entirely ruined her disposition with books

So I'm way behind on answering comments again, but I've been reading an article over on Jezebel about a make-up free week challenge, and it got me to thinking.

I don't wear makeup as a general rule. I wear lipstick sometimes (I put it on maybe once a week, and it's always gone after I eat/drink something) and very, very occasionally mascara, but other than that? Nothing.

Part of the reason is that I never learned how to apply it. My mama only wears lipstick and sometimes eyeliner, and quite a few of my friends in high school didn't wear it either. My older girl cousins lived far enough away that they weren't around to teach me, either. My BFF has flawless pale skin and naturally beautifully bone structure (also, the best hair EVER) and never wears it--she definitely doesn't need it (I, on the other hand, know I would look "better" if I wore it, probably). So I just...didn't ever wear it. The times I've put on eyeliner, I make a big mess (also, I'm petrified of anything getting near my eyes. Eye doctor appointments? Nightmare!) and can't draw a straight line. I wouldn't know how to match my skin tone. I don't have flawless skin, but the once or twice I put on powder (not even foundation), it drove me craaaazy, so I didn't do it again.

There are other reasons. Time, for one. Ten minutes of putting on makeup or ten more minutes of sleep? I go with sleep every time. Expense. Makeup is expensive! And you keep having to replace it! It's ridiculous!

There's also the fact that I resent that men's faces are deemed acceptable all on their own, but women have to paint over ours before we go out in public. Although some guys look hella sexy with eyeliner. This societal demand that women wear makeup in order to look professional/acceptable/whatever enfuriates me to no end.

I also hatehatehatehatehate guys who say they prefer a woman to not wear makeup, but what they really want it for a woman to look entirely perfect and made up...without anyone being able to tell that they're wearing make-up. When they see what their girlfriends look like without it they're disgusted. GRRRR.

One of my friends told me a story about how when her grandmother got married back in the 50s, she would wake up earlier than her husband every single morning so that she could put her makeup on before he woke up. And she didn't take it off until after he went to bed. Her husband never saw her real face for decades. I cannot imagine.

Which is not to say that I judge women who do choose to wear it (though I'm endlessly annoyed by the "too much" look, but I realize that's my own issue). I know a lot of people have a lot of fun with it. When I watch Carmindy on What Not to Wear, she makes it look fun and simple. My little sister and all my cousins wear it (I have no idea where Sis learned to do it, since she didn't from me or our mama. It's an eternal mystery). And I know it really does instill some women with confidence, and with as looks-obsessed as our culture is, I can't blame them at all.

[This all reminds me of how whenever I straighten my hair, people FREAK THE HELL OUT. Like, suddenly I'm attractive or something. And they tell me I should do it all the time! Like it didn't take an hour and a half to get it to stay that way! I'm never going to devote that much time in my day to it! It drives me crazy.]

Most people in my life never comment on my lack of comestics, though my mama constantly badgers me to put on some lipstick. To placate her, I took her with me about a month ago to one of the counters in the mall and had the lady pick out a shade that would look good on me. IT COST FIFTEEN BUCKS. FIFTEEN. FOR ONE TUBE OF LIPSTICK. This is insanity to me. I cannot afford this.

[eta] I also want to talk about how employers can require you to wear makeup/heels/whatever and FIRE YOU WHEN YOU DON'T. Yeah, you probably need to wear makeup if you're in the performing arts so that people can see your face from a distance. But if you work in a bank? Or any other kind office? THIS MAKES ME STABBY.

So I'm wondering, because the vast majority of my flist is female--do y'all wear much makeup? If so, why? If not, why? What's your routine like? Who taught you how to apply it? Do you judge women who do/don't wear it? Talk to me!

I know a lot of you keep up with metafandom, so possibly you've all already read this long ago, but I just now stumbled upon it and I MUST SHARE.

Fiction, gender, women's pain, and MAN PAIN

If the Buffyverse, BSG, or gender stuff is relevant to your interests (and I know at least a few of you who are interested in ALL OF THE ABOVE), go and read this. It talks about our different reactions to men and women's pain and also explains why I can't stand Wesley Wyndham-Pryce and why I love Buffy Summers, among other things. Also there is Kara love and Adama hate, and even though (as you probably know), I'm pretty apathetic when it comes to Kara, I know a lot of you aren't and love her for very good reasons. So go forth and read!

A comment over on the website-which-shall-not-be-named got me thinking.

Here it is:

It is horrid but their sex brought on the end of the world so it was never meant to be a positive development. It’s already happened to her once before in Where the Wild Things Are when something urged Buffy and Riley on and they were turned into mindless sex zombies who had "no control over themselves." This time it's only has larger and more disastrous consequences.

It may be squicky but I’d still prefer that story to a story where Buffy knowingly jumped the bones of Twangel and didn’t care that the world started crumbling down around her.

