Category Archives: On the Net

“With a Gun Between Her Legs”—Why “Strong” (AKA “Sexy” Whilst Being “Strong”) Female Characters Are Bad For Women.

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There has been a bit of talk throughout the blogosphere recently (and not so recently) about how “strong” (ie. butt-kicking but looking hot whilst doing it) female characters are detrimental to women.

From Overthinking It:

“… The trouble is, although these characters were marginally better than the original Damsels in Distress, they still ended up having to be saved in the final act by the male hero. There would usually be a scene (or three) where the ‘Strong Female Character’ would be trapped by the villain and put into sexy clothing.”

Here are a few examples: Drew Barrymore in Charlie’s Angels (in a satirical hyper-sexualised way), Rose McGowan and Alyssa Milano in Charmed, and Megan Fox in Transformers, which Overthinking It explicitly references.

Furthermore:

“And even when she was being strong, she was always doing it in the sexiest way possible. She’d never, say, get a black eye or a broken nose in a fight. Her ability to fix cars (a powerful, masculine trait) would basically allow her to get sexy grease all over her slippery body. Her ability to shoot a gun was so the film’s advertisers could put her on a poster wearing a skimpy outfit with a big gun between her legs. All in all, the ‘strength’ of her character was just to make her a better prize for the hero at the end—and for the horny male audience throughout.”

Again, Fox in Transformers with the grease, but also Angelina Jolie in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and even Strong Female Character Buffy, who always looks good kicking vampire butt.

Related: Are Our Favourite Fictional Females Actually Strong, Or Stereotypes?

Elsewhere: [Overthinking It] Why Strong Female Characters Are Bad for Women.

[Overthinking It] The Female Character Flowchart.

[Overthinking It] “Her Ability to Shoot a Gun Was So the Film’s Advertisers Could Put Her On a Poster Wearing a Skimpy Outfit With a Big Gun Between Her Legs.”

On the (Rest of the) Net.

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Indeed, “What Is the Difference Between Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan?”

Again, in the wake of Sheen’s “drug-alcohol-and-woman abusing” bender, Girl with a Satchel asks if men’s mags focussing on UFC and, alternatively, retro Mad Men style sensibilities is a result of the “soggy” men’s mag market trying to inject some much needed zest:

“In the current socio-cultural context, where women assert more power and influence, the ‘reality’ may be why more men are turning into Don Draper lookalikes and turning to UFC. It doesn’t take Two & a Half Men to work [sic] out that in magazines, men need escapism, inspiration and style tips, too. The appeal of men’s magazines is to service wants, needs and desires; I just wonder what men really aspire to.”

Tiger Beatdown’s response to Beyonce’s “Why Don’t You Love Me?” video is, in a word, hilarious (more on it to come next week):

“A blog post, we hear, should be short, and timely, and probably pegged to some manner of news item. This ensures that it can be part of the blog conversation on the Interwebs. Where immediate response is king! And that, of course, is why we write 3,000 to 5,000 word posts about long-running TV shows, and movies we rented from iTunes, and also, albums that came out when we were twelve.

“However, sometimes it only takes us weeks to respond to something! For example, a music video, of the sort that the kids enjoy today. A music video like this one!”

Joan Holloway’s Mad cartoon curves are poured into a Little Miss book.

In other Mad Men-related news, The Washington Post writes in defence of the show’s alleged sexism:

“Mad Men’s writers are not sexist. The time period was.”

Feminist Themes on Lady Gaga and Beauty.

Slate asks “How Long Has the ‘Dumb Blonde’ Meme Been Around?”:

“The poet Propertius, for example, wrote: ‘All beauty is best as nature made it… In hell below may many an ill befall that girl who stupidly dyes her hair with a false colour!’ So while he didn’t connect blondeness with idiocy exactly, he implied that wish to be blondes, and contrive to be blondes using artificial means, don’t have much going on.

“As for why the dumb-blonde idea resonates—one idea is that it’s basically Propertius’ logic at work. It’s a fairly well-known fact that few adults are naturally blond[e], and that many apparent blondes actually die their hair. If you die your hair, you must be superficial or vapid, Q.E.D. There’s also a theory, outlined in The Encyclopedia of Hair, that blondeness connotes youth, since children are far more likely than adults to have naturally blond[e] hair. Blondeness, then, seems innocent but also naïve.”

Steve Pavlina discusses which aspects of your life are worthy of your attention, and which aren’t.

Organisational Post-It porn at MamaMia.

