#i will try to be as inclusive as i can with cultures for ref of future asks :)

[scary-lasagna]

Which culture would the creeps enjoy

Culture in the Manor

There's a very diverse culture of everyone throughout the manor.

The only creeps that emerged from the same region are Liu, Jane, and, Jeff, and even then they all had relations with each other.

Lost Silver and Kagekao come from a Japanese background, Helen is Jewish, Puppeteer is Swedish, Slender is German, and that's just to name a few of them.

Slender, while making full family dinners, always tries to incorporate everyone's cultures and comfort foods at the table. Even at Thanksgiving, there were dishes from all around the world, not just the traditional mashed potatoes and turkey.

And during the winter holidays, there are Christmas, Hannukah, and even Ōmisoka decorations. And some rooms are even left undecorated for those who don't celebrate anything at all.

No matter what background, what trauma they've faced, or what their inner monologue is about the last food they ate, Slender will always make sure everyone at the manor feels accepted.

[charlotteswebbbbb]

What's the vibe #4

Welcome to the 4th edition!

First of all I would like to say...MOVEMENT is *in*. It's always in but I think right now we all need to move our bodies, be moved by someone else moving their body or just feel something. Vibe check done.

I'm trying to find also some more research on dance music during recessions that don't revolve around a tweet made in June/July but I think that this blog post is as close to history and context right now.

On The Runway:

AVAVAV SS23 - models stacking!

Twins - Sunnei & Gucci SS23

About Sunnei by Dazed:

"Having worked on the concept and casting for months, designers Simone Rizzo and Loris Messina said the show was a comment on how clothing alters our sense of self, fracturing our identity into multiple fragments that can be picked-up and dropped at breakneck speed. The collection harboured as much mischief as the presentation itself – there were neoprene skirt-trouser hybrids; fuzzy halter necks in glitching chequerboard patterns; tunics that ballooned into overblown track pants; plastic dresses in red and yellow emergency arrows; and tubular mini dresses that bobbed up and down the body."

Techno Boy

New Off White SS23 - rebirth, protection, newness

Loewe

Miu Miu - utility! heavy on the hip (old ref - the Mona Lisa's been seen before)

AMBUSH - inspired by Tokyo club culture

Politics:

Nord Stream leaks (4 of them as of Friday) increases tension internationally between the countries that think it's sabotage. For more info and a primer here's The BBC.

In Britain with the pound falling and coming back up again and people not being able to afford mortgages (one of a Brit's famed possession and investments), the national mood is low. Low and disgruntled.

In Italy, they've elected Giorgia Meloni of Brothers of Italy to create one of the most right wing governments since WWII 🥴 Here's a good catch up on who she is and her politics.

Elon Musk has said he's finally going to buy Twitter for $44 billion and wants to make it a WeChat-style app called "X".

From the NYT:

Interesting customer advances:

Virgin Atlantic are rolling out new changes to their gender identity policy for employees, includes allowing employees the choice to wear uniform which allows with how they express their gender and also allowing customers and staff to get optional pronoun badges when checking in for a flight.

"Launched as part of its ‘Be Yourself’ agenda, the airline has already unveiled a series of industry-leading inclusivity initiatives for its people to ensure they can truly be themselves at work and feel comfortable in their roles. This latest addition follows a decision in 2019 to offer cabin crew the choice whether to wear make-up as well as the option to wear trousers and flat shoes. More recently the airline lifted restrictions around allowing visible tattoos for crew members and its front line people.:

"The announcement comes as research finds that enabling employees to express their true selves at work boosts happiness (65%), increases mental wellbeing (49%), creates a more positive workplace culture (36%) and provides a better experience for customers (24%). Employees also reported feeling more accepted and comfortable when able to be their true selves at work (26%) and an increased sense of loyalty to their employer (21%)."

Kerings KNXT experimentation with Web3- I just think brand really struggle with web3, like with authenticity...the aesthetics are very bro-y.

Show Studio drop their own NFTs - OK?

Netflix opening a games studio - a bit like Spotify right now, does anyone know what they're doing? I do think this is an underrated market......not many collabs done well?

Things to read:

Please note - the future of travel - use of passports in maybe a borderless world? Freezing your best youthful self in time? Still the allure of the Photo Booth continues - it's singular, controlled

OK, that's all see you next week!

