What's Her Tights: Radical Fashion, Queer Politics

Skirt the PIGS, Brooklyn!

2011-10-15T16:33:00.000-07:00

Following a series of sexual assaults in Brooklyn, the NYPD is warning women not to wear skirts or dresses. Instead of telling people to “change” to accommodate misogyny & violence, their message ought to be ZERO TOLERANCE FOR SEXUAL ASSAULT IN OUR COMMUNITIES.

This FB page was created to encourage anyone across the gender spectrum to wear skirts and dresses in protest of the NYPD’s current message. We have the right to wear what we want, stay vigilant and safe, and demand respect. It’s time to stop misogynist ideologies and address what’s really gone wrong.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Skirt-the-PIGS/211403968927212

“Qajar” by Shadi Ghadirian

2011-08-07T15:34:00.000-07:00

This photo project is truly amazing. So many insightful intersections: Muslim women, fashion, commerce, functionality... Please have a look:

http://shadighadirian.com/index.php?do=photography&id=9#item-1

"temporal drag"

2011-08-04T09:17:00.000-07:00

My friend Kate just wrote me this note: “I came across a term in a book that I read recently that is a fascinating combination of your scholarly work and my scholarly work. The term? ‘Temporal drag.’ Elizabeth Freeman describes it as ‘a countergenealogical practice of archiving culture’s throwaway objects, including outmoded masculinities and femininities from which usable pasts may be extracted.’ If you apply this also to a culture’s throwaway fashions as well, then it gets even more interesting, I think. Someday, there could be a collaborative project here for us.”

This term is definitely something that needs to be explored in relation to fashion politics and representation, and I think it’s especially useful to my research on queer femininity and performances of retro style. The first thing that leaps to mind is my love for the 1950s housewife artifice performed and (re)appropriated by tough contemporary femmes…

tumbl/twit

2011-08-02T20:04:00.000-07:00

Although I plan to continue using this blog for longer essay-like entries, I've started a Tumblr, which I update on a more regular basis:

http://whatshertights.tumblr.com/

and I'm still tweeting at:

http://twitter.com/#!/WhatsHerTights

And thanks to all of you who've sent me comments and feedback recently. I love hearing from you. I should also add a big thanks to The Cupcake for helping me design my sassy Tumblr.

'Staches and Stripes

2011-06-27T08:12:00.000-07:00

Stripe

Last week, I was interviewed by an East Village fashion blogger about my choice to wear horizontal stripes. One of the questions the interviewer asked was how I felt about the common depiction of horizontal stripes as "unflattering." I gave her an earful about how WE LIVE IN A FATPHOBIC SOCIETY where so many women’s fashion choices are demonized, and that HORIZONTAL STRIPES CAN BE STRIKING AND LOVELY, and that IT WOULD BE REVOLUTIONARY if people of ALL GENDERS FELT FREE TO WEAR WHAT MADE THEM FEEL GOOD instead of what made them feel “thinner,” and that I recognize my own PRIVILEGE as a small-bodied woman and the ease with which I can make such declarations…

At this point in the interview I had already had a somewhat lengthy chat with the interviewer, and so when the voice recorder went off I thanked her for asking me that last question where I got to assert my political view on sizeism. Although I knew her editor would likely have the final say on what got included in the piece, I told her I hoped that she would try adding at least some of my response since this was an underrepresented perspective and one that was deeply important to me. As it turns out (and probably in no way the fault of the interviewer), NONE of my statement was included. Not surprising, but still disappointing. So here we go again, even with street fashion, upholding the status quo (here’s a link to the piece):

http://eastvillage.thelocal.nytimes.com/2011/06/24/street-style-stripes/

'Stache

I've been seeing this guy's work around the city subway station for months (follow link below), and although I LOVE a great mustache, I wasn’t particularly compelled by his efforts… until this morning. I heard on the news he’d been caught after an ongoing search. What a remarkable waste of time, money, and “expertise” on something so seemingly innocuous. If anything, this should reignite questions about the reclamation of “public” space, but for now I’d settle for questions about this artist’s choice to “stache-ify” celebrities of all genders, ages, etc. I’d also settle for consumers’ responses as to whether they found this playful, subversive, comedic, daft… I guess we’ll see what conversations emerge.

http://gothamist.com/2011/06/25/subway_artist_moustache_man_arreste.php

What's Up (in three bits and bites)

2011-06-09T17:54:00.001-07:00

Bit I:
I dressed like a Buttercup on Tuesday - I wore a yellow dress with a short-sleeved cream coloured cardi. It was summery and bright and I think this daisy/banana/daffodil colour combo might be my heart throb in the hot months to come.

Bit II:
My students and I discussed legal intervention (and interference) in one's freedom to dress as desired. It was a rousing, dynamic conversation! My favourite moment took place after one student had just finished expressing her view that women in "professional" settings ought to dress "decently"; another student responded by pointing out that the very notion of "professional" attire reveals one's ethnocentric conditioning. She argued that some cultures perceive the body as art rather than solely an object of sexual desire, and so, why shouldn't women sit topless in a park or wear "cleave-y" tops to the office?

Answer: because regulation and control of bodily expression upholds the nation state (or at least I hope we'll get to that answer in the next class period).

Bit III:
Lots of cute skirts flitting around Brooklyn in this heat wave. It's a queer femme utopia and I am dying to know where all these lovely ladies shop.

Small Talk Ain't Sweet Talk and That's for Fuckin' Sure

2010-12-18T17:53:00.000-08:00

Every year I think of the bit from "When Harry Met Sally" where Harry says, "boy the holidays are rough," and Sally responds dryly, "lots of suicides." Heh.

NYC sure seems to love/hate the holidays. And it's that constant duelistic tension that creates a sense of manic panic in the air. I've witnessed a multigenerational family breakdown in the underwear section of Target, a marriage meltdown at the Border's in LaGuardia, stray, screaming children in Walgreen's toilet paper aisle...

And somehow, the holiday's aren't really getting on my nerves as they usually do. I even voluntarily watched the Charlie Brown X-mas Special on Hulu while grading papers last week, and though it's easy to love those Peanuts, I usually skip the end where Charlie Brown gets over his blues and blahs. This time I let it play all the way through.

My primary grievance this year is the stupid holiday party small talk I've had to deal with. The theme this time is "no, where are you really from." "You're Indian right?" "You look like you're South Asian." What happened to the usual inane shit like "I like those boots," or "where did you get that dress?" I'll tell you what happened: I didn't get a new dress. In an effort to save money I'm still rockin' my 2004-2009 collection. And my boots? Well, everyone and their dog has great boots in Brooklyn. Well, of course not everyone, but there are enough of them stomping around that no one needs to give a crap.

So what's left to talk about with total strangers? My brownness. Indeed. What's that line from "Hannah and Her Sisters"... something like "if Jesus really did exist, and if he ever did come back, he'd never stop throwing up." Amen to that and to all a goodnight.

Workin' Femme

2010-08-20T12:46:00.000-07:00

I just took a practical inventory of my wardrobe, making many decisions about what I want to wear to my new job this fall, what can be repurposed, and what can be donated. This recession seems like a good time to donate clothing given that many donation centers are urging the public to send more goods their way.

In my work breaks I’ve taken to browsing online selections of women’s clothing – mostly just to see what’s out there in terms of trends this fall. I’m also trying to be careful about the pieces I buy; from my inventory I’ve learned that I have many skirts I still love to wear but no “working” tops to match. I’m using the term “working” in calculated avoidance of “work-appropriate” because the very notion of “appropriateness” is a) subjective and b) used to uphold sexist, racist, classist expectations about so-called professional settings.

Through my searches and shops I’ve learned that grey is the new black, ruff is the new puff, and tatts are the new tits on the streets of Brooklyn:

1. Three of the dresses I just bought (and love) are all grey. Grey is not my favourite colour, but the style (and affordable price!) of all three dresses just couldn’t be resisted. I deliberated for a long time over the second and third grey dresses, but justified them by convincing myself that I’ve never hesitated to own multiple items in black so why not grey? That said, what is with all the grey dresses out there? The great thing is that I can pair these dresses with different styles and colours of tights/cardigans to give each a unique look. We’ll see what happens.

2. Someone, please bring back the slightly puffed-sleeves on dress shirts! I’m not over this yet. It adds such a wonderful feminine detail to boring button-downs, but apparently ruffle is the new puff. There are ruffles pouring out of collars, rippling over bust-lines, trimming sleeves… I’m not a fan, perhaps because the ruffles I’m seeing are over the top (so to speak). I tried to broaden my horizons and try on a few. I looked clown-y, pirate-like (not that there’s anything wrong with the latter). Worse yet, the over-zealous ruffles made my head look very disproportionately small. Please, how do you wear these tops? I’m baffled but I’m going to stay open to this look. In the meantime, I want lady tuxedo shirts back!

3. I’ve been searching for “summer sweaters”: short-sleeved cardies and boleros. A lot of it has to do with the unwanted, unwarranted attention I keep getting on the streets, and in many instances this has come in the form of comments about my tattoos. My desire to cover them is deeply complicated; I don’t mean to suggested that we should have to adapt and resign ourselves to those who gross-ify the streets. And even with my tattoos covered I’ve noticed a lot of this bullshit continues to happen. I think I’m just overwhelmed right now trying to get my bearings in a new city, and the “hey baby let me see your tatts” bullcrap disrupts my efforts.

