women and tattoos

A couple of articles were published today on the subject of women and tattoos. The first is, predictably, completely fucking dreadful. But I'm going to cut it some slack because it sounds like the kind of thing a junior researcher wrote at three am while wired up on coffee and under the instruction to "make it sexy" (because seriously there's no other explanation: Women like butterflies! And hearts! Dolphins are meaningful! Stars are cute! That splintering noise you can hear is my teeth grinding by the way).

The second article, from my favourite newspaper, is actually much better. Despite a false start ("Once seen as a macho world of bikers and seedy basement parlours" which I'm convinced they actually have to put in articles on tattoos in order to get them published) the piece focuses on some of the awesome female tattoo artists working today. Of course, the first artist they have to mention is Kat Von D I mean, fair enough, she's incredibly high profile but the woman irritates the hell out of me. And I've never even seen an episode of her reality show. I think it's something to do with irresponsible and poor quality tattooing under the guise of breaking a world record or possibly having a makeup range at Sephora (because, seriously?) but whatever.

More importantly the article also talks about Saira Hunjan, a woman whose work actually makes me drool. And even more importantly than that the artist I want for my eventual full left leg tattoo based primarily on this lovely lady's description.

I suggest you go and read the whole thing. It's worth a look.

In other tattoo related news: Want. The Boy (unoriginal moniker I know, but it's how I refer to him in my head anyways) has been talking about wanting a new set of tarot cards for ages, and I'm thinking of adding to my collection. I may have to buy a couple of sets next month when I have some cash because: wow. Pretty.

the backlash against feminism

There's a fantastic article in the Guardian today, written by Kira Cochrane who is one of my ever present girl crushes. The article is huge in scope and covers a massive variety of frightening topics including rape conviction rates, inequalities in the work place, the shocking lack of funding for women's charities (I've read the statistic a million times but it still enrages me that sick donkeys get more money than battered women on this isle of mine), the increasing prevelance of the sex trade and my own pet subject:

In gossip magazines, women's bodies are pored over - a pound gained provoking headlines that they're fat, a pound lost leading to headlines that they're too thin. Circles are drawn around a spot on their ankle where they've failed to apply fake tan, around a bitten nail or a tiny, incipient wrinkle beside their eye - which could just be a stray lash. What is implicit but unsaid is that there is no objective standard of beauty, no level of perfection that a woman could reach at which her body would be perceived as acceptable and in control. In the eyes of these magazines, a healthy body mass index could be considered seriously plump. A woman deemed too fat in one magazine could, on the basis of exactly the same picture, be deemed too thin by another magazine. The constant message is that women's bodies are not our own. They belong to everyone but us, and are there to be picked apart. Women can try to curry favour, come up to snuff, spend hours like, say, Madonna, working out, perfecting themselves. But there's then every chance that they will be derided for the veins on their hands. There's something essentially depressing about women being derided for their veins

I suggest you go and read the whole thing, I'm already trying to work out a way of forcing everyone I come into contact with into reading and understanding it. Maybe that would make my day to day interactions bearable.

UPDATE: Apparently the ladies over at Jezebel agree with me.

this actually makes me tear up...

Something to placate you while I prepare my upcoming photo post and also just cause I really want it on my blog.

Even if you've seen it before please enjoy. I cannot explain how much I love this song the video that goes with it is self explanatory really.

girls on film?

Just a quick hit posting (I'm absolutely blitzed at work at the moment which is awesome) to draw your attention to the following AlterNet article on the imbalance between male and female characters in kids TV programming.

An exerpt from the article:

"Studying 4,000 female film characters, females (from animated girl puppies to grown human women) were more than 5 times more likely than males to be shown as adornment or sexually enticing and three times more likely to be dressed in sexually alluring clothing.
...
Most dramatically, females of all ages were 3 times more likely (10.6% vs. 3.4%) to have unrealistically "perfect" bodies, introducing the skinny ideal at an early age to the minds of young boys and girls."

Something else to take away from the piece: Geena Davis absolutely rules.

breaking news: intelligent and thoughtful news article on dieting, nation keels over in shock

There's a fantastic article in today's G2 called "Losing It". It's an introduction to Kia Cochrane who will be starting a column on weight loss without any diet or exercise tips. Normally I shudder at the thought of any of this "one woman's journey in search of the perfect body" bollocks, and I had my sneering muscles warmed up and at the ready (especially considering the cover proclaims "The Feminist Dieter!" in response to the story) but then I actually started reading the piece. Cochrane is both funny and intensely likable - she's also incredibly honest. She tells how she had always been fairly happy with her weight but then, through a regime of eating "what felt normal, without thinking about it" she managed to put on a lot of weight in a short time.

What normally would follow would be tales of self loathing, a strict work-out regime and a diet of carrots and celery (that helpfully would be provided in a separate supplement decorated with images of a newly svelte Cochrane grinning a glazed and slightly manic "See? You can do this too!" smile) instead the author says the following:

"And you know what? I didn't mind. In fact, as I started to escape the fug I had been in, looked down and noticed my belly, I realised that being fat was kind of cool."

She goes on to explain how being properly "fat" immediately excluded her from the constant comparisons and competitions concerning body weight and dress size that most "normally sized" women are subjected to on a daily basis, conversations that are both understandable in today's society and yet incredibly depressing all at the same time:

"I no longer had to take, or fake, an interest in any of my friends' new diet plans. They simply didn't tell me about them. I was no longer part of that culture that counts calories, compares dress sizes and says, "No carbs after sundown!" as though this is a fabulous motto to live by."

