markers of cultural identity

various things in my life have been keeping me busy these days, so that i'm finding little energy to write.  but i've had a bit of time to read about the whole patricia arquette oscar speech thing and intersectionality, which reminded me about another issue related to race.

i don't watch many TV programmes, but favourite ones tend to be legal dramas.  from "LA law" to "ally mcbeal" to "the practice" to "the good wife" (not so much "boston legal", unfortunately).  so i was definitely interested in the new series "how to get away with murder".  i've watched the 3 episodes that have aired, and i really like it.  i love the centering of black people, the strong character development of them, i the central character in both her toughness and vulnerability.  in much the same way as i love the character of kalinda sharma in "the good wife".

the only thing that bothers me with the show is, on the face of it, pretty trivial.  it's that the hair of the black women on the show is invariably straight.  i'd have to go back through the 3 episodes to confirm, but it seems to me that there wasn't any major black woman on the show with the tight curls that many african women have.  i've looked at images of viola davis, and it seems to me that is her natural hair style.

the thing is that it isn't just this one show.  it's a thing with most movies, tv shows, music videos, most of popular culture.  it's a thing that has been written about a lot in america, and here's just one article.  it's a thing that's rooted in american history, where blackness has historically been considered bad, unworthy and the expression of blackness disdained.  it's about a history where black women have had straightening products pushed on them for decades, with the notion that having straight hair makes them more acceptable (reminds me of the whitening cream marketed so strongly in many asian countries).

this is not about viola davis and her individual choice - she gets to present herself how she pleases, as does any black woman.  i certainly don't think of any one of them as sell-outs for choosing to have straight hair.  it's more about a show that is going past so many stereotypes but still adhering to this one.  it's about how a natural marker of identity (and yes, i know that not all african women have natural curly hair) is erased from popular culture - unless it's a period drama.

we have a parallel here in nz, with maori.  the way that moko are treated in every day kiwi life is quite similar.  they're considered unacceptable for employment; they are often viewed as something scary or suspicious; they are rarely seen on our tv screens or in our newspapers.  they seem to me to be an aspect of cultural identity that has been sidelined instead of celebrated.  i can't speak for maori in general, or any maori person specifically, so apologies if i have this wrong.  but could it be that a lot more of them would choose to have one if there wasn't this erasure and negativity surrounding the practice?

i guess these issues are of importance to me because i wear one of aspect of my identity so very visibly, and by choice.  i pay consequences for that choice, of course.  daring to have a marker of identity that is so different from the majority can be seen as an affront, a challenge to the status quo.  hence there can be pushback.  so be it, i find that's not enough to stop me.

but i do know that it shouldn't be so.  i shouldn't be getting push-back.  neither should anyone else, simply for making an overt display of who they are.  or for sporting a marker of cultural identity.  that's why i want this show to be braver, stronger, more challenging of stereotypes than it already is.

How Savemart changed my life

Clothes shopping used to be something I was crap at.  Looking, fine, but actually trying stuff on and making a decision?  Not so good.  The stakes just seemed so high, given that I usually didn't have much spare money and I'm very aware that I'm not necessarily a good judge of what suits me; when I look in the mirror, like so many other people, what I see is perforated with body-image baggage, some mine, some my mother's, a fair bit from Barbie, most from the media images I see All. The. Time.  

Not to mention my insidious fear of shop assistants in clothing shops.  Why do they always look so put together, and intriguingly edgy, and effortless, when I had to really think about what to wear and then ended up going for the safe option every time? I completely understand why Tina Fey so often wears a lovely dress in the same shade of blue to awards shows.

The first time I walked into the Onehunga Savemart I was intimidated.  So many clothes!  Then I noticed that the people who worked there were all in red t-shirts and jeans, the changing rooms were pretty beaten up, and the floor was uneven.  There were trolleys to put your finds in, masses of clothes of a million different types (really), books, more jeans than you would get at a Jeans West. My kind of place!  No one was going to judge me for what I picked off the rack or tried on, no one was going to try to sell me something, it was oddly peaceful and restful, because there is so little interaction between any of the people there.  Which is probably a bit sad for some people, but for me was rather nice.  

