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Via Hyel:
Conservative Bible Project Cuts Out Liberal Passages -- Because there's nothing new under the sun.
From Pandagon:
Women like politeness, being treated like humans: news at 11 -- About how women respond to various opening salvos on internet dating sites.
Note to Nice!Guys(TM): Boy are you wrong. (Duh).
Via Shakesville, from The Globe and Mail:
The casting couch is all too real, but no one will discuss it. Great! Just fantastic! [/sarcasm].
From [M]etabrain [E]ntry [L]og:
Hi. My name is Mel, and I’m female… and feminist. - About sexism online. Very interesting.
On a Related Note, from Infotropism:
Standing out in the crowd -- Kirrily/Scud's OSCON keynote speach.
From Feministe:
How I Wore a Hijab and How Much it Sucked for Me -- About a non-muslim gal living in Jordan who wore a fake[1] hijab in order to stop the street harassment.
From Feministing:
What About Out Military Moms? -- About the career/famiy divide and who is expected to derail their careers to look after family and who is expected to ditch their families to look after their careers.
AND
German women's magazine to ban professional models.
Re: The Last One:
Okay. I'm not a professional model. I rarely get paid for my work and I mostly do it with people whose company I enjoy, even when I only know them through Model Mayhem.
That said, I am a *good* model. Not a phenomenal one. Not one who is expecting to be able to make her living off posing for pictures, certainly not one who's learned all the tricks of the trade yet. But I do good work.
Which means I damn well know what it takes to do good work, and I know how much I still have to learn[2] before I get anywhere near "great".
Models aren't passive.
Sitting there and looking pretty actually *does* take effort. It takes both the ability to take dirrection *and* the ability to improvise in front of a camer.
It takes a shitload of body-awareness.
As in: comprable to professional dancers and professional actors.
You have to know what your different facial expressions *feel* like so that you can throw them on in any kind of an accurate way and not end up looking like a deranged hyena when you're going for "fierce" or "sultry" or "cheerful" or whatever[3]. You have to know what to do with your hands/arms so that they aren't flapping all over the place but aren't hanging uselessly by your sides, either. You have to know how to plant your feet so that you look solid in a photo even if you palance pretty precariously where you are, how to make uncomfortable, contorted body postures look easy and natural and comfortable.
So when I see a headline like that? Part of me goes: Not if they want good cover-shots, they aren't.
And, as such, wonders why they would say such a thing when, perhaps what they mean is more along the lines of "We're going to stop hiring models whose body-shapes are distressingly skinnier than the average of our target audience" (which is far more likely) or "We're going to hire professional models, but we're going to turn the focus from their body-shapes to everything else they're involved in" (My ass. See below for more fury).
The other part of me goes: Assholes. that's someone's JOB you're taking away there, either by litterally not hiring someone who makes her living in this field, or by totally ignoring the skill-set required to do that job and so making the fact that it's a skill and a trade invisible/ignorable in the name of your damn PR.
Seriosuly. Comments like this?
"We will show women who have an identity -- the 18-year-old student, the head of the board, the musician, the football player[...]"
Are just like all that shit about models vs "real" women.
As if professional models aren't *also* musicians, athletes, CEOs and students. Or caterers, office-workers, teachers and parents, for that matter. As if we have no identity beyond being "just a pretty face".
This is fucking insulting on a lot of levels, not the least of which being that it plays into the idea that (1) you can either be pretty or smart, and that (2) modeling is easy and that it requires no skills what-so-ever. :-P
If you want to expand the definition of "super-model body-type"? More power to you. I'm well aware that mine is not the only aesthetically pleasing body-type in the world.
But DON'T do it by pretending that it doesn't take skills and talent to do the fucking job. >:-|
- Sincerely,
- A Pissed Off Amazon.
[1] As in: Worn for reasons other than faith or cultural ties, as far as I can tell.
[2] Yes, LEARN. You heard me!
[3] I have a long way to go on this one which, I suspect, is why so many of *my* good pictures involve fairly neutral facial expressions.
