Here comes the bride...?

For the life of me I can't remember where I first heard this, but I just want to get it out there that I recognize that the thoughts for this particular entry didn't come directly from me. It was from a short online comedy routine I saw on a blog somewhere and was amused by. I saw the video some time ago and didn't even think about it again until today. I was watching wedding shows on TV with my mom... probably totally not a "feminist" thing, but I'm over it... and it got me thinking...

What is it with weddings? I get that they're important because our culture has made them important and, yes, even I see them as such. There's so much that just goes into this one day that it almost makes my head spin to think about it and yet, if you watch these shows, you realize that at least 99 times out of 100, it's all on the brides. They're the ones who are fretting over every last detail and crying over every slight bump in the road. The grooms merely stand along the sidelines and chuckle to themselves. "Women are crazy" is what I imagine they're thinking. Heck, while watching these shows I believe even I've thought that more than a handful of times. Seeing these poor ladies running around, losing their cool, and being treated like escaped asylum patients is insane, but their reactions to all of these stressors can be downright ridiculous at times. Is that "victim blaming?" I don't mean to make light of such a topic... victim blaming is a horrible thing... but I mean, I can't think of another way to phrase it. Most of these women are being burdened under centuries of tradition which tell them that this ONE day is all that matters. It is the most important day of their entire lives and if it goes wrong, so help them God, they might as well call it a life. There is no way they will ever get over it. No wonder they're half crazed before the real planning even gets under way! If I thought that my entire life rested on making this one single day absolutely perfect, there's no way I would be able to rest either!

It really hit me how important things like that are, though, when my mom repeatedly turned to me while we were watching these brides and their wedding planners make decisions and asked me if I was getting ideas. A few times I thought she was joking, but then I realized she was serious. At the present time I am not planning a wedding, engaged, or seeing anyone at all. I can't imagine that a wedding is in my immediate future. I know my mom was probably just trying to start conversation, and it's not like I'm sitting here enraged at her in any way. It's not like what she was saying was offensive, but still... there is no wedding anywhere near for me. I am not the kind of person who could plan this far ahead for such a thing. What I like today would be my least favorite thing in the entire world tomorrow. Yet already I'm expected to start thinking about what I want my wedding to look like? Finals are coming up! How am I supposed to see past tomorrow, let alone that far into the future? It just feels like so much pressure is put on girls starting as far back as I can remember. Heck, I'm sure in high school my mom asked me about my wedding and if I had any ideas in mind. I grant that I know people who got married immediately after graduating high school, but I certainly had no intentions of doing that, so why would I need to know what kind of cake I wanted? I just wanted to get my diploma and get out of town! You already want me to be able to tell you what the colors are and whether or not I want my initials in red or robin's egg blue on the edge of a napkin? Jeez...

Post-Election Thoughts (Part I)

I know it's clearly past the election and the dust has more or less settled, but in the course of the past far too many months... heck, probably even years since it's felt like people have been campaigning for an eternity... I have been thoroughly annoyed with so many different aspects of politics. That's as a woman, as a person with interests in politics, and in many different ways. The way in which different parts of the election were covered and the questions directed at me regarding it were just kind of ridiculous... and I almost don't even know where to begin.

Okay, I think I'll start with the point that is perhaps the most annoying for me. I think I should put a disclaimer before this though: I know the issue of abortion is an important one. I recognize why it is important and I very much agree that it is important. All of that said, I'm tired of that being the only question I get asked about as it relates to politics. I don't know if people assume that because I have ovaries and a vagina and all of that good stuff that it's the only issue I'm allowed to care about or what. Even when I've tried to steer the conversation toward something more general, somehow it always comes back to "yeah, but this candidate doesn't support abortion" or "yeah, but this candidate does support abortion." Guess what? I probably already knew that. It doesn't take too much work to research a candidate's platform on various issues. Even then, why should I limit my discussions to merely one issue? I was offended many times by people reducing my opinion to simply that question. I don't vote with my vagina. I vote with my head and really think through my decisions. Yes, abortion is an issue that we all need to discuss and worry about, but it's not the only issue. With people losing their homes and jobs, there are other things at stake.

