Entrepreneurial Spirit

A very odd thought struck me today. I am a writer, and I am a graphic designer. I can come up with (reasonably) pithy commentary on the modern world, and I have a basic grasp of good design. I've been looking for other sources of revenue, especially considering my plans to leave the country at some point, and so I've been thinking about where I can apply my skills in my spare time to earn extra cash.

In retrospect, this should have been bloody obvious.

Cafepress style sites! T-shirt designs! It's perfect!

I've started up already with some feminist designs on Skreened. I have plans for some new sections on geeks, computers, gaming, and other stuff, and I'm considering setting up a second store on Zazzle or Printfection for stuff other than T-shirts. Skreened just happened to come highly recommended in quality vs. price.

If anyone has suggestions about what kind of T-shirts or merchandise they'd like to see, let me know! This is cash that's going to get me and my better half to Canada, by the way. Even if it's something silly, I want to know about it and do the design and sell it to you.

Promotion will have to be through the blog, Twitter, my site, and word of mouth. The challenge is how to do it without being tacky... ah, the joys of the sole trader business. Anyway - I added a few non-feminist designs to do some practice with branding and graphic styles. Enjoy!

Body Shapes

I have realised something deeply profound, and largely personal. Granted, this may make it uninteresting, but nevertheless, I feel the need to share.

I now know that I'm not, in fact, overweight.

Does that sound silly? Modern women carry around some amount of hatred of their bodies from the moment their mothers tell them that they shouldn't have that extra bar of chocolate. 'A minute on the lips, a lifetime on the hips', they say. I've always largely disliked my hips for having too much fat on them, and deep down, I tend to blame myself for it.

But not today. I looked in the mirror, and I noticed that my shoulders are actually just a little bit wider than my hips, despite the fleshiness of said body parts. And it was something of a revelation to look at myself and see (instead of an average woman with a few pounds to lose) a woman who is bigger and heavier by design because I take after my father in my body shape. So I have very broad shoulders and hips because my dad is broad; I weigh more than 180 pounds even though I look much lighter because I have very dense bones, like he does; I have huge feet for which heels are generally not an option because my grandfather had feet like that.

The point of it all, really, is that it's not my fault.

It's not my fault, if fashion designers don't care or don't know how to make clothes that look good on women with broad shoulders. It's not my fault if I can never look like a model in a magazine. And because it's not my fault, suddenly all the guilt and hatred just falls away.

Even when I know that mainstream media presents an unrealistic view of the ideal woman, and that this view is callously abused to push beauty and enhancement products on the female population, it's still viciously hard to escape the nagging feeling that by not caring about being thin, or not caring about what I eat, I am somehow letting myself down. The feeling is just another facet of the media's pervasive influence - but rationalising it isn't the same as being completely free from it. So it's a powerful thing, to tell yourself that:

• You will never reach this unrealistic ideal, but
• It's not your fault, and
• You can stop beating yourself up about it now and start concentrating on how to stay healthy and happy.

If you can truly convince yourself of this, then all the ads trying to convince you to buy makeup, or lose some weight with a new diet, or get this season's newest fashions don't matter anymore. You'll never look like Angelina Jolie, or have Reneé Zellweger's body, because you are not them and having the trappings of their lives will not change that - so trying to take on the veneer of a celebrity is pointless, and every little thing that says 'you are not worthy' because of your body becomes meaningless. Instead, it becomes a matter of difference; different genetics, different riches. You buy clothes for yourself. You exercise for your own health. You eat according to your own taste.

And in a myriad of small ways, you are suddenly free.

Comic Books and the Male Gaze

I like comic books, really I do. They're remarkably underrated as a medium. Alan Moore in particular is a storyteller of consummate skill; V for Vendetta, Top Ten, and others are among some of the most in-depth and emotionally involved works I've ever come across.

The problem, of course, is that comic books are rarely written for me.

Comics as a medium are, like the rest of mainstream media, entirely dominated by and created for men. I would probably be more interested in comics if they didn't constantly pander to the male gaze - that is, comics display women-as-objects, there to be eye candy for heterosexual men, even if the women are characters in their own right. The Most Common Superpower is aptly named; although male characters run the gamut of size, age, shape and what have you, female characters are overwhelmingly tall, skinny, young, attractive, and have breasts that apparently defy gravity.

Michael Turner was terrible for it, actually. See here for a classic example of his work. I don't recall ever seeing an adult female by him that didn't have an F cup at least.

Yes, it irritates me like nothing on earth. All comics have started to look the same to me now. Like movies, they have become variations on a theme of 'white hetersexual male plus assorted other white males and maybe some minorities get into shennanigans'. This just isn't all that interesting to me anymore, especially when women - yes, half of the goddamn human race - is considered a minority. The Losers? Five men, one woman. I didn't even look at the comic book. The Expendables? Nine men, most of whom are white.

That's just two films this year that my better half was getting excited about that I really, really couldn't care less about and will not be spending any money on. But I'm not bitter. Totally.

