Monday, January 8, 2001

Special Chick-Centered Edition!

I ended up having to pick up some magazines for homework and for some reason I picked up all the feminist ones...which inspired this one-off female-related log featuring a lot of magazines/zines and other chickish stuff. Guys, I'm sorry you may be bored (may?), but don't fear, the log will be back to its usual mix of the bizarre and pissy next time.

Monday, January 8, 2001
Bridget Jones Movie Updates
Now I was completely amused by the books (here's samples from the last one), but so far I think kind of akin to the quote here about Renee Zellweger: 'As Bridget approaches 40, she is to be played by a pert-breasted nymphet barely out of her teens,' said The Times . 'Of all the clunking, Hollywood idiocy. The only funny thing about Bridget Jones is that she's not young and perfect,' piled on The Evening Standard . 'Casting her as a young and perfect thing is like remaking The Elephant Man with Jude Law.' I haven't seen the movie quite yet, but I have my doubts. Her English accent may be spot on, but she's still frigging 31...and then there's the weight issue.

This log OBSESSES on RZ's weight no end, as well as others ("Colin Firth is taking a method approach to his role in BJD, losing a ton of weight to look better than his on-screen rival Hugh Grant. According to the Sun, Colin lost two stone because '[he] figured he needed to lose some weight to look more the part of the romantic lead.'). There's the Harper's shoot debacle, for instance. They wanted to put her on the cover because of her being in the movie, then pretty much kicked her off for being 10 pounds overweight. (Note the end of this section emphasises she's "looking much trimmer.") Freaking 10 pounds? Not only is that stupid in generalfor 10 pounds and stupid in particular given the MAIN CHARACTER OF THE MOVIE HAS A SLIGHT WEIGHT PROBLEM (hello?!), Bridget usually is going back and forth from 119-130ish pounds. Sheesh. (Heck, a whole point made in the book is how she doesn't look good at her dream weight). Then there's this article that HAS to emphasize her weight in great detail: "Not that you would ever describe the new Zellweger as fat (she is far too small-boned, too petite, for that, and her lily-white legs are still in exquisite shape), just a little on the puffy side, with a bosom and a stomach and the vague hint of a double chin, all perfectly complemented by an unremarkable black sweater and elasticated-waist skirt, now covered in a film of dog hair. Exactly the sort of figure, in other words, you'd expect of someone who didn't exercise, who sometimes binged and drank Chardonnay every night. Which must have been a tough call for someone who is normally an American size two, weighs seven-and-a-half-stone and feels weird if she doesn't exercise every day.
Yeah,' chuckles Zellweger wryly, 'London's a little different from LA, where there's such a heightened awareness about appearance, and physicality is so heavily scrutinised."

Monday, January 8, 2001
Give the Misanthropic Bitch a tubal
Okay, perhaps an um, controversial choice to link to, but she makes some good points here: "I don't want kids because I don't want kids. No one wants a list of reasons why I don't want to be an actress or pilot or transgendered English professor -- and if I wanted kids, no one would ask me to explain why.
But the world is my shrink when I say that kids aren't in my future.
It's impossible to believe. Everyone wants kids, even if they don't particularly like them. It's what people do when their careers peak or there's a five-hour blackout or the birth control pills are mysteriously flushed down the toilet.
It's not a decision that warrants considerable thought. A woman will agonize over dying her hair Brazillian Topaz or Tahitian Honey, but choosing to have a kid is as easy as poking holes in a condom. A man will agonize over which DVD player to buy, but choosing to have a kid is as easy as turning to his wife in bed and saying, "Let's have a kid."

The MB then goes to see a doctor, who in all honesty does a hell of a lame job in arguing with her. Here's the worst of it:"He agreed, and then I asked him if he'd grill me if I said that I wanted eight kids. "Probably not," he said. And then he asked a question that would send Coatlique into seizures. "What if you meet a millionaire?" A millionaire? As if the promise of a $15,000 diamond engagement ring is worth compromising my principles. I responded, "What, do you think I'm a whore? Do you think I'd give up my beliefs to live in an expensive house?"

Monday, January 8, 2001
Skirt
Yeah, I looked through everything, or so it seems. Warning: obscene amount of quoting to be found here.

