Halloween Horrors

The other day, I went to my local (seasonal) Halloween store to get some highly appropriate Halloween junk.  I like Halloween as a holiday, where all the little kids dress up in cute little outfits and go door to door, getting candy.  I don't care for the gory, scary costumes that scare my dogs.  Those kids always get the bad candy when they pop up out of no where and scare one of my dogs out of their wits.  But, relating to women's roles in society, I was most disturbed this year by the decidedly revealing costumes found in abundance at the Halloween store.  Nurses, firefighters, Cleopatra, cheerleaders, and even bunnies have been degraded to this status.

These costumes don't help women achieve recognition for who they are or what they can do.  Instead, they call attention to what pop culture tells us the most important part of a woman is; her body.  I looked and looked and looked some more for a fun, non plus-sized costume that wasn't equivalent to a skimpy nightgown, but I couldn't find one.  In light of the fact that the women's movement has taken centuries to reach even realization, I think that any woman who puts on one of those outfits needs a good talking-to.  From her grandmother.  Have a little respect for yourselves, ladies.  There are children around.

However, the sheer number of these costumes suggests their popularity.  As with everything else that has changed for women, it's going to take time and talking to young girls about things like self respect and pride in not how one looks, but in who one is.  Until then, I'm beginning a boycott of the Halloween store.  It's much too scary.

In case you were wondering, these are my beautiful dogs.  Myles (left) is two, Fergus (middle) is 10 months, and Hunter (right) is 7

Of Spiders

Today, I got into my car, turned it on and realized there was a spider on my windshield.  I thought he would blow off in the wind, so I continued to drive away, happily.  But the spider refused to leave.

He really didn't bother me much until he started creeping towards me.  All of the sudden, I became unreasonably nervous.  He was kind of small, but he was hairy, or furry, or whatever spiders are.  In any event it was gross and it was coming toward my windshield.  When the spider reached the windshield, he decided to climb into the space between the hood and the windshield glass.  In that moment, I was convinced that at any second I was going to be confronted with eight shiny, somehow villainous eyes.  I considered pulling into a parking lot somewhere and removing the spider, but then he somehow reappeared (on the other side of the glass, thank goodness) and began crawling up the windshield.  Finally, I thought, he's right where I want him!  And so, in an effort to rid myself of this awful thing, I turned on the windshield wipers.

But somehow, the spider that ends up on my car is a genius and jumps onto the wipers and takes a ride.  Now it's personal.  I decide to try and lull the spider into a false sense of security by driving patiently home.  While I drove, trying not to look at the abomination on my windshield, I plotted its demise.  Simply flicking it off would not do.  No, now I needed its blood.  So I laid out a simple plan that would bring the spider to its end.  First, I would stop the car and walk over next to the windshield nonthreateningly.  Then, I would flick the spider onto the ground with a piece of paper, so I wouldn't have to touch it.  And finally, as the spider struggled to regain its multiple legged balance, I would stomp on it.

As I planned this, it occurred to me that I was playing something of a cliche.  Girl versus spider.  Spider is the victor.  When I realized that this battle is one of the stereotypes our society tells us about women, I forgot about the spider.  From a young age, television and other media feeds us the age-old scene of a woman screaming on a chair with a small, harmless spider on the floor.  If someone wanted to further the cause of gender equality, they might try attacking these old stereotypes that seem ingrained into our minds.  Instead of attacking politics or a society as a whole, one might look to themselves and see someone that conforms to societies norms and generalizations instead of being a case in point of individuality.

By labelling myself as a hypocrite, I gained enough confidence to confront the spider.  When I parked my car, I walked around to the front and tried to gently remove him.  How was I supposed to know he was attached?  What ensued was really a frenzy of waving the piece of paper I had used to nudge him around in the air, trying to get the little furry monster unstuck.  What happened next is not one of my prouder moments.  The spider landed on the front of my shirt and I screamed, frantically smacking my shirt.  I fell backward and hit the ground, the spider still on me, though the minute I was on the ground, he seemed to jump off and then scurried underneath a rock.

Well, gender equality and the destruction of stereotypes IS a work in progress.

For the Love of Eduardo

One of my friends decided to dye her hair blonde one day for no apparent reason.  I immediately had visions of orange.  In this day and age, girls' hair color seems to be another accessory, which they change every season as one color becomes fashionable and others leave the arena.