From The Awl, “How to Lose [Facebook] ‘Friends’” and alienate people:

“Christopher Sibona… explains the top reasons fro defrienestration: updating too frequently about boring things, posting about controversial subjects like politics or religion, and writing racist or sexist stuff. It’s a lot like life, although in life these people are actually friends and not some random body count you’ve assembled through networking or total availability.”

Godammit, I’m Mad profiles “Bloggers With Influence”, and has some particularly scathing words to say about Gala Darling. Ouch.

Along the same lines, The Feminist Breeder says not to “assume that more ‘fans’ or ‘followers’ means they’ll all be adoring. The truth is, the more people who read you, the more bullshit you’re going to have to put up with…”

In the wake of those controversial GQ photos and last week’s Rocky Horror episode, Glee is questioned as to whether it has a “Body Image Problem” or not.

As Halloween is swallowed back into the underworld for another year, Gawker has some All Hallows Eve etiquette tips on how to tell if your costume is racist:

“… When the entirety of your costume is ‘I am a person of a different race, LOL,’ that qualifies as a racist costume.”

But is it racist if, like, you’re of Native American descent? (FYI, I actually am.) Paris Hilton, take note.

On the (Rest of the) Net.

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A new discovery of mine, Millennials Mag, publishes quirky, up-to-the-minute features on everything from Mad Men to youth crises to Lindsay Lohan. In fact, here’s one on Lindsay, as well as the hilarious “Bylines & Boyfriends” and “The Myth of the Plugged In Millennial”:

“Do you find that you have friends your age who still don’t understand blogs/blogging? And that it’s actual work/writing?… In a way it’s like, really dispiriting, because I have friends who still can’t understand why I’m a journalism major if I don’t want to work for The New York Times… Like I have a friend who wants to be a fashion blogger, but told me she would never get a Twitter account… Well they will clearly never be a blogger…”

Gah! I guess I’ll never be a blogger then, either. Oh wait, I am! Twitter Schmitter (Shitter?).

Rachel Hills discusses the (pop) cultural virtues of Sweet Valley High, and how Gossip Girl relates to real-life. I particularly like the latter, as it deals with the breakdown of friendships, which is something I’m dealing with at the moment. Hills says:

“… When I think about my own anger, about grudges I’ve been unable to let go of, often it has little to do with the original offence. Instead, it’s about a residual feeling I can’t get rid of, a new framework I’ve built up in my head…”

Halloween is just around the corner (more on that to come later today/next week), and Gala Darling ventured to the 20th Annual Tompkins Square Halloween Dog Parade. Check out the dressed-up dogs that were out in full force. And while you’re there, see her case for adopting rescue animals.

Britney Spears, now Miley Cyrus: Eat the Damn Cake writes about how growing up = “Girls, Take Off Most of Your Clothes”.

Betty Talk’s musings on “Western Feminism & Global Gender Justice” harkens back to the Feminism Has Failed debate I attended about a month ago, in that “Western feminists are characterised by being somewhat ethnocentric,” and trying to prevent genital mutilation in some lesser-developed parts of the world, for example, is a little bit ignorant when such societies have “practised these customs for centuries”.

Becky Sharper, on The Pursuit of Harpyness, discusses The Guardian journalist Sarah Churchwell’s rant on Bridget Jones and how the myth of the single girl stereotype affects actual single girls.

Published two years ago, Racialicious’s Latoya Peterson ponders “The Not Rape Epidemic” in the form of her own sexual assault when she was fourteen. Powerful stuff.

MamaMia defends Helen Mirren’s right to bare breasts. When you look that good at 64, all I have to say is: you go, girl!

Mad Men’s Betty Francis (nee Draper) exemplifies the cycle of abuse on Tiger Beatdown.

Is curvy Christina Hendricks getting the Kate Winslet treatment?

The male motivational power of the pinup.

In a similar vein, the consensus circulating around the blogosphere is that Hugh Hefner is to blame for all that is wrong in the world today, which is an issue I beg to differ on, however it’s not all Playmates and flamingos at the Playboy Mansion, either, according to The Washington Times.

Following on from Rachel Hills’ post on intersectionality, Hoyden About Town profiles the “squishy bits” of “Intersectionality and Privilege”.

It has never been a better time to be an out-and-proud gay man, in my opinion. This is evidenced by all my straight and single friends who are also desperate and dateless (myself included!), while my gay friends flourish in the dating world, with the added bonus of the iPhone app Grindr. If only the straight folk had an online dating service to present potential suitors to us—oh wait, we do. It’s called online dating, which still has a stigma attached to it (if the disappearance and suspected murder of Zara Baker, whose stepmother—whom her father met online—is a suspect, is anything to go by), the likes of which Grindr has never seen.