Of course there are a million other things I could do, and covering up is not really an answer. In fact, “covering” to deflect attention in many ways undermines the feminist beliefs I’ve come to hold PARTICULARLY as someone who has felt conflicted about my Muslim upbringing and the countless veiling debates I’ve encountered. Ultimately, to argue that covering my skin will help ward off sexist remarks and general assholery is also to argue that it is my skin that solicits the sexist asshole’s gaze. I know this argument is untrue; it misplaces responsibility and excuses the ones who should own up. But if boleros do indeed offer me any reprieve, perhaps the best I can do is remain mindful of what’s “under” it?

I Want to be a Part of It!

2010-08-17T15:49:00.000-07:00

Part I: Draggin' Me Down

My friends and I tried to go to a drag show during my first couple of weeks living in Brooklyn. The show was scheduled to take place at a little coffee shop in Bed Stuy - it seemed low key and unassuming. We didn't stay. The cafe staff person (when explaining the cover charge for the show) made it known that had we come in drag we'd have received a discount. Our initial response was "if only we'd known," but my reaction that followed led me to ask what counts as drag. I was after all "dolled up" for the night out... "Doesn't femme count as a form of drag?" The answer was a self-assured "no."

To be clear, I was not opposed to paying the full cover charge, but I didn't stay. It's disappointing and painful to find myself in seemingly queer spaces that have rigid and anti-queer perceptions of gender. Let me say I completely understand that MY material realities of being a feminine-presenting, female-bodied individual are vastly different from many other (or Othered) bodies performing other/Other genders, and I in no way want to lay claim to experiences/oppressions that I have not known. But I'd really like to know how the definition of drag was policed as audience members arrived at that event... was there a genital check, and if so, what could THAT even determine? We are a community of queers aren't we?

I'm not sure the staff person we spoke to was in any way affiliated with the show or the individuals lined up to perform that night; I have no idea what connections and communications were established between the venue and performers. I do know that I expected more from this space, and it's bringing up a lot of ongoing questions for me about community and queerness and even Brooklyn. Not trying to write anything off, not to make generalizations... just to let the questions I have surface until I can make better sense of it all.

Part II: Pro Queer Femme, A Double Entendre

Well, I guess I'm a pro now: a "professional" if you will. I landed a big-girl job, and that makes me wanna wear grownup clothes without stamping out my queer femininity, the rough seams, and renegade updos. Now I need suggestions for where to shop in NYC. I have yet to learn this city, and more importantly, the "my-kind-of-places" in the city.

I still have my heart set on buying second-hand clothes, though I have recently perused Macy's in downtown Brooklyn (without much to show for it) and modcloth.com (a higher tally here). Help me out folks.

To add to my "laundry" list of preferences, I love bargains, which makes my NY shopping experience thus far seem like I'm seriously missing something. Should I give Century 21 another try? Where are some good second hand/thrift stores that might have the pro-queer-femme goods I'm seeking? "Pro-queer-femme goods"...a triple entendre, indeed.

Part III: Coney Loves Chachi

Dudes, what, what, what do you not understand? It's 8:16 AM, I'm on my way to the train station, you're at a red light, hanging out your fucking truck window, telling me how much you love me, whistling, clicking your stupid mouth, clapping, snapping... and I AM NOT LOOKING AT YOU. I do not want your attention much less to get in your fucking car. You are violating my space, my quiet, my right to get where I need to go unharassed. These streets are mine too, so fucking share them, don't take up all this space. You are gross. And disrespectful. And my biggest question for you is "DOES THIS EVER EVEN WORK?"

There are millions of women walking alone on the streets of NY. How do you pick who to harass? Or do you just indiscriminately harass every lady you think you see. Have you ever accidentally harassed your mother? Your sister? Your nana? Was it really an accident or do you just treat them like this too? Where do you get the energy? Doesn't your stupid face get tired of making all that noise? I'm tired just from being tired of you. You pollute the streets. Be gone.

In a city where exterminators are aplenty, I wish there was a service that exterminated these pesky little fuckers.

Six Sleeps 'til NYC!

2010-07-11T21:32:00.000-07:00

I move to Brooklyn, NY on Saturday! There's a lot involved with this transition but I'm so thrilled about moving to the city (finally!) and I hope to make more time for this dear, neglected blog. Stay tuned for reports on mad hot street fashion, queer thrifts, and transit-takin' femme couture!

"Daddies" Know Best

2010-03-14T13:15:00.000-07:00

Here's a really great observation and critique of the "resident gays" that are called upon to discuss celebrity fashion with mainstream audiences.

Checking In

2010-03-14T10:51:00.000-07:00

Things are crazy busy right now and I'm sad to say I've had to neglect this blog. I think about it all the time, though, and look forward to writing more regular posts once my time frees up a bit.

I've been scribbling down lots of ideas for future posts so stay tuned. One thing that's been on mind is the apparent critiques a certain celebrity couple have received for "dressing" their daughter in "boyish" clothes.

http://www.afterellen.com/blog/dorothysnarker/shiloh-jolie-pitts-haircut-makes-headlines

http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/2010/03/03/2010-03-03_shiloh_joliepitts_tomboyish_style_is_a_hot_topic_for_style_mavens_and_celeb_watc.html

I haven't followed the buzz about all of this, but I do find it interesting that this "story" has been taken up as a newsworthy item, exposing (again) hatred and fear about gender non-normativity (IF we can even call this non-normative). Keep up the good work, phobes.

Another thing I've been trying to read more about is the politics of denim. A big piece of this is how jeans have come to be an emblem of comfort. Jeans comfortable? I've never thought so. And for the longest time I thought I held this perspective in isolation. Not so! It turns out there are other people writing about varied perceptions of "comfort" when it comes to jeans. This is definitely a topic I plan to explore in much more detail. Let me know if this stirs any initial responses.

A Polyamorous Thrifter and Epicure

2009-12-31T18:09:00.000-08:00

After my heartbreaking realization last summer that Disgraceland (Chicago) had closed its doors, I am thrilled to have found a new love in resale: Second Time Around. I stumbled upon this store in downtown Philly earlier this week, and treated myself to a heap of "new" clothes for decent prices. My purchases included a gorgeous red winter coat, two sassy dresses, and cute tops that fit great in the chest and shoulders. I left Philly a very happy lady.

The salespeople at Second Time Around were friendly and they sent me off with a punch card that can be used at all of their locations (there's one in Chicago too!). The person who rang up my purchases had terrific hair.

I loved Philly, and walking around in the city reminded me of how well I am fed--literally and metaphorically--by urban, cosmopolitan epicenters. I need to move! The Reading Terminal Market across from the Marriott Downtown was exquisite. I ate there three times and had a dolma platter (pretty good), dal, rice and samosas from Nanee's Kitchen (AMAZING), and a vegetarian hoagie with sides of "tuna" and "chicken" salad from the vegetarian deli stand (DIVINE). Some fast city fortune led us to a restaurant on 13th called Zavino where they were hosting a friends and family night and invited us to dine. I cannot believe the complementary feast we had including two varieties of beets and (get ready for this!) a ricotta-kale ravioli. I wrote in my comment card that as a kale prostitute, I loved that the ricotta did not overpower or compromise the subtleties kale offers in the way of flavor. I meant it too. The cab and pinot were like a key party in my mouth.

The last thing I want to say is this: Black Truffle Guacamole. Had it at El Vez restaurant.
The combination was so fucking amazing it knocked me up, changed me forever, brought tears to my eyes. Some people call it the city of brotherly love but to steal Kate's words, I'll call it the city of sisterly orgasm.

Femme Clothing Swap '09

2009-12-20T17:18:00.000-08:00

It was a success. There was a vast range of sizes. Piles of clothes, shoes, and accessories made the rounds, and all the remaining items will be taken to a donation center. Mimosas were served, and we opened our rooms for people to try things on as they "shopped." I think making this a twice-a-year event would be terrific.

Multiple Modes of Entry

2009-12-18T15:30:00.000-08:00

Lady A. and I just saw this sign posted on the window of a TJ Max:

I said: Don't mind if I do! MT thinks we should put a sticker over fashionista that reads "FATshionista." A fabulous idea.

And while I'm on the subject of stickers, Lady A. and I have made it our "mission" this holiday season to drop our homemade stickers that read: "This is Homophobic" in the Salvation Army collection jars hijacking the entrances of local businesses. Gotta keep doing our queer part, I guess.

http://gayrights.change.org/blog/view/are_anti-gay_policies_hurting_the_salvation_armys_coffers

Got Brolly?

2009-11-24T15:26:00.000-08:00

I think there's something aesthetically sweet about umbrellas. For years I lived on a mountainside in Japan, and I loved the sight of umbrellas bobbing up and down, dotting the green slopes through the rain. There was also an intuitive etiquette to passing people with umbrellas on narrow, winding streets (you just tilt the umbrella in opposite directions). Ladies carried parasols on hot summer days to shade their skin from the sun, and although I never carried one, I liked how the assorted fabrics, frills, and patterns girl-ified the commercial, neon streets. One friend of mine had several parasols to coordinate with her outfits. High glam.

