Lavender Lines

bare:fuckyeahmelanie: copses: warningdontreadthis: cool shoes.

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 08:33:13 -0500

bare:fuckyeahmelanie: copses: warningdontreadthis:

cool shoes.

alumina:blossoms:(via moulting)

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 13:32:58 -0500

alumina:blossoms:(via moulting)

bare:cornerofmyheart: likeadoll: acrossoceans: valerie2776 |...

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 13:23:49 -0500

bare:cornerofmyheart: likeadoll: acrossoceans: valerie2776 | 9gag | Cat on Glass

pabloneruda:(via fuckyeahfullerverse)

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:41:34 -0500

pabloneruda:(via fuckyeahfullerverse)

Should feminists engage with the mainstream media? Of course they bloody well should.

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:13:04 -0500

Should feminists engage with the mainstream media? Of course they bloody well should.:

rakalak:

abbyjean:

gauntlet:rachelhills:

Valenti’s Feministing stablemate, Courtney Martin, is currently in the running to be the Next Great American Pundit, with a column at the Washington Post up for grabs. On the blog and elsewhere, she’s been promoted on the basis that “we need more feminist voices in the media”.

But I think this misses the point. I’d like Courtney Martin to have a Washington Post column not because she subscribes to a particular philosophical framework, but because she’s an exceptionally good writer and analyst, who thinks about issues in a way that most others don’t, presents her arguments in a nuanced way, and is able to capture visceral emotional truths.

i would NOT like courtney martin to have a washington post column, because she thinks about her issues in a way common to many mainstream internet feminists, which is through a lens of white middle-class college-educated women. frankly, i think there are sufficient representations of that kind of feminism in the mainstream media - valenti appears to be the nytimes’ new darling, with the coverage of her wedding and the recent interview with her in the times magazine - that elide or entirely erase issues of importance to women of color, trans women, women with disabilities, and other women who aren’t exactly like courtney and jessica.

when we have this discussion of whether “feminists” should engage with the mainstream media, we need to keep in mind that the women getting the book deals, getting the campus speaking tours, getting the nytimes interviews and WaPo column auditions, are usually representative of a single kind of feminism that not only fails to include but actively alienates wide swaths of women and feminists. it is, essentially, mainstream feminism engaging with the mainstream media, and feels wildly irrelevant if you’re in one of the groups not included in mainstream feminist discourse.

the jaded hippy wrote a great post recently, reacting to a quote that a feminist from the 70s was shocked to see the struggles regarding intersectionality continuing in mainstream feminism, as “she just shakes her head and is all ‘I thought we worked through all of that years ago! I can’t believe people still aren’t getting it!’”

her response:

At first I thought, “well, there’s always new people coming into the movement, they’re n00bs, they have to learn the ropes and they’re making mistakes because they’re n00bs and that’s what n00bs do”. *Dusts off hands* Done! But another thought followed it: “But WHY DON’T the n00bs of today start off with more information? HASN’T all this good work been done and useful knowledge produced? WHY isn’t it sticking?”
I mean, us, the generation of knowing how to use computers, and our younger siblings or children, growing up in a world that never didn’t have computers and video games. They know how to use these things. They learn very, very early on how to use this stuff because it’s all around them, it has saturated their daily lives.
So, why are the n00bs of today as seemingly woefully ignorant as the n00bs of forty years ago? That comes to my head as I puzzle about this? Because we don’t have that saturation of info, not at all.
What are we saturated in, growing up? For the most part? The same old shit. That’s what. For as long as we (womanists, feminists, anti-racists, socialists, LGBTQ activists, dis/ability activists etc. etc.) have been doing this work, something is preventing our hard work from becoming part of the social fabric.
i think this is a really important point - and i see jessica or courtney’s engagement with mainstream media as continuing, basically, the “same old shit” that creates a saturation of the mainstream feminism that disregards intersectional issues of race, class, sexual orientation, trans status, disability status, etc… and thus harms women.

cachemireetsoie:One step at a time (via moonting)

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:21:43 -0500

cachemireetsoie:One step at a time (via moonting)

bohemea: suicideblonde: “To have survived, she would have had...

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:59:31 -0500

bohemea:

suicideblonde:

“To have survived, she would have had to be either more cynical or even further from reality than she was. Instead, she was a poet on a street corner trying to recite to a crowd pulling at her clothes.”

