Woman of Steele

No really though, BITCH, PLEASE?!  Somehow I ended up on Vanity Fair’s website tonight.  To be fair, there’s a lot I love about VF (see, I even used a pet name).  I wish I could tell you I first learned about the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) in The Economist, but alas, I read the Sebastian Junger piece on a flight back to college in Colorado.  As a Human Geography major, I learned the nuances, governmentality and the involvement of Shell Oil in civilian deaths, most strikingly the hanging of Ken Saro-Wiwa, in lecture halls later that year, but still, you get my point.

Honestly I’m not even sure how I ended up on VF tonight. I think something on Facebook led me to go to IMDB which led me to go to Vanity Fair; oh the interweb!  You are truly charming.

And that’s when I found it.  A photo essay of famous bodies on beaches; did you catch that from the title, did you catch my snark?!  I don’t expect much from VF in this sense, and yes, almost all these bodies are equally freakishly genetically perfect, but what bothers me is that men are allowed some leeway, and women, NONE.  Not one little bit.  Yes, there’s Brad Pitt and Johnny Depp, and male models, but there’s also Jonah Hill, a young Tom Hanks, and Borat, aka Sacha Baron Cohen, who is really handsome, but not in character as Borat, okay?  

There is not one woman who deviates from the Hollywood mold; the closest the magazine comes is a picture of female professional surfers, all gorgeous, and who all certainly deserve to be lauded for their athletic ability and increased prowess in a male dominated arena.  The second closest is a picture of Hillary Swank, as the presence of her muscles differentiate her from the waifs that also made up this year’s Young Hollywood issue, which Jezebel noted was dominated by white, mostly blonde, um, waifs, photographed here two years ago in tight, white, corset dresses (virginal anyone?).  Look, I get it, people like looking at pretty pictures of pretty people on beaches, but where’s the female Jonah Hill or Tom Hanks?  In its stead, we have Paris Hilton’s boob.  I will give VF props for the Christy Turlington shot as the fomer model champions women’s healthcare in the developing world, yet they didn’t link her picture to an article and photographed her in…wait for it…wet, tight, white clothing!  More funny women, or at least one woman in non-revealing clothing aka Tom Hanks, and less models, models, and more models.  Like I said, nothing that hasn’t been said before, but that’s not going to stop me from saying it again. 

In other news, eating disorders are on the rise.

Someone put Jonah Hill on the Amanda Seyfried Raw Food Diet. Gah!

As you can see these shorts say Steel on them. ZOMG!  I had to have them.  Unfortunately (or fortunately if you ask my bank account), they hurt my ribs and gave me a really awesome camel toe.  You win some you lose some.

Emily Gould has started a first tattoo story contest, and I may be late for the party, as well as too long-winded, but I’m forging ahead.  This is the story of a 22-year-old girl and her first (and only) tattoo, a lotus flower.  My parents have always hated tattoos, and while it may not have always seemed that way, I respect them and rebellious as I was, I avoided thinking about or wanting a tattoo (did I respect them enough not get my tongue pierced at 16, ear cartilage at 18, and eyebrow at 20?  Well no, but piercings come out.  They all are now, in fact). 

The lotus is ubiquitous in Buddhism, Hinduism, and yogic tradition, but I had been practicing yoga for almost a year before I found out that the lotus flower blooms in the mud.  I immediately knew that I wanted a lotus tattoo.  I feel like I’ve been through a lot in my life (privileged as its’ been). By 18 I’d survived an eating disorder and a date rape, which are honestly stuff that way too many women and girls have to deal with.   But at the time I heard about the lotus, I’d just come out of a very emotionally unstable and verbally abusive relationship.  I don’t think I would I have left my boyfriend when I did if not for the strength I learned through yoga (I think I broke up with him the day after I first held myself up in side plank ironically).  Yoga gave me back to myself, but that’s a different post.  When I heard the lotus bloomed in the mud, I thought, yeah, I did too.  I’ve been dragged through the mud, stuck in shit, and I came out the other side, a beautiful, strong person.  I held off on getting the tattoo though.  I thought it would be respectful to wait until I could financially support myself to get one (I’d still be waiting if that were the case, as my parents still help me out quite a bit—that said, I’m no trust fund baby, and I need a job, you got one for me?).  But then something happened.

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