies is those pink armbands that NFL players wear, which I mentioned above. The NFL has had some serious and high profile issues with domestic violence - mostly recently, the furor that erupted when a video surfaced of Ray Rice brutally punching his then-fiance, Janay, in the face. For the past few years, the NFL has attempted to court female fans by promoting breast cancer awareness, and that has not changed this year, despite the rising concerns about the violence in their ranks. There is a Change.org petition circulating encouraging them to wear purple in support of Domestic Violence Awareness, but I have doubts about its potential success.

These photoshopped images of Covergirl ads, the "Official Makeup Sponsor of the NFL!" have been making waves on the internet recently.
One of the reasons I think it's so important to bring domestic violence to the fore is the way that we tend to talk about it. Domestic violence is like rape, in that if you're not the "perfect victim," people will find ways to blame you for it. Look at Janay Rice; in the video, they are arguing, and it does seem that she attacks him first. However, she's a petite woman, and he's a muscular NFL running back. While I don't think any sports commentators flat out said that she deserved what happened to her, several of them talked about how she provoked the attack. On the internet, where vile opinions flourish, plenty of people did say that she deserved it, and that they would have done the same thing in the circumstances.
Even more vile is the talk surrounding Christy Mack. Mack, if you don't know, is an alt model and adult film actress. She was horrifically attacked by her ex-boyfriend, an MMA fighter named War Machine. He left her with 18 broken bones, missing teeth, fractured ribs, and a ruptured liver. From her account, it seems likely that he intended to kill her.

Christy Mack released these photos after the attack.
Even many who express disgust over what happened to her start with "even a porn star doesn't deserve that!", as if porn stars are somehow of less value than other people. The thing that sickens and enrages me are the people that blame her for it. "She's a porn star, she got what she deserved." "What did she expect would happen, dating an alpha male type like that?" "I would have done the same thing if I caught my woman with another man." Never mind that fact they had broken up six months prior to the attack - sane people don't try to kill other people because of infidelity. Sometimes people make bad relationship choices, and that doesn't mean that they deserve to be violently assaulted. It is absolutely monstrous to devalue another human being for the work that they do to the point where you can rationalize that nearly being beaten to death is something they have earned.
The question that so many people ask when the issue of domestic violence comes up is why a woman would stay with an abusive partner. It seems so simple, so easy - someone hits you or hurts you, you get the hell out of there and don't look back. The last time I talked about this issue, I mentioned that I had asked my stepmom the same question. Many other women answered the same question on Twitter, with the hashtag #WhyIStayed, and I think the answers are really illuminating. There are a lot of reasons why a woman might stay in an abusive relationship - lack of resources, dependance, fear, and even love. Relationships are rarely violent from the start, and by the time it's escalated to that point, women might be in love with their abuser, and believe that he could change. They might be financially dependent on him - in many abusive relationships, the abuser may prevent their partner from working or having money, giving them few resources if they try to leave. Children complicate the issue tremendously. Although divorce is common, there is still a stigma against breaking up a family, and dealing with abuse sometimes seems like a better option than leaving children without a father. The victims may also blame themselves for the abuse, often because emotional abuse has stripped them of their self-esteem.
The sad fact is that it seems like our culture can only support one "women's issue" at a time, and I think it makes sense to divert some of the resources that breast cancer receives towards helping prevent domestic violence, and helping victims of it.
Domestic violence is 270% more likely to end up as homicide if there is a gun in the house, so change the laws to make it illegal for domestic abusers to own them. Create and fund more shelters for women to go when they do leave, and promote programs to give them a helping hand up, particularly if they have children. Several cities have introduced programs that monitor victims of domestic violence, and intervene when they believe that they are at greater risk; those should be expanded nationwide.
Above all, we need to re-frame the discussion about domestic violence. Instead of just telling victims to get out, we need to talk about what tools we can give them to help them do it. Interventions with abusers are just as important. Monitor their behavior, offer them therapy and domestic violence focused anger management training.
I, for one, am definitely going to be wearing purple this month; I encourage you to do the same.

Links to love

I've got some great reads for you guys today.
Flashback Summer: Loving Your Body vs. Making a Change

This is something that I've been thinking about in my own life. While I don't have any major weight issues, I have had a bit of creeping weight gain over the past few years. Part of me has just done a mental shrug, but I also know that it's easier to keep my weight down now than it would be to lose 5, or 10, or 20 lbs a few years down the road. What I think is a really important is continuing to love and respect yourself, even if you don't fit your own ideal. I don't think hating your body gets you anything but an eating disorder. You should always try to be your own friend, even when the temptation is to be your worst critic instead. After all, you wouldn't tell a friend that she's fat and ugly and gross and no one will ever love her. Why do so many women tell that to themselves? 
Ask Polly: Why Don't the Men I Date Ever Love Me?