[xebecatt2002]

Mythological connections of  Athena’s Costume in Xena: Warrior Princess

The amount of detail and work that the wardrobe department put into every costume in the show is simply astounding and Athena’s outfit is a prime example.

You would think that there is little historical accuracy in her appearance in the show and if you compare her costume to depictions of Athena in Ancient Greek art, they do look quite different.

Traditionally she depicted as a warrior, wearing Hoplite armour and carrying a spear and shield. Here is one example, an Athenian vase dating from around 565-560BC from Athens depicting the Goddess Athena.

Comparing this image to a screen shot of Xena’s Athena they look completely different. In Xena she wears a gold top, skirt and is carrying only a sword- nothing reminiscence of traditional Greek hoplite armour. Yet her modern costume is full of details that make references to her traditional representation in Greek mythology.

One similarity is the design on her armour. The chest piece features the Gorgon face complete with snakes for hair radiating out from its head. The most well-known Gorgon of Greek mythology is Medusa. She was a monstrous woman with snakes for hair that could turn people to stone with a simple look.

Medusa’s origin is connected to the Goddess Athena. Medusa was said to be a beautiful woman whom Poseidon fell for and, willingly or not, had sex with her inside one of Athena’s Temples. Athena, a virgin goddess, was angered by this defilement of her temple and turned Medusa into the snake haired monster. You can find this version in the Roman writer Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’ (ref. 4.794-803)

As well as her origins, Athena was also involved in Medusa’s demise. The goddess assisted the hero Perseus on his quest to slay the creature. In some accounts like he gifted her the Medusa’s head after his victory and she placed it on her shield.

‘and gave the Gorgon’s head to Athene. Hermes returned the aforesaid objects to the nymphs and Athene fixed the Gorgon’s head to the centre of her shield. But there are some who say that Medusa lost her head because of Athene- for they say that the Gorgon had claimed to rive the goddess in beauty’- Apollodorus ‘The Library of Greek Mythology’ book 2

The head of the Gorgon also featured on the Aegis which was depicted as either a shield or animal skin and was carried by Zeus. Sometimes he would lend it to the Goddess of Athena when she went into battle. In Homer’s The Iliad the poet describes the Goddess arming for battled, throwing it around her shoulders before heading into the field. He describes it as being encircled with various elements including the Gorgon’s head. (ref 5.730-47). Greek art it is similarly depicted as a scaled shroud around her shoulders sometime with the Gorgon face in the centre.

The design of Athena’s costume incorporates these elements into the armour that sits on her shoulders would suggest that her breast plate is her Aegis and like her mythic counterpart she is carrying it with her into battle. As an object that in myth is also associated with her father Zeus it’s fitting that she is wearing it in the episodes she is trying to avenge his death and where she has succeeded his rule as leader of the gods.

Athena’s costume also includes numerous tassel fringes to her armour. They make up most of her headdress and run around the bottom of her breastplate. The Aegis is often depicted with tassels in Greek art and is even described as ‘fringed’ in Homer’s ‘The Iliad’ (ref. 5.730-47). The inclusion of the tassels to her armour is a fitting detail and a nice nod to the myths of Athena and the Aegis.  

Another image that is featured heavily in the costume is snakes. They are present on every piece of armour from her helmet to her belt. Again, these feature in the depictions of Athena in art due to their connection to Medusa, but they also have some symbolic meanings which connect nicely to the character of Athena. As Sue Blundell points out in her book Women in Ancient Greece that snakes are an appropriate animal to represent the powers of Athena

‘There is a sticking proliferation of these creatures about her person, most notable in the numerous examples which wriggle around the fringes of her mafic breastplate, or aegis, and can be brandished by the goddess when she is warding off her enemies. Like a snake, Athena is an ambivalent entity whose deadliness to her enemies enables her to be kind to her friends’ (Women in Ancient Greece, Sue Blundell pg 27)

It is then fitting that her protective armour she is wearing into a battle to defend her Olympian family is covered in snakes. Her helmet and necklace almost resemble coiling snakes prepared to strike out against her enemies.  

