I’ll Make a Man out of You: When Jane met Body Pump
This is in some ways a sequel to my last post on 80s fitness videos. But if you missed that one, fear not, for here is the backstory: gremlins have taken over my body and given me a sudden interest in physical fitness.
In particular, I have been interested to see how the ideologies and assumptions of the real-life, modern-day gym contrast with the 80s fantasy world to which, until now, my side-bends and sit-ups have been largely confined.
Ain’t got a motor in the back of her Honda
I wanted to start with a class. My local facility was offering a number of options for my preferred time of day: Spinning, Yoga, Body Attack and Body Pump. Spinning, of course, has long been a Cosmo-favourite, but it sounded a bit too terrifying for my tentative post-Christmas explorations, so I went for Body Pump because it’s on a Tuesday, and Tuesdays are good for me.
Like Body Attack, Body Pump originates with the New Zealand-based Les Mills workout group. I suppose I’d always known, objectively, that someone must make up these workouts, but I’d always vaguely assumed it was the class instructor, or the gym, or something. I certainly hadn’t realised there are whole organisations dedicated to churning them out – of which Les Mills is one. Body Pump was the first of their workouts to make it out of New Zealand and into Europe, which it did in the early-to-mid-90s. It’s now pretty much a young professional gym standard, along with the emerging new trend, PowerPlate (which claims to deal with cellulite, although what doesn’t [and what does?], frankly).
Never stray too far from the sidewalk
In addition to a kind of Cartesian ‘body/soul’ dualism in their choice of workout titles, Les Mills also has about them something of the cultish air that also characterises Jane Fonda’s seminal 1980s oeuvre. Seriously. They refer to ‘the Tribe’. They’ve declared ‘war on sedentary lifestyles’. And more:
We pride ourselves on being brave – the ones who turn up their sleeves when it comes to hard work. The ones that scream ‘hell yeah’ when the instructor barks ‘ten more’. Those who view sweat on their brows like a crown of achievement. The ones who don’t just step up, they turn it up, because they want results.
– Les Mills website
This is not what it is like.
Scary stuff. The almost-militarism of the Les Mills style plays out into the actual Body Pump workout, which is a weight training class accompanied by ‘chart-topping hits’ (well… ‘Because of You’). Its use of zeitgeisty-kinda music to drive you along aligns it with aerobics more generally, but with the 80s fitness craze in particular, which was similarly interwoven with pop culture, including the emergent disco culture (the seminal Saturday Night Fever, with its all-dancing star John Travolta, came out in 1977).
But Body Pump is no leotard-wearing 80s-style ‘jazzercise’ with instructors whose hair flows wild and impractically free (my school gym teacher used to make us use elastic bands as a punishment for forgetting proper hair ties) – and, unlike the films Jane Fonda made for housewives everywhere, Body Pump’s not, primarily, about women. Indeed, it was originally designed to ‘bring men into the aerobics room’, after the female-focused group exercise trends that preceded it. Whether former female dominance in said room was because women are known to prefer exercising in nice social groups (cos, you know, that’s how we go to the toilet and choose our clothes, isn’t it?), or because instructors were targeting women as particularly vulnerable to body fascism, is too big a question to address in whole here.
Godlike Odysseus
But certainly, the class I attend has a lot of Homeric-level male muscle in it (with added grunts). And indeed, the ‘tracks’ we listen to (officially chosen by the Les Mills group themselves, who rule over ALL THINGS, and presumably have some kind of Council of Trent-style semi-regular meeting to discuss such questions) – are generally of the ‘man-rock’ ilk (well, Kelly Clarkson aside). So sometimes we do staggered bicep curls in time to that bit in Eye of the Tiger. There’s even this bit where you lie on your back on the ‘bench’ (see, I’m down with the lingo) and do some ‘chest-reps’ with ‘barbells’ while listening to Smells Like Teen Spirit. [This is a bit I’m quite fond of because I like to pretend I’m in prison or something].
This is Sparta.
What I think is interesting here is that, while dear Jane made me feel like I was sharing in an essential female, slightly body-fascist sort of camaraderie (‘this is for the wibble-wobbles on the inner thighs… gonna burn them right off!’) – with a sense of shared understanding much akin to what you might experience in the disco toilets at 2am with mascara running down your face, only with more brutalist physical pain – Body Pump is more like that bit in Mulan where that guy who never wears a shirt trains the Chinese army (including the cross-dressing Mulan) in three minutes flat.