Absolutely epic letter from an advice columnist to a woman who wrote in. It's worth a read, and it's definitely spurring me to find my spark. Say it with me: I. Should. Be. Cherished.
Use This One Word If You Want Your Facebook Posts to Do Better

Well, now I know how I'm going to start all of my status updates about blog posts. "Congratulations, world! You get to read more of my wit and witticisms."
The Afghan Girls Who Live As Boys

This article was really fascinating to me. What's interesting is not just that this happens, but that it happens regularly, and is accepted in society. It reminded me a little bit of something that I read about Albanian Sworn Virgins - women in the western Balkans (these days, mostly just in Albania) who swear to remain celibate in order to live their lives as men. Like Afghanistan, Albania is a strictly patriarchal society, and in the absence of a man to take care of the things that a man is supposed to take care of (like earning money or providing protection), women have to find some kind of workaround. While I deplore the necessity for it, I have to appreciate that there are accepted measures that women can take, where everyone kind of acknowledges that there has to be a way to circumvent the rules sometimes.
Take a One Way Trip From Tatty to Natty

And she eve handles her own luggage.
I love this article about the virtues of dressing up when you're traveling. Sure, there's something to be said for wearing comfortable clothes as well, but there's never really a good reason to be strolling through the airport in your PJs. When I think of glamorous travel, I always think of this photo of Dita, strolling through the airport looking like a million bucks. Sure, most of us don't have her means, or a hoard or paparazzi waiting for us when we disembark, but I like to dress like I do.

I'm an angry feminist, but I'm trying to dial back some of the actual anger

One of the ways that I define myself is as a feminist. I am someone who is deeply committed to the cause of equality, and all of the things that go along with that - equal pay for equal work; adequately representing the voices of women in all aspects of culture, from politics to the media to religion; promoting respect for women's bodily autonomy; not elevating one gender or set of gendered characteristics over another; not forcing people to conform to gender norms that may be stifling or constraining to them.
In some ways, the feminist movement, as it exists here in the US, is a deeply idealistic one, even though it can also be very cynical and pessimistic. Although that may sound contradictory, I think the two emotions go hand it hand. We're cynical and pessimistic because it seems like every day you hear about something really terrible happening because of the way that gender works in our society. A woman is brutally assaulted by her MMA fighter ex-boyfriend, but social media is flooded with people saying that she shouldn't be surprised because that's the kind of guy she went for, or somehow deserved it because she did porn. In Georgia, an ex-cop, who was convicted of raping a woman and even threatened to literally penetrate her with his gun, just got his gun rights back. In South Carolina, which has one of the highest rates of domestic violence in the country, only 18 counties out of 46 have shelters for women seeking to escape abusive relationships. In Texas, the governer is fighting measures that will make sure prisons are adequately staffed in order help end sexual assault there because he says it costs too much money.
The idealistic impulse in feminism manifests itself in the way that we talk about what has to be done about all of these things. Real change can't occur until there is a massive shift in the way that we think and talk about gender in our society; anything else just feels like a bandaid, a stopgap measure that is only designed to react to a problem, not actually fix it.
Yesterday my boyfriend sent me a link to an article that he was critical of: "Why is it easier to invent anti-rape nail polish than it is to stop rapists?" I will admit, the headline is a little misleading; of course it's easier to invent a thing that reacts to a chemical compound than it is to change the way an entire culture thinks about sex, consent, and rape. He felt like the author was far too critical of the guys who invented the nail polish, and that given that we live in a society where rape is a real possibility that women have to contend with, any tools that they can use to help prevent it should be applauded.

In a way, I guess I agree with that. There are certain things that I do, or have done, that make me feel safer. I used to carry pepper spray on a regular basis, and it's still kicking around in a drawer somewhere. In my post about street harassment, I mentioned that I may or may not react in a certain way to being catcalled because I don't know what the repercussions might be.
On the other hand, I understand what the author was trying to say. It's the idealism in play - what kind of world do we live in that women feel like they have to arm themselves with roofie detecting nail polish in order to feel safe? How is that different from the other "rape prevention" techniques and devices that have been recommended over the years? That's included everything from from a condom you can leave in that basically has built in vagina dentata (side note, the movie Teeth is actually pretty awesome and you should watch it), to pissing on yourself if someone is trying to rape you because then they'll be grossed out and stop, to not going out and drinking or "dressing like sluts." It's not that the nail polish or the impulse behind it are necessarily bad, but it feels like yet another burden that women have to take on to prevent bad things from happening to them.

