My quick thoughts about Battlestar: Galactica, which I have just finished catching up on:

Good:
1. So many strong female roles! A female president (even if she usually defers to the Admiral in matters military); several female fighter pilots; a female commander (even if she is morally, ah, misguided, her gender is clearly not the issue), at least one female surgeon…
2. Deft handling of the abortion issue.
3. One of the lead roles is a Latino - in a sci fi show?! Hooray! (I honestly can’t think of another show where this is true. Not one.)
4. The entire question of “am I a real being, or just a construct, a machine?” - applicable to any number of groups over time and extremely well done.

Bad:
1. Everyone’s last name is whitewashed, “normalized” in a way. While I respect the idea that race is less important than what colony you come from in this world, it seems to me that one could just have easily used last names which “read” as certain ethnicities, cross ethnicities (so, call Laura Roslin - oh - Laura Ramos; call the Adamas the Adachis; etc.). Then again, maybe I just “read” names like Roslin, Adama, Tyrol, and Biers as white, and no one else does?
2. In any case, why give Edward James Olmos such a very white son - especially since his actual son is also in the series, but playing another character? I’m not saying that Jamie Bamber makes a bad Apollo, but I feel like there’s a certain amount of “in space there are only white people or otherwise people we will now pretend are white because hey it’s space” going on. Would it really be so weird to have two Latino male leads?
3. There are no happy, normal family relationships until season 3, and that relationship takes a very gendered slant (Cally stays home with the baby and frets about the child’s health, while Tyrol tries to press them both into working too hard). I realize that we’re at war, etc., etc., but since the BSG world is clearly much more gender-equal than ours, would it be too weird to show us a family that works in that context?

Ugly:
1. There are only two black men with speaking roles. One is a Cylon working to harvest the eggs of (white) human women for their crazy breeding schemes, and one is traitorous (having been tricked by the Cylons). This does not seem… uh… equitable. Black women get by a little better, since they have both Dualla and Elosha, but that’s not a lot of screen time either.

All in all I think that BSG does unusually well with gender issues and clearly is making an effort when it comes to race, there’s still a long row to hoe…

So, I’ve been thinking about making a series of posts on the subject of abandoning the beauty industry. Jumping, like a rat from a sinking ship. Sending them the one-fingered salute as one rides off into the distance.

It took me a long time to come to the point where I even recognized that I needed to purge the beauty industry from my life. I’m still not done with the process (makeup sits, waiting for use, in my cabinet; sometimes I look at myself in the mirror and think today is a day when I need lipstick real, real bad; more than half my shoes are heels) but I’ve taken some steps. Do I need to explain why I’ve taken them? Underweight models, eating pounds and pounds of toxic chemicals in makeup over your lifetime, the “benefits” of never letting your skin breathe. The belief that without expensive toiletries you aren’t fit to be seen in the world. Makeup, the grand apology for your face — your face.

When are men asked to apologize for their own face?

And then I went into my cupboard and looked at all the crap that was sitting around. Why do I need medicated lotions and potions? Sure, I’ve had pimples, but who doesn’t? Does that really mean I have an “acne problem”? No, no, no. So why do I spend money on it? Because Neutrogena puts out ad campaigns wherein pretty white models splash water on their perfectly made-up faces? I guess. That’s a stupid reason to buy something.

And what about my hair? What is it about hair that makes regular soap not work? Seriously; I want to know. Why doesn’t soap suffice to clean hair anymore? I’m happy to use shampoo if it’s going to make a difference, and I know for a fact that shampoo makes my hair feel better than Dr. Bronner’s, but why? Is there some special reason that shampoo requires so many more long chemical names in its ingredients list than plain old natural soap does?

So next time: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb, AKA “You mean that despite the fact that the beauty industry has been trying to convince me that oil is BAD EVIL BAD, I can actually use it to wash my face?” and an examination of a few bullshit PR campaigns regarding makeup + makeup remover.