I think the first time I didn't even try anything on.  I suspect I bought a handbag - I've gone from having two "grown-up" handbags, both given to me by my mother, to rather a lot more, all from Savemart and all cheap as chips.  I vowed to return, with more time (I can never go for less than 2 hours) and an open mind.  

My fledgling op shopping confidence from my student days has returned, now with more faith in my body that has produced two children and I've come to feel more comfortable in.  Sure, there's heaps of dross, but also some amazing gems.  The best thing I've ever seen was a Vera Wang wedding dress for $60.  I didn't buy it, not being in need of a wedding dress, and I guess it might have been a fake, but it was in great condition.  My best buys to date have been wool jackets - I have little shoulders and seem to benefit from the cast offs of others who discover their new jacket is too tight.  

To start with I was still very harsh on myself, rejecting almost everything I tried on.  But the prices were so low (I often look at the "designer" stuff which can sometimes be as much as $60, but most of the rest is $10 or less) that the risk for me in grabbing something and finding out later I didn't have the confidence to wear it was almost eliminated.  I tried on stuff for fun, stuff I couldn't imagine ever having an occasion to wear, but what the hell, I probably wouldn't buy it, and there was always the chance it could be great.  My trolley got fuller, I worked out a system for myself of how to most efficiently try on masses of clothes while respecting the three items in the changing room limit, and I bought more handbags.

I started to take an interest in putting an outfit together (with a handbag of course), rather than only feeling comfortable in an ensemble put together by a shop assistant for me.  I clashed colours, ignored rules ("blue and green shouldn't be seen", whatevs), and started to value my body for what it does for me, not how it looks.  Clothes have become an expression of my personality, rather than a way to hide.  If something doesn't end up looking right after I get it home or wear it a few times, whether it be the fit or the colour or the style, then it goes back in the donation bin, having cost me often less than a hot chocolate.  If I find a better red shirt or green handbag then the lesser one gets handed on too.  

I have found my attitude has changed from "my body's wrong for this" to "that 's too big/tight/bright/dreary"; the blame shifted from me, my body, to the clothing instead.  This may seem like a very simple thing to many, but for me it was a revelation; it's the clothes that don't fit, not my body.

And that's how Savemart has changed my life.  

Once a month or so I try to shoe horn in a few hours to visit the Savemart in Onehunga, New Lynn or Northcote (I hope to venture to Manukau sometime soon) for a fix.  Sometimes I buy nothing (maybe a handbag) but usually I come home with something I'm excited to wear.  It's a long way from my teens when I wore black constantly not because I was a goth (that would require learning how to do make-up and potentially standing out) but because I wanted someone to ask me if I wore black all the time because of Dinky Bossetti (no one ever did).  

And I also own more handbags than I ever thought I could.  

can't win

i hate beauty contests.  hate them with the intensity of a thousand fiery suns.  i won't go into the reasons in too much detail. let me just say that one of the many things i loathe about them is the restrictive notions of "beauty" they promote.

and so, we get the situation where an indian american (and no, i don't mean a native american, i mean one who's heritage is south asian) woman wins the miss america pageant, and the reaction is beyond bizarre.  not only is there the expected outrage amongst the bigots that this woman doesn't fit into their traditional concepts of beauty (ie white), but there's a whole heap of ignorance added on.

if you want a bit of a taste (& really, you probably don't), check some out some of these comments on twitter.  she's accused of being muslim (as if it's a terrible thing), not sure why?  just because she's brown & has a "foreign" sounding name.  she's accused of being arab (um, been there, done that), doing an "indonesian" dance, and of course, she's labelled a "foreigner", because if you aren't white (& possibly black), you couldn't possibly be american.

yes, the last one really grates with me, because i'm always struggling against the "foreigner" label myself.  the many little & big ways that certain people need to make sure i understand that i don't belong here, don't deserve to have the same things as everyone else, should be grateful just to be allowed to exist in this space and place.  yes, it grates.

and i know that this group of people don't represent a whole country, they don't even represent a majority.  but they are the vocal minority that can make for a hostile environment.  they cause fear, they have an impact that is far greater than their number.  this ugly end of racism is the tip of the iceberg, the bits we can see clearly but there is so much more that is insidious and not always so plainly obvious, therefore much harder to fight.