Of course, the world that we live in is this one. Is it merely pragmatic to accept that, while the only person to blame for a rape is the rapist, the are certain things that women can do that might diminish their risk? It seems like that just leads back to victim blaming.
If we accept the statement that there are things that women can do to keep from being raped, the logical conclusion would seem to be that if you are raped, you must have done something wrong. The tendancy to do that in our society is already so strong. Rape cases don't make it to trial very often, and when they do, victims have to be prepared to answer questions about what they were wearing, if they were flirting with their assailant, and details about their sexual history. Defense lawyers wouldn't ask these kinds of questions if the answers, irrelevant though they are, didn't result in acquittals.

The best anti-rape campaign that I've ever seen.
I want to have discussions with people about the problems in our society. Rape is the one that's foremost on my mind right now because of this article and because of Slutwalk, but I will argue with people about birth control, abortion, domestic violence, racial discrimination, and inequality in all its forms. What I don't want to do is alienate the people that I'm having these discussions with, or shut the conversation down without hearing them out. The thing is, I'm absolutely convinced that I'm right about these things; I don't argue positions I don't believe in, unless I'm trying to play devil's advocate. Sometimes, that level of passion is an asset, and I feel like I've definitely brought people around, or at least worn them down, by finding different ways to explain things to them, coming up with different metaphors and analogies and questions to try and give them an "a-ha" moment.
Sometimes, though, people have told me that they feel like I'm shouting them down, and that I'm not listening to what they have to say. That's something that I do regard as a failing on my part. How can you expect people to listen to you and respect what you have to say if you don't give them the same courtesy? I want to help change the way that people see the world, not close their minds to what I have to say by bludgeoning them with rhetoric.
This isn't intended as a criticism of other feminists - there are so many terrible injustices in this world that should make me angry, and do. But there's definitely a time and a place for that anger, and I think every person has to decide for themselves when and where that is. For me, I'm just trying to bring things down a notch in my personal life, with the people that I love and respect. 

My new normcore hair and my totally awesome weekend

I go to a professional for major color changes - going from black to blonde, for instance - but most of the time I do my hair myself. Usually it works out pretty well. I've been coloring my hair for many years now, so I generally understand what my hair's going to do and how to deal with it.
My hair was in desperate need of a touchup, and I was interested in going a little bit darker for the fall. I was shooting for a medium to dark golden blonde, and the dye that I picked up looked like it should have been exactly that. When I got it on my head, it looked darker than I expected, but that's not that uncommon; when I was dying my hair a very silvery blonde a few years back, for example, the dye was a deep violet color.
So I was a little surprised when I washed everything out, and my hair had turned out to be this color.

I like it, but I'm not quite sure what I think of it. On the one hand, it's pretty close to my natural color (just lacking in the red tone that my hair has) (at least, I think so, anyway. It's been a really long time since I've seen my natural color), so it should be much lower maintenance than the more drastic colors that I usually go for, like a light blonde or black. I do think it's kind of pretty, and it definitely has more dimension than the single process blonde that I had before. And, ok, my hair looks way softer and healthier.
I don't think I have ever had hair that's just brown before, though. Not that there's anything wrong with having brown hair, but given what I'm used to, I guess it just seems slightly... boring? No, I shouldn't say that. It's not like I look at other brunettes out think that their hair is boring, I promise. It's flattering and pretty, but it's not as dramatic as the colors that I usually gravitate towards, and that's going to take some getting used to.

