The feminist utopia?
What do women want? According to one of our favorite female feminism-haters, Laura Grace Robins, it’s sort of a a tossup between the vote and designer purses. But that’s not what women really need — which is a husband. Oh, and milk. Can you remember to get milk?
At least that’s what I think she’s saying. See if you can figure it out from this quote from her post “Remove the Needs.” I have taken the liberty of bolding my favorite bits. Anyway, here’s Ms. Robins’ vision of the modern postfeminist woman:
She may have everything she wants, but not everything she needs. She wants independence, the vote, her own income, etc., but she wants all these things like she wants a designer purse. Underneath it all, it is just for show and what she really needs are the basics; like food, shelter, and a husband. She may have fancy clothes and independence, but it is the needs that nourish. She can deny the needs and focus on wants, but a life purely filled of wants is typically shallow and empty. Feminists have been the advertisers that make us buy into wants instead of our needs. If we know what our needs are then we can walk down the aisle of feminism and not be allured by the glossy packaging of independence and income. I’m not here for the “Starbuck Frappuccino”, but for a gallon of milk.
But what if the woman in question is lactose intolerant? IN YOUR FACE, LAURA GRACE!
Also, I’m wondering what exactly a “Starbuck Frappuccino” is. I would love to have a Frappuccino with Starbuck. Either one, actually.
Starbucks
Ms. Robins concludes:
Now most women live hollow lives filled with closets full of shoes and purses, while homes are empty of husbands and children.
I think that, like a lot of the people I write about on this blog, Laura Grace Robins has confused reality with Sex and the City.
The show ended nearly a decade ago! At least get a current TV show to confuse reality with!
Bummer!
I thought I’d seen your name before – have you had your welcome package?
Those bags look really nice, I like the bicoloured ones especially. I can imagine how strong they’d be. Recycling seat belts is a great idea.
Delurk moar!
Also, historophilia, HI, good to see you again. 🙂
Wow, this is a gorgeous pack, though I bet it weighs a ton … but at $435, I’m not going to be finding out!
http://www.uptherestore.com/blog/uptherestore/2013/08/epperson-mountaineering-all-leather-day-packs
Kitteh — give timbuk2 a look. The bike messengers in Pittsburgh all use their stuff, and I carry one of their smaller messenger bags. Yes, it’s a bit on the expensive side, but they’re solid — add $30 to the price of whatever you look at,
it’ sphericalit’s their international shipping fee. (Seriously autocorrect?)In other things, I’m not allowed to watch the Doctor Who special. Don’t grumble, it’s okay, see, I’m not allowed to watch it because my mother won’t be home from work until it’s almost over and we’re DVR’ing it. So I just have to be patient and wait (now, if she decides she isn’t staying up until 11 to watch it tonight, THEN I’ll grumble!)
That looks super strong!
Another idea is to check out a military surplus store. I don’t know if you have them in Australia, but in the US, most big cities, and even some smaller ones have stores that sell used or old military gear, including backpacks. I got my hiking/traveling backpack from one. A comparable backpack would have cost $200-300 and I got it for $60!
I haven’t personally got a welcome package, but I have definitely peeked in on other people’s!
Kitteh — http://www.timbuk2.com/tb2/customizer#!/product/13-custom-swig-laptop-backpack/size/3/customize
That one should be big enough, and comfy. Expensive side, for sure, but their shit really does take a beating. (And, idk if it’s just mine, but doesn’t seem to collect cat fur!)
OT: more economic nonsense from his truly: http://www.the-spearhead.com/2013/11/21/a-reminder-on-commenting/#comment-201415
…I didn’t realize the kitty purse was photoshopped. I thought it was a real purse on offer somewhere, and that my cat-behaviourist friend would love it, even though she’s not a tween.
Anecdote time: A lady I used to babysit for when I was in high school told me about a friend of hers whose husband ran the household: he controlled the money, paid the bills, made all the decisions. She kept house, took care of the kids, and cooked and grocery shopped. When she needed clothes, they went shopping together so he could have the final say on the clothes she bought. And then he got very, very sick (I’m thinking a stroke, but I don’t remember for sure) and he was pretty much helpless for a couple of years. She had to learn to do everything. As he recovered, he wanted the control back, but she was liking her sense of accomplishment and independence.