and then there is the other aspect to this discussion, happening amongst indians (yes, the south asian kind) about how, had she been in india, this young woman would have been too dark to even be considered for a beauty contest (did i say how much i loathe them?).  from that article, i found this the experiences of an anthropologist observing the miss india contest:

I sat in on weekly individual sessions that dermatologist Dr. Jamuna Pai held with the contestants in order to examine their skin. Every single one of the young women was taking some sort of medication to alter her skin, particularly in colour, in the training programme in 2003. In a disturbingly casual manner, Dr. Pai emphasized the need for all the contestants to bleach their skin by prescribing the peeling agent Retin-A as well as glycolic acid and, in the case of isolated dark patches, a laser treatment.

i really recommend reading that whole piece - it's long but very interesting. it's funny how, the last time i talked about lighter skin colour being prized in india, there were those in comments who dismissed my experiences.  maybe you'd believe this guy:

As a forensic exercise, I encourage you to Google “Miss India” and compare the complexions of the winners of the last 10 years with that of Davuluri. The preference for light skin isn’t confined to beauty pageants. It dominates the acres of classified matrimonial ads in Indian newspapers. It figures casually and brutally in schoolyard banter, where dark-skinned children are dismissed as “kallu” or “blackie” by confreres sometimes with skin barely half a shade lighter. (Imagine the lifelong impact on a girl who, from her earliest days at school, is looked upon as ugly because of her complexion.) It affects the health of young girls, who are often prevented from playing outdoor sports because being in the sun could “blacken” them. It figures, even, in the adoption business, where dark-skinned orphans and foundlings struggle to find a home.

this is one of the reasons why i find the formal judging of appearance to be so harmful.  cultural definitions of beauty are so strongly impacted by the commercial imperative to buy, change, alter, & no matter how much of this you do, it will never be enough.  that we find it acceptable to judge women in this public and formal fashion makes it acceptable to judge them all the time, in every context, for appearance alone, in ways that are harmful.

i wish nina davuluri all the best.  i don't condemn her decision to take part in the contest - it's a rational choice given the culture we live in.  i just wish we could change that culture to give women better choices and freedom from constant judgement.

update on merida makeover

just a quick post to say that activism does work sometimes.  after a successful petition and significant backlash against the proposed makeover of merida (covered in my previous post), disney has decided to pull the sexualised image:

In preparation for her "coronation ceremony" last Saturday, Disney gave the Brave heroine Merida a makeover, redesigning the character as thinner with a bigger bust, more revealing dress, a face full of makeup, less wild hair, and replacing her signature bow and arrows with a sassy sash. People were pissed and turned to the internet to voice their protests—which seems to have worked.

As a response to the public outcry, Disney has quietly pulled the redesigned Merida from its Princesses website and replaced it with the original Pixar version. It seems like petitions actually are useful sometimes!

in a world where we're constantly made to feel that our voice doesn't matter & there is no point in trying to change things, even small wins are meaningful.  anything that can counteract our collective feelings of helplessness can only be good.

disney: being brave is not enough anymore

i first learned about what disney was doing to merida, the main character from "brave", from this post.  i really recommend you go over there to see the pictures & the explanations of why it's so wrong.

i had mixed feelings about the movie itself, which i wrote about at the time.  as i said then, it's not the best film ever, but there were still plenty of positives and i thought it was a huge improvement on many of disney's previous efforts.  now, if only they could keep all those positive characteristics, and have the main character not be a princess. although, mulan was apparently not a princess, so maybe they get a couple of points for that one.

but regardless of what you think of the film, it's not like merida was significantly different to the shape of other disney female characters - she's still pretty slim, lots of hair, big round eyes (ok, again with the exception of mulan).  but her traditional image is less sexualised & more of an action figure.

so why the need to make her skinnier still, with the head tilt, the arched eyebrows & the loss of her bow & arrows?  why change something that was working?

there's now a petition against the change, which you can find here:

The redesign of Merida in advance of her official induction to the Disney Princess collection does a tremendous disservice to the millions of children for whom Merida is an empowering role model who speaks to girls' capacity to be change agents in the world rather than just trophies to be admired. Moreover, by making her skinnier, sexier and more mature in appearance, you are sending a message to girls that the original, realistic, teenage-appearing version of Merida is inferior; that for girls and women to have value -- to be recognized as true princesses -- they must conform to a narrow definition of beauty.