I don't think I've ever posted a full photo of this Trashy Diva set, but it's one of my favorite things.
But enough about my hair. I actually had a pretty eventful weekend, at least for me. On Saturday I met up with some friends for Chicago's Slutwalk, which is an annual event to combat rape, harassment, and violence against women. The event came about after a police officer in Canada told a group of college women that if they don't want to get raped, they "shouldn't dress like sluts." The idea that a woman is "asking for it" or is responsible for being raped because she is dressed a certain way is absolutely sickening. Rape and street harassment aren't about sex, they're about power, the power that men feel like they have over women's bodies and actions. Slutwalk sends a powerful message that even a provocatively dressed woman still has rights, and that clothing cannot give consent. You can check Facebook for your local event if you would like to get involved.
When I was riding my bike to meet up with my boyfriend afterwards, the sky opened up and absolutely drenched me. I have a feeling it's going to be a very wet fall, which is kind of depressing. Rainy springs are great, but rainy autumns are just kind of miserable. Wet leaves don't crunch under your feet very well.
On Sunday, I got to see Robyn and Röyksopp at Millennium Park. Although I'm not all that familiar with either act, I like what I've heard from both of them, and they put on an amazing show. The friend that I was going to go with couldn't come because she sprained her ankle, but she gave her ticket to my boyfriend, so I got to go with him instead. They put on an amazing show, and I had a great time. I've got some videos up on my Facebook page if you want to check them out.
So what did you guys get up to this weekend?

Links to Love

I seem to have gotten a rather large influx of new readers with my last post on street harassment, largely due (I believe) to a link from my lovely friend Mallory of Miskatonic Musings. While I'm happy to see that what I wrote resonated with a lot of women, it made me really sad as well - we shouldn't have to go through this on such a regular basis. And I do want to make it clear that I take no issue with a sincere compliment, but what we're talking about is a very different thing, and yes, we can tell the difference. It's not a compliment when a guy licks his lips and stares at your tits when says "nice dress," it's harassment.
Also sad is that fact that as bad as it can feel here in the US, there are places in the world where it's far worse. In India and parts of the Middle East, just to name other places where it's been making the news recently, women experience much higher rates of street harassment, and it's more likely to escalate to physical contact such as groping or assault. A cultural shift that emphasizes women's autonomy and dignity is what is necessary to stop a lot of the issues that women face, from street harassment to sexual assault and domestic violence.
But, hey, all this shit is making me depressed, so let's talk about something else.
1. The Scientifiic Case for Decriminalizing Sex Work
Want to check the spread of HIV and AIDS? Start treating sex workers like human beings.

According to recent data from the World Health Organization, female sex workers are 14 times as likely to have HIV as other women, yet fear of arrest and stigma often prevents them from seeking medical care.

2. I'm Forcing Myself To Wear Beloved Old Clothes I Can't Bear To Donate
I totally get where this girl is coming from. I don't follow the "if you haven't worn it in a year, get rid of it" rule because it always seems like when I've done that, the thing I just got rid of becomes cool again and I miss it, but I definitely have items from my early college days that I just cannot get rid of. Mostly old band t-shirts. Sentimental value, y'all.

3. Why Can't We Stop Talking About Bikini Bodies?
If you have a body and a bikini, you have a bikini body. Even Gisele doesn't look like Gisele without a lot of work, so it's about time we stop making women feel like they need to have perfectly toned and supple bodies in order to rock a swimsuit in public.

4. Sisterhood of the Traveling Dress
The lovely Joanna of Dividing Vintage Moments is sending one of the dresses in her fabulous collection around the US (and then on to the rest of the world). If you're interested, post a comment by tomorrow. I'm signed up already, and I can't wait to style this beautiful piece.

5. Weird Al Endures
Weird Al's new album, Mandatory Fun, is #1 on the Billboard Charts. Just soak that up for a moment.

Let's talk about street harassment

You know that feeling when you LOVE the outfit that you're wearing, and you hair is cooperating for once, and you know your makeup is really on point, and you just feel good? You're walking down the street - maybe you're just going to work, or heading home from a movie, or just want to go for a walk because it's a nice summer day and that's something people do - when you feel the hair on the back of your neck raise. You look around, and there's a guy, standing there, staring at you. You quickly look away (don't make eye contact, it only encourages them), square your shoulders, and speed up a little bit as you walk past. And then you hear it. "Nice ass, baby." "Hey. Hey you. Girl." Or just a hissing between their teeth, or a whistle. Suddenly, that good mood is just gone.