Indeed, whereas the 80s fitness dream was one of self-improvement and the drive for the Body Beautiful, Body Pump and the Les Mills ideology is actually more like a War on Fat, with concomitantly refigured notions of gender – men and women exercise side by side, with parallel physical goals.
The Eighties’ ‘woman’s world’ of VCR, suburban living room and dance-fitness (sexualised to an often ludicrous degree for the benefit of men) has changed to a kind of militant A-team dream. This probably has a lot to do with rising obesity levels in the population at large, making pursuit of exercise rather more of a general health priority than it once was, but since the original 80s fitness craze rose at much the same time as the rise of the disco one, I wonder if our exercise trends are still tangentially following our terpsichorean ones.
Indeed, one of the things I find particularly interesting is how this class – and actually the gym itself come to that – constructs itself around the idea of maenadic levels of adrenaline, but in a kind of nightclub context. I have to NB here that I go to a rather Executive gym chain, which to be honest is probably actually constructed in the 80s power-professional mould – there’s coloured strip-lighting and everyone’s wearing matchy-matchy black lycra …and thongs. (I mean, seriously, think about the physics of that. There will be squats.). In Spinning it goes literal, as the room is darkened and there’s pounding rave music (at 7am on a Monday morning).
So where does this leave us? Much of this may seem largely irrelevant, since the numbers of women who attend the gym (indeed, the numbers who can even afford it) are relatively small compared to the population at large. And yet! What happens in those harrowing halls may reflect some curious external trends.
As I shifted about on my wooden chair in the makeshift cinema at the Horse Hospital to watch Susan Marks’ documentary Of Dolls and Murder, I wasn’t expecting to find material for a BadRep post. While I was pretty certain it was going to flick my ‘uncanny’ and ‘macabre’ switches (it did), I wasn’t expecting much on the feminist front. But this absorbing, gruesome documentary is a tribute to the remarkable woman who created the mysterious ‘Nutshells’.
The ‘Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death’ are intricately designed dioramas on a 1 inch to 1 foot scale. Each detailed dollhouse from hell represents a crime scene composite of several real-life court cases. They were created in the 1930s to help train police in the art of forensic investigation by Frances Glessner Lee, a millionaire heiress who seems to have been more interested in forensic science than ladylike accomplishments and society balls. She used her inheritance to found Harvard’s Department of Legal Medicine, and was awarded the honorary title Captain of the New Hampshire State Police.
In an article for Harvard Magazine, Laura J Miller explores Glessner’s background:
“Fanny” was a sheltered and indulged child, raised in a household that epitomized the aesthetic and moral ideals of nineteenth-century domesticity… Architecturally, the house embodied a cherished conceptual divide of the period: between the distinctly masculine public realm and the private, feminine, interior. Fanny and her brother were educated at home. He went on to Harvard; she married a young attorney, Blewett Lee, at 19. The couple had three children and at first appeared happy, but Glessner Lee eventually received a divorce. Their son attributed the failed marriage partly to her “creative urge coupled with high manual dexterity – the desire to make things – which [Lee] did not share.”
This manual dexterity was extraordinary – Glessner reputedly used sewing needles to knit stockings for some of the figures in her ghoulish scenes – and her attention to detail endlessly impressive: she even attended autopsies to ensure the dolls she was creating were accurate. As Miller explains:
Although the crimes depicted in the Nutshells were composites of actual cases, the character and decoration of the dioramas’ interiors were Glessner Lee’s invention. Many display a tawdry, middle-class décor, or show the marginal spaces society’s disenfranchised might inhabit – seedy rooms, boarding houses – far from the surroundings of her own childhood. She disclosed the dark side of domesticity and its potentially deleterious effects: many victims were women “led astray” from the cocoon-like security of the home – by men, misfortune, or their own unchecked desires.