Conservative Bible Project Cuts Out Liberal Passages -- Because there's nothing new under the sun.
From Pandagon:
Women like politeness, being treated like humans: news at 11 -- About how women respond to various opening salvos on internet dating sites.
Note to Nice!Guys(TM): Boy are you wrong. (Duh).
Via Shakesville, from The Globe and Mail:
The casting couch is all too real, but no one will discuss it. Great! Just fantastic! [/sarcasm].
From [M]etabrain [E]ntry [L]og:
Hi. My name is Mel, and I’m female… and feminist. - About sexism online. Very interesting.
On a Related Note, from Infotropism:
Standing out in the crowd -- Kirrily/Scud's OSCON keynote speach.
From Feministe:
How I Wore a Hijab and How Much it Sucked for Me -- About a non-muslim gal living in Jordan who wore a fake[1] hijab in order to stop the street harassment.
From Feministing:
What About Out Military Moms? -- About the career/famiy divide and who is expected to derail their careers to look after family and who is expected to ditch their families to look after their careers.
AND
German women's magazine to ban professional models.
Re: The Last One:
Okay. I'm not a professional model. I rarely get paid for my work and I mostly do it with people whose company I enjoy, even when I only know them through Model Mayhem.
That said, I am a *good* model. Not a phenomenal one. Not one who is expecting to be able to make her living off posing for pictures, certainly not one who's learned all the tricks of the trade yet. But I do good work.
Which means I damn well know what it takes to do good work, and I know how much I still have to learn[2] before I get anywhere near "great".
Models aren't passive.
Sitting there and looking pretty actually *does* take effort. It takes both the ability to take dirrection *and* the ability to improvise in front of a camer.
It takes a shitload of body-awareness.
As in: comprable to professional dancers and professional actors.
You have to know what your different facial expressions *feel* like so that you can throw them on in any kind of an accurate way and not end up looking like a deranged hyena when you're going for "fierce" or "sultry" or "cheerful" or whatever[3]. You have to know what to do with your hands/arms so that they aren't flapping all over the place but aren't hanging uselessly by your sides, either. You have to know how to plant your feet so that you look solid in a photo even if you palance pretty precariously where you are, how to make uncomfortable, contorted body postures look easy and natural and comfortable.
So when I see a headline like that? Part of me goes: Not if they want good cover-shots, they aren't.
And, as such, wonders why they would say such a thing when, perhaps what they mean is more along the lines of "We're going to stop hiring models whose body-shapes are distressingly skinnier than the average of our target audience" (which is far more likely) or "We're going to hire professional models, but we're going to turn the focus from their body-shapes to everything else they're involved in" (My ass. See below for more fury).
The other part of me goes: Assholes. that's someone's JOB you're taking away there, either by litterally not hiring someone who makes her living in this field, or by totally ignoring the skill-set required to do that job and so making the fact that it's a skill and a trade invisible/ignorable in the name of your damn PR.
Seriosuly. Comments like this?
"We will show women who have an identity -- the 18-year-old student, the head of the board, the musician, the football player[...]"
Are just like all that shit about models vs "real" women.
As if professional models aren't *also* musicians, athletes, CEOs and students. Or caterers, office-workers, teachers and parents, for that matter. As if we have no identity beyond being "just a pretty face".
This is fucking insulting on a lot of levels, not the least of which being that it plays into the idea that (1) you can either be pretty or smart, and that (2) modeling is easy and that it requires no skills what-so-ever. :-P
If you want to expand the definition of "super-model body-type"? More power to you. I'm well aware that mine is not the only aesthetically pleasing body-type in the world.
But DON'T do it by pretending that it doesn't take skills and talent to do the fucking job. >:-|
- Sincerely,
- A Pissed Off Amazon.
[1] As in: Worn for reasons other than faith or cultural ties, as far as I can tell.
[2] Yes, LEARN. You heard me!
[3] I have a long way to go on this one which, I suspect, is why so many of *my* good pictures involve fairly neutral facial expressions.