In ancient cultures snakes can also immortality and healing, two elements which connect with Athena’s powers in Xena. As soon as we meet her, she is shown to be a healing goddess with her focus being to protect the immortality of the gods. Also snakes are often seen as androgynous, neither male nor female. This reflects the character of Athena in myth perfectly as she embodies both male and female characteristics.   

I have tried to investigate the possible relevance of the colour gold. I did find some people refer to Athena’s armour as gold though I have not come across a historical reference other than the lost statue of Athena Parthenos. This was a massive gold and Ivory statue that once stood in the Parthenon.  The statue was made by the sculpture Phidias and was dedicated to the temple in 438BC.  

[bentchcreates]

Accelerants by Lena WIlson

The story follows Lucy in life changing moments of her life. The first one is her discovery of her pyrokinetic abilities, ensuring her life won’t be easy anymore. The second one is her quest for freedom  and justice for the life she had lost in all the years after her first manifestation.

I initially didn’t realize this was one of those angry-girl fictions and I absolutely loved it! Because the anger is justified and because it’s not all that there is in the story. There is warmth and love and friendship, and towards the end, liberty and hope. There were painful parts, and maybe it would so good to include a TW list (homophobia, allusion to conversion therapy, torture, some violence, etc.), but the writing is sound and Lucy’s POV is mostly optimistic. The inclusion of real world pop cult references is amazing, too, as it gives the whole story lightness and a more authentic teenage voice.

I don’t want to spoil too much but I have to say something about the ending. Now, maybe this is just me, but when I finished reading, I was a little on the fence with how things wrapped up in the last page. It was sensible, and the build-up towards it made sense, but on a deeply personal level, I kind of wished Lucy made a different call, forged a different path. HOWEVER, the more I thought about it after, the longer I imagined things ending differently, I realized what happened was important for Lucy (and to everyone who might find themselves in her character). It had to happen precisely as it did for her to move on from all the pain and hurt, for her to reclaim her power and agency, and ultimately, for her to finally burn all the horrible things in her life down to ashes.

I would definitely get a follow-up story to this bec I want to know what happens after. I got so invested with Lucy and Jessa (and Fatima!), as well as this rich world of Omnis fighting for their right to live in peace and acceptance.

**I received a free eARC of this book from the publisher: https://www.thebooksmugglers.com for an honest review. It doesn’t affect my opinion or the content of this review.

4 of 5 Stars.

Blurb:

Spring, before

When Lucy is six years old she finds two things that will change her life forever: she is an Omni that can control fire, and her power is deadly. Under the sharp watch of her secretive father, Lucy is confronted with the consequences of the worst mistake of her life every day. On the eve of her eighteenth birthday, things finally seem like they are getting better—with the promise of freedom at college on the horizon, and the dream that Jessa, the girl of Lucy’s dreams, might reciprocate Lucy’s feelings. But in an instant, everything changes.

Winter, now

Incarcerated and stripped of her rights, Lucy’s new world is behind locked gates and antiseptic interrogation rooms. Like other Omnis, Lucy is separated from her family, seen as a criminal for trying to live with other humans, and locked away—possibly forever. But Lucy and her fellow Omnis aren’t going quietly into submission.

Accelerants is a novella about first love, cold-hearted betrayal, and the implacable truth that sometimes you have to burn it all down.

Buy Links:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Accelerants-Lena-Wilson-ebook/dp/B07FZPGR4Z/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&qid=1533204410&sr=8-2&keywords=accelerants+lena+wilson&linkCode=sl1&tag=theboosmu-20&linkId=d5556dcce9ce419dc07686c94b7a274c&language=en_US

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/884254

Add on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40983453

About the Author:

Lena Wilson lives in New York City with her dog, Young Neil. When not crafting cultural criticism for sites like Slate, Bitch, and The Playlist, she writes fiction about marginalized women and lesbian experiences. Accelerants is her first novella.