And this is where the recording of sweet nostalgia squeaks to a frozen frame. I spent piles of money on umbrellas in Japan, either because they broke in typhoon-speed gusts (work didn't stop for weather) or because they got accidentally swiped when I left them in the umbrella parking stands outside of restaurants, shops, financial institutions, lobbies of hotels, bars, schools...everyone had a strategy for dealing with umbrella chaos. I really do believe the lost brollies were the result of accidental mix-ups, but I never had the heart to just take someone else's in its place, which meant I often got drenched. I was savvy enough to buy a travel-sized umbrella to store my purse, but it just couldn't withstand the severe winds that tore through the city. Oh and if you ever went somewhere that didn't have an umbrella stand you were expected to wrap your brolly in what I always called "the umbrella condom," a long, thin, plastic bag designed to keep you from leaving umbrella puddles indoors. The cool thing about the condom dispensers was how they auto-wrapped your umbrella (another Japanese miracle of technology), but the unfortunate side of this was the plastic waste they encouraged.

Cut to the present: I love rain when I'm not stuck in it, and with all the public transportation-ing I tend to do, melting in the rain is par for the course. Sick of umbrellas that flip up in the wind leaving me soggy and streaky-faced for the rest of the day, I recently decided to buy a fancier, sportier umbrella from a camping co-op. This product promised to be wind tunnel tested, sturdy, and easy to fold to a transportable size. I ordered a large one (big IS beautiful and in this case practical) to increase coverage from the rain. The umbrella sucked, it flipped open within five minutes of use on a moderately windy day. I exchanged it for a smaller version that had great reviews, also holding the promise of resisting high winds (one reviewer claims to have used it with success in a Japanese typhoon). I have yet to test this one out...

I would never have thought to spend more than a few bucks on an umbrella, but getting to work drenched really got to me this fall and so, I gave myself this little present (Agent Cooper says to give yourself a present everyday). In my quest for this item of luxury, though, I came across blogs and rants and all kinds of forums about American umbrella etiquette. Just google it, you'll see. Some people have even come up with precise equations for "matching" umbrella diameter to the owner's height. Apparently it's rude and entirely unnecessary to carry a large "golf-size" umbrella if you're less than six feet tall. Other people vented about NYC umbrella feuds, scolding those who (again, apparently) use umbrellas to stake out more personal territory on busy sidewalks.

I even saw a demo of one person's invention: the "polite umbrella" (I think it was called). It comes with a cord you pull to make the umbrella do a droopy-shrinky thing if you're passing another umbrella on a narrow sidewalk, so as to avoid bumping brollies. This all sounds deliciously perverse, I know. Many people criticized the need to carry an umbrella in the first place, bragging about their own ability to get by with just a raincoat. Some cried, "it's only rain!" and chastised those of us who use umbrellas in anything but torrential downpour. I just had no idea umbrellas could cause such a stir.

I have my own practical reasons for using an umbrella. I don't like sloshing around in my shoes or having cold, wet skin and hair all day, especially in air conditioned buildings. Privileged? Sure. Weak? I don't think so. But beyond all of that I remain astonished that we have the technology to launch rockets into space while finding a sturdy, portable umbrella has turned out to be such a feat.

Looking for My Next Sugar Rush and a Sovereign Fashionation

2009-09-20T12:20:00.000-07:00

I recently watched the entire two seasons of the British TV series "Sugar Rush" (thanks for the introduction, Kate!). The main character, Kim, had some terrific outerwear. Her best friend, Sugar, pulled off the glam-queen look in every scene, invoking nostalgia for my old drag days. The character, Saint, knocked me out with her fashion...I think about her whenever I go to dress myself now.

In my attempt to repurpose and thrift more clothes this fall, I've been raking through my closet for some sweet treasure. I've found a few exciting pieces, and as I ponder how to rework my old clothes I come back to the images of the characters on "Sugar Rush" that have sparked my imagination and new lusty lady crushes; I want to borrow Saint's clothes AND date her at the same time. This experience is bringing me back to the exciting admire-desire spectrum I have so often embodied in my femme life.

It's no surprise that all this creative fashion energy and inspiration comes tangled with the amazing lady-music featured in the show. I've been thirsting for new music and I think I've finally found some. Watching this show was a great investment of my time.

Now that I'm done, though, I'm eagerly anticipating my next queer femme inspiration... any ideas?

Disgraceland, Chicago: Closed.

2009-08-24T19:01:00.000-07:00

I loved this resale store. It was my absolute favourite. I used to make trips out to Chicago with this store and the Chicago Diner as my main points of destination. The staff was great. Many items I purchased were worn on stage during my drag king years. I will miss Disgraceland for a long time.

Boot to Woot

2009-08-17T10:45:00.001-07:00

I bought a t-shirt from Woot yesterday--a totally impulsive purchase. Today I am regretting not having done my homework about woot.com. Their t-shirt today is offensive. It features a racist and sexist image, and I have come to realize that this is definitely not a company I want to support. Send me links to blogs and info that speaks out about Woot's bad politics. It seems like a lot of folks have encountered similar critiques with this company.

Farmer's Market Clothing Swap and Sassy Singles Solidarity

2009-08-01T09:01:00.000-07:00

I have two questions for you:

1) Has anyone tried to organize a clothing swap table at their local farmer's market? Any advice for how to get such a thing started? It seems like it should be straightforward...

2) I'm looking for info and stories from people over thirty(ish) who are committed to being single and who also maintain and prioritize a community of friends and chosen family over (romantic) couple-formations in their lives. What sorts of questions, challenges, delights, conflicts, strengths do you think surface when making the choice to be single amid dominant practices that seem to endorse and advocate (monogamous) coupling?

I've been reading some great blogs by people who talk about being single but not solo, and I am wondering what kind of access they have to communities of friends and chosen family that not only support their choices but collaborate actively on making this way of living possible. How, for instance, might people configure their needs and desires in ways that get met when there isn't one person essentially appointed (or expected) to do certain things--mundane or serious--i.e. rush to your bedside if you're ill, rush into your bed when you're horny, make your bed for you when you're really busy... Does this single-life choice demand that you live in a large urban center in order to rely on a large community of friends? How deeply does location play into this? And how does age, race, ability, class, belief-system, gender, sexuality... also shape the single-choice-experience?

I'm putting these questions "out there" because I've been thinking a lot about the queerness of singlehood and how to DO singlehood in queer ways that feel personalized, critical, honest, and comforting. I'm really curious about what other people are doing and thinking and this sort of thing doesn't come up easily in a Google search! I started by asking for info and stories from people over thirty(ish) not because I don't think people in their twenties are legitimately making this kind of choice, but because I am in the thirty-plus age group, which for me has meant a paradigm shift in my thoughts about singleness and aging.

There are, I believe, charged intersections between performing and fashioning sexuality and singlehood. More to come...

A Well-Traveled Panty and Some Zine Info

2009-07-26T10:03:00.001-07:00

Strolling through the packaged undies section of Target has left me wondering about the politics of underwear: fabric, dye, stitching, labour, packaging, marketing, import/export, processes of globalization and garment industries... What are the histories and contexts for western undies? How does the underwear market play out gender, class, sex, age, race, body politics, colonial power dynamics, and conventions for "propriety?" I know MT and Cupcake talked a bit about this in their Feminist Critical Theory class last year... I wish I had been there.

* * *

I just read some info about a "Radical Fatshion Zine." They write:

"Would you be interested in helping create a potentially low participation/totally pleasurable (like, you would only do the tasks that you are super interested in. no more, no less.) zine about radical and accessible and fierce fatshion?"

They say to contact: afrotitty@gmail.com. They are also on Facebook.

Sex Workers! Karate! And boobs for everyone!

2009-06-25T17:25:00.000-07:00

Such great news. A group of sex workers in India, it appears, is learning karate:

http://uk.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=106053

An unrelated thought... I want to post a blog about queerfemmes and boobs: boobs and queerfemme identity; small-boobed femmes; boobless femmes; self-breast examinations; bras that (don't) fit; boob assumptions; mastectomies; boob contradictions; great boob expectations; boob enhancements; boob reductions; size size size; queer boobs; boobs and the babycrazies (all this crap I'm hearing lately praising pregnancy for bigger boobs but simultaneously blaming it for so-called baby "fat"); boob bombardment; boob health; boob worries and woes; Tune In Tokyo; motorboating; leave it to cleave; how cleavage divides us (right?!!); boob play; the ladies' consent... Yah. I want to explore all of this. Wanna add some ideas before I get started?

Sitcoms and Fat Politics

2009-06-17T17:09:00.000-07:00

I just discovered that I can watch Golden Girls reruns on TV after I come home from work. I love this. And watching this show as an adult means I can now see the politically progressive writing that was going on. I love this, too. I guess you might be expecting this blog to tackle the shoulder pads, clip-on earrings, and Dorothy's white boots, and though I'm cringing I'm going to avoid all of that for now.

Instead I just want to question (AGAIN!) why anti-fat humour is so permissible, even within the most politically conscious pockets of the media. It's killing my hope that I can be mildly entertained from a seated position on the couch for an hour after I've worked hard all day. I'm in my thirties for fucksake--I like to sit down after work. But it's depressing that even the TV I love isn't safe. Fat isn't funny in the ways the media wants me to think it is. I don't know how many times I can repeat this.

So, here's an interesting blog I just came across that talks about the Kirstie Alley stuff that happened recently:

http://fatosphere.blogspot.com/

While I disagree with this blogger that a) Kirstie Alley sucked on Cheers and b) we should be targeting her with our blame, I think they make a few good points about the fatphobic media's agenda. This blog is also useful in that it links several other noteworthy fat-positive blogs happening out there.

I also found information about a Fat and Queer Conference starting up via Facebook. Sounds like some good things are taking place. Sounds more like the kind of stuff I want to come home to, but I had to turn the TV off to access it, of course.