On the (Rest of the) Net.

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After my Mick Foley rant last week, I’ve started reading his blog, Countdown to Lockdown, and I’m loving it. Here are some choice articles:

Remembering female pro-wrestling pioneer, Luna Vachon, who passed away on August 27 this year.

“That Time I Met… Tina Fey… and Alec Baldwin!”

“That Time I Met… President William Jefferson Clinton!” (I really love this one; some heart-warming stuff.)

“Mick’s Favourite Things: Top Ten Matches”, three of which—Cactus Jack VS. Randy Orton at Backlash 2004 (above), Mankind VS. The Undertaker in Hell in a Cell in June, 1998, and Mick Foley VS. Edge in a Hardcore Match at WrestleMania XXII (that’s WrestleMania 22 in 2006 for you wrestling laymen)—I 100% agree with.

In defence of Buffy’s whining.

“To the Teenage Boy in Your Life”:

“An important thing to remember is that girls are not from a different planet, nor are they even a different species. They’re just people, they’re just like boys, except with vulvas instead of penises.

“Mainly you need to remember this when you’re trying to figure out what a girl is thinking. See, if you didn’t know what a BOY was thinking, how would you go about finding out? You might ask him, right? The same goes for girls.”

I’m a bit behind the eight-ball on this one, as No Make-Up Week was a month ago, but Alle Malice’s guest post on Rabbit Write goes over the reasons “Why We Wear Make-Up”. I especially like this one:

“It makes me look good in photos. Almost everything we do now is documented by someone and posted in Facebook albums for the world to see, because if you aren’t having fun on Facebook, you aren’t really having fun. And if you aren’t pretty on the internet, you aren’t pretty in real life. Enter makeup.”

Nick Sylvester, on Riff City, discusses “How Kanye West’s Online Triumphs Have Eclipsed Kanye West”:

“Maybe there are people working with him… but I get the sense that Kanye is generating the [sic] lot of these ideas. I imagine he likes being in control of every aspect of the production, the medium being the message and so on. Online he is a wise fool, first playing into people’s perceptions of ‘Kanye West’, then off those very perceptions, sending himself up, pulling back his own veil… Despite many attempts, Kanye West is incapable of being parodied, largely because Kanye West has already figured out a way to be a parody of Kanye West.”

Much like Megan Fox in this New York Times Magazine article. Could I even go as far as to say that blonde bombshell Pamela Anderson has employed this strategy? I believe I could. And for that matter, Lindsay Lohan sending herself up on Funny or Die and promos for the MTV VMAs are along the same lines.

Sylvester goes on to say that “artists like Kanye West have to be ‘good at Twitter’ in order to put a dent in the zeitgeist.”

Furthermore,

“‘Nowadays rappers, they like bloggers,’ is what Swizz Beatz says… Slowly the work itself becomes secondary, less ambitious; slowly people becomes ‘really proud of their tweets’.”

Is it “The End of Men”?

Disney’s latest offering, Tangled, based on the story of Rapunzel, takes us back to a time when the Disney Princess reigned supreme, according to io9.

Feminist Themes examines Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” clip:

“… the objectification, glamorising of lesbian fetishism, and excessive girl-on-girl violence… [are aspects of the video that] feminist Gaga fans can try to justify… as another example of how she subversively turns what we usually find hot into something that leaves a nasty taste in our mouths and therefore makes a statement, but if any other artist (particularly any male artist) incorporated this much objectification and violence against women we would be outraged. Is it any different just because it’s a woman, or because it’s specifically Gaga?

“… What sets Gaga apart from other sexpot pop stars for me is that I just can’t imagine men being honestly turned on by her—not because she isn’t gorgeous (she is), but because she is so avant-garde, aggressive and self-driven which takes that arousal and turns it into something atypical, uncomfortable, and threatening.”

Also at Feminist Themes, the cause of the she-blogger in “Why I Blog”.

In other Gaga news, The Cavalier Daily reports that the University of Virginia is now running Lady Gaga classes! This sooo makes me want to re-enrol in university in a post-grad, transfer to UV, and take this kick-ass class!

The Daily Beast puts forth two differing opinions on Glee’s stereotypes: Andy Dehnart discusses the show’s “Harmful Simplicity”, while Thaddeus Russell applauds the walking stereotype that is Kurt Hummel, as “history tells us that those unafraid to be ‘too gay’ won far more freedoms—for all of us—than those who dressed the part of straights.”