[annarellix]

This Golden Flame by Emily Victoria

My Review (4*): I found this story engrossing and entertaining, a well written fantasy that I read in an afternoon. The author delivers a story about friendship, searching for our story and who we are, and very inclusive where there is no “normal” as plenty of characters are non binary or belong to different cultures. My favorite characters were Alix and Zara. Alix, the automaton who is trying to understand who he is, Zara the strong willed and no-nonsense captains of the pirates. I can say that I found all the characters interesting even if some more background would have helped. The world building is well done and I was fascinated by the magical system and this sort of steampunk Ancient Greece. The plot is well developed, a bit slow at times, and the solution was satisfying. I think it would be great to read other stories set in this universe as there’s plenty to explore and I’d like to visit other places and learn more about the ancient story. Even if it’s marketed as YA I think it can be appreciated by fantasy aficionados of any age. It’s recommended. Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Book Description: An Ember in the Ashes meets Mask of Shadows in Emily Victoria's #ownvoices debut YA fantasy, This Golden Flame, in which asexual Karis, a servant to the mysterious Scriptorium, accidentally awakens long-dormant automaton Alix, initiating an epic adventure full of magic, rebellion, and finding where you truly belong. Orphaned and forced to serve her country’s ruling group of scribes, Karis wants nothing more than to find her brother, long ago shipped away. But family bonds don’t matter to the Scriptorium, whose sole focus is unlocking the magic of an ancient automaton army. In her search for her brother, Karis does the seemingly impossible, she awakens a hidden automaton. Intelligent, with a conscience of his own, Alix has no idea why he was made. Or why his father, their nation’s greatest traitor, once tried to destroy the automatons. Suddenly, the Scriptorium isn’t just trying to control Karis; it’s hunting her. Together with Alix, Karis must find her brother…and the secret that’s held her country in its power for centuries.

The Author: Emily Victoria lives on the Canadian prairies with her Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, works at her public library, and has just finished her Masters of Library and Information Studies.

Social Links: Author website: https://www.avictoriantale.com/ Twitter: @avictoriantale Instagram: @avictoriantale

Buy Links: Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/books/this-golden-flame/9781335080271 Powell’s: https://www.powells.com/book/-9781335080271 Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/this-golden-flame-emily-victoria/1134633347 IndieBound: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781335080271 Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/This-Golden-Flame-Emily-Victoria-ebook/dp/B07ZXCWTYF/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1603379509&sr=8-1 Chapters: https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/this-golden-flame/9781335080271-item.html?ikwid=this+golden+flame&ikwsec=Home&ikwidx=3 Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/ww/en/ebook/this-golden-flame

[inuashnar1]

EVP 2017 NOTES

*these notes are transcribed from a series of graph pages I had written on in random order during the month of December 2017. In no particular order, but in relevance to who I am now, here are the scripts that I find most interesting RELEVANT to re-read in August 2019. 

EVP NOTE PAGE 1

Intentionally performative ---> or forcibly performative. 

Is the contract different as a body practise or a performance practise

Choreographic the affect of the knowledge of the room. 

---> mistrust my own checks and balances. 

Do I recognize my practise? 

What is the right language to bridge the gap btwn what you see and what you want 

others to see

How do I take responsibility for this thing I made

Inverting my own desire. Stepping back. 

Not drowning in the accumulation - fresh eyes

Ethical reflection - language in a manifesto on what should reflect?

Sometimes it is good to follow the lighter path verses the dark path

It’s not arbitrary - leaving you to your own desires. 

All that matters is the ‘how to integrate’. You can only push yourself to the place where you can integrate to create new sensation - recognizing you need support to be on the edge. 

Practicality and all other things feel slippery - awareness to the most obvious - it exceeds itself 

There is no extra 

Banal -----------Fantastical

EVP NOTE PAGE 2

Thinking Practise - Benden. Confident proposition in all aspects of ideas. 

Success in all choices - because everything is a success

Discontent in content in discontent in content

Content in discontent in content in discontent

The expectation of yourself when others are around resulting to old habits as comforts within performance. 

Bringing out a performance that is authentic at a high velocity. 

How do you achieve a proper direction in directing or drawing out prose in theatre?

Prose i mean text or score from an organic state

Organic in a sense of calm brevitas and charm in the present moment at hand. 

How do I practise> By physically doing - by creating certainty through searching. Practise of performance. How do I compose my own values of dance and maintain a desire of ‘the sake of function’

I am interested in sacrificing to assist the desire of curiosity. 

Jesus on le crosse

EVP NOTE PAGE 3

EVERYBODY’S SELF INTERVIEWS - ELEANOR BAUER 

Is dance concerned with universal truths? When everything is accessible, everything is treated as cultural currency, and appropriation (rather than belonging or not) is the common mode of relation to what exists, everything is doubled, imitated, transmitted virtually, stimulated, represented…. 