as with the changes that were proposed for dora, it's important to fight back against the constant pressure created by images presented to us of female characters.  we all deserve better.

missing the point

i was watching 7 days on friday night, as i do when i get the chance. well, wouldn't you know it, one of the news items was auckland feminist action's campaign against the tui breweries ads. as would be expected, the feminists were put down and the ads were supported. if you want to watch the episode, head over to the tv3 website.

funnily enough, the guys weren't saying too much. it was the woman comedian, urzila carlson, who really got stuck in. there were a few issues with what she had to say. her main point seemed to be that the young women in the ads must have worked hard at a gym to get the kind of bodies they have, and if she had such a body, she would be busy flaunting it.

there's some unpacking to be done here. first is the notion that people who have slim bodies work hard to achieve them. well that's true of some people but not true of others. some people just have a metabolism which means they don't have to work too hard to keep to the beauty ideal. other people have metabolisms which mean that they could work a couple of hours every day, and still find it almost impossible to get to that ideal.

it buys into the notion that fat people have the bodies they do because they are simply lazy. which she must know is crap. plenty of people who don't have the "ideal" body size are actually active and fit. some of them aren't because they can't be - due to health issues, or time and energy issues (possibly because they are working 2 or 3 jobs plus managing a household, and don't have the time/energy to put into exercise). and of course, some people who are thin aren't particularly healthy.

then there's the self-deprecation. ms carlson is implying that her current body shape is not attractive - seeing as how she isn't flauting it in quite the way she described on the show, she would seem to think it isn't worth flaunting. which again reinforces the notion that bigger bodies can't possibly be beautiful. her body shape is something that she does use to get laughs - i've seen two stand-up routines now where she starts off by saying that she's in the show to be the "eye-candy". which gets a laugh because we're in a society that accepts that someone with her body size and shape can't possibly be worth looking at.

i can only go by what i see, but she seems to be quite comfortable with this state of affairs ie that only thin women can be attractive, that fatness is a thing to be ridiculed at laughed at. and because she ensures that the laugh is on her, more than it is on anyone else, it doesn't seem so bad.

the only problem is that there are women who don't want to live in such a world, and who want to change this notion that only a certain size and shape of woman can be considered attractive. we want to live in a world where fat isn't evil, and people don't make lazy assumptions about fat people which they use to justify the general abuse and ridicule they choose to direct at such people.

now, i'm certainly not saying that ms carlson has to take on that fight. certainly not, and not when she's working in an industry that is particularly difficult for women. what i am saying is that she might consider that other women do want to take on this fight, and maybe she could just think about the possibility of not giving them her contempt or putting them down. it wouldn't be hard - she could have just gone with a comment about how she disagreed with their stance, but accepted that they have their own point of view. see, i'm not even expecting solidarity or any kind of support from her. just a lack of the ridicule and contempt that so mirrors what we're seeing from the dudebros across the internet.

and finally, ms carlson did seem to miss some of the point of the AFA protest. it's not just the sexualisation of the women in the ads, but also treating women as if they are stupid and/or not to be taken seriously, as well the clear misogyny of some of the billboards. it's the whole package. see, ms carlson's defense of the women in the ads seems to imply that it is those women who are somehow under attack. this is not the case. it's the people who make the ads - come up with the concepts, decide that it's ok to depict women in this way (and again, talking about the whole package) who are the target here. as well as the people who authorise and pay for the tui campaign. it's the people who make the decisions and who can choose to change the way they market the product who the protesters is speaking to.

on the other hand, shelley bridgeman gets it (as usual, avoid the comments). make of that what you will.

pretty poetry

i don't think it can be said better than this:

teen zines

found via feministing, this excellent blog called the seventeen magazine project, in which a young woman decides to follow all the tips in a teen magazine for a month. from the feministing piece:

The Seventeen Magazine Project is a part of the new generation of self-experiment blogs, post Julie-Julia era, only this time around the issues are closer to home. Body image, beauty, and teenage culture are only a few of the subject matters addressed through Jamie's research. It almost seems impossible to think that Jamie followed all diet and exercise suggestions, utilize all beauty tips, and consume all media recommended by Seventeen Magazine, but she did. Her reflections will aid those women of her generation and hopefully inspire audiences of older women's mags to see the craziness that is "women's publishing."