Now, many friend, I'll call her "Geraldine", gave no particular reason for wanting to change her hair color from her natural, honey color to beach blonde.  But I have my suspicions.  Around that time, Geraldine was interested in a certain boy (I'll call him Eduardo) and Eduardo wasn't interested.  Geraldine REALLY liked Eduardo and immediately assumed that if she changed her look from "Geraldine" to "Heidi Montag" Eduardo would become infatuated.  When Geraldine told me of her plan to change her look, I recognized we had two different visions of reality.  Geraldine, dye box in hand, saw herself becoming a beach babe.  I saw pumpkin colored hair that had often reared its head on other girls' manes throughout my teenage experience. 



Thankfully, mercifully, Geraldine's parents discovered her plan and stopped all talk of blonde hair.

Curious to know why girls continually changed their hair color, I decided to talk to a hair stylist.  She told me that when she asked teenaged girls why they wanted to dye their hair, their first response was to insult their own hair.  What the hair stylist gathered from further talking to the girls was the underlying need to be pretty, to be accepted and loved spurred girls to dye their hair.  Most of them said that their friends had all dyed their hair and now the other girls wanted the same color.  This is because, as teenage girls, if you stand out, you are targeted by nasty comments that you hear from other people talking about you.

Eduardo isn't worth it.  Beyond being extremely awful for your hair, dyeing it rips you of your personal identity.  In a world where girls are fed media-images, where self-esteem is so fragile, this popularity of the dye is another facet in the incompleteness of the women's equality movement.  In a brief overview of American society, one can see that the women's equality movement shouldn't be limited to third world countries and the eradication of religious fanaticism.  Our obsession with the way women look has led this society to be as much need of women's equality than ever.

Geraldine thought making her hair a different color would make Eduardo turn his head.  Thank goodness it didn't, because if it had, Geraldine would have been in a relationship with a man who only cared about the way she looked, not the kind of person she is.  But Geraldine's idea underlines an entire society of girls and women who desperately alter their appearance in an attempt to be beautiful.  This leads to low self-esteem and women who change everything about them, defeating the purpose of women's equality.

If you look closely, you will see that these women are, indeed, the same Heidi Monatg.  This is the result of societal pressure to be "beautiful", for men and for others' opinions.

Jeanne d'Arc

Joan of Arc is, essentially, a women's equality activist.  Don't remember her from your history class?  That's okay, because I do.

Joan was born into the Hundred Year's War.  This was a fight between France and England about the region of Normandy and it lasted not 100 years, but about 130. Joan, or Jeanne d'Arc, was French and was acquainted with war from an early age.  British soldiers attacked her village and mutilated it.  Only a young girl when the attack occured, Joan hid in a closet while her older sister tried to stop the English soldiers from coming in.  Unfortunately, one teenaged girl was nothing compared to the multiple men that descended.  From the closet, Joan watched as the soldiers first ran a spear through her older sister, sticking her onto the wall, and then ravaged her as she died.

It's no wonder Joan had anti-English sentiments.

Joan claimed to have had divinely-inspired visions, telling her how to defeat the English.  She was accused of being a heretic of all natures and a communer with the devil.  But, at the seige of Orleans, Joan charged at the city walls, pulling the French army with her.  As men, how could they let a teenaged girl ride to her death?  They won the city, and the French begrudgingly accepted her at war councils.

The French, being French, betrayed Joan and sold her to the English.  She was tried for heresy and found guilty because she was coerced into signing a confession.  She couldn't read, so she signed.  Joan was executed and her head was hung outside a city wall.

Even in light of her extraordinary skills as a strategist, Joan operated under the control of men.  Her life was in their hands, and they disposed of her.  Had she been alive today, can you imagine how the Maid of Orleans would have blossomed?  It is for her, and for every other woman of amazing talent that has lived her life on a man's whim that women now fight for full gender equality.  For too long have they been utensils of pleasure and vessels of childbearing.  Now, we must fight for our right to be in the world and be our own masters... well, mistresses.  Jeanne d'Arc is a perfect example of an extraordinary woman who fought for all the women to come and an inspiration to many women today.

Being a Princess

My favorite Disney Princess movie is Beauty and the Beast.  The one reason that makes me like Belle more than, say, Cinderella or Snow White, is that she is at least independent. The Cinderella and Snow White stories are, to my taste, kind of annoying.

