i like to think of myself as someone who cares about the environment. i'm concientious with recycling & separate out all my paper, vegetable scraps, plastics/glass/cans and other rubbish. i try to reuse plastic containers and bags as much as i can. i avoid buying bottled water unless i'm desperate, use discarded boxes at pak'n'save to take my groceries home, and carry my shopping sans plastic bags from as many retailers as i'm able. i haven't planted trees myself, although my garden is full of them.
but there is one area of my life where i am unable (or more accurately, unwilling) to reduce my carbon footprint. appliances. i love them. i can not possibly imagine living a life without my dishwasher, clothes dryer, dehumidifier, heater, rice-cooker, food-processor, microwave, computer, mobile phone and electric blanket.
i'm talking about the (basically) non-essentials here, ie not just the stove, vacuum cleaner, telephone and washing machine which the majority of households couldn't manage without. i'm talking about all those extra devices which exist purely to save time or to provide comfort. in this regard, i'm a total urbanite. for me, a fun holiday does not involve camping in a tent, cooking on an open fire, relieving myself in a hole in the ground, and bathing in the nearest lake or river. no way. i want a decent motel/hotel with all the modern comforts available.
i know it's naughty, and i often feels quite decadent when the dishwasher, the dryer, the laptop and the dehumidifier are all going at the same time. but i can't seem to help myself. some of these appliances are crucial to me as a working mum with a hectic lifestyle. i just don't have energy at the end of a busy day to be doing a whole pile of dishes or hanging out and taking in the clothes. the dehumidifier is a health requirement - i find that my asthma is a lot worse if i don't use it in the winter months.
but most of them are just habit, a part of modern living. but i wouldn't have any of them taken away. i grew up in the era before mobile phones, but now i can't imagine living without mine. i grew up writing with pen and paper, but now i only feel comfortable composing on the computer. i love the concept of electronic books and MP3s (even though i don't own these), so that you can have access to thousands of songs or books in one easy and small device.
generally, i think progress is a wonderful thing, and i don't tend to look back into the past with any kind of nostalgia. what i'd really like, though, is to be able to enjoy my appliances without any kind of guilt. to me, they represent freedom. in the sense that they free up my time, which means that i can blog, i can volunteer for various organisations, i can be politically active, i can do all sorts of things that i wouldn't have been able to do if i didn't have these appliances.
i think of most of my appliances as feminists devices that enable to me achieve and that give me choices i wouldn't otherwise have had. so what's the best way to mitigate my huge carbon footprint without giving up my beloved appliances?
Showing posts with label products. Show all posts
Showing posts with label products. Show all posts
Monday, 26 October 2009
Friday, 8 May 2009
Lil' consumers
Thanks to a bung neck, I've spent today at home, and I happened to see a bit of kids' TV. At 4.30, whatever programme was on announced, 'Last week we showed boys how to dress - this week, we'll show girls how to put on make up!'.
Hmmm, I thought - body image pressure has gone equal opportunity. But it got so much worse. The next scene featured a girl of about 14, being taught by a specialist how to apply cosmetics - well over $100 worth, I would guess. The whole thing functioned as an infomercial for a particular brand of cosmetics, and although the girl featured in it was a young teenager, the programme seemed to be pitched at younger girls.
Kids don't need more peer pressure. They don't need more body image stress. What they do need, obviously, is a whole lot of money. I'm not going to launch into one of those rants that start, 'In my day...' - but it seems to me that the pressure on kids to consume has become far greater in the last 20 years or so. As a 'tweenie', I didn't have that much discretion over what I wore or owned, or much money of my own. I got some say in the clothing my mum bought for me, but ultimately, this was decided by the need to live on a slim budget. Other kids in my social milieu might have had a bit more in the way of consumer goods, but to own an extensive range of make-up at age 14 was unheard of.
Who's supposed to pay for this stuff? Either kids are more likely to have part-time work these days, or their parents are shelling out. It's enough to make me dread my own kids growing older. Already, my seven year old feels she needs a cellphone, although she really has no use for it.
The ability to consume, or not, matters a lot to kids and teenagers - it's a time in your life when peer pressure is acute. I just don't want to buy into this (pun intended). When my daughter asks for something frivolous, my first impulse is to say no. Often, though, I end up giving in: I feel guilty about my daughter feeling socially alienated because I have a political axe to grind. Yet, when I give in, I know the effect is simply to make some other kid feel bad that they can't keep up with the Joneses.
On behalf of our kids, I think we parents need to form a kind of fashion non-aggression pact. It seems to me that we do our kids no favours by letting them be placed under escalating pressure to consume - pressure that leads kids to compare themselves with one another, and try to stay ahead of their peers in the consumption game. By saying no to the consumption trend on our kids' behalf, we might help deflate the pressure to buy, get our kids to question the ethics of our consuming culture, and save ourselves a small fortune in the process.
Hmmm, I thought - body image pressure has gone equal opportunity. But it got so much worse. The next scene featured a girl of about 14, being taught by a specialist how to apply cosmetics - well over $100 worth, I would guess. The whole thing functioned as an infomercial for a particular brand of cosmetics, and although the girl featured in it was a young teenager, the programme seemed to be pitched at younger girls.
Kids don't need more peer pressure. They don't need more body image stress. What they do need, obviously, is a whole lot of money. I'm not going to launch into one of those rants that start, 'In my day...' - but it seems to me that the pressure on kids to consume has become far greater in the last 20 years or so. As a 'tweenie', I didn't have that much discretion over what I wore or owned, or much money of my own. I got some say in the clothing my mum bought for me, but ultimately, this was decided by the need to live on a slim budget. Other kids in my social milieu might have had a bit more in the way of consumer goods, but to own an extensive range of make-up at age 14 was unheard of.