This is a theme which emerges in Susan Marks’ documentary too. One of the things that makes the Nutshells so disturbing but also so fascinating is the domesticity of the scenes. The flowery curtains, the cans of soup on a kitchen shelf…
Something the film’s contributors repeatedly mention is the way that Glessner Lee was able to document the extreme violence wrought mostly on women, and mostly in their homes: that notorious private, feminine sphere – ‘where they should have been safe’ – without sentimentality or any attempt to turn away from the truth. With their chintzy, bloody record of domestic violence and prostitution, the Nutshells recognised that the home is not always safe, especially for women.
Frances Glessner Lee managed to achieve professional recognition and high esteem for her supremely unladylike interest in death, crime, medicine and the law, and it tickles me to think that one way she did this was by turning such a traditionally feminine and often trivialised skill as doll-making and decoration to such a dark and ultimately noble end.
[Gamer Diary] Mass Effect 3
Yep. That Game. That Ending. And all that commotion. There’s very little need to introduce the game, or the franchise. I’m going to take a wild guess that you’ve all probably heard of it. I alone have mentioned it in almost every post I’ve done since the start of the year. If in doubt, check out the Mass Effect Wiki for all and every query you may have.
I will try not to be too exclusive in my content here, so I’ll try to avoid anything that you won’t understand unless you’ve played the game, and I’ll be focussing on the game through a feminist lens. That’s what we’re trying to do over here, after all, right? One last thing to say is… SPOILERS.
"Through me, into the city full of woe; through me, the message of eternal pain; through me, the passage where the lost souls go." Yep, that's what happens if you don't heed the warning of the Spoiler Klaxon... "all hope abandon, ye who go through me."
Enough with the dramatics! To the game!
Technology, mechanics & gameplay
I thought I’d get this out of the way as I reckon there’s very little feminist critique one can offer on this side of things. I played on a PC, so some of my concerns won’t be shared with console gamers, most obviously the power required in your machine to play the game. As a PC gamer, you have keep your technology up to speed with new titles, but console versions come as-is to the standardised specifications of the machines. My computer isn’t the fastest, or the most hardworking – it’s actually just a dual-core with one graphics card, several series behind the most recent, not for lack of will but for lack of cash. Keeping a PC up to date is expensive.
My reason for telling you that is so I can tell you how well my absolutely-not-top-of-the-range PC handled a brand new, heavy-hitting title like Mass Effect 3. “Not too bad” is the answer. At times, faces looked a mite too angular, but I had no problems running the game at all.
The game mechanics are almost the same as the were in the previous instalment, and although they can be a bit frustrating to get used to for the first time, they work well within the context of the game. I have heard complaints on the overuse of the spacebar – that it is assigned to far too many actions – and although I had no issues with it, my partner did, so I suspect it’s a personally variable thing.
Combat has been streamlined slightly since Mass Effect 2, and you still have to learn how to fight with each different class you can choose for Shepard. For example, I played through first as an Adept, who enjoys a lot of long-range Biotic powers, so you don’t always need to leave cover and use guns; then I started in a different class and had problems adapting to the new style.
Some Femi-Relevant Content
As much as I could, I shouldn’t spend my entire word count talking about mechanics and gameplay here, so we’ll move on. While playing the game I had a little list of things to look out for that I could critique or criticise, and honestly, there wasn’t much I could pick out. You don’t get treated differently if you’re a male or a female character. The only notable difference I found was in a conversation with the female Krogan, Eve/Bakara, in which she says “we’ll show these men how to do things!” (or similar) if you’re a ‘FemShep’, but not if you’re male.
The only sexism we see comes from the Krogans; Urdnot Wreav claims that Eve is his and that she is obliged to father all his children as he rescued her. Eve, however, is having none of it. That’s good. Eve is awesome.
One issue many players had with Mass Effect 2 was the fact that if you wanted the ‘Romance’ achievement you had to initiate a heterosexual relationship. This has been addressed – you can now gain the ‘Paramour’ achievement through any (albeit still sexual) relationship. There are a more visibly present non-hetero characters too: at one point you console your shuttle pilot who is upset over the death of his husband. It’s never shown in a “LOOK OVER HERE! I’M GAY! HAPPY NOW?!” manner; it’s much more realistically handled in that a character may mention something that discloses their orientation, but ultimately all questions of the personal kind are of little consequence in the face of the impending problem of Total Annihilation Of All Life In The Universe.