Anyway, I have to give credit where it's due, and much as I have a problem with a lot of comics, some of them stand head and shoulders over the rest. And the one that I elevate above all others is the Authority.

I prefer the Ellis/Hitch early stuff. I can remember faffing around, looking at the giant boobs brigade and getting a little disgusted, before someone shoved a copy of the first issue of the Authority into my hands. I started to read about Jenny Sparks (pictured above) and it just blew my mind that Bryan Hitch was drawing her so... normal. She smokes, drinks, wears tank tops and comfortable pants, and dresses like a businesswoman with a grudge when she goes out to kick villain ass. Jenny was an immensely powerful character, a leader, and a saviour. She had history, and depth, and experience. She was real to me in a way that, say, Power Girl could never be.

Jenny wasn't a sex symbol. Bryan Hitch didn't draw her like that. I met him at San Diego Comic Con once, and spent a silly amount of money on an original Authority comic page because of it.

Jenny Sparks became another thread that inspired one of my main characters in the Novel, and I would have given anything to have more of her in mainstream media. It hasn't happened yet, unfortunately, even though Wonder Woman is finally wearing pants after all these years. (Someone had to actually point out to me that WW's usual outfit is classic dominatrix - seriously, hot pants, corset, knee-high boots, and a whip? How did I miss that?)

Someday, though. Fifty years ago, there would never have been a Jenny Sparks to inspire me. I wonder will they ever do an Authority movie?

Levels of Closeness

I was talking to a man close to me the other day, and he said something that made me... well, very angry. Angry enough to shut down the conversation and walk away.

He was asking why we didn't talk more, and in a way, he was right to ask. He is, after all, very close to me - though the specifics are not all that important. We've argued in the past, and I withdrew somewhat because I tire of arguments where no consensus can be reached. We all choose the boundaries to our lives, and no one has a right to breach them arbitrarily - not even the people we love.

Things change, of course. I've already noticed that I'm introverted, in many ways, and like I said before, I'm not really all that comfortable with the language of social interaction. I don't know when I give offence, or if I should call someone to see how they are, or if this particular thing is appropriate or not. My better half had to remind me that we needed to buy a wedding present for a couple we know, which I can safely say would not have occurred to me in a hundred years.

So. I thought, perhaps, I could make an effort. Reach out a little. I sent him a link to this article, because we had been talking about feminist issues before. I want this person who is close to me to see the things I'm passionate about, and understand a bit of how I see the world.

If you don't want to click through, it's about Schroedinger's Rapist; the concept that women cannot know in advance whether the man that tries to talk to them or get close to them in a public setting actually means them any harm or not until something actually happens, at which point it's a bit late to do anything about it. So the natural reaction is to view unknown men with caution above all else, even when the man in question is a nice guy who only wants to say hello.

Men might get insulted about being viewed this way, but quite frankly, the statistics are not on their side. The reporting and conviction rate for rape is pitifully low, and in Ireland the victims of rape can expect to be victimised all over again by the friends and family of the man (it is overwhelmingly men who rape, of course). No one has the right to be insulted by the actions that women choose to take to protect themselves from that.

This gesture, however, wasn't enough. I sent the article, and I did hope a little bit that this could open up a new dialogue, with a new understanding of my worldview. Odd as it may seem, the article describes my old habits very accurately; that strange way of being hyper-aware of everyone around me, and the fear of doing or saying something wrong in response to their actions, that I still fall back on every now and then. Never in a hostile way, you understand - I didn't view other people as a threat - but I did view them as not-like-me, and getting over that and learning how to be comfortable around strangers still takes something of an effort of will for me.

To this, he replied that he didn't want to know. He didn't like being reminded of how rotten the world is, and he thought my effort was pretty poor as a gesture of closeness.

So, I failed in a social interaction. Nothing new there, even if I'm still trying to calculate the interpersonal arithmetic and inevitable fallout. But... he didn't want to know that bad things happen? I don't have words to describe how angry this makes me. How contemptibly arrogant, how utterly heartless! It's so easy, isn't it, to say that when the things that are happening will probably never happen to you!

I'm not sure how to parse this. Should I remain angry? Should I reach out again, but with what? I don't have many levels of closeness to offer; there is the one who shares my bed at night, and there is everyone else in the world, and those are the only two I know with absolute certainty. I'm still working out how to subdivide everyone else, and I know I don't always get it right.

I can't see how this will play out. All I know is I don't want to lose another friendship because of another social mistake, but if I do... is it his fault, or is it mine?

Unapologetically...

Someone said something rather interesting to me the other day. They accused me of being a 'militant feminist', and all that that entails.

Feminazi. Radical feminist. Man-hater. One who, I suppose, wants to tear men down and elevate women in their place. I confess I'm not sure how to respond to such an accusation. Perhaps it's time to set the record straight, once and for all?

