Feminist Fare Friday: Edition #12

I can't believe it is Friday already! Short weeks confuse me. As do a lot of other rather simple things, but that is a post for another day...  Let's get on with this weeks dose of Feminist Fare!

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1. I am a child of the 80's and 90's. I grew up listening to records of ABBA and Pat Benatar and mix tapes recorded off the radio and then watching the corresponding music videos via Video Hits and Good Rockin' Tonight on our three-channel television after school. I have always been a fan of the music video genre and spent most of a day a few weeks ago introducing my 7 year old to the wonders of Michael Jackson's music and epic 15 minute long videos (Thriller was his favourite).

These days it's more difficult to find music videos that my kids can watch without me having to answer questions like: "Mom, why are they being so inappropriate?" or "Mom, I can totally see her bum in that outfit." or "Mom, why is she licking that hammer?" or "Mom, why does that guy keep grabbing his crotch?" (although to be fair, I got this one with all of MJ's videos too).

Why all the video talk? Because this week, Lily Allen came back to the music scene (after a babies-making hiatus) with her new single "Hard Out Here" and its video release. I first noticed it on Twitter being touted (tweeted) as "a fabulous feminist take-down of all things sexist in pop music these days". So of course I clicked on the link and watched the video. I tweeted that link once and left it at that for the night... I was having mixed feelings about the video and I couldn't quiet get to that place of  "RA-RA FEMINISTS RULE!" that some on the internet were going on and on about.

Something about it just wasn't sitting well with me...

I woke up the next morning and read this post from We Geeked This and then it all solidified in my brain. The video didn't actually take down the racist parts of pop culture and I realized that you can't satirize something like objectification of Women of Colour with simply MORE objectification of said women.

"What if we looked at Lilly Allen’s video and instead of saying,

“it IS ‘Feminism’ because she is fighting ‘The Patriarchy’ and that’s the only thing that matters!”

We said,

“I wish she hadn’t perpetuated the oppression of WoC in her attempts to express her own feminist sentiments”?

I’m not talking about a master feminist plan, I’m not asking Lilly Allen for one, but I am trying to hold her accountable–because I do believe she is a feminist and therefore is interested in fighting women’s oppression in myriad forms–for what she has produced, both good and bad."

Much more has been said and written about Ms. Allen and her new video and I highly recommend you read both Jessica Wakeman's piece from The Frisky and also Black In Asia's in depth analysis of the video as well. MUCH food for thought with this one.

Now... back to finding music videos to show my children. Ones that don't perpetuate these sexist OR racist stereotypes. Wish me luck!

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2. We don't need feminism anymore. Stop it already, ladies, you can vote now, you've won! Feminism is hurting all the menfolk! And now...

"...feminism elevates women at the expense of men"  "... its agenda to validate women emasculates us guys".

This is the first line of a post by Micah J. Murray at redemptionpictures.com. Now GO and read the rest of his post. (And for the first time EVER, I want you to read the comments-at least the first few. They are PRICELESS!)

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3. And because sometimes, the internet is a really, really wonderful place and it is for those moments of pure awesome that I stick around, I give you #BATKID! And all the amazing and awesome people in San Fransisco (AKA Gotham City) who are making his Make-a-Wish dream come true today!

Follow along on the ABC News livestream to feel ALL THE FEELINGS today (and have some tissues handy!)

nananana-nananana BATKID!!! 

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Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

Natasha~

a peek inside

Okay, okay, time to do some writing. Now, what am I going to write about today.....???

*Goes off to check Twitter and Facebook. Gets sucked into a vortex of Youtube videos of Jimmy Fallon singing like Neil Young.*

OK, seriously.

Yes, that's a good idea, let's write about something serious today.

*Goes off to watch another Fallon video - this time it's the one with my no-he-is-not-too-young-for-me movie star boyfriend, Joseph Gorden Levitt, lip-syncing to Nikki Minaj.*

Maybe I should write about that thing that I read about the other day. You know the one.

Or...

Maybe I should try my hand at some abstract poetry. Something deep and meaningful.

And PROFOUND.

Yeah, yeah, let's do that!

.

.

.

.

{crickets}

.

.

.

.

OK, nothing profound happening today.

Let's go back to that first idea.

What was it again?

Oh, screw it.

I'll just do some free form, stream of consciousness writing and see what comes out.

(10 minutes later, hits delete on 457 words)

Well, that was just crap.