I was very happy not to have any feminist niggles or femirage over the game – perhaps that does somewhat diminish my options for what to write for this, a feminist, blog! The best thing that I can say is that it is quite feminist-friendly and the only things I could suggest improving would be the inclusion of non-binary genders and equal cutscenes-for-sex with all races/species (I got no sexy cutscene for my (F)Human-(M)Turian coupling, but one trailer shows a (M)Human-(F)Human sexy cutscene).
The Ending
Before I conclude, I was content and pleased with the ending. Apparently, I may be in a minority there. My partner, for example, hated it. Basically – EPIC SPOILERS, look away now if you don’t want this detail! – pretty much everyone dies. BioWare went to town on the deus ex machina mechanism here. Yes, Shepard pretty much dies no matter what you do.
I was happy with that. I thought BioWare were very brave to stick behind such a potentially contentious ending, and they enacted it beautifully. Many on the interwebs were in uproar, and appeared to successfully bully BioWare into announcing that they’ll be producing alternative endings. I suppose it was difficult to respond to fan requests for a FemShep trailer, then stonewall on the Ending Issue, but it would’ve been nice if they’d held their ground and kept a smidge of artistic integrity.
But in some ways, it turns out now, they did. As the ‘Extended Cut DLC’ has been announced, BioWare has made a new statement that clarifies this will not be “…a re-imagining of the ending or a new ending.” HOORAY!
I fear the pressure of BioWare’s pact with the evil giant EA was involved in their decision to cave, however partially: after all, EA like money, and undoubtedly they can see the potential for Extra Content that a fervent fanbase will definitely pay for.
The Verdict
If we ignore the Ending Issue, I’ll give it a solid 9/10. I’d still give it that with the ending, because I liked it, but I understand how others might knock it down because of it, which is a shame – it’s a great, well-constructed and well-told story that happens to be a game.
I predict that this will not be the end of Mass Effect, as BioWare have stated, but it probably should be. Shepard died and saved the universe; that’s a good ending. The last thing you see and hear before the credits roll is a young child asking their grandfather if they can have ‘one more story’ about ‘The Shepard’. And Grandfather says that it’s getting late, but agrees to tell one more story…
Just one more story...
There are a few things that I’ve decided are never going out of fashion: pirates and zombies. They’re ubiquitous. They’re everywhere. Everyone’s party either wants you to come as one or other or a mixture of the two, or wouldn’t mind if you did. This is no bad thing: zombies are obviously a reclamation of the middle-class stigmatisation of the working class as a shambling, faceless, flesh-eating horde, and pirates are …pirates. Who wouldn’t want to be a pirate? There’s loads of stuff to like about pirates. The ships, the clothes, the beards and the array of innovative tropical sexually-acquired infections. Rum, sodomy and the lash. Anyone’s idea of fun.
***As is usual, dear readers, the BadRep pirate flag reading SPOILER WARNING – only mild to moderate this time, but still – is hereby hoisted here! ***
So, Britain’s most beloved animation house, Aardman Animations, the cheerful cohort behind treasured characters Wallace & Gromit and my personal comfort-watchers Chicken Run and Rex The Runt, really can’t go wrong with a film entitled The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists. It’s adapted from Gideon Defoe’s series of childrens’ books of the same name and derivations thereof, one of which is called The Pirates! In An Adventure With Communists, and if that doesn’t make you deliriously excited, then I’m afraid we can’t be friends. I haven’t read them yet, but I’ve made arrangements to get them into my eager paws as soon as possible because how can I not? Pirates! Everyone likes pirates.
It was the poster that drew my eye first. Witness:
PIRATES! it says. And there they are. There’s a nice representation of different genders, ages, ethnicities and beards on the poster, and I was all excited for a nice diverse film – the sort I tend to dream about.
SHAME IT’S A LIE.
Well, no, I’m exaggerating – it’s not quite a bare-faced man-churned fictivated sin-speech, but it’s pretty fallacious. The main character is that chap in the middle there, the Pirate Captain (Hugh Grant). The pirate to the left of him, Cutlass Liz – voiced by the brilliant Salma Hayek – is an award-winning Pirate Of The Year, full of swash, buckle and plunder-power, and gets literally no screen-time in which she isn’t a sex object. Seriously. She turns up, wiggles, alludes to her piratical prowess and then… isn’t seen again! She has, like, three scenes! And one of them is in the dreams of the Pirate Captain where she’s all, “Ooh Pirate Captain, I am UNDONE”.