- Arthur Miller

(via evoke)

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:35:48 -0500

(via evoke)

hahaha I love public radio..

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:12:32 -0500

rakalak:

7:35 in the morning and they’re playing 17 year old’s insights on Twilight, or Bella and Edward’s relationship.

One girl said it’s innocent, all about the innocent romance, it’s not trying to sell sex to kids.

A minute later she’s talking about how great it will be when Taylor Lautner comes out without a shirt on and this boy who thinks the whole thing is creepy jumps in, You’re contradicting yourself! You just said it’s not about selling sex, but you’re most excited to see this guy run around without his shirt!

huh. prime example of last night’s conversation? ; )

suicideblonde:corndogboobs:THEM THANGS

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:08:04 -0500

suicideblonde:corndogboobs:THEM THANGS

rakalak: sexisnottheenemy:syntheticpubes: by Patrick...

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 01:11:50 -0500

rakalak:

sexisnottheenemy:syntheticpubes: by Patrick Tsai

Fascinating.

sexartandpolitics:Kôshirô Onchi - 新膚 Shin hada (New Body), 1932

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:28:28 -0500

sexartandpolitics:Kôshirô Onchi - 新膚 Shin hada (New Body), 1932

bohemea:Vivien Leigh

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:09:33 -0500

bohemea:Vivien Leigh

suicideblonde:Auguste Toulmouche The Admiring Glance

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:52:09 -0500

suicideblonde:Auguste Toulmouche The Admiring Glance

stepliana: La Bayadere - The Kingdom of the Shades Like Little...

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:08:33 -0500

stepliana:

La Bayadere - The Kingdom of the Shades

Like Little Swans, this is something you will always just know how to do.

ohh. I love Bayadere. I had such a moving experience seeing this with my father of all people.

wait are people talking about twilight again?

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:10:20 -0500

champagnecandy:

isabelthespy:

champagnecandy:

isabelthespy:

is it because the movie is coming out? the other one? shit people, don’t do this to me. i don’t want to read this book. i don’t care about vampires. i keep feeling pressured to read twilight because it has wound up at this intersection of 2 things i care about really hard, feminism and YA lit (and also, i guess, what girls read as a subset of those), but i have no interest in vampires. i have no interest in this book. i am kind of predisposed to hate it because caitlin flanagan liked it and i hate her. maybe i wouldn’t hate it, i don’t know, though the specific reasons she gave for liking it made me suspect that i would either hate it or just find it really boring, especially now that i know how it ends. if we can all stop talking about it then it can stop being relevant and i won’t feel any kind of obligation to read it. but this thing just won’t die. i want to put a stake through the heart of the twilight phenomenon. not the books themselves or the movies or people who like it. just this thing where people are obsessed with what it says about culture or whatever.

I really don’t understand why these books of all books bothers people so damn much who haven’t read them and don’t want to read them. Don’t read ‘em. Scroll past me when I reblog pictures of cute boys from the movies (yes, I’m shallow). You don’t have to read them any more than I have to read Chuck Pahlaniuk because people always end up talking about that wanker.

to be honest i really don’t understand what it is either! for me, anyway. well they come up in conversation weirdly often, and then i usually wind up in a weird position where i’m like, “i am pretty sure i disagree with you about these books i haven’t read.” weirdly this happens to me from both angles, like some people are like TWILIGHT IS THE WORSTEST THING EVER CAN YOU BELIEVE GROWN PEOPLE READ THEM, THIS COUNTRY WHAT IS IT COMING TO I ASK YOU, and then i’m like, “ew elitism! gross! i disagree with that fundamentally, shut up! why do you care if people like these books i haven’t read?” but then also, once a friend of mine was saying that she suspected the books (which she hasn’t read! though her little sister was into them) had tapped into some universal girl ambivalence about sex thing, and she was like “i was reading this atlantic article” and i was like, shit, didn’t caitlin flanagan write an article for the atlantic about twilight? fuck i bet i disagree with this, because i disagree with almost anything anyone has ever said about universal girl experiences! and then i read the article in question some time later and i was like, i disagree with this so intensely much it burns me, god caitlin flanagan why are you such an asshole! and i guess i didn’t need to do that so really this is just all my fault.
i mean in real life, i’m literally one of those people who picks at scabs, or at healing piercings (TERRIBLE! I KNOW!), or at my chapped lips or whatever. maybe this is like that. or because it’s YA which i feel more of an attachment to. i don’t know! i will admit, this is really weird and irrational on my part. i guess that’s not really twilight, or even the twilight phenomenon’s fault. or maybe it’s that people do say interesting things about twilight, and i want to think about them really, but i can’t because i haven’t read the book. maybe i just want to be able to have an opinion on twilight, and then i forget i do, and then it comes up again and i remember again that i want to have an opinion on it. like i wanted to have a more substantive way of explaining to myself why caitlin flanagan was wrong, but i couldn’t because i haven’t read it. OR MAYBE I JUST NEED SOME NEW HOBBIES, THAT’S ALSO TOTALLY POSSIBLE.