Beautifully satiric The Frenemy reveals the recipe to “The Teen Romantic Comedy”, which “does not work for Mean Girls, 10 Things I Hate About You, or John Hughes films”, unfortunately. The truth about Disney Princes is also profiled, in which Eric from The Little Mermaid “wanted to kiss a girl who doesn’t speak words and doesn’t know how to use a fork. What the hell are you, caveman?”, while Mulan’s Captain Shang is in truth, a “gay liar” who made young, susceptible viewers the girls who have “crushes on a lot of her gay friends. [A] big Will & Grace fan.” Hey, that’s me!

Rachel Hills discusses intersectionality in feminism:

“For those of you who aren’t familiar with the term, ‘intersectionality’ is a way of talking about power and privilege that recognises that recognises that these things operate on multiple axes. People aren’t just female, or Black, or Asian, or straight, or working class, or trans, or a parent, or prone to depression—everyone falls into a number of different categories that colours their experience of the world in specific ways. In the feminist context, it serves as a useful reminder that not all women have the same experiences, and calls into question the still dominant notion that the neutral ‘female’ experience is one that is white, heterosexual and middle-class.

“I’m also a fan because it just makes feminism a whole lot more interesting.”

Girl with a Satchel profiles Melissa Hoyer’s media career, which is a must-read for any budding wordsmith.

I am staunchly pro-choice when it comes to the abortion debate. In fact, I lean so far to the left that I’m borderline pro-abortion. (I’m sure that’ll ruffle some feathers!) But no matter what your feelings on the subject, MamaMia’s post, “The Couple Facing Jail Because They Tried To ‘Procure an Abortion’. Hello, Queensland? It’s 2010” is worth checking out.

Jezebel’s “5 Worst Mean (Little) Girls of All Time” includes Willy Wonka’s Veruca Salt and, from one of the most heart wrenching films of all time, A Little Princess, Lavinia, who looks a lot like modern-day mean girl, Angelina Pivarnick, from Jersey Shore.

“Why Strawberry Shortcake Was a Progressive Pioneer.”

On the (Rest of the) Net.

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“A Guide to Eating Food Off the Floor.”

Feminist Themes’ regular “Wait… What?” column features The View co-host, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, and her take on the pro-choice versus pro-life debate.

In The Atlantic’s thought provoking piece on “The End of White America?”, Hua Hsu “discuss[es] Obama, football, hip-hop, and the elusive notion of a ‘post-racial’ society.”

Pandagon responds to Susan Faludi’s piece on third-wave feminism (which I haven’t read yet, but expect it to be included in an upcoming On the [Rest of the] Net), in which “she puts out evidence that younger feminists are sometimes unfair and ungrateful to older feminists, and that older feminists are sometimes so afraid of younger women that they go out of their way to exclude them… complaining that younger women don’t care.” Furthermore:

“… she reinforces a jumble of often conflicting stereotypes on younger feminists to discredit us: that we’re obsessed with navel-gazing over activism, that our obsession with technology comes at the expense of actual work, that we don’t know our history and don’t care about systemic issues, that we’re materialist[ic] and unwilling to challenge sexual exploitation for fear of pissing off men, that we’re so busy cultivating our graduate degrees writing about Lady Gaga… that we can’t be bothered to worry about real world issues.”

I do agree with some of this summary of Faludi’s piece, but Lady Gaga’s meat dress drew attention to vegetarianism, animal welfare and gay rights. They’re, like, real world issues, aren’t they?

Liz Greene delivers some particularly poignant points on parental relationships and “the family triangle” in “The Eternal Triangle”.

Buffy is “The Third Wave’s Final Girl”.

Jezebel reasons “Why Glee Still Needs to Work on Diversity”, while Brittany and Santana are “Queer Idols”:

“It wasn’t even until halfway through Glee’s first season that the first hint of queerness was even mentioned… Maybe you’d call it bisexual, maybe you’d call it heteroflexible, maybe you’d call it bicurious: whatever they are, it’s definitely a bit queer… Brittany is, if you will, an equal opportunity slut: one who’s willing to make out with whatever hotness crosses her path, regardless of gender… And among fellow fans of the show, my designation of Brittany and Santana as queer icons has met with some derision: their relationship is played for laughs, I’ve been told. They’re just straight girls making out for male attention… [But]… with the exception of their joint date with Finn, Brittany and Santana have hardly been shown using their relationship to win over boys… For me, Brittany and Santana represent a new mode of queer figure… : fluidly sexual, comfortable with same sex contacts, and more interested in finding happiness than finding the right label. They may not fit into the rigid structures of traditional sexual identities, but they’re comfortable enough with themselves not to care.”