I've seen this photo a few times, and usually people seem to be laughing about it - "look at those virile men reacting to a beautiful women on the street!" All I can see when I look at it, though, is the discomfort on her face.
It can be hard to explain why it makes me feel so bad. I've told stories about street harassment to people who will laugh and tell me that I should be flattered, it means they think I'm hot; or tell me just to ignore it, guys don't mean anything by it; or shrug and say, "that sucks," their lack comprehension written on their faces.
What I hate is that it makes me feel shame. Yes, I like to dress up and look nice, and while that's definitely a thing that I do for myself, I also love a sincere compliment. This kind of harassment, though, makes me feel like I should not be wearing what I'm wearing, that I shouldn't be where I am. It makes me feel like I've done something wrong just by existing in public.
I have to admit, I don't react very well to this, largely because it makes me really fucking angry. Like, angry in the way where I know that I have had a heated argument with someone, but I can't remember exactly what I've said because it's all been lost in the haze of rage. I've definitely barked like a dog at a guy (because that is what he sounded like to me), confronted someone by asking if they think I'm a hooker (not because I have any issue with sex workers, but because they are, amongst all women, the only ones you might reliably assume would be interested in a proposition, made on the street, to engage in oral sex), and just straight up told more than one guy to stop talking to me, with varying levels of success.
At least, that's the way I might react when I feel safe - if I'm in a very public place where I can reasonably assume even the biggest asshole will not react with violence. If I'm somewhere isolated, or close enough to my home that I might be followed, I inevitably stare at the ground, pretend I've gone deaf, and walk, stiff-legged, as fast as I can to wherever I'm heading. Because the other thing that people don't get sometimes is the fear. Maybe that guy on the corner doesn't mean anything with his creepy stares and lewd comments, or maybe he's the guy that's going to hit you if you tell him off. Or maybe he's the guy that's going to follow you until you're isolated and drag you into an alley and rape you, and worrying about that kind of shit is why some women sound like paranoid basket cases to people who don't understand what it's like.
While I wouldn't say that I experience more cat-calling and street harassment while wearing vintage, it's definitely got a different tenor. Before I'd get the wolf-whistle/hey baby kind of thing; now, guys feel like they should come up and talk to me. Well, not me, exactly; my body, my clothes, my tattoos. I don't have any particular value as a person in the interaction, just my seamed stockings ("Are you wearing a garter belt and everything?" Seriously, what fucking business is my underwear to you?) or the cleavage that my "Nice dress!" is showing, or the red lipstick that a guy just can't resist telling me he loves. They stand too close, make too much eye contact, have a creepy way of talking that makes it clear that I have unwillingly been incorporated into the fetish video running through their brains.
On Saturday, I went and saw a movie, and on my way to the theater this guy, who was standing by a building down the street, went, "ooh, that's nice." I pretended I didn't hear and kept walking, but he started following me, yelling "You! Hey, you! You with the bike!" I had to lock up my bike, so I stopped and rounded on him. "What? What do you want?" "Your tattoo, the bird, what does it mean?" "It means none of your business. Stop talking to me." "Why you gotta be such a bitch about it? I don't have to talk to rude bitches." And then he finally walked off, still talking to himself about bitches and rude women.

"Hey! Hey, you! You acting like an asshole! Fuck off."
When I was telling this story to my boyfriend, even to my own ears this sounded trivial. It seemed stupid that I was so worked up over a 60 second exchange from some random dude on the street, but that fact is that this happens all the damn time, and it wears on you, and it makes you feel helpless.
I've seen some great videos of women confronting their harassers, and although it's satisfying to watch, it doesn't really feel like it changes anything. Most of the time, they don't seem to realize that they've done anything wrong, that women are not on display for their pleasure, and that women do not owe them their time or conversation.
I would love to hear stories from other women about how they've dealt with street harassment, and what we might be able to do to change it.
Organizations to know:
Hollaback
Stop Street Harassment
Cards Against Harassment

Badasses in Bustles

Although I'm not as into steampunk as I used to be (it's just gotten a bit diluted, as if you can add clockwork robots to any shitty Victorian-era story and make it better), but some of the real life women from that time period are inspiring me to want to write my own piece of steampunk fiction.
One of the bloggers that I enjoy, Porcelina of Porcelina's World, said something that I found really interesting in her book review of The All Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion by Fannie Flagg, the author of Fried Green Tomatoes. She had been reading other reviews of the book and disliked the way that they characterized the main character, calling her weak or a pushover, when she saw her as kind and self-sacrificing. I agree that there are all kinds of strength in the world, and the kind of strength that lets you make sacrifices for your family, support others, and respond with gentleness and kindness in any situation should not be thrown over in favor of traditionally masculine, physical strength. It's less obvious, less flashy, but no less valuable in society or in fiction.
That said, there is something undeniably awesome about the unexpected ass kicker, and what is more unexpected than a woman from the turn of the 20th century doing the kicking? The corsets and bustles and gowns and culture that said that women are weak, fragile things that must be protected for their own good - they had to overcome all of that, which makes a display of physical toughness all that more interesting. 
Victorian Strangeness: The Tale of the Women Who Turned Vigilante
A historical antecedent to the Gulabi Gang of India, this group of women decided to make sure a wife-beating miller never brutalized his family again. They dragged him from his house, flogged him with whatever came to hand, and then threatened to drown him in the mill pond if he ever hit his family again.