Another "voting with my vagina" moment seems to come with ignorant people assuming that a woman would vote for Sarah Palin just because she's a woman. It's the same thing as when people were complaining about people voting for Hillary Clinton. Why can't people distinguish the difference between someone saying that they're excited to see women involved in this level of politics and actually saying they're going to vote for them? I would never vote for someone just because they were the same gender as I am, but at the same time I feel completely justified in saying that I think it's amazing and I am so proud that women have finally come so far that they're being put in this spotlight. True, women have run for President and Vice President before, but not with this kind of spotlight. Not with this kind of pressure on them. Women are finally being recognized for the amazing people they are, and to diminish that merely because people can't handle it is ridiculous. Why is it that the only reason I would vote for these women is because they're women? They have platforms. They have beliefs and hopes and desires. They want to help make America better in their own ways, so why are people simplifying them down to their anatomy? I would never think to suggest someone is supporting a candidate and ignoring these women merely because the only candidates are men... why is it okay to question me in this way?

am I not geeky enough?

I obviously missed last week’s entry so I’m going to have to make that up somehow. Two posts in one week? That would probably be for the best. It’s probably already messed a lot of things up, but that’s okay. It’ll work out somehow. If it doesn’t? Well I suppose it’s too late to fix that.

For the “Who Am I?” projects, I know a lot of people did collages. They put together all of the titles that people try to force on them or the objects which they feel “define” who they are. Without sounding like one of those obnoxious scenesters who wails on and on about how “omg society doesn’t represent meee,” I’ve tried doing that before and it never really works out. I suppose maybe if there was a headline that had the word “judgmental” in it then I could put that on my collage, though that would be true. It’s difficult to call someone an obnoxious scenester and in the same paragraph try to explain yourself as anything less than judgmental. Other than that, though, what is there of me in the modern media?

If I’ve ever been called anything with consistency, it’s a geek. I love books, I love technology, I love fantastical notions and faraway places. I’m not necessarily a big believer in the idea that everyone has a chance for a happily-ever-after-esque ending to their lives, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love the idea. The Princess Bride is both my favorite book and my favorite movie. Even within the confines of that, the book at least, there is the implication that there is no fairytale ending for its main characters. Things certainly do go wrong at the end, whether the Fred Savage-y version of the story wants to recognize it or not. That’s not really the point of this entry. The point is that I feel that maybe the last few pages of that story describe how I feel about life: it’s not impossible to find all the pieces which combine to give you everything you’ve always wanted, but it is pretty damn hard to put them together to create the truly perfect picture. Maybe I should’ve just handed in the last chapter of the book for my project and attached an essay.

All the same, the idea of being a geek/dork/nerd is a very “in” idea at the moment. With shows like Chuck and Heroes attracting some level of popularity, it’s obvious that there is some significant interest in that particular subculture. The problem with that remains that the women found in those shows are all incredibly attractive ladies. Hey, who am I to argue with that? If you’re a beautiful woman then good for you; however, it doesn’t seem that looks are such a big factor when casting the male roles. Maybe that will be the topic for this particular blog: how women are represented in science fiction/geek-centered culture and how I feel lost even in that particular subculture? That’s about as good as it gets for me at the moment.

If you spend more than five seconds surfing through pictures for NBC’s show Heroes, which is pretty much a reimagining of Marvel’s X-Men, you will find that two particular characters come up. One is a female and the other is a male. The female is a pretty blonde cheerleader who is the picture perfect representation of what the All-American girl looks like. The male is a geeky, short Asian American who is decidedly nowhere near any idea of even semi-conventionally good looking. He is not the kind of actor you would cast if you wanted teenyboppers flocking to your show with their hormones all aflame. The blonde cheerleader? Exactly the opposite. She is everything you would want to bring about the stereotypical nerdy guys who would theoretically never encounter someone like her in their general circle of friends. Petite, blonde, and her special power? She’s indestructible! You can bend her, twist her, throw her off of a bridge and she’s going to magically put herself back together again. How hot is that?

 

Looking at the rest of the primary male cast of this show, there seems to be a fair representation of men from all walks of life. Different nationalities and body types are represented. Different age groups and class statuses are there as well. As for the women in question? Other than the cheerleader, there is one other tall, beautiful blonde woman who has a split personality. One side of her is the good, everyday girl. The other side is the vicious, sexy side. Makes sense, right? Part of her is that sweet, “average” girl that every guy says he wants while she can turn in to this violent, vulgar alter ego. It’s the wet dream of many a male member of this kind of fandom that I know of.