More Jezebel: They’ve really been getting on the “slut-shaming bandwagon”, especially with their endorsement of Easy A. Now, they give their take on the “Ancient Slut-Shaming” of Cleopatra, as well as the “sexual double standards” on Jersey Shore. About the latter, they say:

“… The slut-shaming of Angelina… revealed their thoughts on sexual double standards. (The ‘thoughts’ being that sexual double standards exist, and that’s just the way it is.)… Pauly said about Angelina: ‘She brought all these random people home. She’s a girl. You don’t do that. That’s a guy thing. Guy’s do that, no girls.’… Shouldn’t Pauly and The Situation be grateful for sluts? If there were no sluts then they would never be able to have sex. Do they think for one minute that they would even want to live in a world in which all girls acted the way they’re ‘supposed’ to?”

“Who Stole Feminism?”, asks The Nation. Sarah Palin, Christine O’Donnell and all those right-wing extremists, that’s who!

“Sarah Palin opposes abortion and comprehensive sex education. While mayor of Wasilla she made sexual assault victims pay for their own rape kits. She also calls herself a feminist. Delaware GOP Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell has said that allowing women to attend military academies ‘cripples the readiness of our defence’ and that wives should ‘graciously submit’ to their husbands—but her website touts her ‘commitment to the women’s movement. Pundits who once mocked women’s rights activists as ugly bra burners are abuzz over the ‘new conservative feminism’, and the Tea Party is lauding itself as a women’s movement.

The right once disparaged feminism as man-hating and baby-killing, but now ‘feminist’ is the must-have label for women on the right.”

“Geeks Versus Hipsters” is the equivalent of the passionate versus the apathetic, respectively, according to Gizmodo. And from the hipsters I’ve come into contact with, I’m inclined to agree.

Can Newsanchor Barbie be both hot and a feminist?

Jessica Rudd (yes, Kevin’s daughter) discusses the differences between chick-lit and (the nonexistent) dick-lit in a guest post on MamaMia.

Beneath the “campy sensationalism” of True Blood lies “the weird, seemingly reactionary politics” of “the right’s worst nightmare about post-gay-liberation America come to life.”

Thanks For the Love, Gala Darling.

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Rachel Hills wasn’t wrong when she said a link from Gala Darling’s self-titled blog significantly increases her page views.

I was lucky enough to be linked in Gala’s “Carousel” column (and the very first link, no less), and saw my hits over the weekend increase more than 13 times what I normally average!

It’s nice to see all my hard work somewhat paying off. Thanks again, Gala Darling!

Elsewhere: [Musings of an Inappropriate Woman] Why I Blog: The Pleasures & Sorrows of the Internet.

On the (Rest of the) Net.

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Once upon a time, a disillusioned Los Angeles writer bemoaned the fact that when you start getting dermal fillers and can’t speak to someone else who hasn’t, “you realise there is actually something quite wrong with L.A… And then along comes Heidi Montag and you feel normal again.”:

“The amount of women, like Heidi, I see in Los Angeles walking around like blow up dolls, victims to the horrific mental disorder of body dysmorphia—is huge. Body dysmorphia is as much a disease as anorexia, as bulimia, as over-eating, as alcoholism, drug addiction. These are mental disorders which manifest themselves in physical self-harm.”

Like the compulsion to have DDD size boobs implanted on your tiny, surgically-sculpted frame that cause you constant pain and prevent restful sleep and exercise.

Girl with a Satchel asks if new British magazine “…Just as Beautiful [is] Fetishising & Sexualising Fuller Female Figures?”

From “Gender is Not Just a Performance”:

“It is a crass oversimplification, as ridiculous as saying all gender is genitals, all gender is chromosomes, or all gender is socialisation. In reality, gender is all of these things and more.”

To celebrate No Make Up Week, Rachel Hills contemplates why we feel there’s something wrong with us if we don’t go around looking flawless at all times.

Still with Rachel Hills: her “Kanye West Syndrome” article, “I’mma Let You Finish…” and “Himglish & Femalese”, about how men are women are the same, but different, are stand-outs.

The New York Times, in an article from last year, ponders the vampire’s place in fashion.

