confessions of a hipsterette

- Anti-feminist bingo.

- BABY LYNX-ES! Let’s be honest, I am a sucker for all things fuzzy with big eyes. They qualify.

- Some really great thoughts on supporting a culture with your dollars that doesn’t match your values from Courtney at Feministing.

- Because we clearly need another site with lots of pictures of cats. OBVS.

- Being super fash & foxy is by no means confined to the 25 and under set.

- NYT on the evolution of Goodwill in the recession era

- My buddy TC is both adorable and massively talented. Check out his music here, too.

- If you’ve been living under a rock and somehow missed out on texts from last night, it is MAD FUNNY. check it.

Posted: June 29th, 2009 under Linktastic.
Comments: none

Recently my workplace (which I decline to mention in too great of detail because I don’t want to be incriminating) has been plagued with a man who has been flashing my female co-workers while they are isolated in an area of our (public) workplace during slow times of the day where not many people are around.

One of my good friends was on the receiving end of this guy’s nasty trick recently and we spoke about it over coffee one night after work. It was distressing to her, but I found it telling how we both wanted to play the situation off with humor, or point out that it could be worse. Yeah, humor is good way to diffuse an emotionally damaging situation, but it also hints at the underlying message incidents like this seem to arouse in female victims. That feeling is a combination of disgust, embarrassment, maybe even shame or guilt. Furthermore, there is the nagging feeling that it “shouldn’t be a big deal” because, after all, most men would love to yuk it up about how they wish some busty lady would come flash them at their workplace. Being in possession of a feminist boyfriend and rarely bothering with any men who too regularly foist their “dudely privilege” school of thought on me (this term has been jacked from The Pursuit of Harpyness, which I read regularly and with glee), I thankfully have not heard that kind of unsympathetic and frankly, douchebaggy response to this situation. However, it’s been known to happen.

I think something that is still so pervasive in a supposedly enlightened society is the intimidation factor of male sexual aggression. Women are still far and away the most affected gender in terms of sexual and domestic types of violence, and we are therefore stuck with some amount of fear surrounding the possibility of assault, etc, even if we don’t like that feeling and choose to ignore it most of the time. The thing is, men are still holding the power. They are still able to intimidate, shame, and hurt women with their sexual aggression–and not all of that damage is overt in the way we might think, such as rape and outright physical violence. Some is more subtle, and in my opinion a subtle crime is perhaps worse in that it can be so easily hidden. A guy flashes you? “He’s a crazy, dirty old man…and isn’t it kinda funny anyway?” A guy persistently makes vaguely sexual comments to you though you’ve made your disinterest clear? “He’s just trying too hard, cut him some slack. He likes you.” On and on the rationalizations go, internally as a dialogue for some, externally in conversation with others. And at the bottom of all this unwanted sexual aggression is the unease that you know this shouldn’t be right, but you aren’t sure how to verbalize it.

I’m of the opinion that no woman should have to endure unwanted sexual attention. The way we feel about it is obviously reflective of the dynamic it creates–a hostile environment where you feel trapped and unable to voice your needs. A man can intimidate you or harm you without ever touching you, and that’s something that is very, very real.

Sometimes it feels really, really hopeless advocating for women’s issues because our country seems stuck in a paradigm that says “You can vote and have jobs, what are you still whining about?” I’m whining about the fact that I’ve had to grow up in a world where my dad was warning me about men who made me “uncomfortable” for any reason since I was six years old. I’m whining about the fact that I often feel skeeved-out at my workplace because things like this happen. I’m whining about the millionth guy who has whistled at me on the street or repeatedly asks me to go places with him when I’ve said no a thousand times. I’m whining about the fact that my gender has to bear the pathology of a million f-ed up dudes who make us the unwanted object of their fantasies or attention. If you don’t believe that feminism still matters, the issue of sexual power, intimidation, and violence is worth a thought or two, because we certainly have not arrived.

Posted: June 28th, 2009 under Le feministe.
Comments: 4

I’ve been meaning to post these sets for a while. Being an English major, I read a LOT of literature and thought it would be fun to create some outfit conceptions and stories around the type of girl who would carry a certain poet’s anthology in her bag. Here’s what I came up with.

e.e. cummings girl by theunsinkableML featuring Bruuns Bazaar cardigans

E.E. Cummings girl, Ramona, works at a children’s museum in her little town, which is the best job she’s ever had. She loves watching children explore the world inside their museum walls, and her favorite task is supervising giant bubble making with twelve squealing five year olds. Her boyfriend, Liam, likes to sneak her favorite candy (Swedish Fish) into her bag before she heads off to work in the morning. When she reaches into her purple bag for her lunch to eat at the picnic table of the museum’s front lawn, she finds them and smiles.