Perverts, Punctuation, and Performing Public Privacy

2009-05-16T13:43:00.000-07:00

I've been putting this off because it's depressing and difficult and I'd rather not have to relive it. But here it is: I was at an academic conference in March, perusing the book tables, and I happened to be dressed casually since it was the last day of the conference. I was wearing this:

Some middle-agey white guy at the next book table catches my eye, smiles and says: "I really like your shirt." I say "thanks." He asks me where I got it. I tell him it's from a feminist bookstore no longer in operation. He smiles kindly and says: "Oh well that's a great shirt." I thank him again. He adds (still smiling): "And the apostrophes are in all the right places." I'm still nodding and smiling back but suddenly feel confused. Before I absorb what has happened he turns around and walks away.

I don't think of myself as naive, but this interaction took me completely by surprise. It took several minutes before I registered what he could have meant and several more minutes before I could repeat what had happened to my colleague/friend. Her reaction was one of immediate rage and disgust. She helped me realize what I was suspecting; the guy was making a wholly uninvited comment about my chest. It wasn't friendly and harmless chitchat, it was gross and inappropriate. And later over cocktails with our professor/colleague/mentor/advisor who also identifies as a feminist, we hashed out and reacted to how absolutely awful this incident was on so many accounts. She remarked that this guy was, unfortunately, representative of a lot of men she had encountered at such conferences. Vomit.

What was even more surprising to me was that minutes after this incident occurred, I was walking out of the book room and another guy stopped me to ask what my shirt said. He made direct eye contact with me as he spoke, and was very clearly avoiding looking down at my chest. My colleagues and I had to laugh at this ironic sequence of events, which we continued to process for a long time afterward.

Every time I've put on this shirt since returning from the conference I've thought about that guy, his sense of entitlement, that he could go ahead and comment on my body without any consideration of how I might feel, without any respect. It's even more ironic when I think about the message written across the shirt, calling for respect toward women and their bodies (playful though this message may be worded). In truth, I wear clothing with writing on it expecting people to read what it says no matter where the words are placed. Go ahead! Read my shirt! Maybe you'll learn something. But this is NOT an invitation to objectify, feast and comment on my body. Making that leap from observing to consuming my self-presentation is indicative of your learned misogyny and privilege. It is NOT consensual.

Lady A. and I came face to face with this sort of dickheadery yesterday when dressed in our queerleader outfits, cheering for our friends' softball team as we do every Friday. A crotchedy ol' guy told us flat out that he was seating himself behind us so that he could watch "the view" as we cheered. When we told him to get lost and stop being gross he got defensive, and actually argued that we "dress like this and go out into a public space" and then have the "nerve" to call him "a pervert." Eventually we joined forces to drive him off our bench, making it entirely clear that he was unwelcome. But he went away grumbling, not apologizing (of course), probably chalking it up to our "bitchiness" rather than his unfair privilege and sexist fucking attitude.

Let me be clear: I dress (and fully intend to continue dressing) how I want whenever I want and my choice of dress DOES NOT serve as a free-for-all occasion to objectify and sexualize me. My body is not a public buffet. And here's where I'm sure it gets complicated for all the sexist fucks out there: Feminine-presenting individuals have every right to choose when, how, and if we wish to invite (sexual) attention, but that choice is ours to make. No one should assume. No one is entitled.

I think the person who dresses and the person observing the dress(ed) are "in relation(ship)" to/with one another--to varying degrees, of course. And when I say "in relation(ship)" I mean a lot of abstract things, but one thought I'd like to put out there is that dressers/observers aren't necessarily occupying polarized or dichotomous positions. For example, when I dress I *might* have an audience/observer in mind. I see dressing as costume, masquerade, a performance. For me, it is rarely an isolated act; I often construct and imagine my audience/observer AS I dress. So like the text printed across my shirt, I invite eyes to look at and engage with (and maybe delight in) my choice of clothing. But this doesn't stand as an invitation to fall into sexist scripts of objectification or power-over dynamics.

Anyway, I'm feeling somewhat defeated and lost because I don't know how to sum this up and present it to those who need to "get" it the most, especially in those swift, surprising moments when shit happens.

SexWorkers and QueerFemmes: Dressed like a hooker and loving every bit of it.

2009-04-30T14:07:00.000-07:00

I've been worrying about feminists whose politics stop short when it comes to sex worker rights. When talking about sex work, I want to replace terms of victimization and moral judgement with efforts toward labour rights and pro-choice attitudes. Who's with me?

Lovely Lady A. brilliantly writes: "i think, on a basic level, both sex workers and queerfeemes are devalued b/c of their undesirable (or rather extremely desirable?) performances of femininity. words that come to mind are: slut, bitch, loose, immoral, immodest, scandalous--not the kind of femininity that is accepted (i.e. desirable--or rather extremely undesirable), such as nice blouses and skirts from the softer side of sears."

Reluctance to be identified as someone who “dresses like a hooker” underscores an anti-sexworker stance. Number 1: There ain’t anything wrong with hookers so, Number 2: There ain’t anything wrong with “looking like” one. Can we please stop defining sex work within puritanical, patriarchal discourses of morality?

Who decided that clothing is always a measure/representation/expression of sexuality in the first place? Maybe a short skirt is no more/less sexual than a veil or a "softer-side-of-sears blouse." Maybe it’s more about our baggage—the stuff we associate with these items and choices of clothing that’s the problem. Maybe there’s a function to a short skirt that involves something other than sex and if/where it’s intended to involve sex then three cheers for that too!

It’s from a place of queerfemmery that I feel a responsibility and desire to be a sexworker activist/ally and to acknowledge, voice, and take pride in my own participation and complicity in ranging aspects of sexwork. Sex work, to me, is a form of labour that--like many other kinds of work--makes visible the interconnectedness of gender, body, race, class, etc. politics, privileges, and oppressions. I see sex work as an enormous and important industry. I value the labour of sex workers. This is NOT about morality. To admonish sex workers in any way, including, of course, clothing choices, is to link arms with those who want to police and regulate "moral" codes for femininity.

Lastly (for now), my body labours for wages everyday in my work as a teacher (and sometimes I wear short skirts while earning my state dollars). I "use" my body to do this work and I get paid for its use. I even get health insurance and summers off. So why don't sex workers get to share the same benefits? Right, we're trapped in the puritanically-collared land of the "free."

Open-carry debates: How many more brain cells can we afford to lose?

2009-04-27T18:02:00.000-07:00

Oh I've just fucking had it with this open-carry bullshit I keep hearing on public radio. I am ANTI-OPEN-CARRY. I wish gun owners had their own planet where they could hunt and kill among themselves. Participants in today's debates argued the following offensive points:

1) If we ban guns we should ban pit bull terriers also.
2) It's not an open-carry law that's the problem, it's that people react to seeing guns out in public that messes shit up. You see, if only people wouldn't call the cops and get worried every time they saw someone carrying a gun, there wouldn't be problem with open-carry.

Are you kidding me? Where am I? Who are we? How did guns become a fashion accessory? Or an animal-like companion? These arguments are so depressing I don't even want to fashion a smart response.

Well here's this:

And this:

And I'm calling it a day.

Mander on Mandals

2009-04-10T08:33:00.000-07:00

A big shout out to fashion spotter of the week, The Manderpants, who texted me from the airport at 7:47am with the first socks-and-sandals sighting of 2009.

Friends, this is an epidemic. Protect yourselves. Remember my words: Socks plus sandals equals scandals. Let's enjoy a scandals-free summer. Yes we can.

Feasting on Queers: Allies and Assholes my Academic Arena

2009-01-29T13:14:00.000-08:00

It's come to my attention that a lot of people in my workplace who claim to have thoughtful analyses of identity are perfectly willing to overwrite the identity claims/affiliations I've articulated about myself. I am entirely exhausted by heteronormative assumptions and expectations that run much deeper than I ever anticipated in my workplace. Was I naive to think that some of the self-assured "liberals" I work with actually know anything about identity politics? Maybe. But people are misleading, and as I've learned time and time again, assholes (too often) finish first.

If sexual harassment (whether or not the law recognizes it) takes a variety of forms, then I assure you I'm feeling somewhat sexually harassed. My choice to be out as queer at work has been everything from great to terrible. I often struggle to reconcile my proud queer identity in an academic institution that affords only small moments of lip service to queers while it maintains an unquestioned, heternormative, deeply conservative, corporate agenda.

That said, my choice to be out as queer among my colleagues is my CHOICE. But my colleagues' choice to think, for even one brief moment, about what that might mean for me is entirely out of my hands. It turns out I am surrounded by some disturbingly cavalier, presumptuous, non-allies, who moonlight as managers at a rumour mill specializing in people's sex lives. It must be a challenge to add spice to straight and narrow scripted lifestyles, and so, it makes sense they've turned to the token queer for dramatic inspiration. Really, what can I say to that?

I have to wonder if being open about my sexual identity has invited people to want to pry further into my sex life, make assumptions, ignore assertions I've made about myself if they seem unfitting to the narratives these people are/were hoping to create. Is that how my workplace justifies feasting on my body? They feel entitled to produce creative renderings of what my body does? What about my consent? What about my voice? Whatever narratives have been created about me have NEVER been checked out directly WITH me and THAT is, perhaps, the part of me that feels most erased--my right to speak for myself.