Gloria Gets Married: "I'm a twenty-something, single, professional woman with more interest in travel and my career than in finding a husband. I'm the living the life I've always wanted and it's the life that society prepared me to have -- with a strong education and a world of opportunities. Yet all around me, would-be cultural role models of women living independently seem somehow to fall short of being the real deal. Bridget Jones gets her man. Melissa Banks' heroine in "Girls Guide" finds fulfillment in her beau's arms. Even sassy Sarah Jessica Parker leaves "Sex in the City" behind to go home to her husband.
For all the "You go, girl!" T-shirts and "girl power" bumper stickers out there, the larger culture still pounds into women that real success can only be found through a diamond on your left hand."

Teen Dream Sellout: "The road more traveled brings respect and salaries seldom found on the grassy road wanting wear, despite the idealism of Frost's classic poem we all pretend to embrace. Tell people you're a poet and you quickly sense they long to slip some change into your pocket. Tell them you're a banker and their eyes reflect solid approval. Tell yourself all these people can't be wrong and your dreams remain mere dreams."

Hindsight: "I wish someone had told me when I started college about the odds: the high probability that I would have to support myself for the rest of my life. And that I would most likely marry and later divorce, and then also probably have to support my children without their father's help."

It's About Time: "I remember thinking that, in so many other categories of life, if you knew what you wanted or needed, you could take action to arrange for it. You want a different job? Send out resumes. A change of scenery? Start saving to take a trip. Get in shape? Walk, jog, join a health club. Want to generously love a good man? Nothing... I also think that there is a certain fatigue and impatience that can set in when young women are doing all these things and still don't have someone to love and don't see anyone on the horizon. It's become a cliche to talk about the number of attractive, intelligent, funny, spirited and generous young women who don't have someone good and decent to love."

I Miss It Less Than You Think: "I don't expect anyone to believe me when I say that I am happier being single. I don't expect anyone to understand that being single, to me, does not mean being available. I have friends who are married or in long-term relationships. They look at me and see a void, a flagrant violation of the sexual order. They want to set me up with some friend or other, some great guy, their chiropractor, their recently divorced co-worker. They worry more about me "ending up alone" than I do. They think I should be more social. They think I have given up on romance. They wonder how I can possibly function without sex."

Not quoted, but shocking, is Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is, where I first heard that Bob Dole donated money to McCain's campaign. Geez!

Unfortunately, after a certain point all the articles are on pages with frames, but here's where to look for the good ones in the shoes/columns sections: This one hasGet Up And Running, about getting more women in to politics. Kinda sad though that stuff like this goes on: "Recently, I met a woman who was dedicated to her community, having worked on a number of projects through which she brought real change and improvement to her city. Sheila wanted to run for city council. In tears, she struggled with her embarrassment and tried to explain why she was sure that she could not run. She had worked as an exotic dancer during college." While the writer of this article encourages Gloria to run because other women and voters will understand, I sadly wonder about this given the political climate.

This one has Talk Dirty To Me. "Because housework is political. No matter how enlightened our men are, it's still a gender thing. As women we are expected to keep the damn house clean. And not just clean, but cleaner than clean. White, sparkling and smelling of more chemicals than Dow-Corning. Neat is not enough. It must be sterile and stack-free, devoid of the flotsam and jetsam of daily life. Because that's what we women are supposed to be.
Patricia Schroeder said that in the beginning of her 24 years in the House, women's magazines would frequently write to her asking for her favorite recipe. They refused to believe her when she said she was too busy working to think about the perfect aspic. Finally, in exasperation, she had a sheet printed up that said something like "First, find a relatively clean bowl, preferably not the dog's water dish. Second, pour in desired amount of cold cereal. Garnish with milk. Serve immediately."
They were appalled."

Two non-quoted ones can be found here (Tree Tales) and here (Penny Wise, which is really touching but you need to read it all). And finally, you can find the story of Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be victims.

"I have been trained to be careful out there. I have seen the news. I have read the paper. I have been given the advice. My first day as a freshman at the College of Charleston, my Resident Advisor warned the eager and hopeful girls of my dormitory floor of the dangers of going ANYWHERE alone. Have a buddy. Travel in groups. Keep your door locked.All appreciated, practical tips. So, why do women have to be afraid? Who is perpetuating the myth that women are objects to be possessed, managed and restrained? And who teaches our society that women are sexual objects just there for the taking?"