In more vampire news, Billie Doux offers up “Buffy Quotes for Every Occasion”, paying special attention to librarianship, in which these gems pop up: “I love the smell of desperate librarian in the morning,” and “I mean, I can’t believe you got into Oxford… That’s where they make Gileses”.

Gender blogger Greta Christina lists the “5 Stupid, Unfair & Sexist Things Expected of Men”, in which she states that “… sexism hurts men. In particular, … our society’s expectations of men, [and] our very definitions of maleness. I’ve been looking at how rigid and narrow many of these expectations are…”, such as “being tall”! Not much a man can do about his height… much like the stupid, unfair and sexist things expected of women.

We all know how much I love professional wrestler cum author cum sexual assault crusader, and finally, Jezebel has cottoned on to the awesomeness that is Mick Foley, even going as far as to say that “we need more men like him.” Amen to that. Also, check out his blog.

There’s a lot of debate over whether a straight man and a straight woman can be “just friends” (FYI, I believe they can), and this article favours the notion that having “Platonic Female Friendships Can Make For a Better Man”.

If my love for Beauty & the Beast (the DVD is currently out of the Disney vault on re-release; I have a birthday coming up…) is anything to go by, “Brunettes Love Beauty & the Beast”. As “princess hero”-affirming as that might be, the article ends on a negative note, saying that “a brunette [is] more prone to rational expectations of life and thus… the ‘We Love Belle’ fan-club must be an awfully boring place to be… Blondes: 1 Brunettes: 0”. Ouch.

ScreenCrave on why “Twilight’s Bella Swan is a Feminist’s Nightmare”.

In the spirit of such Girls Night In staples as Mean Girls and Bring It On (more on my Girls Night In to come next week), Jezebel advocates for the “5 Life Lessons Learned from The Ladies of 00s Teen Films”.

In “Print This Out & Give it to Every Boy You Know”, Jezebel debunks the myths of the feminist. For example:

“[Myth:] Feminists are angry/predominantly lesbians/man-haters/all of the above… Some women are angry, yes. Some are lesbians. And some probably hate or fear men. Some women also identify as feminists. These characteristics exist independently of each other. If there’s overlap, it’s coincidental and correlated or causal…”

and

“Feminism has more flavours than Baskin-Robbins and a hundred and one areas of focus, covering everything from reproductive rights to international development to political reform or popular culture. Beyonce is a feminist and so is Hilary Clinton. And men can be feminists, too! It’s a big tent party, y’all! Heck, some women live their entire lives according to feminist principles, but never use the term.”

I would like to tell that to a certain “I hate feminism” espousing lady I know…

On the (Rest of the) Net.

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I’m filing all Mad Men titbits in one hit. I hope you can handle it.

1. Love the latest promo posters designed by Christina Perry. The one with Joan’s likeness is, of course, the fiercest.

2. Damaged child of Don Draper and Betty Francis, Sally Draper, deserves “A Freudian Analysis”. And her fair share of Freudian therapy, I would guess.

3. And so does Betty, for that matter. Perhaps a therapist that doesn’t report back to her husband. For now, though, she’s content to make herself over.

Advice blogger Penelope Trunk tells us “How to Write About Your Life”:

“… [The] number one rule is that if you write about your life there must be a redemptive moment because people like that…

So, okay. I try to see that. I mean, I’ve read plenty of memoirs— Girl, Interrupted, Smashed, Darkness Visible— all good books. All very redemptive at the end, for sure. But I’ve also read Anna Karenina. Well, I haven’t, but I’m able to spoil the ending for you right now anyway… She gets hit by a train. I think she kills herself.

That seems redemptive to me. I mean, at least she doesn’t have to wake up to her same problems every day.

I have told this to my… agent. She said that people do not want to read about my fascination with suicide.”

Jill at Feministe writes of her “commitment to ending up an old maid” in the 2007 article, “I’m Never Getting Married”.

Diablo Cody asks the original “Misery Chick”, Daria Morgendorffer, if her crush, Trent Lane, and the other “Trents of the world are ever suited to long-term relationships…?”. Daria’s response?

“I always thought of Trent as being the Dave Navarro of high school… Considering a girl like Carmen Electra couldn’t maintain true love with Dave Navarro; and Sandra Bullock couldn’t whip Jesse James into commitment; and Pam Anderson couldn’t land Tommy Lee or Kid Rock or Tommy Lee. All epic fails.” How profound.

Since when did mobile phones cease to become telephones? “When my so-called phone rings, my first reaction is ‘Shit. What’s wrong now?’ [However] When I get an email or text message, I feel a tingle of optimism.” My feelings exactly.