We no longer seek shared values by agreement or consensus, but individual truths by positioning in relation to each other within an infinite fractal horizon of others. 

Any values or truths previously considered universal are thrown on the menu of free for all, mix & match, choose your-own-adventure. Assimilation of cultural codes, values, and ref. With which individuals invent, define, situate themselves today. 

Lara ebata

How to re-invent the ingredients of our recipe of self construction. How to overcome these codes to reflect upon and challenge our relationship to dance and our position in it as well as an audience’s. 

What happens when dance is not viewed via the body to body, but through participating mechanisms of globalization i.e. youtube, TV, documentaries. 

DOES THIS ALTER OUR SENSE OF UNIVERSAL TRUTHS IN DANCE? 

OR

DO WE NOT CARE???

-everyone dances primarily for pleasure or satisfaction // in watching we are attracted to the, and satisfied by the, believable visible pleasure of the performer/dancer. 

AUTHENTICITY

Eleanor’s purpose - not to make generalization, to deliver universal truths, but to allow a multiplication of answers to create specificity and mobilize positions FOR THE AUDIENCE to move through

THE DANCER MUST CHOOSE

-personal taste, attractors, detractors, desires, own process of individualization, as a way to set limits of the “research” to not act lost in all options available to as when we decide we will make it our work to learn new dances from other contexts provides for...

HOW THE INDIVIDUAL REMAINS CRYSTALIZED AND SHARP AROUND THE EDGES. 

IS QUESTIONING THE ACTUAL PROCESS?

YES.

“Is this a process where the question vaults as looking for an answer, or a set of answers and delivery to them, or is this a process where the question continues to motivate a search?

DOUBT ??// in terms of: when we ask about ‘ the position/role/purpose of dance’ 

Do we concern ourselves only with affirming it, or are we allowed to say ‘dance is boring and worthless’ for instance?

Maybe the latter is preferred and that we construct a position out of that, that can be utilized and materialized.  

*the process as one where returning to the basic question continues to produce further possibilities and gives the piece A GRAVITATIONAL CENTRE around which a very broad and inclusive range of positions can be taken up, including doubtful ones. 

IRONIC - by allowing doubt and including doubt, allowing ourselves to not only search for the affirmative and motivational answers;

“We diminish doubt as a dead end and mobilize doubt as a position to pass through.”

---as a maker, there is no part of my collaborators brain or political interest that has to be left outside the studio doors, but that all modes of of criticality and distance are instruments to strengthen the work but also to BROADEN ITS PERSPECTIVE --- a choice that is consequent to the motives of the work itself, which tries to achieve a 

VIRTUAL KIND OF AT-LARGENESS

Via inhabiting/assuming a multiplicity of possible

Perspectives

If you put something ontop- we read insecurity 

Vs

Putting it into your body - what we feel is confidence?

EVP NOTE PAGE 4 

I fear

Myself- I have the capacity to harm others

Life - has the capacity and capability to harm me

Others - have the capability to harm me and themselves

Koko be good - Examining goodness. What does it mean to be good? How can you achieve goodness? Is it achievable? Do I already have it?

I like the idea of knowing. I know so little. When I know more, it opens up reasoning for knowing even less. I am small. I want to feel big. So I yell. But I also yell because I can. 

\\ 

How did I start yelling? Was I always this brash> Do other’s sense my brashness? 

How does someone become unkind? Un-good?

Kind? Good?

Everyone desires something. So far a desire to be seen is prevailing. We all scope into varieties of niches to project ourselves. 

Ame said coding. Coding is clever. I think. I’ve never heard anyone say it before, so to me, and my experience, it’s very clever. 

To be able to take pleasure in something to then feel compelled to continue to do it. 

That is dance. 

Pleasure for me.

Pleasure for me.

Pleasure for me.

Pleasure for you. 

Pleasure for you. 

Pleasure for them. 

Pleasure for them. 

Pleasure for good. 

Pleasure for good. 

EVP NOTE PAGE 5

Whether or not your question becomes the audience’s question, OR if this question is the gravitational centre of the process of the gravitational centre of the piece. 