anyway. it’s not twilight, it’s me. i also have a thing about wanting to know What The Deal Is With Things, like i had no interest in the da vinci code either but i skimmed through it for the bullshitty conspiracy/religion/art/math parts because i just wanted to know what the deal was. it’s a good thing i don’t go to the movies by myself, generally, because otherwise i would go broke seeing every stupid thriller whose trailer is borderline incomprehensible, because those trailers work so well on me because i just want to know what the deal is. why was that guy telling jodie foster she’d never had a daughter in that airplane movie???

so, i don’t know. i have a weird and completely baseless and irrational fascination with a set of books i have never read. and honestly, probably it will only die if i give the first one at least a shot, because see above re: needing to know the deal. it’s not healthy or explicable (in any way that says anything nice about me) or anything. but, what can i do. at least R Pattz is hot.

well. I figured I would read them to mock them. and I did mock them, but I also unironically genuinely enjoyed them. for me it was regressing to a time in my life when I wasn’t freaking out about healthcare reform or war or anything other than whether THAT BOY LIKED ME. Which is not terribly “feminist,” no, but I don’t give a shit. I read the books on my Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks from grad school last year, and it was a much-needed breather. but I mean, if you don’t have any desire to actually read them, just shrug and tell people to STFU ;)

Do you ladies mind if I jump in on this? Because I struggle with my actually, I really don’t want to even say liking, but enjoying the Twilight books/fandom (in the online sense, not in the screaming kids (and moms) who take creepy pictures and stalk movie sets way). If you’re going to read the books, start by knowing you can’t dig too deep. Do not try to analyze them because you will go crazy. Don’t try to think about how the hell shit like this got published. Don’t think about the religious undertones. Don’t think about the terrible characterization or plot development or repetitive, repetitive language. Read the books if you want to read a kinda cool new take on the vampire mythos (with lots of questionable developments) and a completely fluffy hetero-romance story. Complete with the “plain” girl getting the Byronic and oh-so-hot undead guy. It’s a quick read too. The first is maybe 500 some pages, but the margins/font/language is super easy to zip through.

Like Champagne said. They’re a really nice respite from reality. Sometimes giggling-gradeschool-like regression is totally necessary and fun. And RPattz is very, very pretty. I say go for it. : )

rakalak:sexismandthecity:katoleary:stillawannablessedbe:(Via.) ...

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:08:24 -0500

rakalak:sexismandthecity:katoleary:stillawannablessedbe:(Via.)

"Women don’t hate Megan Fox because she comes across as confident; they hate the Megan Fox Archetype,..."

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:07:49 -0500

“Women don’t hate Megan Fox because she comes across as confident; they hate the Megan Fox Archetype, because, in a way, it validates all of the high school notions of what sexiness is: porn-star poses, slow motion boob shots, and references to lesbianism and bisexuality as kinks instead of sexual orientation… She is the personification of the Cosmo brand of sex, and that is why women find her so annoying.”

- Megan Fox’s Minders Are Worried Women Don’t Like Her - Jezebel (via pierce-the-heavens) (via genderconfusion) (via sexismandthecity)

Exactly. It’s not as Megan herself says, ‘‘Girls think I’m a slut, and I’ve been in the same relationship since I was 18. The problem is, if they think you’re attractive, you’re either stupid or a whore or a dumb whore. The instinct among girls is to attack the jugular.”

(via rakalak)

endofmarch:mypeterpancomplex:bunnymitford:Jean Seberg by Clare...

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:05:23 -0500

endofmarch:mypeterpancomplex:bunnymitford:Jean Seberg by Clare Owen

killingbambi: (via porco-voador)

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:47:17 -0500

killingbambi:

(via porco-voador)