Harkening back to the “Feminism Has Failed” debate, where my thoughts were that it hasn’t failed for me personally, but for a woman who is not able-bodied, perhaps it has. Disabled Feminists ask if there’s “A Place at the Table For Me?” when discussing body image. Very thought provoking.

Keanu Reeves just can’t catch a break. Now, “The 12 Most Depressing Keanu Reeves Quotes”. My favourite? See above.

More feminist goodness, this time from Echidne of the Snakes and touching on the “burqa debate” and how women dress in different societies and cultures.

Again, an old-school article from The New York Times entitled “What’s Wrong with Cinderella?”. This is (apparently) what’s wrong with Cinderella and the other Disney princesses:

“…‘I see girls expanding their imagination through visualising themselves as princesses, and then they pass through that phase and end up becoming lawyers, doctors, mothers or princesses, whatever the case may be.’

Mooney [who produced the above quote] has a point: There are no studies proving that playing princess directly damages girls’ self-esteem or dampens other aspirations. On the other hand, there is evidence that young women who hold the most conventionally feminine beliefs—who avoid conflict and think they should be perpetually nice and pretty—are more likely to be depressed than others and less likely to use contraception…

The infatuation with the girlie girl certainly could, at least in part, be a reaction against the so-called second wave of the women’s movement of the 1960s and ’70s (the first wave was the fight for suffrage), which fought for reproductive rights and economic, social and legal equality. If nothing else, pink and Princesses have resuscitated the fantasy of romance that that era of feminism threatened, the privileges that traditional femininity conferred on women despite its costs—doors magically opened, dinner checks picked up, Manolo Blahniks, Frippery. Fun. Why should we give up the perks of our sex until we’re sure of what we‘ll get in exchange? Why should we give them up at all? Or maybe it’s deeper than that: the freedoms feminism bestowed came with an undercurrent of fear among women themselves—flowing through Ally McBeal, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Sex & the City—of losing male love, of never marrying, of not having children, of being deprived of something hat felt essentially and exclusively female.”

Following on from this, Rachel Hills of Musings of an Inappropriate Woman, writing in The Australian Literary Review in July 2008, untangles the sexualisation of children. Again, well worth the read.

We’ve gotta give the guys some attention, too, and Newsweek does just that with “Men’s Lib” and retrosexualisation:

“Since the 1950s, the image of American women has gone through numerous makeovers. But masculine expectations remain the same… The term ‘retrosexual’ has all but replaced ‘metrosexual’ in the lifestyle sections of national magazines, which are full of stories about affluent urbanites wearing hunting garb, buying designer axes and writing about the art of manliness on blogs with names like (ahem) The Art of Manliness.”

Jezebel with the quirky genius that is their movie reviews: and a double-whammy at that. Firstly, there’s “Important Life Lessons from B-List Teen Movies of the ’90s” like The Craft and Can’t Hardly Wait. And secondly, in the same vein, they profile Easy A and how it “… Tackles Slut-Shaming, Gossip & What We Expect from Girls Now”. Review to come next week.

Stylish Thought muses on “The Joys of Being Alone”, a concept which I am none-too-familiar with. I find people who don’t like being alone freaks, as does blogger Fajr. Love the accompanying pic, too.

After all that, this should have been called the jumbo edition!

The 10 Commandments of Work/Life Balance.

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Recently, Mia Freedman posted a list of the ten things she needs for work/life balance, based off a speech she did on the topic.

So I thought I’d shoot off my ten must-haves for staying sane. What are yours?

1. Reading. Without something to read—books, magazines, blogs—I would go crazy. Most days of the week I try to set a good chunk of the evening aside for reading, in addition to whatever reading I manage to get done throughout the day. It simultaneously calms and inspires me.

2. Television. When I’m really spent, I love nothing more than lapsing into a coma, carving out a me-shaped groove, Homer-style, in the bed and getting my Grey’s Anatomy/Glee/Gossip Girl (the three G’s) on.

3. Writing. While I’m not getting paid for blogging, I do consider it a job, therefore I usually work six or seven days a week. Sometimes writing can seem like a chore, as I’m sure it does for all bloggers and writers of any kind at some stage. However, my blogging style and schedule are always changing. I’ve always been a morning person, so I try to churn out reviews and longer articles in the morning before I burn out, then work on smaller/easier posts around midday, and usually clock off around 2pm. Learning what works best for me helps keep writing enjoyable for me.