walt whitman girl by theunsinkableML featuring Vanessa Bruno

shakespeare love sonnets girl by theunsinkableML on Polyvore.com

Shakespeare love sonnet girl, Miranda, works at her university library where she cheerily helps patrons find elusive journals and those ever-hard-to-find books in the PS stacks. She alternates her time at the front desk between patiently answering questions about borrowing fines and sipping her soy latte from under the desk. On slow days she whips out her smiggle cross eraser to buff away pencil marks sloppier patrons leave in their books, playfully mocking the ones who underline almost every sentence on the page. On the weekends she performs in an amateur outdoor theatre tucked in a tiny corner of her seaside city, and she always has the longest and loudest standing ovation of their Saturday at dusk performances.

emily dickinson girl by theunsinkableML featuring Old Navy

Emily Dickinson girl, Cherie, is a bit of an eccentric. She is well known around town for her exquisite gardening skills but often likes to just kick back at home with her lover and a cup of tea. If you see her pedaling down a cobblestone road in her tiny New England town, she’ll have a bounty of flowers in her basket and a copy of her favorite Dickinson poems, with all the best lines circled in twelve colors of pen. She makes smoky pastel drawings on the weekends while her dog, Alfred, curls around her feet for a sunny nap.

Posted: June 15th, 2009 under Clothes, Polyvore sets.
Comments: 2

I am writing.

As usual.

A paper.

Because I am an English major. And I expect an extraordinary amount from myself.

and being a writer is the only thing I have ever known how to do. It’s the only place I’ve felt I have a strong voice, one worth hearing.

So therefore I have to take it upon myself to attempt to write my magnum opus of sorts on Adrienne Kennedy and Lorraine Hansberry and houses of race and the theater of the mind and yada yada yada.

Ohhhhhh boy. This entry is pointless! But it is awfully informative, no? Now you know where I disappear to when this blog sits like a little neglected child for months on end. haha.

Posted: May 11th, 2009 under a little slice of ML's life.
Comments: 1

I saw this bracelet from Leviticus jewelry on Childhood Flames today, and I lovvvveee it. I also love their harness style necklace, which I believe I saw on Erin Wasson in some issue of Nylon this past year, but I can’t remember which, probably because I cut the picture out and therefore can no longer tell, haha.

Also, funnywoman Sarah Haskins of Current TV does these amazing videos called “Target: Women” which focuses on the ridiculous treatment of the female experience in advertising, media, etc etc. I used one of her videos for a presentation in women’s studies class last semester because she does a great job exposing some really sexist things in a way that is really hilarious. I think reaching people through humor is a good way to highlight the absurdity of things people are saying about women in the media and in public spheres. After all, a lot of the messages we get (that cleaning is pretty much done by blonde women in khakis who are unnaturally happy, that we want to mount any man who has sprayed axe on himself within a 20 mile radius, that we are all losers if we don’t feed those around us major brands of foods, single women love yogurt and losing weight while they eat it, the list goes on) are pretty absurd themselves, and I think a lot of people interpret commentary on those images as being “too serious, it’s just commercials!” Sarah Haskins kind of eliminates that argument because she’s being funny but making you think. Anyway, her latest installment is a cheeky critique on the media firestorm over Michelle Obama showing off her nice, toned arms in public. I mean, God forbid. I think it’s really insane that a country where Playboy is a major cultural icon, where 12 year old kids watch music videos with girls in teeny bikinis on MTV, and where girls can start wearing push up bras at 13 is freaking out about some arm-showing. Really? In my opinion, Michelle always looks very classy and very professional. She’s a beautiful woman and she has a beautiful body! Why are we panicking about some arms? She’s also a bit younger than recent first ladies, so I think her more youthful look is appropriate. Everybody needs to calm down, haha. But let Sarah tell it to you funny, hipsterettes

Anyway, I am totally procrastinating right now as I am attempting valiantly to write a paper at the library–it is a massive research one for a professor who has pretty much changed my life over the last two semesters and it may be the last one I ever write for him so I want it to be bangin’. Not to mention it could potentially turn into a paper worthy of grad school applications, so I really want to devote myself to it! Whew. So far I’ve done a massive amount of reading, brainstorming, and musing while in the shower/car, so it’s time to put it to work. Tori Amos and I will be hanging out all day here, haha. See? Oh man. Later gators!