The pirate to the right of said Pirate Captain in the poster goes by the moniker Suspiciously Curvaceous Pirate (they’re all “[Adjective] Pirate”). Voiced by Ashley Jensen, she’s a dragged-up pirate with an amazing false beard and a sweet Scottish chirp – who also gets very little screen-time or lines, and whose characterisation appears to revolve around the fact that she likes sparkly jewels, pastel colours and fancies the captain a bit. The humour of her character is almost exclusively that she’s a cross-dressing woman. Now, I’m never okay with boys in drag being sent up purely for being boys in drag, so why would I be okay with it if the character’s female?
Not great, is it?
That said, it’s not all bad news for lady characters in this, but from a rather unexpected source: the villain, voiced by the legendary Imelda Staunton, Queen Victoria (“Look at my crest! What does it say? I HATE PIRATES.”) is absolutely magnificent. She’s perfect. Stop making that face. This is the badassest Queen Vic you have ever seen, and I don’t think it’s possible to not fancy her even a little bit after the credits roll. She has a battle skirt that clanks aside to reveal a) jodphurs and b) TWO KATANAS. Come on. How many other films have had Queen Victoria fighting pirates with katanas before getting vanquished by GCSE-classroom science? FUCKING ZERO. THIS IS A UNIQUE CINEMATOGRAPHICAL EXPERIENCE.
OVERALL, the above issues aside, it’s a very funny film – the school of humour whereby if one joke doesn’t wash with you, never fear! there’ll be another one along in a tick – and it’s rich with classic Aardman background detail (the pirate ship has a fusebox, for example, and watch the faces of the taxidermy animals in Charles Darwin’s (David Tennant) house during the bathtub chase scene!). Martin Freeman’s second-in-command pirate actually looks a bit like him, which is neatly appealing, and Brian Blessed’s megaphonic turn as the Pirate King is predictably godlike. The dodo is gorgeously animated. I wish there’d been more scientists doing science-y things, but then I was imagining something dreadful involving shiny gloves, tailored labcoats and experimentation, and there are reasons I haven’t been allowed to make films for children and that’s one of them.
But I did make a new poster, to give the neglected characters just a bit more attention. I made Cutlass Liz look a bit more badass, too, on account of her being badass and therefore deserving of a badass coat:
THERE.
YOU SHOULD SEE THIS FILM BECAUSE:
- The best Queen Victoria you have literally ever seen
- It’s really painfully funny
- Who doesn’t want to see Brian Blessed being a pirate king, seriously
- There’s Flight Of The Concords on the soundtrack!
- Thank god for stop-motion claymation – surely the finest animation technique ever? THIS HOUSE BELIEVES: YES
YOU SHOULD NOT SEE THIS FILM BECAUSE:
- It promises a lot in the trailer and poster in terms of ethnic/gender representation and then doesn’t deliver
- I frankly wanted more science
- And more Brian Blessed
- More of everything that wasn’t the cis/white/male lead characters, actually, I mean they were great and all but I’m bored of cis/white/men being the… we’ve already had this discussion, internet, leave me be
[Gamer Diary] What I’ve Been Playing… March 2012
March was a big one in the world of gaming and not just because of the titles that came out. Here in the UK there’s been other big news that I’d be somewhat remiss not to mention, so please forgive me if I veer slightly away from a simple account of what I’ve been up to. So today I’ll be talking (briefly) about Mass Effect 3 and the Xbox Kinect but I’ll also wander into the murky world of the financial crisis and its impact on gamers cruising the high streets.
First off: the games. Obviously there’s Mass Effect 3, but as I’ve mentioned before, there will be a full post dedicated to that shortly. For now, though, I’ll say that it’s a great addition to anyone’s collection: well-constructed story, superb combat mechanics, good graphics and generally an absorbing and engaging universe. The ending(s) have caused issues among some fans of the franchise, and although I shan’t say here what they were or why that is, I’ll just say that I had no problem with the way it ended.