I hit puberty late. I had my first kiss when I was sixteen, and before I was seventeen and had a boyfriend for the first time, I had basically no sexual contact with guys ever. I guess at some level I was somewhat aware that I am an attractive person, but I never really got hit on until maybe a couple years ago (with the exception of shady Mexican lawn-men who whistle at anything that moves).  The concept of being an attractive woman and getting differential treatment for it has been a concept that has just recently been something I have become aware of, and the concept that I can even be a sexual person is even newer.   I am (for the most part) confident in myself, in my choices, in my, but I as I have gotten older I have become rather aware that people (or more specifically men) find me attractive and this is part of how other people perceive me, part of my social identity.

I guess, just ever since I got to college, I have gotten very aware that who I am physically (a small, cute, high voiced female) and the fact that I am a very openly sexual person have a lot of social ramifications.  So then, my gut reaction is to consciously try to be perceived as very intelligent and competent–to take hard classes and do a bunch of extracurriculars and be well read and do reactor…  I mean all these things are good, right?  But the problem, despite the fact that I genuinely want to do all these things, they become part of what I need to feel like, as I person, I can justify myself.  Like, the more of a sexual person I am, the more I also need to have these qualities that are not typically associated with a very sexualized woman object.  The more it becomes an obligation—the more pressure there is to be beautiful AND intelligent AND talented AND witty.  I even wondered if maybe that’s part of why I am a science major; it’s not stereotypically feminine (okay, well biology is kind of “girl science”, but biochem isn’t as much).

I mean, to an extent to even be a women and get noticed at all, you have to be at least aware of your appearance.  I remember my high school English teacher said he was watching the news with his wife and a woman senator came on, and his wife’s first reaction was, “oh man, she has horrible hair!”  Now, his wife is quite educated; she’s a journalist for Reuters (probably more successful than my quasi-burnt out character of an English teacher), but still, her gut reaction when she saw a woman senator was not to remark on what her policy was, but to harp on her hair.

Sometimes I wonder if working harder and being more and more intellectually focused really affects anything at all.  When it comes down to it, I still feel like what men appreciate about me is how I look, not who I am and this continually frustrates me.  I don’t mean to be cocky, and I completely realize that other problems are much much harder to deal with, but one really wins.   I mean, why should I need to justify myself? Why is necessary to be a complete perfectionist in order to be both attractive and sexual and an intellectual?  And as I write this out, it feels like such a generic, universal complaint…

Revised version of something from my LiveJournal:

I’m a big feminist: it’s what I do. My boyfriend is a beer-drinking jock type. Since he and I have had such different experiences, we look at the world in very different ways, and we end up talking about stuff related to women and gender a lot. When you’re a smart, athletic, upper-middle class white guy, you’re not asked to think much about these things; when you’re a smart, socially inept, lower-middle class ex-stripper, you can’t help but think about them a lot. So the other day we were lying in bed talking about appearance and all that, and he said to me, “You know, you really don’t need to wear makeup.” And I started thinking about it, and I was like, what does that even mean? To need to wear makeup? Who needs to wear makeup? There’s a big disjunct here between semantic and propositional content: the words say that there is an actual imperative, a requirement that you wear it; that there is some sort of inexcusable absence if you don’t. The proposition, on the other hand, is taken to mean simply that you are unattractive without it.

What a ridiculous concept, that anyone should need to wear makeup. What a shock, to realize that there is in fact a tacit cultural mandate for women to be attractive. It makes me think of a blog that a friend of mine linked to a while back: it was some sort of fashion/clothing type journal, and in the linked entry, the author talked about how sometimes she wanted to make or buy clothes that she thought were really awesome, but that she knew didn’t make her look good. And she felt bad, like she was doing something wrong in not making the effort to be physically attractive. The money quote was “‘Pretty’ is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked ‘female.’” And I thought yeah, damned straight. But thinking about it, I realize that in a way, it is. It shouldn’t be, of course, and yet– on days I know I don’t look good, whether I’m exhausted or don’t feel like putting on makeup or just feeling ugly or fat, I make a deliberate effort to be inconspicuous; to wear bland clothes and call no attention to myself. And it’s not just that I don’t want my social group to see me looking bad: I feel the same way among strangers, people I know I’ll never see again. I feel like I should be pretty; I feel guilty for my failure to look better.