Monday, January 8, 2001
Moxie
Unfortunately, this site is riddled with frames, so I'll to point you to the closest frame and title and give some samples to entice you to look: Here you should look for Alien Dates, Always a Bridesmaid and Marriage Renegade.

From Always a Bridesmaid: "My friend is still going through with her wedding plans even though she's disappointed and unhappy in her relationship. Weddings and relationships often don't go together. Women keep relationship problems on the side so they won't interfere with wedding plans....A wedding is all about the bride, what she's wearing, how much weight she's lost, her flowers, her hair, her veil, her ring. After all, "It's the most important day of your life." There is nothing else as important as the perfection of this one day...I think we'd cut the divorce rate in half if we could be brides, have a wedding, and not get married. (I agree!)
We prepare to be brides from the day we're born. Our dolls have wedding dresses. We dress up as brides for Halloween. Our mothers, grandmothers, aunts, cousins and friends bombard us with details of wedding etiquette. I didn't know one little boy who aspires to be a groom, but my girlfriends and I all wanted to be brides when we grew up...
Although our caregivers focused on our future weddings and children, they rarely focused on the realities of being in a marriage or being a parent. Many women are blinded by their own wedding veils. There is no preparation for the issues that marriage and family entail.
Now that I am an adult with a broken engagement, my four-times-divorced mother tells me how hard marriage and motherhood are. It's demoralizing to hear your own mother tell you never to get married or have children because it will ruin your life and you'll never accomplish anything. This is a harsh contradiction from what I was shown as a child, when my mother had me try on her wedding ring more than once just to see what it would look like. "You'll have your own one day," she'd say.
At 27, that day, by many standards, has come and gone. We are supposed to be married by age 25, and become mothers by age 30. If a younger brother/sister/cousin gets married first or at a younger age, we are looked at as undesirable losers who can't find husbands. Single men are viewed as swinging bachelors who aren't ready to settle down. People wonder when some lucky woman will "catch" a man who's single. We all know the stereotype of the glowing bride and the sweating groom. Her life starts with marriage. His life ends."

From Marriage Renegade: "What else could I want? A commitment, some say. Stop fooling yourself, I answer. Marriage doesn't represent commitment any more-look at divorce rates. People kick their commitments to the curb as easily as their trash. This is what I'm missing?
I think that most people's real reasons for wanting me married is to validate their own decisions."

And over here you'll find Cinders, Glamour Shots, and The Grand Cover-Up.

From The Grand Cover-Up: "In Afghanistan today, a woman is considered provocative if the wind blows her skirt above her ankle, and the price for such "lewdness" is acid thrown in her face. The fact is women have been covering up for men's indecency for millennia, hiding our own bodies in deference to men's claim on our very own flesh.
Ask any religious individual from either tradition, and you probably will hear the reason is to protect girls and women from harm. I am less familiar with Islam than with Judaism, but it seems to me the assumption in both traditions is that men have uncontrollable sexual urges and that if women reveal any part of their bodies, men will be tempted to rape or otherwise molest the women.
A friend of mine recently transitioned from female to male. I asked her why. One of her reasons was that she wanted to run around without her shirt on, whenever she felt like it. That statement really impacted me. Must women risk dangerous operations and undergo sexual identity changes, just to run around peacefully with our shirts off? I suddenly felt imprisoned by my shirt ˆ wearing it was not an option; rather, it was an obligation, a purported protection from men's verbal, visual, and physical assault."

Monday, January 8, 2001
What do women really want, Mel?
Gayish men.

Monday, January 8, 2001
The Adventures of Kibu.com
To be known as "one of the lamest dotcom ventures I've ever heard of. "Three months later, though, I walked out with nothing but an overwhelming sense of disillusionment, a box of glitter nail polish and a video entitled An Intimate Guide to Male Genital Massage." Aside from being totally flaky and fakey and hiring the inept ("I learned that the Face of Horoscopes didn't "believe in astrology"), this place is definitely High School, Part 2. If you don't have straight hair, nobody will listen to you here. Literally.