It might serve my workplace well to string a banner in the mailroom that reads: A Dose of Dick Will Cure the Dyke. At least then I'll feel a little less blind-sighted to people's politics, and I'll be more protective, less willing to take their loyalty and consideration at face value. But perhaps the problem here has less to do with the speculation that I've been "cured," but rather, the disbelief that I was every "really" a dyke to begin with. And my guess is that THIS has more to do with my gender presentation than anything else.

In a world where "femme" is too often invisible or disconnected from "queer" I have to say I feel pretty fucking trapped amid ignorant assumptions. Not victimized, but trapped. What good has it done for me to come out in a setting that refuses to accept, believe, and honour my asserted identity? I am no closer to ensuring people understand who I am now that their juicy stories have trumped my lived realities. Well, I can't devote much more time to this bullshit right now so I'm just going to carry on with my day.

Girlcott the TV Guide Channel

2009-01-27T16:51:00.000-08:00

I just wanted background sound for the ten minutes it took me to eat my lunch so I turned on the TV. Not wanting to flip through all the crap, I went directly to the TV Guide Channel, or should I say the 24-Hour Fat Phobia Generator. They were airing interviews with personal trainers to the stars, and these trainers had lots to say about how people, anyone, like even you and me, could have "hard" bodies like Madonna for example. One trainer explained that it was all about "hard work" and your genetic makeup didn't matter that much. Another trainer even declared we could learn the secret to longer limbs.

I dunno about you, but I am a full grown adult woman who stands at a whopping 5 foot 4. But apparently there's a secret that will lengthen my limbs? Two responses: 1) really? and 2) no fucking thanks.

"Hard work" is interesting and nuanced and kind of fucked up. On a completely personal note, I've noticed a correlation between exercise, circulation, and mood. When I exercise, I feel warmer for the rest of the day, which for always-chilled-me is a pretty great reward. I also notice that exercising somewhat frequently regulates my moods; it makes stress more manageable and I don't tend to feel long stretches of the blues and blahs. And no, I don't "work" very "hard" for these benefits but I still get them. Why wouldn't that be enough? Or maybe a commitment to being proactive about my circulation and mood is, in fact, hard work and in that sense I'm working very hard on my own terms.

Fat phobic TV seems to have a definition of "hard work" that defies genetics, reveals secrets, and frankly, attempts to ruin my lunch. Of course I won't let it. Next time I want background noise I'm going to try WPR or maybe just the sound of Mabel snoring. She's got "hard work" down.

Quick and Dirty

2009-01-26T20:24:00.000-08:00

It's been a while. I don't want to lose too much steam so here's some stuff I've been thinking about:

Dressing up for the first day of the semester when it's freezing cold outside... it's a challenge and a conflict.

Feminine-presenting teachers often receive comments/judgments on their physical appearance (clothing, "looks," hair...) in student evaluations. How incredibly sexist is that?

I can't for the life of me find a pair of vegetarian plain black boots with decent flat soles (for walking on ice) that fit my calves. Narrow calf boots meeting these requirements seem to run in the $200 and upward range. ARE YOU KIDDING? It's a real affirmation that thinness is posh in much of my immediate fashion world. It's exhausting and classist (to say the least).

Heteronormativity in the workplace (my workplace being academia) is palpable. I'm seeing this in terms of benefits, social networking, and simultaneously tacit and overt gender codes for "appropriateness." What is going on here?

If you don't like dress shoes don't wear 'em. I say so.

Is there a way to avoid cardigan pits so you don't have to launder the cardies after every wear?

My household has been having frequent talks about cleavage (and our love of it) recently. Home sweet homo.

What radical political queer fashion thoughts have your panties in a twist? Please share.

Gaza. Now.

2009-01-12T20:37:00.000-08:00

Let me be clear: I do not align myself with ANY religious views in spite of my prescriptive faith-based upbringing. In fact, it is precisely my experiences with religion that led to the critical choices I've made, steering myself away from these practices and beliefs.

My question is actually pretty simple: isn't this genocide? And what the fuck are we doing? We are all implicated in this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7825480.stm

Gendering Cells

2009-01-07T16:44:00.000-08:00

My cell (and only) phone committed suicide on Monday afternoon. The battery is completely fucked and I consequently lost all of my contacts, pictures, and worst of all, the text messages I had been saving for sentimental reasons throughout the last year or so. But it’s ok. It’s forcing another new start for me and although it’s a nuisance having to collect and enter everyone’s phone numbers from scratch it’s really not that terrible.

The phone people asked me if I wanted to get a new one with a full keyboard or super video functions or double flip or music download-ability. (We’ve come a long way, baby.) I refused. I told them I wanted a replacement for my very basic flip phone, and I wanted something very inexpensive. The salesperson walked me over to the section of phones that fit this description, warning me that ANY and EVERY phone available would be much more advanced than my two-year old phone that had just died. But I was sorely disappointed. Everything was boxy looking—sharp right angles, lots of silvery metal, no colour, no sass. Finally, the salesperson (reading my lack of enthusiasm) led me to the cheapest phone available—a light blue razor-style with rounded corners. Without even touching it I knew it was the one.

It occurred to me in that moment that there’s something to be said about phones and technology and gendered aesthetics. I wanted something cheap and that was my first priority. But then I wanted something that looked softer, less machine-like, and more colourful than the first selection of phones I saw. I later described my new phone as more “feminine” and admitted that this quality was what compelled me to choose it. Am I uncritically gendering cell phones? Or, more accurately, how have I been seduced by the gendered marketing ploys of phone-designers?

The tragedy of all this is that phone-makers’ rendering of gender fits so squarely into stereotypical, mainstream depictions of masculine/feminine binaries (and I totally rolled with it!). But here’s the messier stuff: why are the more gadgety, tech-savvy, do-your-taxes-and-make-you-dinner phones made to look a certain way? How have we been culturally programmed to associate technologies with gender, race, class... through aesthetics of decorum, dependability, advancement…? I think it’s worth paying attention to the aesthetics of technologies, what attracts and repels us and why, and how the nuances of these aesthetics cut across the complicated ideals of “progress.”

My new phone functions. It suits my purposes and I hope it will last. And I consider myself very fortunate to have been able to replace the old one. But I have to wonder if the phone-folks make the cheap “girly” ones to fall apart sooner…disposable and weak. It’s not an anti-feminist conspiracy at work as much as I think THAT’S the heart of stereotypical, mainstream depictions of masculine/feminine binaries. And I just can’t roll with it.

My New Year's Outfit

2008-12-31T22:07:00.000-08:00

Bra-less, hospital scrubs, ankle socks, a plate full of greasy grilled cheese and cookies resting on my belly and a glass of delicious wine in hand. I'm in bed with Netflix. My nonsexual spouse called me for the countdown from Illinois (I think) where he was stuck at a party hosted by and filled with breeders. We had a phone kiss (of the nonsexual sort of course). Best. Lesbian. NewYear's. Ever. No compromises. Totally queer. And I think this is a good look for me.

Taste More Gender: Death of a Dragking

2008-12-28T12:39:00.000-08:00

Is it too much to ask for dragking troupes to examine their politics and check their misogyny and racism at the door? Dragkinging has been a tremendously influential and beloved cornerstone of my queer identity and so I’m writing this post from a place of love, longing, and heartbreak.

I used to learn so much from kinging and from watching the most amazing troupes and performers come together and craft radical politics into performance art through creative costuming, choreography, set design, and reappropriation of mainstream pop media and music. They were building off histories and traditions of drag culture, a lot of which originated in (dyke) bars and living rooms and cabarets… the margins, left banks, and fringes. But over the past two years I’ve felt hurt, offended, frustrated, and dismissed in the dragking world to which I once sincerely belonged. It seems like so many of the greatest troupes and performers have shut down operation and left the stage. What’s happened to dragkinging as I knew it? Has this aspect of LGBTQ culture and community regressed just as quickly and brightly as it once evolved?

One of the things I love most about my queer community is that we are comfortably willing to remain uncomfortable. Our language, ideas, politics, and sites from which we organize and act are in constant flux. So on one hand, I think so what if dragkinging as I knew it is over? Maybe we’ve moved on to other stuff (for me it’s art-making, blogging, and podcasting) but that won’t last long either. I can live with that and I welcome it. It’s how we grow and shift and change. But the thing is dragkinging is still around. And while there are still probably lots of fabulous troupes and performers out there, my heartbreak is confined to the kinging in my immediate world that has become something incredibly disappointing.

In my past experience, there was often debate and disagreement about whether to approach kinging as performance “art” or something with ARGUABLY less “elitist” connotations. (I want to be clear that I am NOT in the camp of people who see art as wholly, fixedly, and inevitably elite. To make this claim would deny all the grassroots, DIY, daily practiced, personal, indefinable, and outsider art people engage, make, produce, and consume.) But regardless of the diverse visions performers and audiences have held in terms of venue choices (theatre vs. dyke bar), audience interaction (dance on anyone who looks interested vs. maintain the “fourth” wall of the stage), isn’t it at least fair to ask for reflection on the kinds of politics represented in king shows?

I loved kinging for the ways in which it critiqued—NOT reproduced—stock versions of masculinity, misogyny, and racism. So, imagine my embarrassment and sorrow then when one of the kings in my troupe lip-synced the lyrics “she’s a crazy bitch but she fucks so good I’m on top of it” while thrusting his dick in audience members’ faces. His performance was not to critique these lyrics but rather to act them out… literally. I once confronted a king about the lyrics in their act, asking if/how they saw those lyrics as misogynist. The king laughed as said “oh I figured you’d be mad about that because you’re a feminist.” What? You aren’t? No, I guess you aren’t. I’ve likewise found it troubling that in a mostly white troupe kings with white skin privilege are unreflectively appropriating (sometimes in blackface!) the music of artists of colour. We need a dialogue about this! It doesn’t feel ok.