Are they not looking at something else than your questions when they look at your materials? 

-they are in  a way, looking at answers; however they may all be spin-offs of the same questions?

Do they appear as symptoms of the same crux or failing. 

Do they all lead back to the same issue 

Or 

Do they rather produce several sub-issues?

Our thinking about dance itself does not produce a reflection on dance itself. But rather makes more visible the values, and perspectives that we take up in relation to dance - entertainment, pleasure, technicality, virtuosity, oppression, communication etc. 

Rather than putting the viewer in the position of understanding, accepting or disagreeing with some statement that we or I deliver about these versatile perspectives on, and receptions of the medium, it can be optimal if we manage to produce a state of questioning and reflection in the viewer. 

The performer hopefully becomes the direct instigator of thought and experience

WHAT THOUGHT & WHAT EXPERIENCE PRODUCE A STATE OF QUESTIONING AND REFLECTION OF WHAT IN THE VIEWER 

The how becomes the what → not just in virtuous performing

If the what is dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, dance and more dance. 

PEOPLE STOP CARING ABOUT WHAT DANCE WE DO 

Which is the point in Elanor’s reality. If I lift my arm, do a triple pirouette, Krump, the viewers just want to get underneath that material to the WHY we do it, by looking at HOW we do it. 

The way we frame, perform, order, deliver, connect, relate all those different ‘dances’ is therefore responsible for content

The very breadth of the movement that we choose to make available and possible for ourselves in it

How to make a piece which is not schizophrenic, but flexible. 

EVP NOTE PAGE 6

Staying with an idea that appears to be failing → doing it more intensely, or less intensely

The desire to complicate → shuts down the work

WE CAN ONLY MAKE OUR WORK

Through ineptitude sounding emerges. 

(trying to copy someone else through your failings)

How do you recognize your work? - choreographic signature - reason for making choreography. 

BOUT THE HIP REPLACEMENT 

Diminishing of physical involvement

Huge effort to be interested in choreography because there was not an urge, no empathy due to injury. 

WORKING with restricted vocabulary. 

Nikola

Burlesque each other’s most iconic work. Make available your signature, throw what would be the body of work to be handled. 

What do other people interpret you as?

Find something else that you can do with it within someone else. 

FIND A BEGINNER

A book. A trip. A slip.

A wind. A plane. A banana. 

A fish. A door. A bruise. 

What type of essay are you writing?

Do you think of your mom much?

How many times have you tripped today?

Can you buy me an expensive piece of cheese?

What do you think about your knees?

Is black a common occurrence in your mind?

If there were 17 hours instead of 12, what would you do?

Heels are complementary to any outfit. 

EVP NOTE PAGE 7

#1 h

-working on lots of fabulous things in ⅔ inverts → everything turns into a wash of white noise. 

Urdang. JazZ. 

Audience, gets overwhelmed by the density of invention. 

If the rate of change is change, it can become like a drug when certain things are in the background or fore-ground. About spec. Adjacency, juxtaposition. Accepting what comes easily. 

Stay with a failing idea. 

Thinking is not doing

A concept is not choreography

An idea is not a piece

Engagement with the idea is the piece/work

Relationship of music to your world and then questioning the assumption. Support? Used to it? Needed?

Is this me or you?

Let me know when you can. 

No rush. 

Well. 

Let me know by Tuesday

Xoxo

2017

EVP NOTE PAGE 8

Dance is always a political entity & point of view

You think -----you plan ----- what happens?...

→ does it really matter? Is it a concern or an interest? What comes off as affect for the viewer. 

No rules in the context of the world. With the limitation & possibilities, formulate a situation that informs the work. 

PROCESS VERSUS PRODUCT 

THROUGH NOT TO 

*crucial to not make assumptions about “what is dance?” 

Resist the idea that there is a singular way to make dance. There are infinite ways. 

Being in control - defiance of submission to individuality - pressure to have a point of view that defines you. Building a practise around articulating what it is what we are doing. 

Practising HOW as opposed to WHAT

HOW is it to be always in a practise of HOW we are doing it 

Every little thing affects the whole. 

I don’t want to give up myself as fuel for others

THINKING is PERFORMATIVE

Wanting to engage in humor but you can’t 

Agree or disagree

I’m not necessarily invested in the truth. 