Posted: May 9th, 2009 under Linktastic, a little slice of ML's life.
Comments: none

Posted: May 6th, 2009 under Ten Under Twenty.
Comments: 1

from elana's pantry on flickr

Being what they call a “poor college student” is something I am getting better and better at all the time, mainly thanks to the wealth of information on the internet pertaining to saving money, hacking your life, and how to circumvent and consolidate expenses. Now, I realize that I am in no way what should really be considered “poor,” and I feel so fortunate to have the opportunity to pursue higher education, but there’s no doubt about the fact that life on a work-study job budget can be tricky to maintain at times. So hopefully over the next few months (and further into the future as I hone my techniques) I can share some of the little tips I’ve gleaned with you–and hopefully the comments can serve as a place for extra technique tips.

One of the biggest expenses of living alone on a shoestring budget is food. Even more complicated is the matter of eating in a way that is healthy (and hopefully mostly sustainable and organic also) on a limited amount. To help with this issue I have employed a number of excellent web resources and have a few tips I have come upon just through trial and error. Keep in mind that I do maintain a vegetarian diet that leans towards being vegan whenever possible, but I think most of these tips will be helpful to anyone.

Here are my top ten tips! I can’t say I always employ all of them effectively, but every little bit of preparation, planning, and know-how can help balance a teeny tiny budget.

1) When grocery shopping: make a list, set a ballpark amount, and stick to it. On my budget, $30-35 is about the amount I try to spend when grocery shopping. This is no small feat. I try very hard to make a list before I leave and as much as possible, stick to it while in the store. I take my phone and use the calculator on it in a quiet corner of the store before heading to the register and try to take careful stock of everything in my basket one last time before I plunk down my cash. This has saved me on occasion from purchases I realize I don’t really want, as well as from buying things I realize I already have in multiples or buying items I don’t want to eat without their “partner” (For example, I probably don’t want a nice whole grain bread if I have no sandwich items, but some people prefer to just have a slice with their meal, so those kind of things will vary from person to person.)

2) Go shopping right after you are paid. I try not to let more than a day or two get in between getting my paycheck and going grocery shopping. If I do, I find that the money can disappear on things I don’t really need. If I spend the first cut out of my check on food, I’m ensuring that I will be able to eat at home much of the time for the next two weeks before I get paid again. If that means turning down eating out (which it often does) because I don’t have the money, it’s still much better than spending that money on an expensive meal and then not having any for other meals the rest of the week.

3) Buy fresh foods on the perimeter of the store whenever possible. The best stuff for you and for the money you are spending is around the perimeter. I try to limit buying things in packaging, boxes, plastic, etc. This means that yes, most of my food is perishable, but if you do a grocery shopping once a week or every two weeks, you can eat most of that food during the week before it goes bad. Also, it is much easier to resist the temptation to get fast food if you know you have yummy fresh food at home that is already paid for. Fruits and veggies are great! Organic sections are available at most supermarkets and are great to utilize. Obviously a farmer’s market is best, but not everybody has one in their area, and canning foods for out of season times is not really practical for a college student in my opinion. Fresh fruits and veggies also benefit from not needing to be prepared for the most part, minus some cutting and peeling!

4) Make a good meal from a recipe and eat it a few times that week. Leftovers are so great! Vegan chili, soups, pastas without heavy sauces, and potato dishes all keep well in my experience and are a great way to stretch your dollar. Make a few portions in airtight containers and eat them over the course of the week.

5) Experiment to find out what “overbuying” looks like for you. When buying fresh foods I often find that things can go bad before I’ve had ample time to consume them. I use a trial and error system and am getting better all the time at not having to throw food away. I am starting to get the hang of how much I can eat in a week before it spoils and it feels great to know I am getting the best use of my money.

6) Prepare snacks to eat on the fly. Having a bag of fresh carrots or a pear in my car on the way to school is a fantastic way to keep from being tempted by a drive-thru window. Usually I know I am just hungry, and I can combat the craving easily by munching on something I have on hand. Saves money and your body from icky foods.

7) Drink enough water out of a reusable container. This is something I have been terrible at lately but I know that I have got to get better to save both my body and my wallet! Most schools & public places have abundant water fountains with filters, take advantage of it! Invest in a Nalgene (they are indestructible, truly) and save yourself a load of sugar, hassle, and environmental damage. Drinking water from a reusable container is better for the earth and for you! Being properly hydrated saves lots of calories because often the body has a hard time distinguishing between hunger and thirst. If you are drinking water all day, you’re flushing out toxins and making it easier to tell when you really are hungry.