Better then that we talk about the Kinect. I got one at the beginning of March and a few little games to go along with it. Kinect Adventures is the title that comes with every single sensor (if you’re buying second-hand, be sure to check!) and it is a simple bit of fun. You use your body to complete little challenges on the screen, collect points and progress through various ranks of adventurer. It’s a little bit addictive when you first get the Kinect as it’s all very new and novel and amazing, but in the long run it would probably hold the attention of younger gamers or be best suited to family-centred gaming sessions.
I also got Kinect Sports (the first game), which proved much more popular between my partner and I. You get the option to partake in six different events: Football (Soccer), Bowling (10-pin), Table Tennis, Track & Field (which contains six events in itself), Boxing and Beach Volleyball. Again, this is a great bit of fun and you can use it for a spot of exercise as well. You can play against four levels of computer opponent, as well as playing against your friends (or with them) online or in the same room. You garner points and progress towards Champion status, but really it’s all about the amusement and the potential for collective gaming.
There are another two Kinect games knocking about my living room, but I didn’t want to talk about them as they don’t have the rather pleasing feature I’m about to detail. The Kinect games that use your Xbox Avatar in-game (especially in Sports) are also populated with lots of other Avatar people as your opponents or team-mates. Now, this may not sound altogether too ground-breaking or interesting, but for me it was quite nice to see a fairly equal mix of – albeit randomly generated – Avatars of all descriptions. In simpler terms, they aren’t all male. Even on team sports that are traditionally ‘single sex’ sports (like football) you have men and women of all ages charging about the pitch with you. I thought that was a nice little nod – particularly for games that will have a lot of younger, more impressionable gamers – just to say “Hey, women exist too!”.
Now for the depressing stuff. The company Game went belly-up in March and already my local Gamestation (part of the group) has been stripped bare and locked up tight, never to be set foot in again. I admit I rarely bought anything from Game or Gamestation, but as the last notable games-only high street chain, it’s sad to see it fail. As a PC gamer at heart, I felt the group had forgotten about me over the years as it focused more on console gamers – and that’s fair enough if that’s where the money is – but apparently that didn’t bring in enough revenue to save them.
Things were not helped when EA refused to supply the group with copies of Mass Effect 3 on credit and they had to give everyone who had pre-ordered their money back. Even a few days before they closed up shop, the Gamestation I usually wander around was begging for trade-ins of the title as not a single brand new copy was in sight. I suspect this may have been the last straw for many customers, but the advent of the internet worked its evil glory too: after all, if you can buy a two-week-old title for £15 on Amazon when it remains £30+ in a high street store, why would you go that extra mile and pay more?
It is, nevertheless, a little saddening to see the group suffer the same fate as many other high street names. Should they remain, in one form or another, I hope they can take a more competitive stance on the price war with the internet and stop pricing themselves out of the market. Game’s statement has more detail on the immediate results of their entry into administration.
One final word…
Coincidentally, a couple of days before Game was declared a financial black hole, my partner bought himself Skate 2. You may remember January’s Gamer Diary, where I mentioned watching him play Skate and lamented that there were zero lady-boarders. Well, in the second instalment, there are girls flying around on boards, and you can also choose to be one. Super! Also, the mechanics and graphics are much improved. It has, however, to me been dubbed ‘Skate 2 AKA “Shut up, Reda!”’. Don’t worry if you don’t know who Reda is; all you need to know is he talks too much.
Next Time
I’ll be honest: I don’t yet know what the remainder of April will bring for me. Never fear! I will locate juicy content for you and in the meantime you’ll soon be able to read all about what I made of ME3 at last.
Hey everybody! I come bearing a Rare Personal Update which is also an editorial announcement.
If you’re a regular reader of this blog you’ll know that BadRep Towers generally posts updates every day of the working week.
This can be a lot of work, and lately Real Life has… gotten very real? There’s been an unexpected bereavement, a house move, and family members who for various reasons have needed caring for, and I’m also about to go on an evening course which will be pretty intensive. And then there’s my paid job, public sector, full time. So I’m a bit knackered at the moment. Busy is an understatement.
Several of the team are also, bless them, bloody busy. Therefore, for now BadRep will be updated only on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Join the good ship BadRep
However! I’d like this to be a temporary move, ideally! We’ve had some lovely feedback in the last few months and we don’t want to stop now! Help us steer the HMS BadRep into new territory.