Now, we could go into all of the causes of domestic violence, and I realize that this kind of retaliatory violence often leads to escalation. That said, who hasn't thought that people like this just deserve a taste of their own medicine?
The Amazons of Edwardian London: Kick-Ass Suffragette Bodyguards
This one is my favorite. Seriously, if I ever have a chance to get reincarnated, I want to suffragette who knows jiu-jitsu.

Police and civilians alike were incredibly violent against suffragettes in Britain, and in order to protect their leaders, they formed the bodyguard - about 30 young women who provide security, and keep the leaders from being arrested. Many of them trained in jiu-jitsu, and would also practice with wooden clubs.
After the battle of Glasgow, in which 50 police with truncheons brutalized 25 members of the bodyguard armed with simple wooden clubs, then dragged Emmaline Pankhurst, the leader of the movement, off the jail, things began to change in the movement. Members began to resort to acts of vandalism and arson in order to get their point across, which of course endeared them to absolutely no one. With the outbreak of WWI, the issue was temporarily shelved, but in 1918, British women finally won the right to vote.
If You Will: Topless Female Duelists
Game of Thrones fans, you probably already love a girl with a sword. This topless duel, though, takes the cake. It was the first duel ever to take place between two women, with female seconds and a woman presiding over the whole thing, and at the suggestion of the presiding judge, it was done topless. For, you know, health reasons. (No, really. The judge, who had worked as a nurse, realized that wounds that became fouled with cloth were more easily infection, and the obvious solution was to get rid of the clothes. Duh.)

Also great - the fact that they were fighting over floral arrangements.
Badass of the Week: Milunka Savic
I am a massive fan of Terry Pratchett, and one of his best novels, in my opinion, is Monstrous Regiment. After endless years of war and famine in an Eastern European analog, a young woman disguises herself as a man to join the army and try to track down her beloved brother. Of course, she's not the only woman to have that bright idea.

Milunka Savic is the most decorated female soldier in military history. Very handy with a hand grenade and utterly fearless in the face of what normal people would be sensibly afraid of (like gunfire and cannon fire and lots of enemy soldiers), this Serbian broad fought in three different wars, personally taking over 50 soldiers captive over the course of it. Even in her 60s, after marrying and having children, she remained tough as nails, refusing to attend a Nazi banquet during WWII and then surviving her subsequent internment in a concentration camp.

There is no shortage of tough women in history who decided that the rules were not going to apply to them. These are some of my favorite from this particular time period, but who are some of yours?

Links to Love

1. Rare shots of New York's 1990s drag scene
It seems appropriate, since I was posting photos of my guy and I in drag yesterday, to post some photos of folks who are actually good at it.


2. The Rules of Being Glamorous
The first thought I had when I saw the title of this post from the awesome British blogger Retrochick was "really? I thought you were cooler than that." And then I read it, and it's way more about how to just have a happy, engaged life. These are good rules to follow, whether you're looking for glamour or not.

Jean Harlow is always glamorous, even when she's just running lines.

3. Why are we grossed out by women with armpit hair?
Best guess - all of the sexy pheromones hair diffuses makes us think of sex, and since sex is a taboo, we have to get rid of the hair to get rid of all the dirty thoughts it gives us. *shrug* Ok, works for me.

Sophia Loren: Sexy armpit hair having lady.
Also, did anyone else watch Golden Girls? Remember that episode where Rose talks about how she wasn't allowed to shave her legs, and so her classmates came up with the meanest nickname for her? And it was "Rose with the hairy legs"? I think about that every time someone discusses body hair on a woman.
4. Pocahontas: Fantasy and Reality

The divide in interpreting her story is not just between cultures; in academic circles, there are still factions with brittle pride warring over whether Pocahontas really saved John Smith from death, whether he made the story up, or whether the narrative was about a ritual drama John Smith simply didn't understand. Some experts argue about the appropriation of Pocahontas as an American Indian woman that the larger public has reduced to a “Pocahottie” Halloween outfit. None of these tropes is centered within a firm Algonquian indigenous worldview, perhaps an almost impossible task 400 years later. Divergent takes on historical events will not always be reconciled.