Who's supposed to pay for this stuff? Either kids are more likely to have part-time work these days, or their parents are shelling out. It's enough to make me dread my own kids growing older. Already, my seven year old feels she needs a cellphone, although she really has no use for it.
The ability to consume, or not, matters a lot to kids and teenagers - it's a time in your life when peer pressure is acute. I just don't want to buy into this (pun intended). When my daughter asks for something frivolous, my first impulse is to say no. Often, though, I end up giving in: I feel guilty about my daughter feeling socially alienated because I have a political axe to grind. Yet, when I give in, I know the effect is simply to make some other kid feel bad that they can't keep up with the Joneses.
On behalf of our kids, I think we parents need to form a kind of fashion non-aggression pact. It seems to me that we do our kids no favours by letting them be placed under escalating pressure to consume - pressure that leads kids to compare themselves with one another, and try to stay ahead of their peers in the consumption game. By saying no to the consumption trend on our kids' behalf, we might help deflate the pressure to buy, get our kids to question the ethics of our consuming culture, and save ourselves a small fortune in the process.
Thursday, 26 March 2009
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?
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?
Wednesday, 11 March 2009
Small things irk me
Have you ever been angry at bread?
That's how I feel every time I see the 'Has New Zealand gone soft?' ad which is currently screening. It's the one showing a children's party where a kid on a tricycle wears a helmet, a fire extinguisher is on hand near the birthday cake, the pinata yields carrot sticks, and the kids play 'cowboys and native indigenous Americans'.
It seems this strange ad is trying to act as some sort of rallying point for disgruntled rednecks. I don't appreciate the homophobic/sexist undertones of 'going soft'. I really don't understand why using a patronising, inaccurate and potentially offensive racial term shows strength of character. (To me, it suggests a lack of the most basic maturity, respect and courtesy.) And I know people have different, valid arguments about whether we let our kids take enough risks - but whatever your view, I think the issue is important enough to warrant some thoughtful debate.
Just when I thought this ad couldn't irk me more, I discovered the website it promotes. Supposedly promoting bread, this website polls punters on whether bullrush should be allowed at schools again, and - wait for it - whether criminals should have fewer rights. All this on a bright, bubbly website, which looks like it's designed to appeal to kids. What the hell? If the ad could perhaps be dismissed as a dumb joke, the website borders on sinister.
This ad/website promotion irks me in so many uncomfortable ways that I can't quite put a finger on all of them. In the same week that a 23 year old prisoner was beaten to death by other inmates, the website glibly puts treatment of criminals in the same basket of social issues as carrot sticks. It encourages an anti-intellectual, mocking response to a bunch of serious questions, and dismisses people who care about stuff like child safety as somehow pathetic or weak.
In fact, 'Has New Zealand gone soft?' looks like braindead, macho posturing to me. I'd like to say more about it, but I have to go cast some racial slurs as I play bullrush in a stridently heterosexual way. While eating bread.
That's how I feel every time I see the 'Has New Zealand gone soft?' ad which is currently screening. It's the one showing a children's party where a kid on a tricycle wears a helmet, a fire extinguisher is on hand near the birthday cake, the pinata yields carrot sticks, and the kids play 'cowboys and native indigenous Americans'.
It seems this strange ad is trying to act as some sort of rallying point for disgruntled rednecks. I don't appreciate the homophobic/sexist undertones of 'going soft'. I really don't understand why using a patronising, inaccurate and potentially offensive racial term shows strength of character. (To me, it suggests a lack of the most basic maturity, respect and courtesy.) And I know people have different, valid arguments about whether we let our kids take enough risks - but whatever your view, I think the issue is important enough to warrant some thoughtful debate.
Just when I thought this ad couldn't irk me more, I discovered the website it promotes. Supposedly promoting bread, this website polls punters on whether bullrush should be allowed at schools again, and - wait for it - whether criminals should have fewer rights. All this on a bright, bubbly website, which looks like it's designed to appeal to kids. What the hell? If the ad could perhaps be dismissed as a dumb joke, the website borders on sinister.
This ad/website promotion irks me in so many uncomfortable ways that I can't quite put a finger on all of them. In the same week that a 23 year old prisoner was beaten to death by other inmates, the website glibly puts treatment of criminals in the same basket of social issues as carrot sticks. It encourages an anti-intellectual, mocking response to a bunch of serious questions, and dismisses people who care about stuff like child safety as somehow pathetic or weak.
In fact, 'Has New Zealand gone soft?' looks like braindead, macho posturing to me. I'd like to say more about it, but I have to go cast some racial slurs as I play bullrush in a stridently heterosexual way. While eating bread.
Tuesday, 18 March 2008
html will set us free
Who needs a head when you have html? First reaction on seeing Jessica Valenti's feministing post on her new t-shirt was 'Want! Need!' Posting this image out of context here seems a little stranger though, echoing the whole 'skinny headless nekkid white woman' debacle that was Valenti's Full Frontal Feminism book cover all that time ago. Let's just knock this one on the head and assume that the missing brain-cage here, does in fact belong to Jessica's body. Or that of a highly-paid t-shirt model.
If only we didn't need more than html to end Teh Patriarchy. I have a feeling we might need xml too, or - fuck it - flash. Crap, we might even have to go all the way back to FORTRAN.
Feminism is hard work, dude.
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