Now what?

*Heads off to see what's happening on Twitter-again. Posts a picture on Instagram.*

Ok, no, really, that first idea was a good one. Go back to that one.

Yes.

Okay.

Off I go.

*Closes all other open tabs, takes laptop to quiet room and starts writing.*

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A few weeks ago I bought myself a couple of notebooks to help give me a kick in the pants with my writing and get into the habit of writing SOMETHING at least once a day.

I decided to open up the 642 Things To Write About book today at a random page and this was what it said.

You're welcome {to the inner workings of my very easily distracted brain}.

natasha~

Feminist Fare Friday: Edition #11

I just want to say it. AGAIN. I really do not like Daylight Savings Time. Why must we still have this in our world? Why can't we just do this?  Parents all over North America would get on board with this. I guarantee it! And I wouldn't have felt so damn tired all week, barely able to read anything, let alone write (which I had intended to do, what with it being #NaBloPoMo and all.) As you can see though, all was not totally lost to DST and the internet did not disappoint this week with it's juicy selection of feminist fare!

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1. It is not even the end of the first week of November and it is that time of year. ALREADY!! Christmas decorations are all over the malls, the box sets of gifts are out at all the stores and kids all over North America will soon be combing through the famous Christmas Wish Books. And if  you happen to have a boy who loves to cook, or who sees his dad taking care of his baby sister and wants to be just like him, or a girl who wants to be a crane operator, we can only hope that this is the year that toy manufacturers get with the program and stop the BIG GENDER DIVIDE that does no one any good.  Because although we hear about the incredible marketing that is targeted at our impressionable daughters on the pink and girly side of the toy store, we tend to forget about or are not as aware of the bigger and more insidious marketing that is actually happening to our boys. Joanne at Let Toys be Toys takes a closer look at this phenomenon and how toy manufacturers and marketers continue to paint our children into very two-dimensional caricatures of what it means to be male and female.

Judging by the comments that flood the Internet every time a well-meaning parent dresses their son in a tutu, it would appear that what we fear most is that any boy allowed to indulge in a traditionally girly pursuit will become, yes you’ve guessed it, gay! Aside from the obvious retorts of “So what? ” and “Kindly take your homophobia elsewhere!”, it does beg the observation that if heterosexual masculinity can be so easily steered astray by a bit of lippie and dress-up, then it wouldn’t appear to be quite so innate after all. In other words, if being a boy is so natural then stop telling my son how to be one.

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2. And while we are on the subject of society dictating how exactly boys (and girls) should behave, this was sent to me by an old friend and I love it!  I plan on talking to my daughter (and my son for that matter) about her body JUST LIKE THIS...

Maybe you and your daughter both have thick thighs or wide ribcages. It's easy to hate these non-size zero body parts. Don't. Tell your daughter that with her legs she can run a marathon if she wants to, and her ribcage is nothing but a carrying case for strong lungs. She can scream and she can sing and she can lift up the world, if she wants.

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3. Yes, yes, I know. I posted a video of Joss Whedon last week talking about why he writes strong women, but the dude just keeps saying the most thought provoking things. What do YOU think about his most recent talk at this year's Equality Now event? Are we done with this word? (If so, does that mean I am going to have to change my blog name... AGAIN!)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDmzlKHuuoI[/youtube]

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4. As you can imagine, I follow/read quite a few awesome feminists online and in recent months have gotten an IMMENSE education about the history of feminism from some amazing feminist women of colour and from a perspective that I didn't know existed. I even wrote a somewhat naive, privileged white woman's "why can't we all just get along" post just a few months ago. And then I learned to shut up and listen. I read the #solidarityisforwhitewomen twitter stream and knew it to be true. So when scrolling through Twitter this past week and seeing the #BlackGirlsRock hashtag and BET awards show, I knew that it was a celebration that had nothing to do with me, but that many of my new online friends where very excited about and therefore I was too. Until some asshats decided to make a "what about the white girls" hashtag to, you know, EVEN things out a bit. Olivia Cole at Huffington Post responded to this despicable hashtag highjacking and I couldn't agree with her more even if I tried!

"...your face is everywhere. Your people are everywhere. What in your heart recoils when you see Black Girls Rock? What bone in your body sees empowerment for black girls and thinks "that's not fair"? Where is your bitterness rooted? What do you think has been taken from you when women of color are uplifted?