I don’t remember how the story ended (or if I ever heard that part), but it horrified me. When a girl in my school let it be known that she was getting married right after graduation, it just didn’t compute for me. What about university? What about starting your career? I understand it better now, but it still makes me uneasy. Independence. Life skills. They’re important, for everybody.
Most expensive thing I bought with my own money: my iPod.
Me buying four bras is pretty high up there as a group, but individually they were $40-$60 each, so that doesn’t count.
Most expensive thing I own (thanks to the Bank of Mom and Dad): my laptop.
One Welcome Package!
Hahah, oh boy. Second most expensive thing I bought myself? My fluval. A fish tank filter. ENTIRELY WORTH IT.
My printer and boots, and then everything else over $100 was textbooks I think.
(Who’s surprised and my most expensive purchases are electronics and fish related? XD )
cloudiah: It’s OK. I’m a little put out by the vibe that spending that kind of money on a purse is a frivolous girl thing, and then everyone listing all the SUPER USEFUL things they’ve spent money on. Because it seems that as a woman, you must only spend money on useful shit.
Again, it’s OK, I’m not loving the vibe, but that’s my thing.
Lurkerina – yup, we have Aussie Disposals, our army surplus store. I was checking their website yesterday. There are a lot of outdoor shops in the CBD. Most of the packs I’ve seen are too huge (I have a 40L one for going on holiday, I don’t need anything that big) or, if they’re in the women’s range, just fugly. Come to that a lot of ’em are fugly. 😛
That’s OK, I’ve always wanted a Stephen Sprouse LV bag, and LV bags are generally not my bag.
http://www.luxuryexchange.com/shop/louis-vuitton/authentic-louis-vuitton-stephen-sprouse-roses-speedy-30-bag/prod_4425.html
Good point. A friend of mine once spent a couple of hundred dollars on Gucci sunglasses, just because they were fun. And she could, and it wasn’t anybody else’s business what she spent her money on, and she didn’t have to justify it.
But we all heard about her spendthrift ways anyway, for weeks afterward.
Thinking about it more, it’s really bugging me that people feel so free to audit other people’s purchases. I do it myself, and I can’t seem to stop it. And it’s the kind of attitude that leads to things like thinking it’s perfectly reasonable to demand that people submit to drug testing before letting them access social support services. Guh.
Oh my boots are the opposite of practical! And would’ve topped everything but the mac had I not gotten them on clearance. I just know how to shop 🙂 (or my toys were gifts — my violin and iPad come to nearly a grand combined, but they were gifts, a $400 electric violin is certainly not a super useful thing!)
hellkell – that’s interesting, I didn’t get the useful/frivolous vibe so much as the “that purse cost how much?” thing – it wasn’t the frivolity, it was the price, to me. My overseas trips are pretty darn frivolous but they cost less, at least the plane tickets did.
“I’m not here for the ‘Starbuck Frappuccino’, but for a gallon of milk.”
Yeah, but you can drink a Starbucks Frappuccino in one sitting. Try that with a gallon of milk.
Oh, fellow iDevice owners, there’s a dumb ways to die game!
Unimaginative: Be a person of color and it’s a whole other gross layer of auditing. I don’t know if you’ve heard about Barney’s recent racial profiling problem in NYC, but don’t read the comments on any news story about it.
There was an article, maybe on Raw Story, can’t recall, about how the great fear among many USian women is that they’ll end up homeless, “bag ladies”. I wonder if that plays into it when women criticise other women buying pricey not-serious stuff?
OK, so we already know I have no taste because I like knuckleduster purses, but guess what I found today while we getting Christmas lights? LEOPARD PRINT ornaments for mah pink tree. Barbie’s goin’ to Vegas for Christmas this year, y’all.
Argenti – Dumb Ways to Die comes from our railways, it’s trying to remind people that crossing rail tracks and so on are also dumb ways to die. The posters are all over the place here. 🙂
I hope there’s going to be a photo of Biscuit playing with leopard-print ornaments!