The blog is a space for Jaime to share all of her daily recordings and analyses and is proving to raise many important questions regarding young women in the media: What are acceptable body image messages? Which beauty tips are necessary at all? What kind of substantial content can replace the already existing articles and messages in forums like Seventeen? Who's responsible for answering these questions--the editors, writers, or readers?

i haven't read through too many of the posts, due to lack of time, but i really liked this one, especially the graphs!

presenting the new miss usa

i'm not really a fan of beauty contests. in fact i pretty much hate them. just the whole idea of lining women up, and judging their faces and bodies - well, it doesn't sit well with me. my own preference is that, as a society, we focus more on our inner selves - more on our behaviour, our intellectual and spiritual development. and i think that everyone has something beautiful about them, so i don't get the need to compete to prove that you're more beautiful than others. then there are the issues around the "beauty contest" definition of beauty - have to be young, have to be tall, have to be unmarried and unsullied (nude photos tend to lose you the crown). further to that, so much of what is presented to us isn't natural beauty - rather, it seems to be a factor of how much money you can spend to surgically remove all your faults or to cover them with make up.

given that's how i feel about it all, i'm probably not the best person to be doing this post. but never mind, i'll do it anyway.

it appears that the miss usa crown has been taken by a lebanese-american, one rima fakih. not only that, but miss fakih identifies as muslim. now, while i hate beauty pageants, i respect ms fakih's choice to enter one, and certainly don't believe she deserves this:

– Conservative radio host Debbie Schlussel blamed Fakih’s win on a supposed “politically correct, Islamo-pandering climate” in America and labeled her a “Lebanese Muslim Hezbollah supporter with relatives who are top terrorists.” [5/16/10]

– Right wing pundit and Fox contributor Michelle Malkin ranted that “Fakih’s cheerleaders are too busy tooting the identity politics horn to care what comes out of her mouth” and that “the Miss USA pageant didn’t want to risk the wrath of the open-borders mob.” [5/16/10]

– Conservative author Daniel Pipes, who was briefly appointed by former President George W. Bush to the U.S. Institute of Peace, opined that “this surprising frequency of Muslims winning beauty pageants makes me suspect an odd form of affirmative action.” [5/16/10]

– Fox News’s Gretchen Carlson complained that Woolard’s “informed opinion” may have cost her the crown, and said that Fakih may have won because we live in a “PC society.” [5/17/10]

incidentally, the "informed opinion" mentioned above appears to be some kind of support for arizona's new immigration laws, wherein people can be stopped randomly by police if said police think they don't look like they belong there. and no matter how much i hate beauty contests, i certainly wouldn't use the language of ms schlussel:

Trump made a bigger deal with Miss California USA and her bimbo activities, when–hellooooo–it’s a bimbo contest. Now, Hezbollah has the chief USA bimbo.

wow, that's a much deeper level of hate than i could ever aspire to. actually, what am i saying? i don't aspire to it at all. i don't think ms fakih is a bimbo. if it was up to me, i'd rather she hadn't been in the pageant simply because i'd rather that there were no such pageants. but it isn't up to me, and i refuse to denigrate her for her decision.

but the all the comments above are not just denigration for her choice to enter a beauty pageant, they are deeply bigotted comments targetted at her for the temerity of winning it. pretty sick really.

(hat tip shakesville for links)

Playing princesses, Disney style

The Princess and the Frog came out this school holidays, featuring Disney's first black princess, and is perhaps the closest, plot-wise, to feminist that such a tale has got thus far.

Sadly The Princess and the Frog continues the ongoing tradition of princesses with waists so thin they would snap, eyes so big there surely wouldn't be much skull room left for brains, and a suggestion of legs so long that Princess Tiana would struggle to sit without hitting herself in the chin with her own knees:
What on earth would have been wrong with giving her proportions similar to the woman who voiced her? And yes, the Disney prince is pretty ridiculously proportioned too.