5. How the bicycle paved the way for women's rights
I don't bike as much as I would like to (my iron steed needs some maintenance before I start commuting on it again), but I love the sense of freedom and speed that it gives me. The best part might be the illustrations that accompany it, which were taken from an 1897 magazine article about the state of ladies' legs after all of that manly cycling activity.


6. My Imaginary Friends: The Beauty YouTuber Economy
I don't watch a lot of YouTube videos like this, but I love what the writer has to say about the way we relate to bloggers in general. There are some people that I read where I'm like, "I want to be your friend, I think it would be a hoot to stand around with cocktails in our hands pretending like we're famous while people covertly check us out." Glad to know I'm not alone in this.

Talia Castellano was a young beauty blogger who used makeup to keep her spirits up as she fought her battle with cancer.

Domestic Violence Is Not a Thing of the Past

I'm sorry for the abrupt switch from vintage swimwear and how to wear pastels to such a serious issue, but I recently read an article that got me thinking a lot about a very important issue: domestic violence. I should warn you that the post below might be triggering for some people.

********************************************************************************

Laura Aceves, 2009
I am a feminist, but I am also a person of privilege. I'm white; I have a college degree; I have enough money to be mostly financially secure; I'm cis-gender; I have a partner who would never dream of hurting me. The issues that I have to worry about, like street harassment and micro-aggressions at work, are aggravating and might disadvantage me financially compared to the men in my field, but it's rare that they put me in serious physical danger.
Last night I read an article that was absolutely gut-wrenching. The story of Laura Aceves, a young mother who was murdered by her violent ex-boyfriend, is an all too common one, but what really saddened and enraged me was the response from the authorities that she went to for protection. After being beaten and threatened by her boyfriend, she left him, and after he stalked and attacked her, she filed a restraining order. He violated the restraining order numerous times without consequences, and despite Aceves' frantic attempts to get help, he shot and killed her.
Some select quotes from the sheriff, Bob Grudek:

'“This is a very serious social problem,” he said, speculating that the crime was related to the breakdown of the traditional family structure. “Maybe if our culture goes back to when we had different values ... I don’t remember when I was a kid hearing about any domestic violence.”'

 'Grudek said domestic violence prevention should focus on why women return to their abusers, and that it wasn’t “logical or responsible” to think the criminal justice system could solve the problem.'

There are several things wrong with what Grudek has to say here. For one thing, domestic violence has been on the decline for the past several decades; the reason why he doesn't remember "hearing about any domestic violence" when he was a kid is that people didn't talk about it the way that we do now. It was something that frequently dismissed as distasteful, something that happened to a lot of women, but not something to be discussed in public. Oftentimes, it was something that "women brought on themselves," with their nagging and complaining, and if it was that big of a problem, "why don't they leave?"

That's the response that a lot of people have when they hear tragic stories of domestic violence - "why don't they just leave?" And the fact is, it's not that simple. The women who are the most likely to be abused are also the women who are the least likely to have the resources to get away. They tend to be poorer, with less education. Often they have children, and they don't know how they're going to take care of them alone. Abusers will frequently isolate their victims, and they may feel like they have no place to go and no one to turn to.
My stepmother was a victim of domestic violence at the hands of the man that she was married to before she married my father. I heard stories from her and from her children, and I remember asking her why she didn't leave. This was in the 60s and 70s. She had six young kids, not much money, and a family where violence was the norm, not the exception. In her mind, there were no options. Staying was just what you did; quitting was the weak thing to do.
I'm ashamed, now, that I said that to her, but I think the response that I had was indicative of the way that most people think of violence against women - that it is something that they, somehow, control. You frequently hear the same language used against rape victims as you do against victims of domestic violence. They've "put themselves in a bad situation"; they're "asking for it"; they "should have tried harder to get away."