Monday, January 8, 2001
Find Your Wedding Date
Me of all people taking this test is bloody hilarious, as were the answers it came up with: "YOU ARE CLOSE to finding "the one!" We have carefully calculated your responses according to our scientific formula and harmonized the results to the Venutian lunar calendar. But don't get your hopes up to hear those wedding bells soon, because your bridesmaid days aren't over just yet. YOU WILL BE MARRIED BY: Saturday, July 19, 2003" (Mark that on your calendar, snotty aunt and uncle who nagged me throughout Christmas!)

I don't recall them ever asking if I was with anyone on this test, interestingly enough...

Amusingly enough, it said that "I have inner hesitations" (darn right at my age), but "don't forget that the right person changes everything." :P The social factors scale was a bit weird- while I was supposedly scored dead in the middle between less and more likely to marry, it claimed "On the social front, you are pretty serious marriage material. As you read this, forces beyond your control are aligning to put you on the altar with Mr. Right. It's you, girl. Your number is up, and someone out there is just dying to pop you the question."

So according to this test I just don't want to commit yet, but should want to and Mr. Wonderful is about to show up. Does this thing channel my mother or what?

Monday, January 8, 2001
My Side of the Bed
Primarily a single/dating/getting married/married site, here are my favorites: When I Was A Little Kid, about how being single may suck, but then again, so may being married, and The Big "M" Word, in which she doesn't worry about it. Then there's my favorite forum of all, Stupid Cliched Things People Say to Single People.

"i asked him why he couldn't be happy without a girlfriend for a little bit and just enjoy being single. he said cuz "being single is not fun." i told him it was, and he said "you wouldn't know because you haven't been in a real relationship. it will suck when the rest of us are married and u don't have anyone." and my best friend laughed and goes, "yeah, that will suck."

"My favorite anti-single encounter had to be one time I was in a (female) gynecologist's stirrups. During my pelvic exam, she, upon discovering that I was single and celibate, looked up uneasily and asked me, "You still like men though, right?"

Monday, January 8, 2001
Bust
Bust needs more articles online, but here's a few: Don'ts for Boys and How Bad Are You?

Monday, January 8, 2001
Ms. Magazine
Gotta have some links to this one, of course. Here's stuff on the influence of advertising, bi-ness, intimacy (I swear, I only linked to it because of one sentence: "But here's the catch: if you choose isolation, you will die"), and adultery and open marriage. (On a related subject elsewhere, you can always try the new adultery. Works for politicians...)

This one on sex ed, however, punched me in the gut. I am amazed that they could leave out an entire body part in the textbook (take a wild guess which one) and give out misinformation like this. Abstinence-only education like this is, in a way, just Not going to work, given the culture we're in, anyway. To quote a kid in the article, "If sex is such a bad thing, then why is it all over movies and television?" The kids aren't that dumb, guys.

But this is the worst thing I think I have ever heard with regards to sex ed: "In a public-school-aired video entitled No Second Chance (Jeremiah Films), a student demands of a nurse: "What if I want to have sex before I get married?" Her chilling response: "I guess you just have to be prepared to die . . . and take your spouse and one or more of your children with you." Oh. My. God. Oh. My. God.

A more realistic person in the article said, "We cannot ingrain in young people the message that sexual intercourse violates another person, kills people, and leaves you without a reputation, and then expect that the day they put a wedding band on their finger they're going to forget all that."

Monday, January 8, 2001
Heartless Bitches
Now things are going to get a little offensive to folks...I don't know how long these links will stay like this because supposedly they're redesigning the site, but what the hell. Article #1: While I really am not much of a "bad boy"-seeking girl, the "nice guy" phenomena can drive me nuts. Not nice guys in general, but say, the stereotypical ones like in here. While in a way I am the prototypical nice girl myself, like the author says, "I have a caustic, dark sense of humor completely lost on the average nice guy. Some of the things I think could never be uttered in such a guy's presence. Kinda indicates that my mind works in different ways, no?" And this bit always punches me in the gut, since I've been raised since childhood with this phrase: "The words "give him a chance," to me, are the beginning of suicide of the soul. Men are never told to do that." She's right- I've given like a hundred chances, and all but one of those (though he was a total exception) have felt about that bad.