Enlist the help of friends. Every so often I try to have a big group over for what we’ve affectionately termed “family dinner.” We all pitch in a little bit of cash and eat something delicious together. The atmosphere is awesome for the homesickness that can set in, and we get to eat a nice homecooked meal that doesn’t cost as much as if we were to eat dinner out.

9) Clip coupons. Often coupons are for yucky, processed foods or for things you don’t normally eat, but the times when you can save are important to catch. Investing in a newspaper to clip those out is definitely worth it and can help keep track of where things are on sale in your community.

10) Anddddd relax. I try to make living cheap a game as much as possible–letting it become a dreaded chore is just a way to invite more penny-pinching into your life. It sounds weird, but I really believe that shopping with a stressed-out, I-can’t-afford-this attitude is just asking for more financial strain. Sometimes I literally find myself tensing up when grocery shopping and I try to relax and see it as an adventure to save as much moolah as possible. An attitude of abundance is still possible when you are trying to save cash, thinking about how fortunate we are in America to have access to so much food is one way to get in that mindset for me. Another is just remembering that there are phases of life for everyone where things may be tight money-wise, but it’s never a permanent situation. For me, taking joy in what I can get and then calling my mom to gleefully report on my thriftiness is a silly but really awesome way to keep saving cash on groceries in perspective.

And to finish, some links that helped me along the way:

1) This article on Salon was a helpful starting point for realizing that organic & sustainable groceries can be bought on a teeny tiny budget.

2) The blog, The Consumerist, has loads of helpful tips for all manner of penny-pinching and corporate monster rescue but also includes coupon roundups that can be helpful for buying groceries on occasion. From that particular feature I also discovered that some items (keep in mind they are non-perishable which means nutritional content is often questionable) can be bought cheaply in larger quantities on amazon.com. Great for granola bar addicts and the like.

3) Vegetarian Times often has good recipes and ways to eat vegetarian that are surprisingly cost-effective.

4) Allrecipes.com is another great resource for recipes and all of them have a super helpful calculator that lets you cut the portions down to one. Alternatively you can just make a batch for four and split it up over a week.

5) This site discouraged me from drinking soda and eating unhealthily. While it may be cheaper, realizing how much sugar is in a lot of products just plain grossed me out. Don’t be too concerned about the amount of sugar in fruits–if you are eating a balanced diet with whole grains, vegetables, and plenty of water, that small amount of natural sugars is not going to hurt you. I think it’s mainly there for comparison, but I’m concerned some people may think they have to swear off fruit and any vegetarian/vegan will tell you that fruit is one of the pleasures of eating green.

Posted: May 5th, 2009 under On the Cheap.
Comments: none

An admission should precede this discussion of polarizing figure, Perez Hilton (formerly known as Mario Lavandeira, prior to his gossip blog fame.) I really like Perez, overall. I think he’s hilarious, and I think that making light of celebrity culture is definitely something worth doing. I feel like the approach he takes is really original and honestly, public figures are going to be discussed, so I’d prefer mine with a side of “Latino gay oprah” wit. However, I’m noting in his and other public gay personas a lot of misogyny, and as a student of interlocking opressions and an advocate for feminist thought, I want to address it. Particularly because Hilton has set himself up as a gay marriage rights activist, his treatment of certain issues in his style of snark has to be addressed.

A second caveat: this article talks a lot about oppression and norms. These are tenants of sociology and particularly a feminist /womanist epistemology and if you’re not familiar, you might be mad or confused about what you hear. Individual men you know might not align to the things I am talking about, and I sure hope they don’t! But the media, the culture, and our society as a whole is still enacting these norms and is still enforcing sexism and homophobia. Therefore, it’s important to talk about these things. It’s not over till it’s over, and as long as straight white men as a monolith maintain privilege above everybody else in enormous amounts, we have a problem. Try to keep an open mind and remember that societal ideation of what it means to be a “real man” hurt those enlightened men you know and love too. And onward we go.

Hilton’s distinct style of skewering ridiculous fame-hungry celebs is most often hilarious and occasionally really offensive. That real offensive nature is one I want to touch on today, mainly because I think Hilton is garnering attention as a gay rights activist and I think he should be made aware of some of the faulty reasoning he’s using, if only to advance his cause further. The most recent example of this style is in his treatment of Miss California, Carrie Prejean.

While I certainly disagree with Prejean’s commentary on gay marriage in the Miss USA pageant, and even feel that her way of talking about her viewpoints was perhaps her biggest stumbling block, Hilton’s reaction to her did not please me. I certainly feel that Hilton has the right to be angry–LGBTQ folks are not treated fairly in this country socially, and that should account for a certain amount of rage. Yet Hilton’s reaction to this woman, calling her a “bitch” and also reportedly, a “cunt,” is affirming a set of values that conflict with his own. Why? Let me give you a little patriarchy 101 to prove this assertion.