Things sure have changed since the first Disney Princess, Snow White, in 1937:

life pharmacy promotes beauty

i received an email from nicola skews, woman's representative for young labour, regarding a complaint letter she wrote to life pharmacy about a current promotion they're running. i'm reproducing her letter and the life pharmacy reply, with her permission. here is her complaint:

Kia Ora,

As the New Zealand Young Labour Women’s Representative, I am charged with representing many young women across the country. It is my job that their best interests are promoted, and issues that may be relevant are brought to their attention.

Yesterday I was appalled to pass a Life Pharmacy window display that advertised a venture by Life Pharmacy, Shiseido and WORLD to give away free tote-bags with slogans that said “If you’re good at anything, make it beauty” and “If the result is beauty the method is justified!”

Not only are these regressive in terms of promoting positive self image, the mentality behind the latter slogan could be harmful to women struggling with self confidence or eating disorders.

The idea that ‘if the result is beauty the method is justified’, is rather scary when you consider the following figures:
· In developed societies, anorexia nervosa is the third most common chronic illness for young females. It is ten times more common than insulin dependent diabetes.
· 15 – 19 year old females 0.5%; 20 – 24 year old females 0.25%
· Risk of successful suicide is 32 times that expected for same aged population.

These are only some of the statistics, for only one form of negative body image.
With a constant bombardment of images and expectations reinforcing a mainstream view of beauty, it is no wonder so many young women struggle with self confidence, which doesn’t always go away with age or remain a just an insecurity. Promoting slogans which imply anything you do for beauty is justified as long as you achieve it, is an unbelievably unhealthy message.

WORLD proudly states that they have a “take it or leave it attitude” in their merchandise, but the women of Young Labour (and no doubt other women) would hugely appreciate a company making a difference and taking a stand on body image and unhealthy slogans.

Please reconsider your current promotion, and make a difference to the self confidence of young women who are sick of being encouraged to achieve ‘beauty’ no matter what it takes.
Regards,
Nicole Skews
New Zealand Young Labour Women’s Rep

and here is the reply:

Dear Ms Skews

Thank you for your feedback on our current Shiseido / World Promotion and for taking time to present us with a very detailed commentary in support of your feedback.

Life Pharmacy and Shiseido brands are both very focused on the wellbeing of our customers and women in general. We contribute regularly and generously to many charity foundations to support New Zealanders in a wide range of health matters. In addition, the Shiseido philosophy centres around making the customer feel beautiful on the inside and outside [yeah? i've missed the beautiful on the inside promotion, where do we find that?]. We also mutually share the philosophy of ‘beauty at any age’ (meaning, look fantastic for your age, rather than trying to alter your age [what??]). With that background in mind we felt we could have a little fun with the World brand with the chosen slogans and that these would not be interpreted too literally.

To date, an overwhelming number of customers have chosen to freely participate in this promotion. The feedback to our store teams on the bag slogans in particular, has echoed sentiments of fun and light hearted frivolity. We do however understand that, as with any promotion, consumers may choose not to participate for a various number of reasons of which we greatly respect.

We apologise if you have been unintentionally offended by the slogans chosen and once again thank you for taking time to bring your views to our attention.

Yours sincerely
Jacquie Dabrowski
Merchandise Manager - Beauty
Life Pharmacy Limited

ah, the steve-crow-donate-to-marginally-related-charities defence, and the "it's just a joke" defence. not particularly original, and not particularly helpful. on it's own, the "if the result is beauty the method is justified" implied self-harm message is not a big deal, but when it feeds hundreds of messages women get every day that the pursuit of beauty is the only thing of value, yeah it has an impact. it seems that the main purpose of the beauty industry is to make women feel naturally ugly.

Women are small-minded, vain and jealous. There's a PhD to prove it.

WTF?, I said to myself as I read this Stuff article, Too much beauty may mean too few sales?

According to a PhD student in Australia (assuming Stuff isn't reporting her work disingenuously), women are biologically programmed to compete with one another, making ourselves ever more sexy to compete for men. I'm leaving aside the dubious 'science' of sexual selection for now, because the researcher's next claim is a humdinger: we buy less when we're served by beautiful shop assistants, because they intimidate us.

My experience of shopping is trying desperately to purchase something as quickly as possible that's suitable for work, before the parking metre runs out, while trying to prevent my fed-up children from wiping snot on the garments in the shop, while simultaneously feeling sympathy for the women behind the counter who have to put up with me and my kids for something barely above minimum wage.