There are about seventy places I could go with this (like, how very, very much I hate WtWTA), but what I really want to get to is this:

Why does questionable sex have to be at the heart of this at all? I hated WtWTA; I hate this. I'm so incredibly over Joss's whole SEX LEADS TO BADNESS thing. And reducing the entire plot of the season to Who Buffy Boinks...seriously?

So let’s talk about consent and sexual punishment in the Buffyverse. I don’t have any deep insights into it; I haven’t really done enough thinking about it for that. But I would like to start up some conversations about it.

And it’s all gonna be behind a cut for the sake of mollivanders, as not to spoil her, and for the sake of the portion of my flist that could care less about my natterings about BtVS


( Cut for Rambling )

I had sworn I wasn't going to do the link-to-whedonesque thing anymore. I'm sure it annoys y'all that I constantly have to scurry back here to get reassurance. I really am going to try to do it less in the future.

But this one time, I have to get my rage out. I'm feeling sick to my stomach and shaky.

Someone on whedonesque just made the most ridiculously sexist, homophobic, patronizing, self-congratulatory comment about shipping ever. And I am ANGRY.

Quote:

Saying that everything has to come down to some ship is kind of insulting. I know you probably weren't meaning to be. But.

I'm not a shipper. You can tell by how I'm a heterosexual adult man. I just like a good story.

Shipping itself is, in my humble opinion, not just stupid but destructive to the fandom. The story is what is what it is (and I'm including the TV show in this), but I can't comment on what actually has happened because it'll offend people who think things should be another way.

Let's say I decide that Riley should have been Buffy's true love, and regardless of what happens in the show, I get angry when she hooks up with anyone else. Doesn't matter that the events clearly show that that's not happening. Im'ma get pissed anyway. See how stupid that would be?

[eta] EMPHASIS HIS.

I...just...WTF?????

I called him on it. How much you wanna bet that he'll pull the whole "oversensitive" card?

It's okay. I will link the hell out of Derailing for Dummies. Never fear.

FINE!

Gakked from everybody ever:

Comment and I'll tell you my favourite fic of yours that I've read, and why. If it's a longfic, I'll try to pinpoint favourite chapter (but no guarantees!). Or, in the event that I haven't read anything of yours, I'll comment back and ask for one thing of yours I absolutely must read.

I've sort of been putting this off because if I haven't read anything of yours I'll be embarrassed. So seriously: rec me! I love you all!

Also! Links!

First read this about how filmmakers are taught not to make films where women talk to each other. Then read the follow-up here about why and also about why it sucks to have curly hair. Think of it as foreshadowing for the time when I'll finally make my epic post (complete with a picspam of me!) about my lifelong...relationship with my hair.

1. What happens to potentials after they age out? Once they are old enough that they know they won't be called, what do they do? From what we see of Kendra, they've been raised to deny their emotions and not to know how to relate to the larger world. It's all dutydutyduty. How do they ever acclimate themselves to the rest of the world? I can imagine some of them becoming Watchers--Lydia, for example, could have been a potential at one time. But obviously they can't all go into that line of work.

Also, as a sort of corollary to that question, from what I can tell, the WC does a really bad job of finding all the potentials, since Buffy, Faith, Rona, Chao-Ahn, and aaaaalll those girls who were empowered by Willow's spell in "Chosen" had no contact with the WC. And was Giles trying to actively find little baseball girl and the girl in the trailer and all the other girls who became Slayers that day? If they're just going about their business, wouldn't the First have been after them?

Any thoughts?


2. I'm going to ramble a bit about this here because I don't want to get into another fight on whedonesque.

So there's this discussion about whether Angel was a better show than Buffy (it wasn't, but I'm not going to argue with someone over their own taste ;) ). What I'm finding really fascinating about the discussion is that the guys in the thread are all saying they liked Angel better because there are more strong male characters to relate to.

I think the main reason I'm finding it so interesting is because Joss has specifically said that he wanted men to be able to relate to Buffy. He talks in the Equality Now speech about how he wants men to find things to relate to in a woman's story, things they might not be comfortable embracing otherwise.

Besides, as a woman, I've been inundated with male stories from birth, and I have zero problem relating to men. For instance, Spike is the character I most relate to out of the whole universe (even if Buffy's my favorite, I don't start relating to her at all until her commitment to protecting her sister and her struggles with clinical depression in the later seasons. Early-seasons!Buffy and I have nothing in common). Any given book in lit class or any show that I watch, it's a toss-up whether it'll be a woman character or a man who I most relate to. I mean, favorite literary character ever? Quentin Compson. I have nothing in common with Caddy.