All of the things you take for granted are what you're protecting when you shout down Black Girls Rock: your whiteness, the system that upholds your face as the supreme standard of beauty, your place in the center of a culture that demands people of color remain hidden in the margins, present but only barely and never overshadowing the white hero/heroine. Your discomfort with black girls who rock tells me that you prefer the status quo: you prefer for black faces to remain hidden..."

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5. And finally, I love Google. I really do. Ask it anything and BAM! Your answer is there. Often Google autofills in your questions/queries for you... (based on lists of previously typed queries from other Google users). For the most part this is a good thing. Until it really isn't...

[youtube]http://youtu.be/4SvePcldZgY[/youtube]

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So much farther to go... so much more to fight for.

Have a great weekend everyone!

natasha~

Feminist Fare Friday: Edition #10

Halloween is done, my husband came home yesterday to end my solo-parenting stint, birthday presents are bought and wrapped for this weekend's party (there is seriously one a week for us in Oct/Nov/Dec!) and I am finally sitting down today to write the weekly Feminist Fare round up. So while I know it is late on a Friday night, here are the posts and videos that caught my eye this past week.

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1. In case you don't know this already. I am a HUGE Buffy The Vampire Slayer fan. I own the box set of the series and named my dog after Willow. And while I loved the Buffy-Angel relationship, my true love of the show was the darker Buffy-Spike dynamic. It spoke to the bad-boy lover in me. I could go on and on and on here... but, let me actually get to my point... and that is, that I think Joss Whedon is a genius. Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Serenity... this man writes kick-ass stuff people (and a lot of it involves really strong female characters), and it seems that whenever he is on a press junket, reporters have one particular question for him. Here are his replies to this much repeated query...

[youtube]http://youtu.be/cYaczoJMRhs[/youtube]

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2. I am not sure how much more "Listen up girlies, don't get drunk so you don't get raped" bullshit I can read anymore. If a dude got so blitzed that he could hardly walk home and then got mugged would anyone be telling him that he deserved it? That he shouldn't have had that last half-dozen beers? Probably not. Add to this the Men's Rights Group claiming that men are just as much victims of false-accusations as women are of rape (or that rape-culture doesn't even exist!) and it is enough to make a girl want to... oh, I don't know, get REALLY, REALLY drunk and forget that this is the world that she lives in and is raising her children in!

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3. And really, on that note. I have nothing better (or worse?) to leave you with than this amazing, painful, powerful, and haunting spoken word poetry...

[youtube]http://youtu.be/zgQRkHcEyq8[/youtube]

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Enjoy your weekend everyone!

Natasha~

"Likes" don't save lives: #UNICEFDay 2013

Halloween is upon us and when it comes to this childhood tradition, like many things in my life, I am a purist. I like to encourage my kids to think outside the box (or racks) of traditional gender-biased costumes, I like to decorate our front porch with that crazy spider web stuff and DANGER tape everywhere and like the good hardy Canadian kids that they are, my children don their snow pants, squeeze their costumes on over top and go door to door in our neighbourhood screaming "TRICK OR TREAT" at the top of their little lungs. It's how I did it as a kid and I feel it is important to maintain these traditions for my kids. One of the things that I do miss from my childhood and that was always part of Halloween growing up were the little orange UNICEF boxes that everyone had as the ultimate accessory to their costume. My brothers and I used to have a little bit of a competition every year to see who could collect the most pennies and whoever had the heaviest box at the end of the night would get to pick something from the others candy haul. Those were some good {cavity-inducing) times.

And while the orange boxes may not be around anymore (UNICEF Canada cancelled the program in 2006), UNICEF continues to do amazing things for children all over the world. I had a chance to talk to some wonderful UNICEF representatives while I was at Blissdom Canada a few weeks ago and got a mini tour of UNICEF's main programs and humanitarian efforts that directly affect children around the world.  It was an eye-opening, tear-inducing, heart-breaking and hope-creating experience for me.

From tasting the Plumpy Nut high protein therapeutic food that they provide for malnourished children, to following the trajectory of a vaccine from manufacturing to a child in a tiny village in a remote area of Mongolia, to picking up the VERY HEAVY  jugs that children have to haul miles every day just to have safe drinking water for their families, it was humbling and inspiring to see what all those pennies we used to collect have done and what donations to UNICEF continue to do today for children the world over.