The truth is always there. 

Maybe misinformation is good. 

Does it make you sad? Is it too dangerous?

[dollflynn-blog]

Ref #6

Reflection #6: Radical Heterosexuality,

Relationships and sexuality,

and The Proud Boys

Some women may roll their eyes in response to Naomi Wolf’s plea to educate the men in our lives and convince them that sexism is real.  Women already get paid less and even in today’s “modern” society are still second-class citizens.  Why must we prove ourselves again?  Why must we teach?  Why do we have to hold men’s hands through the process of our struggle to alleviate social inequalities? The answer is simple: If we don’t form an alliance and do this together, someone else will.  They will happily fulfill that role of mentor for us ladies and gentlemen; and we may not like or agree with what they have to say.  

There will always be a resistance to change, especially when it threatens the current power system and the ones who benefit most from its structure.  Intellectually we can understand this on a human level.  People like routine, consistency and reliability.  What happens to the dominate members in society when they are told the way the are doing things is wrong?  Many can view this as a welcome change.  They happily step up to the plate, eager to learn the new rules.  Others balk and resist quietly.  Others not so quietly.  

Case in point: Gavin McInnes, founder of the Proud Boys.  This is an example of what can materialize when men feel that they are under attack.  McInnes was the initial co-founder of vice news but his tenure was cut short due to “creative differences.  With his newly found free-time the “Godfather of hipster-dom” fostered a men’s club for the displaced, over looked, chauvinistic, predominately white male. [Insert sarcastic eyeroll here] He calls it: Proud Boys.  Members that pledge to this frat-like club are initiated through a verbal declaration and good ole-fashioned hazing.  Prospective members are required to recite the following: “I am a proud western chauvinist who refuses to apologize for creating the modern world.”  In addition to this declaration, pledges are then punched by at least five members while trying to recite five cereals, after this they refrain from masturbation, get the groups name tattooed on their bodies and are encouraged to pick a fight that they know they will lose to symbolize their “suffering.”  This recipe yields the rest of the North American population with 20,000 servings of sexually frustrated misogynists with a side of traditional sexism.  Enjoy.  

The founder stresses that the group doesn’t want to apologize for being male and that tradition holds value.  “Tradition” is code for the days of yore when women stayed home and raised the children while men “worked the assembly lines.”  McInnes rhetoric includes statements like “Feminism is cancer” and “venerate the house wives.”  There is nothing wrong with choosing to stay at home to a raise a family.  Human beings should indicate what they want based on their own desires and not through social obligation or conditioning.  If men truly did venerate their “homemaker” we wouldn’t have so many stories like the one exemplified in the article “Exploring Major Areas of Tension in Heterosexual Relationships.”  We are introduced anecdotally to one woman’s experience of building her life around her husband.  She gives up her career for her husband’s, has children because he wants them (she had been ambivalent about the choice), and stayed at home to raise them while he worked.  Ultimately, he ends up having many affairs with women he finds more exciting and independent than his dull stay-at-home wife.  This is just one women’s experience, but it exemplifies the realities of many couples in more “traditional” arrangements.  If the housewife were truly honored and respected, wouldn’t we expect to see less of these behaviors?

And effective alternative could be to reframe the current system and reveal that there is a better way of structuring our society by appealing to the interests of those at risk of losing their throne.  Men are more likely to drop out of high school, be diagnosed with a behavioral disorder, binge drink, go to prison, commit a violent crime and to die by suicide.  It is in men’s best interest to reevaluate this structure they are so desperate to maintain.  Perhaps if the flaws of current masculinity were looked at more closely, they too would embrace the change.  These statistics reveal that tradition gender roles in modern society do not seem to be working for men either.  It is understandable that many men may feel confusion around the “me too culture”.  Perhaps even remorseful.  They may think: “Have I ever done anything like that?  Is telling a woman I see on the street that she looks good not a compliment?  Don’t women like those?”

Men are socialized not to discuss these things, not to ask questions, so they internalize them.  They may even begin to feel threatened and turn to radical right-winged clubs like the Proud Boys.  If men are not invited into the conversation and given a safe space to ask questions candidly, they will seek other outlets of inclusion.  We are all looking for our tribe and a sense of belonging. Maybe one day it will include every human being on the planet.