The same white straight male hegemony that largely influences the stifling of Hilton’s rights as a gay man has been pushing women into the ground for centuries on end as well. I have always felt and always will feel as a feminist that gay men and women are aligned in their struggles–they are both fighting against a society that privileges the voices and values of straight white men. Women are a threat to the dominance of this ruling group when they assert power and influence, as are gay men. Both groups have been hypersexualized and shamed for their sexuality simultaneously. A world that allows straight women to be paraded around (ala Miss USA), rewarded for it, and then at the same time demeans their sexuality (which they were encouraged to exploit to begin with) as slutty is a screwed up one. This same world calls Hilton and his gay counterparts “disgusting” and denies them civil rights. So why would Hilton shoot himself in the foot by demeaning someone who is an ally?

Perhaps Prejean’s status as an equally polarizing figure makes for a poor example because some may feel she “deserved” her skewering by putting herself out there as a spokesperson for straight privilege. While I personally disagree that any woman deserves pejorative names because they are counter-productive to a feminist aesthetic, I can see how this example would be hard to stomach. Consider then, the abundance of “slut-shaming” that goes on within the articles on Hilton’s site. Celebrity women are called an assortment of names that are equivalent with “whore,” and are given such monikers for innocuous behavior and sexual behavior alike. Women can’t really win on Hilton’s site, unless they occupy a diva status that he has respect for, ala Madonna or Lady Gaga. This is really unsettling to me as a feminist and a woman who is allied with and has love and respect for gay male friends (note that this article is overlooking queer women deliberately because they share female oppression w/straight women). I can’t understand why they would want to hold their biggest allies down.

I’ve noted in gay acquaintances this similar attitude towards women, and it bothers me tremendously. Know this: the same sexist attitudes about women are influencing the heteronormative standards that hurt you, gay men. And if you stand by and participate, you are enacting male privilege that is the same privilege which queers your sexuality as wrong. Calling women bitches and sluts, hoes and tramps, is asserting that you buy into a straight male normative behavior–that demeaning women either for sexual behavior or for dominant behavior using sexual put-downs is an a-OK thing to do. That hurts, guys!

To put it very simply: the same straight sex narrative that calls women sluts is the one that is calling gay men homos. The same male-dominance that allows domestic abuse in this country is also allowing the abuse and violence towards gay men that exists. The same men telling women to get back in the kitchen are the ones who are telling you that you aren’t really a man, and you can’t get married. Have some compassion for the forces at work. Interlocking oppression is a reality. If women are not allowed to express sexually or if they are called sexually insulting names for everything they do that distinguishes them from a doormat, gay men will also be confined. With this in mind, I’d really love to see a shift in the gay community to embrace women as more than friends but as allies. While the struggles are different, they stem from the same place. Women are being confined by the same norms. If you think this country is post-feminist, take a look at our advertising. Take a look at the number of women being abused. Take a look at the rate of rapes. Take a look at the global oppression of women for a real eye-opener. Let’s put down our name-calling and get some solidarity rolling.

In closing, here’s my open letter to the Queen of All Media:

Perez,

I think you’re hilarious. You can be my Latino gay Oprah any day of the week and I’m glad to stand by you in the fight for equality. But please, please, please stop calling my fellow women sluts and whores. Stop it! You’re way too cool for that. It’s hard for me to feel sympathetic to all your gay rights stumping when you are hammering right back in all the standards for women that were born from the same ideas that set standards for your sexual behavior too. You know better.

Love,
Melissa-Leigh

Posted: May 4th, 2009 under Le feministe.
Comments: 3

The Pursuit of Harpyness–witty feminist dialogue.

More Music, Less Bullshit–it speaks for itself.

lovelove!

ML

Posted: March 4th, 2009 under Uncategorized.
Comments: none

And a poem I like today:

i have found what you are like
the rain,
(Who feathers frightened fields
with the superior dust-of-sleep. wields
easily the pale club of the wind
and swirled justly souls of flower strike
the air in utterable coolness
deeds of green thrilling light
with thinned
newfragile yellows
lurch and.press
-in the woods
which
stutter
and
sing
And the coolness of your smile is
stirringofbirds between my arms;but
i should rather than anything
have(almost when hugeness will shut
quietly)almost,
your kiss

- e. e. cummings

Posted: January 12th, 2009 under What I Wore Today!, a little slice of ML's life.
Comments: none