4. Friends. I’m a hermit by nature, so I really have to force myself to get out and see people. Luckily, a lot of my friends are people I’ve met through work, so everyday is like a play date, and any extra time with them (lunch, movies, after-work drinks) is a bonus. Having a balance of work and play makes me value both more.

5. Staying busy. Following on from the previous sentence, the busier I am, the more inspired I become, and the more I value my downtime. But when work dries up, so too does my inspiration and motivation. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle.

6. My day job. As I said above, I love the people I work with, so most days are riotously fun. I won’t lie, though; sometimes I struggle with the mundaneness of my job description, but four paid days a week and two to three blogging days a week makes for a content Scarlett.

7. Exercise. I’ve been a bit slack with the exercise routine lately, but I started back up again on Sunday, and I have to say: I’m feeling good. As Elle Woods said, “Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy”.

8. Write-off days. Sometimes I just feel too tired/sick/insert motivation-affecting emotion here to get up and do the things I need to. In those situations I just write-off the rest of the day and stay in bed with a box-set. I can’t say I don’t struggle with the guilt following one-such-day, but that’s something I’m working on.

9. Fun outings. Dinner/movies/after-work drinks can become a bit monotonous after a while, so I try to shake things up in my friendship group/s by organising fun things like trips to the zoo for friends’ birthdays, dancing all night to ’90s tunes, and indoor rock-climbing. 90% guaranteed to produce lifelong memories… not to mention numerous Facebook profile photo-ops!

10. Me-time/Downtime. Similar to write-off days, but provided I’ve had enough me-time/downtime interspersed between working, blogging and socialising, there is no need for a write-off day. I have been known to pass on social occasions in favour of a good book/magazine/blog/TV show/movie and a bath/block of chocolate/cup of peppermint tea to preserve my long-term sanity and maintain the work/life balance.

On the (Rest of the) Net: Jumbo Edition.

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After last weeks flat effort, On the (Rest of the) Net is back in fine form, with a bumper edition.

“Reading About ‘It’ Girls Makes Me Feel Like a Shit Girl”: The title alone is worth the read, but Rachel Hills raises some interesting points, as always.

You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family. Luckily, my housemate is both a friend and relative and, while it’s still early days, thank God our relationship is a tad more functional than those expressed in this flow chart.

Frequent trips to the video store when I was younger means I’m privy to some of the best so-bad-they’re-good flicks of the late ’80s and early ’90s that not many others my age were. Teen Witch, Girls Just Want to Have Fun and Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead spring to mind, the latter of which has a “surprisingly serious” message behind it.

The Sunday Times Magazine ran with a story on “Lady Gaga & the Death of Sex”. Unfortunately, you have to pay to read the whole thing, but here’s a snippet. Hopefully an Australian mag picks up the story…

More Gala Darling wisdom. (Speaking of wisdom, I’m getting my wisdom teeth pulled today, so wish me luck!)

Jezebel asks (borrowing a direct headline from an Indian newspaper), “Should a Woman Marry Her Rapist?”

All the hullabaloo surrounding Christina Hendricks’ bangin’ body means she’s “gone from poster child for the supposed comeback of curves to practically a stock photo for any story about bodies.” Sure, “we can all agree that Hendricks is pretty fucking hot from head to toe,” but “Hendricks still fits the Hollywood ideal of beauty in most ways.”

I loved seeing all of Jenna Templeton’s pics from her recent trip to Melbourne on My Life as a Magazine. Love, love, love the store Harem on Brunswick Street, and so does she!

God help us! I didn’t think you could get any worse than Sarah Palin when it comes to female Republicans, but apparently you can. Jezebel runs a piece on “the new Republican candidate for Senate in Delaware”, Christine O’Donnell. A bit of background: “She is a devout Catholic, chaste, anti-masturbation, pro-abstinence-only sex ed, anti-condoms and anti-porn.” But what I find most conflicting about her stance is that “There’s only truth and not truth… You’re either very good or evil.” We’re all going to hell, then!

Tavi Gevinson gives her take on “Kinderwhore Britney” on the cover of Japanese magazine Pop: “These covers shock us because, even though this is how we’ve been used to seeing Britney Spears throughout her entire career, she’s finally the one to comment on our culture’s disturbing obsession with her.”

In a similar vein, Julian Abagond at Sociological Images wants to know “Why Do the Japanese Draw Themselves as White?” Well, “as it turns out, that is an American opinion, not a Japanese one. The Japanese see anime characters as being Japanese. It is Americans who think they are white. Why? Because to them white is the Default Human Being.”