I guess there's something wrong with my biological programming as a woman - nature has mistakenly equipped me with the capacity to think.

Compare and contrast

The other day, I got stuck in the checkout queue behind a woman buying $321 worth of groceries. With time to kill, I picked up an issue of Cosmopolitan.

Oh, how I hate Cosmo. The thing that irks me most is that it's so normative. It implies that every woman in her mid(ish) twenties just wants lip gloss, a promotion to a slightly better office job, and tips on how to improve her performance in the sack. This couldn't be further from my mid-twenties experience - many among my friends had no job, a crap job, or were doing further study because they couldn't find a job. Lip gloss was nothing to get particularly excited about; and if any of my friends were having sexual difficulties they didn't share them with me, to my enormous gratitude. (The irony is that the women who read Cosmo are usually about 18 years of age, and don't even fall into the faux demographic that the mag describes.)

Anyhoo, I was reading a copy of Cosmo, and it had one of those semi-regular features in which real women strip their clothes off to make the rest of us feel better about having normal bodies. Women's magazines have to tread a fine line. They can't afford to make us feel so stink about our bodies that we'll stop buying the mags, but we have to feel sufficiently stink to purchase the beauty products the mags advertise. I'm not even sure what it is that these 'real women's bodies' features actually encourage. They claim to celebrate the differences among women; but do they simply encourage us to compare and contrast, feeling slightly relieved that someone else has a bigger bum or smaller boobs?

Whatever the case, I was kind of surprised by the 'diversity' of the featured women's bodies. Women of four different sizes appeared, the largest a 16. But all of the women were in their twenties. There was no hint of the bodily changes that come with aging. No one had the stretchmarks or wobbly bits that childbearing bestows. There was no one with a disability or even a birthmark. Every body was groomed and hairless. (I say this with the bitterness of someone who hasn't found time to finish waxing her legs, thanks to work and children. I've only managed to do the right one, and have spent the last couple of weeks looking like half a yeti.)


Amongst this array of women, I saw none who looked like me. And that, I suppose, is how women's magazines tread their fine line: by making women's diversity seem remarkably uniform.

*headdesk*

From Stuff:

Who is NZ's hottest businesswoman?

Mind you, it is at least an equal opportunity *headdesk*. They're promising a poll on NZ's hottest businessman tomorrow.

Sigh...

H/T: Tom Semmens, in comments at In a Strange Land

Hi-5 goes low-brow

Kellie Crawford, formerly of the kids' entertainment group Hi-5, has had a change of career, appearing in lingerie on the cover of Ralph men's magazine.

Critics have accused Crawford of setting girls a bad example - fair enough. But I also think Hi-5 sets girls a bad example. In fact, I think it's bloody awful (although my son and daughter would strongly disagree).

The sexualisation of the three women of Hi-5 is disturbing: they primp and giggle coquettishly, their appearances are immaculately managed, and their movements are always constrained and ladylike in contrast to the males, even when they're dancing. I've known of grown men who've watched Hi-5 from time to time - and it wasn't for the storytelling or catchy tunes.

Neither sexualisation or gender roles are necessary to interest kids. Playschool, the much-loved TV programme of my youth, featured luminaries like Jackie and Barry and Rawiri. No sex appeal there. The women and men alike were dressed appropriately for the physicality of entertaining kids, and there was little difference in the way they acted or spoke. Playschool engrossed a generation of kids - and no one ever came away from it with body image issues. What changed?

The fact that a children's entertainer has made such a seamless transition to sex symbol should give us pause for thought about the calibre of kids' entertainment. Kellie Crawford may only recently have got her kit off for the camera - but a number of Hi-5 'fans' have been mentally undressing her for years.

Diagnosis: dickhead

For the second time in recent history, Paul Henry has shown he's more interested in what a woman looks like that what she says or does.

Interviewing Josh Kronfeld about Rachel, his Dancing with the Stars partner, Henry said, 'You obviously got very close to [Rachel's] outfits, and some of them were stunning. Was it hard to keep your mind on the moves?".

Kronfeld succinctly said what many of us have been thinking, calling Henry a 'dickhead' on live TV.