Eventually though the restrictions her weight had put on her, coupled with a family history of heart disease, convinced her to lose some weight; for the health benefits. And, contrary to the majority of articles citing this as a motivator to slim down, Cochrane never talks about herself in the self loathing way that we've come to expect of women embarking on diets or fitness regimes. Throughout the entire piece the reader is given a sense of a self assured (if a little neurotic) woman who is happy with the person that she is. As opposed to the legions of women who state "I'm going to get fit, if I lose weight it'll be a nice bonus" (and I hold up my hand, I was certainly one of them, in fact I may still be guilty of this) she manages to sound sincere in her stance that she admires those who are overweight and obese but still keep fit, and there's no hint of envy in her statement that they are healthier than their "skinny-but-unfit peers".

I recommend that you go and read the article, I'll be keeping up with the columns every other week, I'm hoping that she doesn't disappoint me.

If you don't read the piece the last two paragraphs sum it up perfectly:

"Anyway, hatred of physical jerks or not, hatred of the diet industry or not, hatred of conversations about low-calorie alternatives to cheese or not, by the start of this year I knew that I had to do something about my weight. I knew that this would be difficult for a lot of reasons: said problem with sport; an inability to be told what to do; my psychological association of being thin with being depressed. But I also knew that I was not alone. Though being fat often feels alienating, the reality is that the majority of UK adults are now overweight. This means that there are a lot of people out there like me. People who feel that they should lose weight, but have done so before and seen it all go back on, and then some. People who feel that the diet industry is a vast conspiracy, predicated on failure - after all, if any diet actually worked the whole billion-dollar baby would go bust. People who feel sick at the thought of buying into anything that Gillian McKeith or the countless other preaching, screeching diet "gurus" have to say. A lot of people, then, who know that they have to lose weight, but approach the project with ambivalence.

In writing about my experiences, I won't be including updates on lost kilos (I don't weigh myself). I won't be providing fabulous tips for reducing the size of your behind (what do I know? I just plan to eat less and exercise more). I won't be declaring that Rosemary Conley was right when she said, "Nothing tastes as good as being slim feels!" (Clearly impossible, as ice cream exists.) I won't be providing endless portions of self-loathing, as I don't hate myself - or anyone else - for being fat. I know that many people consider being fat a crime akin to murder. I do not. I shall simply be charting some months in the life of a person who is, at best, reluctant about diets, and, at worst, disgusted by the very notion, but who knows, unfortunately, that something must be done. I warn you: there will be grumpiness."

Absolutely superb. And I can relate: for the first time ever I have given something up for lent. Two things actually, first up: chocolate (I have replaced my daily rations with all manner of other, non cocoa based producs, natch. I'm currently addicted to individual carrot cake bars). Secondly I've given up my scales and I must say that not obsessively weighing myself has done fucking wonders for my psyche.

I'm still exercising, which is some kind of a record as I'm now in my *counts* fifth week of doing it. My super-fit rugby playing flatmate G is very impressed with me and the fact that I seem inclined to keep pushing myself further (I decided yesterday that I need to add weights into one section of my cardio routine to make it more challenging) - he's even using RPG analogies to keep me motivated, apparently continually pushing myself to get fitter is akin to levelling up for the sheer joy of being more badass than everything in the surrounding area. He also reminded me that I'd promised to join a club when I got fitter - level 50 according to him (I really need to stop talking to that boy about my video games). After a club (where I will meet exciting new people and be motivated to go by default) I have to find a sport (if dancing doesn't count I'm screwed) and then apparently I have to get competitive.

Yeah, we'll see how that goes.

Frankly, the fact that I'm still getting my ass off the sofa three plus times per week and actually working out is nothing short of a miracle. We'll see how I feel in another month.

my new heroine...

My newest girlcrush is on the fabulous Eliza Gauger. You may be wondering a)who she is and b)why. Well, aside from her all around geek godess credentials (she blogs! She plays videogames! She makes comics!), and the fact that she's a kick-ass artist she also said this:

"As for "hot people," I am tired of pretty, in-shape, unclothed heroes. Pretty people tax the credibility budget, which is the finite amount of willing suspension of disbelief that can be expended by the audience before they start going "that's ridiculous." Look at Aliens. Or any Cameron film from that era. If he had attractive women in his movies, and he did, they weren't "women" in the way that movies define women: harpies, hags, or idiots. Scifi ditto. Ripley was not wearing any fucking mascara. She was a CHARACTER, she wasn't a GIRL. Ditto for everyone else. They were people before they were badasses, or killers, or idiots. This is not a luxury in sci fi. It is a necessity. Cookie cutter characters are unbelievable, and in a wider context of unbelievable things happening (aliens, lasers, spaceships, all imaginary), it is vitally important for as much of the rest of the package to be well-developed and believable. Otherwise, you squander your credibility (remember the budget) on things like how does the heroine keep her lip gloss so fresh in the middle of a reactor meltdown, or why our hero is standing in the middle of a bare hallway while shooting, instead of taking cover like the soldier he is supposed to be. This also applies to costumes. Case in point, Kate Beckinsale is not going to kill any werewolves while wearing a boned corset, no matter how badly fit it may be."

This woman fucking rules. The mini-interview is over at [io9], my newest internet addiction.