Poor Cinderella, mistreated by her stepmother and stepsisters.  She lives in a little attic with only the animals as her friends.  She's so good and sweet it's sickening.  Cinderella spends her life waiting on her abusers, refusing to stand up for them, happiness only coming from her dreams.  Then, the prince sends out invitations to his amazing ball.  Cinderella is, of course, not allowed to go.  She sobs as she realizes that her stepmother would never, ever let her go.  But Cinderella can't stay home!  So the fairy godmother shows up and makes her beautiful, with one condition; she must leave before midnight or all her pretty things will go back to being ugly.  Cinderella goes to the ball and the prince falls in love with her and she with him.  Now, how do two people, who didn't know the other existed until that night, fall in love with each other?  It's just not realistic.  But then, maybe Cinderella was Juliet's cousin.  However, the clock begins to strike midnight and Cinderella must go!  She races down the steps, losing a shoe in the process (how the woman managed to run with only one glass pump on is beyond me.  I don't think I could run with two) and leaving lover boy behind.  Now, because lover boy's a prince, he makes an all out search for Cinderella, bringing the shoe with him because she had feet the size of a ten-year old's feet.  Cinderella and the prince are reunited and live happily ever after.  The evil stepmother and stepsisters get what they deserve, and Cinderella escapes a bad situation.

In real life, girls aren't going to escape abusive situations and relationships by Prince Charming riding in on his white horse.  The beloved story doesn't tell young girls how to stand up for their rights as a human being.  Too many girls are in bad situations today to risk the Cinderella message.  Part of gender equality is realizing that the girl, not a prince on a white horse or the boyfriend who just hit her, is in control of what happens to her.  Only she can save herself.  No man can do that for you, and no man has the right to treat a woman like trash.  Most men have greater physical strength than women, that much is true, but no man is allowed to control women by force or intimidation.  If you or someone you know is in a situation like this, get help and get out.  Prince Charming will not come for you.  He was detained because his white horse broke his leg.  It's up to women to realize that if they ever want to change the status quo, they must speak out and let their abusers know that they will not be treated as if they were worthless, because they aren't worthless.  No one is.

Snow White is the reason they show those movies in elementary school about talking to strangers.  Her entire stereotype is pretty, feminine, and dumb.  Not to mention annoying.  Snow White doesn't really have any sort of ulterior message, but girls, if an old crone tries to give you an apple, first politely decline.  If she pushes the matter, hit her with the rolling pin you were using to make that gooseberry tart.  That oughta do it.

Belle in Beauty and the Beast isn't looking for a man to save her.  She doesn't need a man to make her whole.  In fact, she turns down the most eligible bachelor in town, because she doesn't like him.  Belle's strong, smart, and caring.  She's beautiful, but in no way does the movie center around her beauty or circumstances.  Belle is the heroine we all want to be.  Her true love loves her for her, not for her beauty after seeing her for the first time (Cinderella and Snow White alert).  Many woman wants to be self-sufficient and independent just like Belle is, in 18th century France.  If I could pick any one of the Disney princesses to be a spokesperson for women's equality, it would be Belle because I believe that she embodies the cause in her presence of mind and her refusal to sell herself short by marrying Gaston.

Labels. Which One Are You?

One day last week, I was sitting at lunch, longing for the weekend.  Knowing those around me would agree, I voiced my opinion, and we began to discuss what we like to do on Saturdays.  One girl said she likes to sleep in late and then play video games.  To my surprise, another girl exclaimed,

"Video games?  You're such a guy [insert name here]!  Were you playing, like, Halo?"

WAAAROOOO! WAAAAROOO! (That's my blog siren.  It goes off when I experience something blog-worthy.)

Let us, first, make a full, stereotyped girlie-girl before we move on to why these sorts of things are completely wrong and awful and horribly degrading and...

Actually, that would make us too much like the girl at my lunch table, laughing at another because of a video game.What makes humans so judgemental?  Before we can even begin to address female equality, the female gender has to realize that, in order to achieve the goal of gender equality, we must accept each other for who we are.  Not all of us were meant to be fashion models or artists or cheerleaders.  The hate and the judgement that is between the different groups (and no, it is not one-sided) is horrendous.  Here are a few stereotypes:

The sort-of preppie girl



Goth/emo (I know they're different, but for our purposes, this will have to do)



Sporty girl



Me.  I'm not a stereotype, just crushed by the world of labels.