I have to put a note here and say that I know I’m generalizing a lot of people. I apologize for that in some way, but at the same time I am talking about my experience with this particular group. They think a certain way and expect certain things. That doesn’t make any of them bad people and that’s not what I mean to imply. The general TV-watching, movie-viewing public probably has these exact same expectations, not just this subset. I won’t even lie – a lot of women would prefer that the male casts of these shows were nothing but hot guys, too! Still, meeting everyone halfway would be fine. That’s clearly not the goal of the casting directors here. 

This still hasn’t particularly addressed how I feel I fit in to this scenario. As a girl who takes part in this culture I’m coming from a place where the “outside” world has already painted a picture of what the average girl should look like. The sci-fi subculture prides itself on being accepting and encouraging to men and women of all types. So how is it that they’re willing to show men of all kinds, but the women still look picture perfect? Even the aliens still have a killer rack and better skin than I do… and some of them are green! What gives? Then you always have the token girl who just wants to be “one of the boys” and “doesn’t wear make-up,” yet somehow manages to look better than most girls I know who spend hours making themselves up. If you spend time playing a video game, things don’t get much better. If you thought the breasts on the actresses were intense, wait until you see the puppies on these girls! They defy gravity and I’m pretty sure that, much like Barbie, if they were real people they would topple over because their measurements just do not make sense. (Why am I so obsessed with breasts?)

So where am I supposed to go? How do I fit into a culture that’s all about accepting people who are different, even alien, where there is still so obviously a gender bias? I’m not asking for them to start combing the general population for “average” women, but let’s be a little more serious about the whole acceptance message. Please? … please?

Who Am I?

The title of this post and the title of this blog are the same for now. I think it's pretty safe to say that I really don't know who I am. Well... I don't know about that. I think there's something that sounds kind of pretentious about acting like I have no idea who I am. My name is Lacey, I go to the University of Cincinnati, I'm from Waverly, and I know a lot about my likes and dislikes. I love the musical Sweeney Todd, but was unimpressed with the movie. I stay up late, but don't do well at getting up too early. This is a part of "who I am" that doesn't mesh so well with college. I am the product of two divorces and a lot of messy relationships. I count my mom and my brother as my best friends. I have a lot of other awesome friends, too. I love my music loud, but start shutting down around loud people. Those are all silly little facts, but all the same... I have an idea of who I am.

What I don't know is who I am in relation to feminism or any feminist issues. I don't think I know what feminist issues are. I've been in Women's Studies for about two and a half weeks now and I still don't think I know what they are. The attempts I've made at following the discussions have usually ended in complete confusion on my part. Too many people going back and forth and back again leaves me confused. That's not a feminist issue, that's just how I see things. The examples I have been able to grasp from people in class don't sound like things I can relate to. I don't share their backgrounds, I don't share the history many of them have. I would raise my hand to contribute, but don't know where to start and don't even think a lot of my opinions would conform to theirs. I suppose that's not what Professor Gibson is looking for, but I'm not good with confrontations or even disagreements. If someone called me on something I said that they disagreed with, I would probably be... I don't think I would "upset," per se, but it would make me nervous. I need tougher skin. I've read the textbook and been touched by the stories, but I really haven't related to one yet. Maybe I will eventually.

I still haven't touched on feminist issues. What are they? I feel like it's even bigger than things like abortion and political issues, though those things are also incredibly important, but I can't put a finger on what they are. It's not something I've ever thought about. Or, maybe... they're things I've thought about, but never considered feminist issues. I hope to work those out. I don't know if I ever officially will, but this is a start.

I thought about doing a few different projects. (I'm using a lot of "I" statements.) The end result was this blog. I've always wanted to be/been a writer. That isn't to say I'm good at it so much as it is to say I enjoy it. It's one thing that has always comforted me. I'm also a big fan of technology, so blogging seemed like the way to go. I could've just written an essay and handed it in, but I know how that would have turned out. I would have written the essay, completely forgotten about it until the end of the quarter, and then rushed something together that was meant to be flowery and "enlightened" to these issues I am being asked about. It wouldn't have been true. By requiring myself to write (at least) once a week in this blog, I hope to chart some kind of progression. I hope to ask myself to think more about the world around me.

What if I don't "progress?" What if I stay the way I am? I'll be okay with that, too. I just need to ask myself to think in a different light. Writing is the only way I know how to do that.