He is not allowed near the tree, but I’ll post pics when we put it up.
Argenti – Wait, there is? I WANT TO SEE THIS.
hellkell – Oops. I’m sorry. 🙁
For my part, usually if I’m buying frivolous things it’s like green tea ice cream. It’s not that I don’t like fancy purses or anything like that (hey, I’d totally go for a new iPod, even though my current one works perfectly well!), but I’m used to going without it. >_>
Also, fuck you Barney’s for the racial profiling shit.
I would TOTALLY decorate my house like that because that shit’s gonna screw up some perspective.
Frivolous shit is awesome if you enjoy it. I have several pairs of absolutely impractical shoes as well as several (expensive to me) cocktail dresses. I never go to cocktail parties. I have absolutely no where to wear them to.
Thanks for the Welcome Package! I tried making a kitty avatar, but alas, I have forgotten my password for this account. We’ll see if I can remember it.
As for military bags, I’ve found some of the historical men’s styles to be quite cute. But stock is extremely variable at those types of stores – you never know what you’re going to get.
Alice: I’ve always said that if I were going to become a shoplifter, I’d make Barney’s ground zero for that shit. I was going to buy some ridiculously expensive shoes for my wedding, so I went there to get ideas and try stuff on. I must not have looked rich enough that day, because I could have set myself on fire before anyone came over to me–I was striahgt-up ignored. So I took my happy ass across the street to the Nordstrom flagship store, where they were more than willing, able and happy to show me styles and let me try on anything. I ended up not wearing shoes at all, but the moral of the story: FUCK BARNEY’S.
I saw a young woman wearing a vintage cocktail dress the other day – black, long sleeves, covered in black sequins, and with a bit of heavy cream lace at the neckline. She had it on with heavy ankle boots (not as chunky as Doc Martens but similar) and a narrow red belt and looked marvellous.
At the moment, airfares aside, my frivolous expenditure would have to be on yarn. It costs a lot to make a jumper or long jacket, even if you’re buying cheap yarn, and most yarn here is anything but. Sixteen balls of fifteen dollar yarn – there’s no way I’d spend $240 bucks on knitwear from a shop.
I don’t understand why they are called designer bags. All the bags ever made were designed before they were manufactured. It is like they are trying to imply some uniquitude that simply does not exist.
These could be fun to design your own: http://www.dharmatrading.com/clothing/purses-bags-and-totes.html?lnav=clothing.html
I’ve been reading a lot of Existing While Non-White stories lately. I don’t know if more incidents are happening, or if they’re just getting more exposure, but they’re making me seriously queasy. What kind of bullshit do you have to surround yourself with to make it seem reasonable to shoot a teenage girl in the face for having the gall to knock on your door for help after a car accident? And why on earth would you choose that bullshit? Fuck.
hellkell – gf and I went to a Nordstrom’s last time I was in LA. We sneaked in the back door ‘cos there was a small labour protest out the front. We weren’t going to spend anything, just grot up their store with our plebeian selves. Didn’t quite work, ‘cos they were nice to us. 😛
Unimaginative – or tasering a handcuffed teenager in the face for supposedly trying to escape. He wasn’t exactly a dangerous criminal, he’d been arrested for shoplifting at Walmart, ferchrissakes.
kittehs – Nordstrom is filled with nice people. They’re really helpful to everyone, even to a poor college student who needed to buy new bras.
Also, I think it’s partially because of more exposure (this shit wouldn’t have been reported a few decades ago, for example), and partially because people are fucking assholes.
Nordstrom, especially on the West coast, is famous for being nice, no matter how plebe you are.
We have a Nordstrom’s Rack (= outlet) near my house. I like going there for shoes. Most of the time, the only time I set food in Nordstrom’s proper is to return whatever my aunt bought me for Christmas. She has impeccable taste, but it never fits–my boobs usually get in the way.