How is this right?  No one actually completely fits these stereotypes, so why do we bother?  I think, for this coming week, we should all try and talk to someone we normally wouldn't.  Better yet, let's talk to someone that we've stereotyped automatically.  The only way to combat the cycle is to completely throw it away.  Each and every person has unique talents and insights, and the world of labels seeks to suppress that truth. 

Fashion Mags, Continued

Beyond the evils of airbrushed pictures, these fashion magazines have little else wrong with them, right?

Wrong.

There are two major issues I see with these pieces of fine literature, the first being the "self-help" sections.  These sections can tell a girl how to go from grungy to gorgeous in five easy hairdos, or ten easy exercises, or three essential makeup staples or...  Well, you get the picture.  These sections are just as harmful as the models, their underlying message extremely hurtful and oh-so-subtle.  So much so that most don't even realize that it's saying, "If you ever want to look better than THAT, you've got to take our advice".  How does that help girls see the value of themselves as a person?  It doesn't.  It can't.  Nobody is ever perfect concerning appearance, and as a result the race to the perfection promised in the magazines is a neverending one.  It is so easy to get caught up in consulting the magazines to make you look better, and pretty soon, it begins to resemble an addiction.  If you can't buy the magazine, you go to a friend's house before the dance and get hit after hit of fashion mag-ness.  The performance treadmill doesn't work.  It never has and it never will.  If all these girls who claim to be independent, free-willed women depend on a fashion  magazine for self-esteem, then the women's movement has utterly failed.



Isn't your mother proud.



Is that a super short dress or a long shirt?  What about a camisole?



Would it have killed you to get a jacket?



 I thought modesty was a virtue.  The covers above show a varying degree of IMmodesty.  Girls see this every day, this repulsing advertisement of female bodies.  It's disgusting, really.  None of the women above are better people for having dressed that way.  They only have more appeal.  With information like this flooding into the minds of young girls in our culture, it's no wonder popular clothing today has taken such a nasty turn.  I go out shopping and have to avoid the junior's section because all the clothes in their are definitely off limits.  I'm not saying turtlenecks and long skirts, but a little decency would be much, much appreciated.  Then maybe I could walk into Barnes and Noble without feeling like the only important thing about being female is cutting an appealing image.







Fashion Mags. The End of Women's Equality.

Auntie Mildred walked into Barnes and Noble today, intent on finding the classics rack.  They were having a Buy Two, Get the Third Free deal, and she needed her hit of classic literature.  But the moment Auntie Mildred walked through the door, (after holding it for an elderly lady with a cane), her eyes started bleeding.

Too.  Many.  Fashion.  Magazines.

When I was in seventh grade, our middle school had a magazine sale as a fundraiser and everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY, bought something.  There was a competition for the classroom that could sell the most magazine subscriptions and our homeroom wanted it, badly.  On the last day, our entire class pooled our cash and bought some subscriptions for the class as a whole, and one of these was Cosmogirl, a breed of magazine I had never seen before.  All the girls went insane looking at the pictures of the models when the issue would come in each time, almost taking notes on how the models did their hair and wore their clothes.  I remember looking at one of the magazines once and wondering how the girl got to be so pretty.

Well, she didn't.  The fashion industry airbrushes the life out of the real pictures, making the models slimmer, smoother, and shinier.  When they're done with the picture, the girl in it doesn't even exist.  In Barnes and Noble, there were rows and rows of magazines with non-real people smiling at me, and I had to escape.  So yes, I hid in the children's section at the little table.

The fashion industry is not helping anyone in America by making beautiful women even more beautiful.  It's deceitful, it's wrong, and it gives girls the wrong idea about what is really beautiful.  Even if they won't admit it, I'd bet my retirement fund that if someone asked girls what they'd change about themselves, most of them would mention something about beauty.

Women as a whole SHOULD boycott these magazines, protesting their airbrushing and photoshopping techniques, but sadly, I am not so delusional as to believe that will happen.  All people can do is continue to feed positive input into girls' minds, encouraging them to find their talents that make them quirky and utterly themselves. 


CLICK HERE


This is a video you MUST see.  Watch it and then tell me nothing's all that wrong with presenting that kind of face to our children.  I dare you.  All I could think after seeing it was, "After centuries of fighting for equal rights in all societies, THIS is what women have come to?"