We’re looking to get more pop culture adventurers on board. We are sticklers for exciting, often-quirkily-original, well-written stuff, and for inclusive feminisms which take account of the variety of identities contained on our existing team (and more besides). We aim to be bouncy and accessible and occasionally irreverent – but we want to make your brain tick, not start a fight.
Here’s how you can be part of the adventure:
- Pitch us a guest article! Send a paragraph to [email protected]describing what you’d like to write about, and a little bit about you (and if you have one, a link to your own site so we can plug it for you).
- Or if you’d like to join our band of adventurers long-term, send an email to the same address telling us a little bit about you, your feminism, and why you’d like to join us. Include some examples of your writing, too. We’re looking for a commitment of two posts a month, ideally. If it looks like your writing is a good fit for what we’re trying to do, we might well be in touch.
- More information is on this page here – please do read and share!
PROTIP: Because of the Real Life outlined above, it sometimes takes me a while to answer emails to [email protected] Your patience is mahoosively appreciated.
Also? Thank YOU.
We’re hoping with your help that we’ll come back bigger and better than ever, but in the meantime thank you for reading and sharing what you read, and for all your comments and support!
– Miranda and the rest of Team BR
Found Feminism: Fun With #Tips for Ladies
Oh, Twitter. So often a place where humanity can flourish – the instant revealing of oppression or fraud that governments try to hide, news topics trending days before the major channels are brave enough to jump in – but it’s also a pit of despair for feminists on a depressingly regular basis.
Last week’s example was the trending topic “Tips for Ladies”. The online world took this tremendous opportunity to help guide women through life by posting thousands of tweets featuring the words ‘cooking’, ‘cleaning’, ‘clothes’ and advice on how to be more sexually available to men, all with exciting new adventures in spelling and grammar. (Don’t search for it. Just don’t. Your brain doesn’t need the trauma). Okay, look, here’s one at random and you can take my word for it that there are many pages of similar entries:
#TipsForLadies Cooking and Cleaning up does not make you a good woman.Your suppose to do that.
(I choose to read this as “Following society’s bullshit gender roles won’t make you a magnificent person – YOU are the one who must strive to transform yourself.” I choose to interpret it like this, because otherwise I would turn to drink most days.)
But then…
Then I noticed something new. It started small and grew as the rebellion began… BadRep’s very own Hannah Chutzpah brought the first one to my attention:
@MissEllieMae
#TipsForLadies Remember, when enacting nuclear fusion, the nickel isotope is more stable than the iron isotope.
I decided to write one of my own:
#TipsForLadies CERN’s results where neutrino speed appeared to break relativity were probably due to relativistic motion of the GPS clocks.
Markgraf weighed in:
#TipsForLadies Pheasants are easy both to capture and domesticate.
But it wasn’t just Team BadRep on the case.
@prattprattpratt
The way to a man’s heart is not through his stomach… unless your sword is kinda bendy upwards. #TipsForLadies
@GRILLEVERYTHING
#TipsForLadies When battling Gorgons, avoid turning into stone by only viewing your foe through a reflective surface.
@MsBathtub
#tipsforladies The ability to start a fire can mean the difference between life & death in survival situations.
(Ms Bathtub also quoted Rilke).
And another from Ellie Mae:
@MissEllieMae
#TipsForLadies Join a union. You’ll get paid more and have better working conditions.
Even Darth Vader’s PR team got in on the act:
@DeathStarPR
#TipsForLadies Don’t be a Bella Swan when you could be a Princess Leia. #StarWars
The line says "Remembered for 30 years, the same way Bella Swan won't be."
And I felt a little better. Found Feminism is often about finding voices fighting back in unexpected places, and that’s exactly what I hope people take away from this. In the online environment, we are surrounded by people too young, inexperienced or just plain bigoted to spread anything but the easiest, most poisonous dreck society has to peddle. The answer is to speak up. Use comedy, use popular trends, but even if it’s just you and just once, speak up for equality. And we’ll leave little beacons of hope in the places most easily reached by the most people.
Twitter is regularly a hopeless mess of misogyny – I could pick a new trending topic every week.
That just means we have to engage with it MORE.