For two and a half years I belonged to a local gender performance troupe. This troupe was (in its heyday) somewhat unique in that performers worked from a variety of places on the gender spectrum. There was even a short time period during which those of us who performed mostly femmes roles outnumbered the dragkings, queens, andro, bois... It was during this time I felt our troupe was growing toward something highly political and subversive, mainly because the quality of the acts and the details we put into each show was (I believe) at its peak. But it was also during this “femme heavy” time that everything seemed to fall to pieces.

Particular femmes were called out as “intimidating” because our voices were loud, we were outspoken, and thus labeled “a force to be reckoned with.” What does that mean? We were ladies with opinions, holy shit. Call the cops. And somehow these critiques got anchored to our performances of femmeness, despite the diverse ways in which we each interpreted and enacted femme identity. It was a weird and upsetting turning point that (for me) underscored a reproduction of gender division and sexism in a community I once thought to be safer of sorts.

I didn’t know how to reconcile all this stuff at the time so after some email exchanges and breakdown meetings I made the decision to resign from the troupe. But as I write this blog I have to wonder if all of this stuff is deeply connected. A lot of the debates about venues and art and elitism were intertwined with discussions about how our troupe needed a balance between political acts and entertainment—as if these are mutually exclusive terms! But maybe that’s just it: my overwhelming enthusiasm for dragkinging was about queering (as a verb) our costumes, our genders and our sense of creativity itself in ways that COULD NOT be distilled or separated out. Queering, to me, IS political in a way that affects and alters the idea of performance itself—its venues, audiences, performers and their acts. And I guess not everyone welcomes that kind of change no matter how open or unspecified or nonlinear it is. Change is scary when it asks us to question how some people are unfairly privileged in a setting that claims to be collaborative.

So in my world, the carnival lights are off. My wigs, boas, chest hair, tutus, tiaras, and cop hats are in a drawer. And I’m looking for something queer to do on a Saturday night.

(A shout out to Rodney for this title!)

Fatastic

2008-12-26T16:24:00.000-08:00

It’s “Hate Your Body” season again. We’re about to be barraged with ads, commercials, and general campaigns designed to make us fear fat and feel guilty and ugly. It’s amazing how swiftly fatphobic agendas get disguised as mandates for “healthier” living. Healthy does not universally equal thin. Fat does not universally equal unhealthy. “Love Your Body” movements don’t always align with fat acceptance work (props to Lady A. for pointing this one out).

Anchored in all this fatphobia and body hatred is a lot of racism, sexism, classism, ageism, and overt anti-“disability” attitudes. This shit is part of a larger white supremacist, elite, capitalist, colonizing mission AND it can be so seductive and convincing. How can we arm ourselves against this stuff without feeling victimized? And as feminists, how can we acknowledge and admit the ways in which this fatphobic bullshit tests our sense of security, supporting (instead of reprimanding) each other through it?

I lost a shit-ton of weight last year and I was probably unhealthier then than I’ve ever been in my life. Likewise, you can work out and eat “well” on a regular basis and still be “fat.” *If you haven’t already, you should totally listen to episode #4 of FemmeCast, “Health at Every Size.” The idea of “fat” seems at once deterministic and undefined. It’s a contradiction. But it’s also a lived reality.

Some fat acceptance groups have been accused of so-called gate-keeping, for discerning who can and cannot be part of the group. Sure, a lot of people see themselves as fat but I really think we need to take stock of possible distinctions between fat-thinking and the experience of occupying a fat body in our totally sizeist society. I’m not suggesting that definitions of fat are fixed or easy to come by, I’m just saying that I’ve had to think a lot about what it means for me to be a fat acceptance ally, and to recognize the need for safer, separate spaces and community organizing.

Along similar lines, I’ve been questioning the “Love Your Body” projects that came out of feminist movements, wondering about where they overlap and diverge from fat acceptance. Love your body…YES! By all means, love the fuck out of it! But the simple act of encouraging body love will be received, enacted, and experienced differently depending on each individual. That seems like an obvious point to make but I think I’m talking specifically about the fact that it might be a lot easier to learn to love your body when your body more readily matches the dominant prototypes out there. There is a certain kind of politic to fat acceptance that seems to be overwritten in the “Love Your Body” stuff. What do you think?

Well I’m in total hibernation mode. (It took several rounds of debate last night just to decide whether my sweetbabies and I were going break tradition and stay home, all because we were feeling too cozy and tuckered to go out. We did go out but compromised on the location. It was totally worth it. I digress.) And as I hibernate, I’m bracing myself for all the post-holiday weight-loss crap I’m likely to be fed on the fucking TV. I suspect that the whole tradition of making New Year’s resolutions was created by someone working for Jenny Craig or “Dr.” Atkins or Bally’s or an ab-roller company. I feel like there’s something tragic about seeing food in terms of points, rather than something that is nourishing, sustaining, and pleasurable. But I also need to keep this judgment in check as part of my feminist perspective. This is complicated stuff and I can’t wait to hear what y’all think.

Your Daddy’s Middle-class and Your Mama’s the Ugly Duckling

2008-12-25T10:58:00.001-08:00

(This blog entry is a continuation from “Your Daddy’s Rich and Your Mama’s Good-looking”)

It’s a challenge to work through the complexities of my parents’ immigration story. I suppose it fits somewhat neatly with dominant tales of desolate, impoverished beginnings, hard work and upward mobility, risks and opportunity, alienation from “home,” and diasporic settlement… But nothing seems clear-cut and for every value and lesson I inherited I find myself asking questions, trying to push at my politics toward (self) improvement. An unreachable goal?

I grew up wearing some hand-me-downs and inexpensive shoes from K-mart that were incessantly ridiculed at school and, on a rare occasion, a popular brand name item but only after its popularity was dying out. I was the odd, meek, brown kid who could never keep up with the Jones’ and perhaps because I wasn’t ever allowed to forget this fact I very quickly became hyper-aware of the cultural capital one could accumulate solely by their mode of dress. And it was because of this acute knowledge I had gained that I entered the boxing ring of castaway clothing with my mom.

“Vhy you von’t vear this perfectly good jean? You vanted it. Now you don’t vant.” Then there were my dad’s guilt trips: “Children in India vould be so happy to have just von shoe like this. You hawe two.” My parents were entirely unconcerned with my hyper-vigilant image-consciousness.

It was impressed upon me from a very young age that food and clothing were a privilege and many people were without either. And out of this came the “just-be-grateful” rhetoric, one that I’ve radically reexamined as an adult. If I allow myself to keep thinking of food and clothing as a privilege something very important gets lost. As a grownup I’ve decided, actually, that food and clothing are two (of many) basic human RIGHTS. To this day I tense up when people claim to “hate” certain foods. “Hating” and fearing food was never allowed in my upbringing, and every time I express my own dislike for certain tastes (in food and clothing) I compulsively trip over (and thus acknowledge) the privilege I have that enables this dislike in the first place. But what then?

I needed to replay all of this confused childhood stuff as a way to return to the third fragment of my previous post. The problem is that I still don’t know what I want to say. It’s x-mas today and I’m thinking about all the nauseating clothing and jewelry commercials I’ve being seeing on the TV for the last few weeks, and all the new clothing and jewelry people are probably receiving today, and I’m thinking about John and Yoko’s “War Is Over” earnest idealism, and the people that live and survive war, and the people occupying positions that determine who counts as “refugees,” and the choices we make about what we can afford to give and share, and the lullabies we sing to ourselves about charity and benevolence… I feel torn apart by my own cynicism but I’m not so far gone that I don’t believe there’s enough thread to sew myself back together.

I’m going to get dressed today, maybe something fancy, maybe sculpt out a rockabilly updo, and I’m going to a lesbian bar to get drunk with two of my sweetbabies who each have a deceased parent also. We’re going to be safe and fed and warm, and so help us jesus, we might even be pretty. But I will continue to think about this third unresolved, unconcluded, inconclusive fragment. Refuge is hard to find when you feel perpetually haunted.

Your Daddy's Rich and Your Mama's Good-looking

2008-12-24T15:30:00.000-08:00

I’ve been avoiding writing this blog for weeks because it’s complicated and so, so long (sorry).

Again with the stories:

One
I think I read somewhere (was it in Venus Zine? online?) that M.I.A. has been admired for her badass fashion sense. If I remember correctly, her take on this is that she often mimics and reappropriates the sorts of clothing she wore as a kid—clothing that would have been castigated and belittled. Why, after all, would we expect acceptance from the racist, classist, anti-immigrant majority that surrounded her once her family moved to Britain? But funny (and typical) how the moment M.I.A. became “someone” her strategic clothing choices got characterized as style rather than trash.

Two
I walked into a public library last week and had the strangest, most unexpected experience. It’s a small modern library with lots of windows, full sunlight, and mid-height shelves. Walking inside brought me right back to my childhood, to all the times my dad used to take me to the newly built library a mile or so from our house.

He spent hours at that library, perusing books on astronomy, nature, and travel. I used to find him standing between shelves with boring-looking hard cover books (the kind with the crinkly, transparent, protective covers). He would be wearing his giant brownish-grey parka—unzipped, wide-legged polyester pants belted far above his belly—the bottoms tucked haphazardly into bulky black snow boots. He had owned this parka, the pants, and snow boots for decades. They were, I thought, so markedly unfashionable and I wished he’d get rid of them.

