I usually leave my video love for the end of these posts, but it’s been a rough week for womankind. We could all use some some serious Awesome in our lives. Enter Sonya Renee at the 2006 Individual World Poetry Slam Finals:
Holy. Shit. I don’t get shaken easily, but watching this actually made my heart race. This woman must have been terrified:
October 22, tourism student Geisy Arruda showed up to class at Uniban, near Sao Paolo, wearing a pink minidress and “heavy makeup,” which apparently prompted her fellow students to go completely insane. Two hundred of them gathered outside her classroom to gawk at her, and when she left to go to the bathroom, men followed, physically fighting with her and trying to take cell phone pictures between her legs. A professor then tried to hide her in another classroom, but 700 students massed outside, shouting, “Let her out Professor, we want to rape her.” As she finally left, escorted by police, some students took videos, including the one above, where you can hear chants of “puta” or “whore.”
Arruda has since been expelled, since she’s obviously the one who asked for it.
Paste Magazine released it’s list of the Top 50 albums of the decade. Unsurprisingly, the list is a total sausage fest, with the exceptions of the obligatory M.I.A., Björk, and Amy Winehouse (plus a couple of other women). Yup. The O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack beat out PJ Harvey.
But here’s a startling revelation: women could’ve made up more than 10% of that list. Shocking, I know. My album recommendations:
Yeahhhhh…I seem to add a new blog to my reader every other day, so my Weekend Link Loves are getting hella long. I’m gonna start doing this twice a week, m’kay? So tune in Wednesday for the second half.
5 years ago, I was a sexy cop for Halloween.¹ And I liked it.
The usual me wears jeans and t-shirts and flip flops pretty much every day (unless it’s cold, in which case the uniform becomes a sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers). I do a pretty half-ass job on my hair about 75% of the time. I never bother with makeup. I like dressing up occasionally, but most of the time, I’m just plain ol’ me.
So our last year before graduating from undergrad, my roommates and I got gussied up and hit 6th Street in Austin, and I went as a sexy cop. Granted, I unsluttied it up a bit by wearing at tank top underneath (there is no way in hell I’d be caught showing that much skin). The basic rules of fashion are to feature one area, meaning don’t go overboard on showing the rest, ya know? So I was covered on top, and the knee-high boots I was wearing weren’t stilettos but thick black heels, but half of my little ass was hanging out. There’s no denying that one.
But you know what? I liked it. I liked doing something completely not me for one night, and I liked that I was able to get completely over my body image hangups for once and rock the hell out of the look.
As I was walking into Little Caesar’s, this man was walking out the door with his box of pizza. I got to the door about a second before he did and held it open for him. He said, “No, that’s okay,” and tried to go out the other door. It was locked. I continued to hold door open, but he refused to go through because, “ladies first.” So he steps back into an extra awkward position (since he had to get his pizza box out of my way and hold the door open from the inside) so that I could get inside.
This all happened within about 7 seconds, and I’m sure the man thought he was doing right by me, but arghhhhhhhh, I hate chivalry!
I really don’t mind if a person (man or woman) is coming out the door and holds it open a second longer so that I can walk in. I also don’t mind if a person takes extra care to help someone who might have trouble opening the door (people carrying a bunch of stuff, pushing strollers, using a walker, etc).
But if you have to contort yourself into strange positions while holding unweildly objects, of if you have to run to the door to get there before I do, or if you flat out refuse to walk through the door no matter how long I stand there holding it just because I have a vagina, then you suck.