He added later, "Well, the guy was being a dickhead ... It was just a cheap shot, and cheapened what dancing means to Rachel."

Good on you, Josh. It's a sad irony, though, that Paul Henry is indifferent when the ladies point out his mindless sexism - but now that an ex-All Black's done it, there's a chance he'll notice.

Paul Henry defends his right to act like a child

TVNZ has received a number of complaints about Paul Henry, following his making fun of Greenpeace's Stephanie Mills for her facial hair. But this champion of free speech is unrepentant and refuses to apologise to the many people he has offended and upset.

In his capacity as a maker of profound social observations, Henry also added, "The thing that interested me wasn't the fact that she had facial hair. It was the fact that everyone can be amazed by it, everyone can be thinking about it, everyone can see it as an interesting thing, but no one can say anything". Good stuff, Paul. Thought-provoking. Could it be that most people, by the time they reach adulthood, develop a sort of filtering mechanism that stops them from saying every single dumb thing that pops into their heads?

The highlight of the linked article is the beautifully understated comment of the University of Otago's Dr Annabel Cooper, who said of Henry, "They should get grown-ups to host those shows". But the thing is, if someone's made it to Henry's age without working out why belittling and hurting other people is a bad idea, there's really not much hope for them.

Guest post: Paul Henry makes a bad bad choice

We've had quite a lot of contact from readers about this matter and one lovely soul, Gina, has offered up a guest post on the issue.

You really have to watch the video to appreciate what happened here.

For those who can’t get the video working- in summary- Paul Henry and Alison Mau were interviewing Stephanie Mills on Breakfast. After the interview Paul elected to read a fax out from a viewer about how they noticed Stephanie (a woman) has facial hair (who doesn’t?). But Paul makes it’s worse than that - watch the vid.

I can’t presume to know how Stephanie Mills from Greenpeace is feeling about this. Maybe she’s laughing it off somewhere. Maybe she’s devastated.

If you are reading this Stephanie and you feel like you want to take this issue further there are women here who will support you.

All I know is how I felt when I watched this. I started to shake with rage. Paul Henry- you had a choice. You had a choice about whether or not to repeat the crap on the fax.

Gina

Cast your vote for Miss Hamilton 400!

Over the last twenty years or so, beauty pageants of all sort have gone steadily out of fashion, in NZ at least. People have realised that, despite the talk of building women's poise and self-confidence, these events are actually painfully naff.

But without any sense of irony at all, organisers of the Hamilton 400 motor race bring us the Miss Hamilton 400 competition - because no car event can be complete without boobs.

If you click on each 'girl', you get a quote, like 'If I could be anything, I’d be a Ligar (half lion half tiger) cause it sounds cool', or 'Best thing that’s ever happened to me is having a Hair Straightner'. This is to remind us that attractive girls are not smart, and vice versa.

I guess women enter events like this one for a bit of a joke, but I have a strong suspicion that the pageant's spectators will be laughing at these 'girls', not with them. The panel of identically dressed women invites voters to make denigrating comparisons: 'that one's got a big nose', or 'that one's a mutt', or 'why did she even enter?'.

Good on these women for feeling beautiful and confident - but can we not celebrate women's beauty in a more respectful way?

To pierce or not to pierce?

My older baby is growing up, and feeling peer pressure for the first time. She's seven, and has decided she wants her ears pierced.

I remember feeling exactly the same way - that everyone else had their ears pierced but me - and I wore my parents down with a sustained campaign of nagging. Eventually, when I was ten, they gave in. I was so excited and overwhelmed by my entrance into the world of fashion that, shortly after the piercing, I fainted in a sorry heap on the street!

My daughter and I discussed the pros and cons of piercing. I said solemnly, 'You know, once you've got holes in your ears, they stay there for good'. She pondered this and replied thoughtfully, 'I can't think of any reason why I'd need intact ears'.

I don't even know why this bothers me. My life hasn't been blighted by the presence of a small hole in each ear. I enjoy wearing earrings. But this seems like the first of a lifetime of little bodily modifications a woman makes because she's not good enough as nature made her. I don't think my daughter's starting down a slippery slope that will end in yoyo dieting and boob jobs. I just wish she saw herself as I do: perfect the way she is.