I was embarrassed by him. I thought everyone saw him as THE eccentric, badly dressed brown guy with a thick, inappropriate accent and no social graces, pulling a tiny black comb out of his pants pocket to fix his hat hair the second he entered any building. I often felt mortified by the way he looked and talked but more so for the fact that our kinship implicated and crucified me as Other in our racist, classist, anti-immigrant surroundings.

I can’t really describe the overwhelming feeling I got walking into that public library last week. I was wearing a giant parka and bulky black snow boots. And I couldn’t decide if I felt like the child-me again, or if I felt like my dad. I felt a weird, consuming, and sad energy for the ten minutes I was in the library, and I’ve been thinking about it everyday since. I woke up the next day in tears just replaying it in my mind, but not really understanding why.

To my dad, the public library was an amazing place. It was kind of like magic. It’s such a small privilege that I’ve often taken for granted, but just thinking about his library-less childhood makes me so grateful and appreciative. How is it possible that such a place exists where you can borrow (free of charge!) books, music, movies and more, and request items to add to their collections? How has this system that seems so antithetical to capitalist consumerism been established and sustained? Maybe it IS the last bit of magic I have access to and maybe that’s the energy I was picking up on last week. Since that day, I’ve been thinking about my dad every time I put on my snow boots.

Three
I grew up learning that when you grew out of clothes or simply didn’t want to wear them anymore they could be donated to refugees. So when the Bosnian refugees for whom my parents signed up to be the host family came over for dinner, I was surprised and charitably delighted to see the daughter wearing a “beautiful” sweater. It often crossed my child-mind to question why refugees would want to wear clothes that I had rejected, but this question collided with and dissipated amid the troubling rhetoric and assumptions of the “just grateful” refugee narratives as told by their hosts. What the fuck is up with charitable delight and gratefulness? I want to complicate and unpack these notions, which is probably going to be gross and painful.

The Cupcake shared an essay with me where he writes: “‘the very definition of ‘refugee’ is contested,’ even within the field of ‘Refugee Studies’ ([Lewellen] 172). While the question of ‘definition’ might seem a purely academic one, in the case of refugees, the ways in which refugees are defined ‘can have enormous consequences in the way refugees are treated by aid organizations and immigration authorities’ (173). In the case of refugees of settlement, resettlement, determining policy, providing aid, and repatriation, the definition of ‘refugee’ becomes a key factor in how refugees are or are not able to move, and how they are affected by the processes of globalization.”

What does it mean to seek “refuge” and to “host?” And how do these terms get caught up, tossed around, and dispersed amid the larger racist, classist, anti-foreigner contexts in which we live? Who wears the clothing we discard from our wardrobes…what makes clothing discardable in the first place?

To be continued...

Cowboy Brute, Uterine Loot

2008-12-03T14:40:00.001-08:00

I just read the piece “Point/Counterpoint: Art or bloody shame?” in the LoveIt/ShoveIt section of Bitch magazine (Fall ’08 Issue No. 41). I was horribly disappointed by this write-up. I was actually astonished at the conservative stance these writers took re: the controversial senior art project created by a Yale student named Aliza Shvarts. Long and short (but you should really read the piece and google her to get more stories): Shvarts’ project entailed “the documentation of a nine-month process in which she artificially inseminated herself as often as possible, then took abortifacient herbs to cause miscarriages” (Bitch 18). It sounds like the project involved artifacts and video documenting this process. Shvarts was stopped from installing the piece and she instead submitted something else.

Both “point” and “counterpoint” sides of Bitch’s write-up seem to come at Shvarts’ work in ways that are to me totally antithetical to the idea of “choice.” One side decided to get into the boring old debate about whether or not this is “shock” art, the other side agonized over what this would do to the validity of the “pro-choice” movement… fucking spare me! There is nothing “pro-choice” about any “pro-choice” mission if it claims that IDEALLY women would only seek abortions as a last resort, or that education should be aimed at preventing abortions because this is actually what “we all” want. Excuse me? Check your ethnocentrism and personal mandates at the door please.

There are many women all over the world who see abortion as a completely legitimate and preferred method of terminating pregnancy and that perspective, my panty-twisted-sisters, is no less “moral” or more “grotesque” than the sweeping expectation that we ALL should be pro-choice BUT try to make abortion less “necessary.” Wait.. no “BUT.” Choice with stipulations isn’t choice, particularly when choice is being debated in a discourse of morality. Last time I checked, morals and measures for what counts as “grotesque” were pretty subjective and the cause of much disagreement.

Here’s a snippit of what I think Shvarts had to say:

http://feministing.com/archives/009039.html

From what I’ve gathered, Shvarts was asked to clarify if her project was real versus “just a hoax.” Seriously? So now in the art world, we shouldn’t blur the rigid dichotomization of “truth” and “fiction?” We are supposed to worry about the realness of Shvarts’ project? Kara Walker, one of the most inspiring and brilliant artists (in my opinionated opinion) has also frequently been criticized for a) unapologetically—or some have even said shamelessly—disrupting and retelling slave narratives and b) presenting a perspective that troubles, responds to, and calls into question so-called factual and historical renderings. You mean like there might be another story that can be imagined or revealed or shared? I get sarcastic in the face of this kind of opposition; can’t we please just move beyond these traditional, conservative debates?

I have been working on a multimedia art project since May 2007 that deals with the idea of “Indianness,” in particular, a post-colonial Indian subject. But more particularly even, it deals with intersections of national identity, costume, race, grief, gender, text, sexuality... One of the things I’ve spent time researching is the history of cowboy boots in exchanges and interactions between self-named “cowboys” and Native Americans. It doesn’t surprise me that that colonizers mistook Native Americans for Indians but don’t you think it’s “shocking” and “grotesque” that the latter term is still applied?

There is so much I just don’t know about this country-singer-turned-ironic-hipster fashion footwear. The transformations in cowboy boot design—the array of pointed toes, evolution of steel inserts, and varied shaft height—are all masked and narrated (especially if you look up cowboy boots on wikipedia) as practical accommodations for horseback riding and improving riding maneuvers in general. But what pop sources won’t tell you is that these shifts in design also had to do with facilitating the larger project of white supremacy and coercion, in essence making it easier to injure “Indians” through physical combat. This footwear has roots in something so unmistakably violent (not only toward the animals of which they’re made)… a real piece of Americana. And that’s a fact. Or a hoax. There can only be two “choices” right?

In news today, a pregnant woman’s water breaks ruining designer cowgirl boots. Witnesses say the woman was leaving work at abortion clinic, walking toward her parked Cherokee jeep when the incident took place.

Your Locks and Your Ladies Exposed

2008-12-02T15:20:00.000-08:00

Story One: There was this kid in our neighbourhood who ran around topless every summer. For years my mom would proudly retell the story of how she “taught” the neighbour kid that girls should wear shirts and how from that day onward the kid always did.

Story Two: From patches of overheard conversations between my parents and their dinner guests, I very quickly learned that one effect of the spread of Islam in the African continent was that indigenous women who might have previously gone “bare-chested” drew a cloth across their breasts. How’s that for a confused history of colonization and conversion? I’m inclined to believe that the “cover yr knockers” mandate is one that cuts across religious lines, nationhood, race, and most certainly this elusive thing we call “culture.”

The version of Islam I grew up with is one that I have grappled with my entire life. Within my immediate family the hijab was always a contested issue. The same debates you hear in pop media would dominate dinner table conversation. Was it oppressive? Necessary? Primitive? Progressive? I felt a tension among the women in my family who claimed it was an archaic practice (outside the Mosque and during daily prayers, of course) but there was also, inevitably, a permeating defensiveness and judgment about their “choice” not to cover up.

Item of clothing. As a feminist, I’ve felt compelled to critique those who critique the hijab as an oppressive practice. I’ve often taken the stance “as long as it’s a personal choice it’s none of my business,” but I’ve felt a private smugness and righteous pride in being so “over” my own Muslim identity that I don’t even have to worry about this tired old debate. It wasn’t until I read Homa Hoodfar’s article, “The Veil in Their Minds and on Our Heads” where she suggests that her readers might see “difficulty [in] reducing [the veil] to simply an article of clothing” that I started really thinking about this again (270). I hate being challenged on my blind-sightedness. But once my bruised ego recovers I remember that learning new stuff is good for me.

What is the hijab if not “simply an article of clothing?” Of course it’s also deeply political and politicized and I don’t have any intention of diminishing that. And yes, it’s a gendered practice alright but so is “having” to wear a shirt. Our government (at least where I live in the US, this is not a nude beach and def not Ontario) legislates shirt-wearing practices for “women.” Legislates! It’s a law! At its root, how is this shirt issue any different, any “less” “oppressive” IF in fact we’re still stuck in the pathetic discourse of quantifying oppression (more, less, equal…vomit. it’s not a fucking contest.). It’s easy to attack and exoticize the hijab as a way to play out underlying racism, Islamophobia, chauvinism, and all kinds of colonizing missions. Wouldn’t it serve everyone to be just a little self-reflective? Oh that sounds hard.