The one program that touched me the most was UNICEFs work with children in refugee camps. In the UNICEF room at Blissdom, hanging on the walls were pictures that were drawn by Syrian children from refugee camps and I am still haunted by their artwork. I have two children who love to express themselves through art. My 7 year old loves to draw pictures of dinosaurs and his latest Hero Factory toy and my daughter draws pictures of animals and her family daily. This is what Syrian kids are drawing...

And not because they saw these images on some superhero-to-the-rescue cartoon show, this is their REAL LIFE. We hear about Syria every other day in the news and the focus is always on drone warfare and chemical weapons and trying to figure out who is the bad guy in this particular war and what, if anything, we are to do about it. What we don't hear about are the over 3 million children IN Syria living in dire situations and caught in the lines of fire or about the over 1 MILLION children that have been displaced from their homes and are now living in refugee camps in Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Turkey and other regions of North Africa.

UNICEF has multiple ways that they help in these situations and one of them is through their Survival Gifts donation program. For just over $200 dollars you can send a whole school in a box to a refugee camp. Or an early childhood development box. These are literally big steel boxes with enough supplies for up to 50 kids that get shipped to the areas that need them. A tent can be turned into a school. The shade of a big tree can become a play area for toddlers. In the grand scheme of things this 'gifts' may not seem like much, but for a child who has lost everything and who is in a strange place and has a terribly uncertain future, a slice of normalcy-reading a book, learning his or her letters and numbers or stacking some blocks-can be just what is needed so that all hope is not lost and so that they don't forget what it means to just be a kid. There are many other much needed survival gifts that can be purchased and some for as little as $10.00. It really doesn't take much to help save a life.

Thursday, October 31st, 2013 is national #UNICEFDay. Won't you please join me and support UNICEF's work and NOT "LIKE" THIS POST at all! Instead, please visit Unicef.ca and purchase a life-saving survival gift. Think of it as a your little orange box and fill that sucker up with as much as you can. Somewhere in the world there is no Halloween, no trick-or-treating and no dress-up school parties to attend today. There is only fear, and hunger, and sickness, and despair, and no amount of "likes" is going to change that.

A gift of medicines, of tools for education, of blankets and nutritional supplements, these are the things that offer hope and comfort to these kids. So please, Tweet about #UNICEFDAY all day long, post it all over your Facebook page, and then walk the walk and let everyone know that your support goes further than just sharing something on your timeline.

I just bought a School-in-a-Box.

In my mind, it is one ginormous orange UNICEF box and someone now owes me some of their candy!

Happy #UNICEFDay Everyone!

Natasha~

P.S. Disclosure - I was not compensated in any way for this post, but thanks to the generosity of Hallmark, because of this post, 10 children will be getting a live-saving vaccination.

P.P.S. Want to get in on that action? Head on over and give UNICEF your email address and you too can help a child get vaccinated. One email address = one vaccine = one child's life.

Happy {Feminist} Halloween!

I just couldn't wait until Friday to share this amazing little piece of holiday Halloween brilliance. These four beautiful wordsmiths blow this one right out of the park.

Enjoy!

[youtube]http://youtu.be/jXk3uhlhAVY[/youtube]

Happy Halloween to all of you MotherF****ing Monsters!!

Natasha~

Feminist Fare Friday: Edition #9

It's a short one this week. I am recovering from taking care of everyone else who was recovering from various stages of stomach bug and between washing every towel and bed sheet in the house and wiping all variety of bodily fluids off of everyone, the internet and all it's fabulous feminist fare took a back seat to family this week. Due to the sheer exhaustion that made me fall asleep on my poor, poor husband last night, all you're getting today is this wonderful gem. (I hope you are not as disappointed as he was.) [youtube]http://youtu.be/IbXfrZt-6pw[/youtube]

I sure do miss SCTV.

Have a great (healthy) weekend everyone!

natasha~

skinny mirrors, curves and entitlement.

I am washing my hands in the washroom of a greasy spoon diner.

I look up and see myself in the mirror.

I back up a few steps to get a better look at all of me and the outfit of the day.

Hmm... not bad.

And then I decide that this must be one of those 'skinny mirrors'.

..............

This is what it has come to. I am a 41 year old woman, pretty secure in who and what I am and I still have a hard time looking at myself in a mirror without sucking in my cheeks, holding by breath as I suck in my  belly and standing up on my tippy toes to create something that I have been taught to believe everyone else thinks is beautiful.

