In all things it is the beginnings and ends that are interesting. Does the love between men and women refer only to the moments when they are in each other’s arms? The man who grieves over a love affair broken off before it was fulfilled, who bewails empty vows, who spends long autumn nights alone, who lets his thoughts wander to distant skies, who yearns for the past in his dilapidated house—such a man truly knows what love means.
—Yoshida Kenko - Essays In Idleness
This meme has been going around the internet and I take HUUUUUGE issue with it.
Here’s why:
This photo isn’t taking into consideration genetics, socioeconomic upbringing, or PROFESSIONAL HAIR & MAKEUP. I could show you a lot of 51 year old women who eat “meat, butter, and desserts” who don’t look like Nigellea. The the same is true for Gillian.It is irresponsible to vilify a health conscious woman simply because, without a professional makeup team, she’s not as conventionally attractive as some TV host in a ballgown. This comparing of apples to oranges is reinforcing an unhealthy stereotype and is damaging to the female image.
Consider this thought: Both women are beautiful.
Some may say (mostly those that are uneducated about nutrition and wellness) that colonics, detoxing, and ‘depriving yourself of food pleasures’ is extreme.
I’d argue that coronary bypass surgery is more “extreme” than a colonic. And that eating hormone injected, tortured, and genetically modified franken-foods is more “extreme” than chewing on a piece of organic celery.
Dont get me wrong, I think advances in surgical medicine are wonderful and revolutionary and save lives. But the concious lifestyle that leads someone to the point where they require such surgeries for survival is far more extreme than simply encouraging a healthy diet of whole foods and wellness.
Personally, I’d take a colonic and a salad over an expensive potentially life threatening surgical procedure that requires a vein to be removed from my leg and implanted into my heart ANY DAY.Before you accuse me of being preachy, I DO think people should eat what they want without judgment. But they also have a right to know WHAT they’re eating and HOW it affects them and their environment then make educated choices based on that information.
I take issue with this post because it’s passing judgement on someone’s lifestyle based entirely on false and superficial standards. These photos have been specifically chosen and doctored to support an unfair argument.
It’s like saying “Here’s a picture of someone covered in dirt who dances funny and here’s a picture of someone fresh out of the shower with a new haircut who murders people. So obviously murdering is good. I REST MY CASE.”
The elements of propaganda at work in this photo NEED TO BE RECOGNIZED and the social ramifications of passing judgment on someone and their lifestyle based solely on one unflattering or flattering photo needs to be considered and taken seriously.
I think as women (moreover as HUMANS) we need to stick together and perpetuate an environment of love and acceptance. Not cut someone down and write them off because they took a bad picture.
Personally, I would hate to be held up and judged by these standards. The fact remains that no one looks as beautiful as that picture of Nigellea all the time. NOT EVEN NIGELLEA. Even so, does that make her any better or worse than Gillian?
As women we have a responsibility to each other to recognize oppression or discrimination in our own gender and stand up for ALL people whether ugly, pretty, fat, or skinny.
This struck me as more than a funny jab at a holistic lifestyle. It’s an unprovoked threat to the conventions of beauty. It’s reinforcing the idea that because someone is more attractive they’re obviously better/smarter/correct. And feeding a status quo that is ultimately keeping all of us oppressed by unrealistic standards.
It’s unfair and I can’t stay quiet any longer.
“If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.”Don’t create pedestals on the backs of others.
Create love & perpetuate tolerance.
We’ve all gotta live together, why not make it as enjoyable as we can FOR EVERYONE.Love,
Tayler
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Notebooks ★
- Days of this February were white and magical, the nights were starry and crystalline. The town lay under a cold glory.
- Dyed Siberian horse.
- As thin as a repeated dream.
- The sea was coming up in little intimidating rushes.
- The island floated, a boat becalmed, upon the almost perceptible…
Robert Montgomery, you guys.
“We have to stop CONSUMING our culture. We have to CREATE culture. DON’T watch TV, DON’T read magazines, don’t even listen to NPR. Create your OWN roadshow. The nexus of space and time where you are — NOW — is the most immediate sector of your universe. And if you’re worrying about Michael Jackson or Bill Clinton or somebody else, then you are disempowered. You’re giving it all away to ICONS. Icons which are maintained by an electronic media so that, you want to dress like X or have lips like Y… This is shit-brained, this kind of thinking. That is all cultural diversion. What is real is you, and your friends, your associations, your highs, your orgasms, your hopes, your plans, your fears. And, we are told No, you’re unimportant, you’re peripheral — get a degree, get a job, get a this, get that, and then you’re a player. You don’t even want to play that game. You want to reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that’s being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world.”
Peebles got PHOTOBOMBED
Reblog to stand in solidarity against SOPA then get off the internet for all of Jan 18. www.sopastrike.com
Authors and actors and artists and such
Never know nothing, and never know much.
Sculptors and singers and those of their kidney
Tell their affairs from Seattle to Sydney.
Playwrights and poets and such horses’ necks
Start off from anywhere, end up at sex.
Diarists, critics, and similar roe
Never say nothing, and never say no.
People Who Do Things exceed my endurance;
God, for a man that solicits insurance!
—Bohemia by Dorothy Parker
Don’t you wanna hear the story of how Vaudeville Etiquette got it’s name? I just told it over on our tumblr.
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