Thinking about it more, I wonder why things should be this way. There’s a biological element, yes: men, so they say, are visual creatures, so the laws of evolution or whatever mean that women want to look good for men. But I have never believed that biology is destiny, and I suspect that these days the social/cultural element has a lot more to do with it. Imagine all the money made in the fields of clothing, makeup, diet products, gyms, beauty magazines, cosmetic surgery, hair products and styling, razors, bath products, laser hair removal, spas, exercise videos… the list is endless. Now imagine the vast amount of time, energy and income women invest in looking good. It’s hard to avoid seeing that men are still more or less in power, and no doubt they’d like to stay there; as long as “women spend their lives trying to look good for men,” as CNN put it in a recent article (http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/02/14/love.science/index.html), they’re carrying a serious political handicap. Who was the feminist who said that it’s hard to save the world when you’re always hungry?

So, I have a confession to make: I like Tyra Banks.

Now, I don’t like the way she made her money, and I don’t like a lot of what she says on “America’s Next Top Model.” But I do like this video. She’s recently put on some weight (to reach the absolutely normal height and weight of 5′10″ and 160 pounds, probably size 9 or 10 jeans) and has come under a lot of fire for it — tabloids calling her fat and all. I quote her response to them:

To those who have something nasty to say about women who are built like me … women who have been picked on, women whose husbands put them down, women at work or girls at school – I have one thing to say to you: Kiss my fat ass!

Maybe her modeling has been partially responsible for little girls’ bad body image — but she’s got this one right.

[Reposted in slightly edited form from The Carousing Classicist]

Lately I’ve been considering issues of modesty, the male gaze, the female body and control thereof. For about nine or ten months, right when I graduated high school, I covered my hair nearly every day. I didn’t do anything else to dress modestly; in Sacramento, California in the middle of the summer, it would have been a major shock to my system, and anyway I wasn’t interested. What I was interested in was staking a claim on a certain part of my body, establishing that it was mine to show or hide as I pleased.

When I started covering my hair, I wasn’t clear on why I was doing it. I just felt the impulse. Now, though, looking back on it, I remember it as one of the most freeing experiences I’ve had. Psychologically, having that barrier between me and other people was wonderful. Certainly, many people stared. I was asked if I’d converted to Islam several times (although since my neck was uncovered, it would have made more sense to ask me if I’d become conservatively Jewish, and even that would be pretty nonsensical since I was wearing spaghetti-strap tops and tight jeans like always) and given condolences from people who assumed I was undergoing chemotherapy. But people stared at me before I started covering my hair, and with my hair covered, I felt like I had some kind of armor against that gaze.

Now I think back to that time and rather wish I could get back to it. Unfortunately, it isn’t as simple as donning a headscarf again. Many people who have seen pictures of me with a headscarf have commented, “you look so much prettier now — I’m glad you stopped wearing it.” Perhaps I’m vain, but their words have an impact on me. The purpose of covering my hair wasn’t to make me less pretty; that was never the attitude I had. Besides, I’m not used to the scarf anymore, and with short hair, scarves are harder to keep on your head.

These are all excuses, though, trying to cover up the fact that I’m simply not sure what it would be like to take that drastic step again. I like dancing, wearing fashionable clothes, showing off my figure. I’m not tzniut and my religion doesn’t require me to be. In many ways this makes the choice harder: I could not give a simple explanation to my boss, for instance, or my friends, about why I’ve decided to cover my hair.

Someday, though, I’m pretty sure I’m going to return to the practice of wearing a headscarf. There is something hugely comforting, hugely empowering, about asserting that kind of control over your body and your self-image. Strangely enough, it’s similar to the feeling one receives from getting a tattoo or a body piercing. You are choosing something about your image; you are in charge of yourself in a way that our culture does not often allow women to be. It has nothing to do with women needing to cover themselves in order to prevent men from being horny (as if you can prevent men from being horny!) but rather everything to do with establishing yourself as the ultimate arbiter over your own body and your own image. It’s not something that I think everyone ought to, needs to, do. But it has been something that was meaningful and important to me, and probably will be again.

Besides, it’s an absolutely lovely feeling to unbind your scarf at the end of the day, unpin your hair, and feel it fall free over your shoulders. Absolutely lovely.

n.b. This is why I feel strongly about sites like this one, which address modesty as something which women must do in order to prevent men from sinning. I think my objections are obvious.