If I do happen to think that I look nice on any particular day, my automatic assumption isn't "Natasha- YOU are beautiful!" it is "what's wrong with this mirror?".

How's that for some messed up thinking?

And I am not sure how, but this insidious thinking is seeping into my little girl's brain too. Yesterday we were getting ready to go outside to do some yard work and she wanted to wear one of her skirts. I said no, that she needed to change into pants. She proceeded to dramatically crumple to the ground in tears claiming that if she was to wear pants that "no one will think I am beautiful!" My BRILLIANT response? "Don't worry honey, Mommy is wearing sweats, so I am not beautiful today either." Thank goodness parenting is a two-person job in our house, as my husband quickly came to the rescue before I inadvertently killed all her self-esteem and said "EVERYONE here is beautiful, we need to wear pants to stay warm. End of story."  Logic, that's what my husband brings to the party.

It is no secret that we have a messed up vision of what beauty is in our society. Fashion magazines, TV commercials, giant billboards, all of these things are bombarding us on a daily basis and no matter how hard we try to block it out, this kind of marketing, this perpetual visual reminder of all the "beautiful people" gets into our brains. And into the brains of our little ones too.

Last week the talented, hilarious and beautiful actress Melissa McCarthy was featured on the cover of ELLE magazine in their 'Women in Hollywood' issue. She was photographed in one of fall's hot trends, the oversized jacket and the internet went bonkers! Why? Because she was TOO covered up! Because the photographer did not highlight her curves. Because it can't be a cover shot if there is no skin showing DAMNIT!!

I get it. I get that this is not what we are accustomed to seeing on the cover of magazines. We're used to seeing the thin women in barely there outfits with every supposed 'flaw', every extra pound, every wrinkle, zit, or oversized pore airbrushed to oblivion, (mis)representing the "beautiful people". We all then compare ourselves to this flawless (and photoshopped) ideal that we inevitably are never able to measure up to, you know, because we are not all made from the same human perfection mold.

I looked at that shot of Melissa and thought, 'DAMN girl, you look amazing!' I felt more of a kinship to someone on the cover of a fashion mag than I have in a long time. And then I read a bunch of articles shaming ELLE for covering her up, and tweets from people wanting to see more skin, more of her body and all I could think was how seriously EFF'ed up a society we are that we feel somehow ENTITLED to a woman's body and cheated when we don't get to see as much of it as we want!

I know that the point of all the internet hullabaloo is the double standard. That the thinner women get the skimpy outfits and the full-figured women get covered up. That seems to be the message and the point that everyone from xoJane to HuffPo to Slate and beyond are making in their critique of the cover, but I think this issue goes deeper than that. How is it that somehow if a full-figured woman is in a magazine that she automatically becomes the poster child for curvy ladies everywhere? You don't think that these same media outlets and all the folks demanding to see more of her curves wouldn't be as critical (in a totally different way of course) if she was photographed in a swimsuit?

And do I have to point out as well, that not two weeks before everyone was all, "OMG, don't cover up Melissa, we should see more of her", EVERYONE was telling Miley to "PUT SOME DAMN CLOTHES ON GIRL!!" It seems that we just can't win, so matter what size we are or how much or little we are wearing.

I am a curvy girl, I've got the proverbial junk in my trunk, a 32F bra size and somewhat of a leftover belly from having my babies.  And I can tell you that I feel ten times sexier rocking an oversized sweater, jeans and a gorgeous pair of boots, or a maxi dress with some awesome earrings than I ever do in a bathing suit or a skin tight dress that is supposed to "celebrate" all those luscious curves of mine. I know that I would much rather define my beauty according to my standards and comfort in my own skin, than one dictated by a messed up society looking for some skin and a bit more cleavage!

I also have a daughter who, although she shares my husbands and my DNA equally, is my physical mini-clone. And she is the most beautiful creature I have ever set my eyes on. There is no way I am going to let her believe that there is only one way to be beautiful and I am going to make damn sure she knows that no one, and I mean absolutely NO ONE is entitled to seeing, touching or being privy to any part of her body at any time in her life. I don't care what magazine she may or may not eventually be gracing the cover of (crosses all the things and hopes it is Forbes).

Love yourselves my fellow beautiful women, and know that NO, that is not a "skinny mirror", that is all you baby, no airbrushing required!

natasha~