I've always found it endlessly fascinating that women can always relate to male characters but men can't relate to women. It's all about the ways in which our culture privileges male stories and marginalizes female ones. I definitely plan on making a commitment to having my sons read/watch stories from the female perspective so that they can learn to relate. There are tons of awesome young adult books out there with girls as heroes, and then there’s shows like Buffy and Veronica Mars when they get a little older. I want my sons to have no problem with embracing Buffy or Meg's adventures in A Wrinkle in Time or Mary Lennox's transformation in The Secret Garden or Mara's courage and resourcefulness in Mara: Daughter of the Nile (my favorite book in my early teens, and one that's basically a historical spy novel that I think would be awesome for both genders, but the title discourages guys from picking it up). Obviously, I want my daughters to relate to boys and men, too, but they'll have no problem picking that up--it's what our culture teaches them to do from birth.

I don't know, I guess I just found it discouraging that all those guys can't relate to women. I'm always more disappointed to see sexism or racism or just plain cluelessness on whedonesque precisely because I expect more of the people who embrace those shows, and even though this isn't nearly on the level of the arguments I've gotten into over there with guys who think objectifying women is no big deal, it still disappoints me.

So my question is: am I absolutely ridiculous to be disappointed?

Plus, I think I'm a bit annoyed because every show/movie/book ever has strong male characters for them to relate to. Ever. Show. Ever.

I'm feeling particularly feminist today (well, I feel that way every day, but especially today), and ineffort reminded me of this spoof that is made of awesome.

Watch and enjoy.




[Edited to change it to the one with the men's advert at the end.]

Dear Joss, FOX Execs., and anyone else who has the slightest bit of power over Dollhouse's advertising:

I get that the whole premise of Dollhouse is supposed to be creepy and wrong.  Squicky, if you will.  We as audience members are supposed to be repulsed by the idea of people erasing each other's identities in order to use them for their own gain or satisfaction.  Characters like Topher (aka Warren) and the way he gets off on controlling these women (I realize there are men involved, too, but that isn't really the issue here) are supposed to be viewed as reprehensible. If I didn't believe that wholeheartedly, I would stop watching this show in about two seconds.

But see, there are a whole lot of people out there who didn't get that vibe at all.  And they are offended, squicked, disgusted...and they've sworn off of the show already.  

You know why I think this is?  Because of the disgusting, sexist ads featuring Eliza and Summer.  Look, I get it.  I was so taken with the idea of the two of them onscreen at the same time that it took me some time to realize just how they were being presented.  River and Faith on the same screen!  That's so awesome!  They're pretty!  Real, live crossovers!  The network is really speaking to the built-in geek fandom audience!

But that is not what those ads did.  Instead, they presented two extremely beautiful young women as nothing more than objects to provide sexual titillation that can be "programmed" to the desires of whoever is watching, making  a "date night" with the viewer.  In these ads, they were dolls.  And there was absolutely nothing to make us think that that isn't how the network wanted us to view them.

The ads completely undermined the show itself.  How on earth could people be expected not to think that Joss and the network are presenting the dollhouse in a straightforward, have-your-fantasy-fulfilled, a-woman-is-just-a-body-for-your-enjoyment kind of way?  Seriously?  We're supposed to be skeeved by Topher viewing the dolls as toys for his own sick enjoyment and then turn around and do the exact same thing to two real, live women with minds and hearts and souls?  

No.  Absolutely not.  If you continue to advertise in this way, you will lose all the thoughtful, reasonable viewers and the show will only be watched by the very morally-skewed people you're trying to critique.  I know that you executives don't really care about quality of viewers, just numbers, but (and I could be wrong--for as many times as other humans inspire me with their compassion, thoughtfulness, and courage, there are at least as many times that they make me ashamed to be human) I like to think the thoughtful members of your audience are a larger percentage than the sexist perverts.

These ads are self-defeating.  I've been looking around the internet, peeking in here and there to get an idea of the main reactions to the show, and I can tell you for certain that you've already lost the respect and the viewership of a lot of thoughtful people. 

And that's the last thing you can afford right now.

I had quite a lot of problems with the pilot, but none that I don't think won't--or at least can't--be overcome or subverted in future episodes--except this.

Look, if you don't get this right--accurately communicating the tone of the show--nothing else is going to matter.

Please.  Take a few moments to think.

And then do the right thing.

- Lauren

I really want to encourage everyone on my flist list to read this article about misogyny on the Internet.  I know you're all women, but I think you'll want to read this one all the way through.  Because it articulates so well so many ideas I've tried to explain to my (really great) guy friends who subsequently blew me off.  I feel like if I'd been able to explain these ideas this clearly, they might have listened.  At the end of this article, I wanted to applaud.  Wildly.

And then read this one to make yourself feel a little better.  (It's where my tag comes from, by the way.)  And then, of course, there's always the Male Privilege Checklist.