My sister is the shoe hound in the family. I always think about all books/yarn/loom toys I could be buying for the same amount of money, which is frankly even more… um… frivolous, since at least you can wear shoes. Though I guess I also can wear my sweaters/scarves/bags/socks, etc…
Okay, yeah, clothes. Why do people make clothes that fit only one kind of woman, and then they shrink it or expand it as needed to get the different sizes? It’s hard for me to find a long-sleeved shirt that fits me, because either the bodice is perfect but the sleeves are too long, or the sleeves are just right the bodice isn’t.
Oh, God, Alice Sanguinaria, you have released a monster.
Bras. Oh, God. Bras.
I’ve been poking around the lingerie-sphere (does it have a name?), which I highly recommend, and what a lot of the bloggers are claiming is that the manufacturer’s suggested method of measurement is absolutely wrong and designed to keep as many women as possible in as narrow a range of sizes as possible, and that most women wear bras that are too big in the band and too small in the cup.
I mean, there was one store I went to that I swear did not carry any cup sizes larger than a C–which I believe cuts out at least 50% of women.
Which includes me. The last bra I bought–and the one that fits me the best–is a G cup. The only bra that my go-to store/brand (Soma) makes in a G cup. It itches like nobodies business, but it fits. I’ve been getting better, though–in fifth grade I decided I was a 34 C and kept believing that until the end of high school, when I realized that I was a 32D. It’s been going up from there. (It doesn’t help that my weight has increased and I think it goes to my boobs first)
So I am stuck buying online from companies that I’ve never tried before who can’t agree on a size scheme and then dealing with shipping delay and returns because I can’t find a store in town that sells my size. And I’m big, but I’m not that big.
My purse was all of $15 because I don’t want to spend lots of money on something I put through that much abuse and ruin within a year. When I want to spend money on frivolous stuff I get more corsets, for a decent off the rack it’s minimum $100. A whole lot more if I want custom fit.
@Noadi,
I’ve been thinking of trying out corsets (see above re: bras). Do you have recommendations for a nice off-the-rack brand/style?
Let’s see if this works!
And, to add to the discussion – Alice I totally agree! I find super cute dresses and tops and can usually immediately tell that they won’t work on me. ‘Designated Boob Pockets’ are not the busty person’s friend.
wordsp1nner – AHHHHHH, I know! Just clothes in general — they only fit like one type of woman, with the proportions that THEY want. WHYYYYYY.
I’m glad that I don’t plan to buy jeans anytime soon, because that too is going to be so difficult to find. Why do they presume that the person wearing them is like 5’6″? >:(
I read that, auggziliary. I wondered if you asked the people who hold both those opinions to justify them what they’d say. They can’t use free speech, for clear reasons. I can’t help but think they’d either try to argue that the confederate flag is not racist (LOL no) or that teh ghey is worse than racism (also LOL no).
Yay! I’m a kitty!
As to bras – Nordstroms. They are the only place I’ve found that carries my size in store. For reference, I’m currently a 34G, but used to be a 32FF before I gained a ton of weight. I go in there, get sized and try on a bunch of different brands. I make note of the ones I like and buy just one bra (like a sports bra, they aren’t much cheaper online) and then I go buy the rest online. BraStop.com is great. But you definitely need to know which brand and style you like.
Oh, Nordstroms carries big bras? I did not know that–I only knew that Macy’s didn’t even carry 32DD. I will now be going to Nordstroms more.
Or the rack.
lurkerina – Yay you have a kitty now!
I don’t have a big bust, but seriously, there’s way too many clothes that presume that a woman has a huge ass bust. WTF?
Yeah – Nordstroms carries a huge range of sizes, the only place I’ve found that does.
Alice – yay kitty!
And I think there is some mystical middle that clothes manufacturers go for – way too big for the small busted people, but way too small for the big busted. I’ve never found a button up shirt I can wear without pinning it closed. They should make clothes for different body shapes, not just different body sizes.
Though considering how poorly they do that…
Addendum – Huge ass bust to me, at least. In my perspective, a good number of clothes presume women to have WAY bigger busts than me. If I tried wearing them, no matter how cute they are, it never looks right. >:(