Gendered practices… Ok, yes the hijab tends denote “womanness” and this may very problematically also be equated with “femaleness” and perhaps even “heteronormativity,” but aren’t there imaginable scenarios where people use the hijab toward subversive acts? What about self-identified women who are not female? Or people performing a spectrum of femininities and masculinities, some folks wearing it to “pass” as women. It might be strategically adorned by sex workers, or in order to obscure non-hetero networking, especially in instances where sex work and non-hetero stuff is illegal, punished, discouraged and/or shamed…

Sometimes runway models do not have a cloth “drawn across their breasts.” And this seems to be acceptable in the fashion world. I’m not advocating that we run out immediately and take off our tops in protest. It is way too fucking cold, baby. And I’m not saying people should cavalierly adorn the hijab to drive home that it’s “simply an article of clothing.” No, doing that could be so troubling, it could turn into yet another form of appropriation and disregard. I’m just asking this: Can we please stop writing the same fucking books over and over and over again about the hijab and all of it’s debates? Doesn’t anyone have anything new to say?

Family Ties

2008-12-01T18:36:00.000-08:00

I think there are some interesting connections waiting to be made between fashion and grief. My grandma adhered to a custom for widows, wearing all white for decades following my grandfather's death. My mama chastised me throughout my teenhood for wearing all black. "Vhy you are mourning alvays?"

When my dad died I took on the painful task of going through his entire wardrobe, a narrow closet with tightly packed button-down shirts, sport coats, polyester pants, belts, ties, miscellaneous paperwork, slide carousels of my childhood, and a package of the teeny tiniest tape dispensers I've ever seen. (He would buy anything, no matter how useless, if it was on sale and blamed it on having grown up dirt poor during WWII in a dust cloud of rural colonial despair. An awesome strategy for shutting down opposition.) I went through every pocket of every item of clothing finding a neatly folded unused tissue in almost every pair of pants. It was intimate and sad until I found the drawer full of unworn "ladies" socks and my mom and I decided he was a "closeted" cross dresser. Our grief was momentarily interrupted with howls of delight. My mom made the decision to donate any clothing we weren't planning to save as keepsakes to relatives or organizations that offer aid to newly arriving refugees.

I brought several ties home with me, most of them still holding the knots my dad had made (he felt it was a waste to undo a perfectly decent knot for the sake of storage). And this summer, The Cupcake helped me screenprint the tie in the photograph above. I've often desired an occasion to wear a fiercely femme tie and now I create these occasions on a regular basis. I found the image online through a sex worker rights organization (I can't remember which one).

This tie is a recycled, reappropriated reminder.

Ties are so unapologetically standardized even though we're seduced into believing there are "risky" ones out there. What really changes? The width, the patterns, colour schemes, fabrics, the knots that we make...oh I guess that is kind of a lot. But what would it take to revolutionize our ties? To sensitize (not sanitize) ties. Oh puns or alliteration or rhyme or whatever the fuck. Let me know if it gets sickening and/or if you'd be willing to pay me to play with words all day. It's not like I'm getting any other work done right now.

Thigh Highs and Size Sighs

2008-12-01T09:44:00.000-08:00

I think I’d welcome the chance to wear sweaters, wool coats, scarves, and toques if our winter season wasn’t so painfully long. Sometimes the challenge of dressing up for work while staying warm feels entirely defeating. I’m one of those people with inadequate circulation; I’m cold all the time, I avoid air conditioning as much as possible, and I’ve been known to shiver when even a light breeze blows my way. I don’t believe my intolerance to cold is a sign of “weakness” (in spite of people’s accusations). There’s something else going on. And I long for creative ideas about and greater access to “dressy” work clothing that will make Wisconsin winters a more manageable experience.

I know I’m privileged to be raising this “concern” in the first place. I do have means by which to stay warm in a range of inhospitable climate. But the very notion of people NOT having these means is fucked up. What options are out there? What sorts of efforts are being made to provide winter clothing to individuals without these provisions. It seems as though these sorts of efforts become more visible around the holiday season, when shit gets REALLY cold and Jesus encourages people to be a little more considerate and generous. But holy fuck, it starts to get cold early in this part of the hemisphere, and maybe this is something we can afford to think about year round... what can we do? How can we organize and distribute and support with or without the big J on our side? Let’s talk about this.

I also want to talk about animals. Like I do with humans, I form deep and indescribable bonds with some animals, share amicable rivalries with others, and avoid a few species as best as I can. One of my best friends in the entire world is a basset hound. And one of my most despised enemies happens to be the rabid, littering squirrel that stares me down from the neighbour’s yard. That said, I’m not going to make a coat out of zee. I’m so frustrated with the winter wear industry’s insistence on fur (the obvious), down (the seeming less publicized or have I just totally missed the outcries?), cashmere (oh don’t you mean Kashmir, the region of political strife and territorial dispute between India and Pakistan…um maybe we should be researching some historical lineage here), angora (pet bunny made Marxist factory worker alienated from zee’s labour), wool (mass production of farm animals)… What does that leave us with? Synthetic micro fibers stitched into winter wear by workers on the outsourced assembly line, sweatshop labourers, brown people “just grateful” to make their dollar a day? Let’s talk about this too.

Wearing long johns under pants cuts off circulation at my waist where I carry the most flesh on my body. (Let’s talk about this three.) I can wear pants, no problem. And long johns, also no worries. But long johns under pants equals too tight. My sweetbaby Meridith introduced me to the thigh high socks at American Apparel, which have proven to be the answer to my long john dilemma. As a short stack, these socks go high enough to cover my entire leg and thigh and they are truly warm. They have an aesthetically decent ribbed design (looks pretty good with skirts and boots) and they don’t roll down like nylon thigh highs often do. AND I’m so excited that I don’t have to waste ten minutes getting my pants and long johns on and off every time I pee. But holy fucking balls are they ever expensive. They run approximately $17.00 a pair, which breaks my heart and the bank. Nevertheless, I’ve shelled out the money and now I wish other people would/could have this option. I wonder if American Apparel would be willing to donate clothing to organizations helping those in need seeing as I’ve just given them a free promo.

But while we’re on the subject of American Apparel, would it kill them to be less sizeist? Their large sizes do not run across a sufficient spectrum of largeness, and at the risk of canceling out my request for them to donate clothing I want to say I’m deeply irritated by this. I WANT to support them for their claims to be sweatshop free and I sure am fucking thankful for this thigh high discovery but size, as this blog will proudly reveal, is a really important matter to me.

Next time: Why does Kate hate bow ties? Stay tuned for a tell-all interview with shocking details you won’t want to miss.

Milwaukee Mullet Mom or Lesbian? Maybe she's both. Maybe she's neither. Maybe he's sick of you staring.

2008-11-30T19:36:00.000-08:00

In one of her stand-up routines Margaret Cho made a comment about how fashion should be so much more than what it is. She went on to say that the so-called "worst dressed" on the red carpet are so often who she considers to be the best dressed by a long shot. I love Margaret Cho, and of equal importance, I love fashion. And yes, I agree that the fashion industry needs a giant kick in the gonads.

I'm going to put a few things out there that I hope to explore on an ongoing basis (perhaps not all within the scope of this first blog). First, fashion IS political, even (and especially) when it pretends not to be. "I don't give a shit about what I wear," "I don't have time to worry about clothes," "I just throw something on and run out the door." These statements are rooted in a certain kind of politic. What, for instance, are these claims saying about choice, privilege, necessity, time, convention…? A lot. There is a bucket load of unpacking we can do here.

Next up, I firmly believe that fashion can be so much more than the clothes we wear, our cute or functional accessories, our aesthetic inclinations, or a white, gendered, elitist, fat phobic industry represented on the TV. Fashion is fucked up just as often as it can fuck shit up. And I think it’s important to think about the politics of fashion in transformative ways toward transformative ends. Whatever that means.

Three, as radical fashionistas (oh I think I hate the word fashionista. maybe i won’t use it again.) we can do more than just critique and reflect on class, gender, size, marketplace, religion, region, etc. informing the fashion world. There’s much more work to be done! Of course these sites of investigation are important; we can’t talk enough about sweatshops, labour, animal rights, fat acceptance, recycling, (im)migration and economics but there’s gotta be more. Give me a minute to figure out what I mean by this—I’m not sure, but I want to investigate. I think I’m mostly interested in something to do with choice and/or lack thereof. And maybe something with consent… I’ll come back to these. For now, bookmark “choice” and “consent” or tell me if you have anything to say about these things because that might give me a jump start.

And an anecdote: I was buying avocados at the Pick 'n Save some time in 2006 and, like always, had one eye on the ladies. That's when it struck me on a conscious level that there's a Milwaukee mullet mom mystique that smacks of a certain lesbian aesthetic. Maybe lesbian isn't the right word. It's a dyke-chic that came out of, I believe, a dyke bar culture reminiscent of Stone Butch Blues. I just made that up and passed it off like an official piece of LGBTQ history. How do you like that?

Well this moment of realization led to many more just like it, which led eventually to my reappropriation of the song “Is it a child or an animal” by the Dreamland Faces (they are amazing you should totally check them out if you don’t know them and go see them in concert in Minneapolis, I think). I began a theme song for such grocery store moments: Is it a mom or a lesbian? Which was then followed by many months of self-critique, questioning why, if, and how my desire to classify and essentialize, even if only in jokey terms might be the result of some deeper ageism or classism or gendered ways of thinking and being in the world. Woh. I’m ok. I love moms and lesbians so I can make fun of them both right?

The mullet thing: I just don’t know what to make of it. Someone once told me there’s no such thing as a FASHION mullet. Is this true? You tell me. I grew up in Canada with so much hockey hair that I feel at once overly judgmental and incapable of judging at all.

Stay tuned for hijabs, hijras, and hound dogs.