There are men in the western world who have a kind of cognitive dissonance; they view women as equals, think sexism is gone and done with, and declare to anyone who asks that they support equal rights, but it's all talk. It's all bluster; sound and fury, with nothing to back it up. They don't walk the walk. They were brought up a particular way, with particular views, and shaking all that off and reaching out towards the goal of true equality is... too much effort? Maybe. I would think it more likely that they just don't realise the truth of it.

It's not something you can really know, unless you live through it every day. If you've never once had something denied to you because of what you are, then you don't see the world like someone who has.

When I was young, I wanted to be a Premier League football player. I think I was only six or seven at the time. I liked soccer a lot, and I liked seeing the ads on television for Premiership matches. But it could never happen - I realised no matter how good I ever became, women were not allowed to play. Not even if I was better, or could run faster, or was more skilled. I would never be given the chance. That, I think, was the first hard truth I had to face about my biology and how the world saw it. I could be the greatest footballer the world has ever seen, but as long as my reproductive organs were on the inside, I'd never be worthy.

I railed at the unfairness, as I saw it, of being a woman. I wanted to do metalwork or woodwork in school - I desperately wanted to make things, big things, that would stand up on their own and be impressive and... arty, or something. I wasn't allowed. I wanted to play hurling with the boys, being bored to insensibility by knitting. I wasn't allowed. I wanted to do things that were not 'lady-like' simply because they interested me, wear clothes that were comfortable, live without these ridiculous restrictions and to hell with what anyone thought, and that probably annoyed my mother no end - but she and my father always let me be whatever I thought I wanted to be, for the most part.

So I grew up to be unusual. I knew that there were expectations of a woman in normal society, and I also knew that I didn't care to fulfil them when they were arbitrary and wasteful. I was long since past the stage of not caring what people thought of me.

I wore makeup, once or twice, mostly for my mother. I don't, nowadays, because I hate the feel of it. I have never bought women's magazines, or taken them seriously, or been tempted by the random fashion accessories they advertise. I don't dress up to go out, unless you count Halloween costumes, and I've never felt the need to show off my cleavage to attract a man.

I suppose I was atypical to begin with, but it took a lot of watching and reading to solidify my opinions. What I saw around me was that it was mostly men in control, and even the men closest to me couldn't see that tiny, constant things were endlessly telling me that being a woman made me less than them. That I'd lament about how many women were disadvantaged, and the only way they could internalise and process what I said was by assuring me that they weren't like that... But they still told me I was overreacting, that that's just how the world was, when I pointed out that something was sexist and it wasn't right. They still told jokes about rape.

All the threads play into each other. All the stories and narratives are woven together, from jokes to newspaper articules to Hollywood movies, and in most of them... it's not men who are used, abused, and weak. I don't blame the men I know for acting like they do, if at all - the vast majority, including my own better half, are decent, honourable people - but they swim in this culture every day, as do I. They just don't see it like I do, unless I point it out.

The funny thing about thinking in feminist terms is that you can never really switch it off again. I routinely judge movies and games on their portrayal of women now; it's almost my own personal benchmark for well-written media, as the likelyhood of my enjoying a movie in which [insert generic white caucasian twenty-something straight male here] gets into random hijinks/action, with a supporting cast of assorted mostly white men, is somewhere around nil. It takes a lot more than flashy special effects to impress me, and it takes a huge amount more when the film in question portrays women as 'bad' girls to be used, or 'good' girls to be protected.

Example of a movie that broke the mould? Prince of Persia, no less - I didn't mention it at the time, but Princess Tamina did a lot of things that would make any feminist proud. She's the ruler of a country; she alternatively fools and manipulates the Prince for her sacred mission; she can and indeed does use a sword when she has to. In short: she has some serious power and agency, and she's not afraid to use either to protect the world even at the expense of her own life.

So. Getting back to the point, I guess - I read a lot. Apart from seeing the world a particular way, I also learned about feminists who had changed it, and whose actions had given me the life I lead now. I learned how they fought for the right to vote, to control their own bodies, to live independently, to keep their children, to work and love and exist on their own terms and according to their own wishes. It was a culmination of years and years of work, of gaining a little ground here and there and bleeding raw to keep it. They are the reason I have a voice at all, why I'm not simply cast into a corner and dismissed because I was unfortunate enough to have been born female.

It enrages me that a few women today dismiss all that and disown the word 'feminist', as if it's a slur on their character. Some immediately connect it with the so-called feminazis. Some latch onto one little thing that some feminists have brought about that they don't like, and use it as an excuse to attack and disown all feminists. Such is life, I guess. The most I can do is argue with them.

I'm unapologetically feminist. That is my label and part of my identity, and for me it means that I am interested in equality for all, even when it doesn't work out in my favour. It means I can't shut up and be silent about sexism whether it happens to women or men, that I am well-read on feminist discourse, and I'm very largely in favour of reproductive rights, LGBTQI rights, and human rights in general. I want the world to be better than it is, and if that means I make some people uncomfortable or I have to take some insults, then so be it.

Hmm, wall of text indeed. But I had to say it sometime.