And many women do try to get away. They leave, the call the cops, they tell their families, they get restraining orders. Like Laura Aceves, they end up getting dragged back in by threats or coercion, or they are assaulted anyway. Statistically speaking, women are the most vulnerable shortly after they've left their partners, because leaving causes the abuser to escalate.
Sheriff Grubek was also wrong that there's nothing the authorities can do to stop it. In the past several years, there have been a lot of tools developed to help victims to domestic violence before they end up like Laura Aceves.
40% of people with no-contact orders violate them, but that number drops to close to zero when the offenders are forced to wear a GPS monitor. Judges in Arkansas, where she was killed, have the power to order offenders to wear them, but only three counties out of 75 there have done so.
Several cities and states have also created assessment programs to try and determine how likely an abuser is to escalate, and will take steps to intervene before the situation can worsen. Maryland, where the first program of this kind was developed, has seen a significant reduction in homicides relating to domestic violence.
There are also things that you can do. Write a letter to your state representative asking them to implement a Lethality Assessment Program in your area. You can also donate to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, or a local domestic violence charity or shelter in your area.
I do want to make a note that domestic violence, intimate partner violence, whatever you want to call it, is not an issue that affects just women. While women are more likely to be victims and are more likely to be killed at the hands of their partners, men can also be victims, and I don't want to diminish or neglect their experiences either.
As much as we may want to view domestic violence as a thing of the past, it is still an issue that affects millions of women every day. The only way that it's ever going to end is if we speak up about it, remove the shame and stigma from those who suffer, and use all of the tools at hand to stop the offenders as soon as we can.

Links to love

1. I don't care what you say, I will never try oil pulling
I do not understand this fad at all. As she explains in the article, there are some minimal benefits to oil pulling, but don't start talking about how it's going to purify or detoxify your body if you want me to keep listening. I'm sure the Ancients had many Secrets, but quick weight loss and tooth whitening were not among them.


2. Elliot Rodger and the poisonous ideals of masculinity
As I'm sure all of you know, recently a young man went on a shooting rampage in Southern California, killing six people and himself. Before he died, he made Youtube videos and wrote a manifesto that made it clear that while mental illness was the reason why he did what he did, misogyny was what directed it. There is nothing wrong with masculinity, but the way that our society prizes it above all else is sick and dangerous.

3. Bunny Yeager, pinup portraitist, dies at 85
Bunny was the photographer who captured so of Bettie Page's most iconic images. I actually had not heard of her until she passed, but I was really inspired by her life, and by the fact that a woman was so responsible for helping create images that still inform my own style and expression.


4. Laverne Cox is on the cover of Time magazine
The amazing Lavern Cox is on the cover of Time! I think this is a great move for them, frankly; the Orange is the New Black  star was snubbed for their 100 Most Influential People list, despite being the overwhelming front-runner in an online poll that they took that featured her. She is an incredible woman, and I think that it's great that she is opening up the discussion about trans issues.
To be honest, I have not always been as sensitive as I should have been towards trans folks that I've encountered. I let my curiosity about their changing bodies be the focus of my discussions in a way that I now realize was very invasive. So thank you, Laverne Cox and Janet Mock and other amazing trans activists, for pointing out what so many of us do that makes can make the trans community feel alienated.


5. Junebugs and Georgia Peaches review The Oblong Box's budget pinup tops
I'm always looking for a good deal, and these budget pinup tops look like the bomb.  I always appreciate it when blogs bring lesser known brands to a broader audience, and I think once they get a few more colors back in stock, I'm going to have to place an order for one (or two) myself.

Links to love

1. Kudos To This Portrait Series For Not Erasing LGBTQ Identities While Proving They’re Just Like You
The Self Evident Truths Project is a massive photography project that aims to capture the portraits of 10,000 individuals on the LGBTQ spectrum. The photos manage to capture a little something of their queer identities while also making them human and relatable. There's also a stories section on their website, some of which are uplifting, some of which are heartbreaking. 


2. Why you should fight your judgemental side eye during shorts season
I stumbled across this article shortly after I wrote my post from yesterday, and I cannot agree with it more. Maybe you don't want to rock a pair of "janties," but demeaning other women who do serves no purpose other than to police and shame them. 


3. A tropical breeze dress
I am loving this homemade dress on my fellow vintage blogger Tasha from By Gum, By Golly. I've been dying over tropical prints lately (anyone want to buy me something pretty by Alfred Shaheen?), and this makes me want to learn how to sew my own clothes.


4. Oscar in the utility belt: 9 actors who won Academy Awards after playing comic-book characters
For a long time it felt like there was a bit of a genre ghetto in Hollywood. You could be a serious actor who did "real" movies, or you could be a B-level actor who did action/sci-fi/fantasy. With the explosion of comic book movies in the late 90s, the names started to get bigger. Bigger budget genre flicks = bigger names = bigger profits (usually). Right now, it seems like comic book movies, particularly in the Marvel Universe, are the best place to spot talented actors.


5. The Ryno prepares to charge
I think I want one.