Feminism Is For Everyone

Aug 15, 2010,11:09 PM

fifeblog revamp!

⚥helloo feminists!

This is Sarah posting to the fifeblog for the very first time. I figured that this momentous occasion warranted a spankin' new layout for this sucker (that and the fact that the start of a new school year is right around the corner!).

If you're like me, you've been getting lots of feminist summer reading in since May. I'm currently working on The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf, which is an awesome read if you're a woman, a feminist, someone who has ever struggled with self-esteem, or simply somebody who's tired of waking up that extra half-hour earlier in the morning to poke yourself in the eye with a mascara wand 32917 times. If this book doesn't make you more appreciative of your own natural, inner beauty, it will at least make you pissed off enough about all of the unfair conspiracies and double-standards behind our culture's concept of feminine beauty to stop caring about whether you meet these "beauty" standards in the first place. I definitely felt a sudden boost of I-don't-give-a-fuck confidence as I sat on the beach reading this book in my bikini. Filed under: game-changer.

FIFE looks forward to hearing about all of your interesting summer reading and also plans to start a new book club feature this coming semester, among other exciting things!

see you all soooon!

~sarah

Labels: books, feminism, summer, the beauty myth

Sep 6, 2008,11:42 PM

the twilight craze

So I'm sitting here and surfing the internet (because I have nothing better to do) reading reviews on Amazon.com for Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. Now, I've only read the first two and as such will only include details from Twilight and New Moon, so no spoilers please. (Even though I find these books less than stimulating I loathe spoilers because I feel compelled to finish the series.)

Anyway, moving on. I found the one-star reviews particularly interesting because they point out the painfully obvious flaws in the series that Edward-biased fan girls probably don't recognize in their sparkly haze of adoration. I'm not knocking their adoration for fictional characters by any means--mine comes in the form of Harry Potter. For those of you who have read at least the first two books, you know that Bella absolutely cannot function without Edward. In fact, she is so dependent on him for her happiness that college is Plan B if Edward won't turn her into a vampire so that she can spend the rest of her existence with him. Sure, it's great to be in love, but what kind of message does this subconsciously plant in the malleable minds of young girls?

It perpetuates the idea that it's okay to throw your life away for a boy. But it's not. Especially when you're barely 18 years old. You can't count on that relationship lasting forever when you have so much more to experience. It perpetuates the idea that you can't be independently happy without your man and if you can't be happy with your single self then you still have some growing to do.

While it's all fine and dandy to daydream about charming boyfriends like Edward Cullen who are perfect in every way, it should stay as a daydream if that means giving up your independence as a person. At least Edward realized that it was best for him to leave for Bella's best interests; he actually wants her to go to college and not make some rash decision to become a vampire.

Labels: books

Aug 31, 2008,3:06 PM

book excerpt

An excerpt from Paulo Coelho's Brida that I think is interesting, pertains to feminism and that I thought I should share with everyone:

May she [Virgin Mary] bless us because we are women and live in a world in which men love and understand us more and more. Yet still we bear on our bodies the marks of past lives, and those marks still hurt.

May the Virgin Mary free us from those marks and put an end forever to our sense of guilt. We feel guilty when we go out to work because we're leaving our children in order to earn money to feed them. We feel guilty when we stay at home because it seems we're not making the most of our freedom. We feel guilty about everything, because we have always been kept far from decision making and from power (103).

*As a side note to whomever finds this, no copyright infringement is intended.

Labels: books, quotes