Then there's Article #2 and Article #3: I have no problems with people who want to get married and have kids for the most part, but I'm really not a wife-type girl and I don't think I should have any kids myself. Healthwise it wouldn't be great and I'd be a sucky parent. However, I do very much have a problem with the people who INSIST, blindly, that because I have a uterus I must wed and breed, and completely ignore anything I say otherwise (see paragraph 2 of #3) and insist that I will want kids, no question, in a few years. Quoting from #2, "Oh I see, so I should put myself through the stress and hassle of getting married/having children just so when it's all over and I'm exhausted and fed up from doing something I didn't want to do, I might just might say, "I'm glad I did that" - NOT".

Though my ultimate fear now is this recent thread on the Hissyfit forums called "Is that the sound of my biological clock ticking?" in which people who don't even want kids or are ready for them suddenly want babies for no good reason, out of the blue. *shudder* I find it hard to imagine that I ever would do this, given that even as a child I thought dolls were boring and why on earth would you want a doll that peed (and nowadays they even crap!) because that was way too realistic...but then again, I haven't hit That Age yet to know for sure.

Politically, it's even more of an offense to be childless, or so it can seem. "Conservative intellectuals, meanwhile, incessantly declare that "the" purpose of family life is to raise children. Follow this rhetoric and pretty soon the childless are not merely second-class citizens, but fake families and quite possibly less than fully human. Women's lives, in particular, are meaningless if they have not, in author Danielle Crittenden's words, "brought into this world life that will outlast us."

On another site, similar topic, there's also the population aspect of not breeding. In a way, yeah, I do think we're overloaded and either need to REALLY step up the moving-to-the-moon project (hah) or really step up birth control. Though I'm not as bad as my environmental psych professor this summer, who would go around making comments like "You know, I don't really mind if people smoke now, or drive with cell phones" and "My mother's life has been saved (the woman was perfectly healthy in her 90's by now) and she wishes she was dead already." This article and this one, however, kind of hit in a different way. In the same section (as we hop from topic to topic...), there's a section on nursing homes, which I have seen too many of. And I could have written this paragraph myself: "I can think: I never want to live in a nursing home. More to the point, I don't even want to live if living means not knowing where I am, who I am, why I am, and why my caregivers are doing things to me." But that's me.

Monday, January 8, 2001
Bitch
While annoyingly, I can't link to anything separate here because of the damned frames, I'd recommend "Marketing Miss Right" in #11 on the back issues and archives page, a completely rocking article on the choice of being single these days. Now I've read three books mentioned at the start of this article (Bridget Jones, Girls Guide, Otherwise Engaged) and found the latter to be the well, most offensively desperate of the bunch (note that quote at the top of the article?). Somehow the whole problem was worse because Eve got the ring, if that makes any sense. (And on the Bridget Jones comparisons? Neither book is remotely like her, IMO. Girls Guide is actually pretty dull until the redeeming last chapter) At least Bridget tries (repeatedly) to love the single life and revel in girliness, etc. even if she doesn't always succeed, whereas it seems like Eve's whole life revolves around Marry Me Now Whine Whine. I haven't read the book in over a year so my memories may not be that clear, but I don't think she regarded herself as anything other than the fact that she's finally getting a husband. The other two books do at least try to send the "Don't believe the self-help books, be yourself" message. Eve's just The Desperate Fiancee.

There's also "The New Sexual Deviant" article from the current issue, which can be (difficultly) found by waiting for the splash screen when you load the page to finish and then clicking on the logo. It's on virginity versus sex-as-rebellion. The wedding scene towards the end is pretty bizarre, though.

Now what you don't see on the web page but do in the magazine is they have this picture of a "specimen." Specimen 1, the virgin, has an average lifespan of "17 years, can survive into the 20's and 30's or older on very rare occasion. Population: Numbers have steadily declined since the virgin's peak in the mid 1950's." The accompaning 50's girl with a midlength skirt, bowed top and "not Barry White" record has little arrows pointing out her "white cotton underpants, intact hymen, conservative hem length and deep-seated emotional scars."