Annie Leibovitz's Vanity Fair cover of Tom Ford, Scarlett Johansson and Keira Knightley might have caused a stir, but one should understand Ford's famous for being manipulative of human bodies (see also Fake but she does it well), and he often poses superior beside (nude) beauties, female or male. Along with all other great cover shots the image only proves again the photographer's appropriate depiction of her subjects. If that's not enough a (feminist) defence for Leibovitz, her own project and book, Women, should speak better for her attitude towards female subjects. Initiated and realised by Susan Sontag and Leibovitz, the photographic documents include "a broad spectrum of subjects: a rap artist, an astronaut, two Supreme Court justices, farmers, coal miners, movie stars, showgirls, rodeo riders, socialites, reporters, dancers, a maid, a general, a surgeon, the First Lady of the United States, the secretary of state, a senator, rock stars, prostitutes, teachers, singers, athletes, poets, writers, painters, musicians, theater directors, political activists, performance artists, and business women". Each from all fields is well and equally represented as a woman, a person for her contribution and simple fact of being. We don't see seducing poses but sincere expressions. We see aging and scars, something that may be forbidden on the female body. We see strong physique and facial hair and women with guns and women in mud. We see women with career. We see women in heroic posture. We're not afraid to see ordinary women. We're not afraid to see women of great beauty. We see women. They can be heterosexual or homosexual. They can be transgendered. They can be of different religions or social groups. They have their lives and relationships. Regardless of occupation, social status or appearance, a brief biography is contributed to every single one of them. The whole book is a record of respect. This website has Sontag's introductory essay, interview with Leibovitz and some images from the book. Please read.
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Miranda July has the right sensitivity to relationship and sexuality to make you the one who belongs.
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"I wonder why men can get serious at all. They have this delicate long thing hanging outside their bodies, which goes up and down by its own will. First of all having it outside your body is terribly dangerous. If I were a man I would have a fantastic castration complex to the point that I wouldn't be able to do a thing. Second, the inconsistency of it, like carrying a chance time alarm or something. If I were a man I would always be laughing at myself. Humour is probably something the male of the species discovered through their own anatomy. But men are so serious. Why? Why violene? Why hatred? Why war? If people want to make war, they should make a colour war, and paint each others city up during the night in pinks and greens. Men have an unusual talent for making a bore out of everything they touch. Art, painting, sculpture, like who wants a cast-iron woman, for instance." - /Grapefruit by Yoko Ono/
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"As children, we're programmed into the limitations of gender distinction: little boys to be fighters, little girls to be pretty and nice. But as we grow older, there's a self-awareness that sees gender as a decision, as something malleable. You can play with the traditional options - dressing up, cruising in cars, the tough posturing - or play against the roles, by displaying your tenderness or toughness to contradict stereotypes. When I was fifteen, the perfect world seemed a place of total androgyny, where you wouldn't know a person's gender until you were in bed with him or her. I've since realized that gender is much deeper than style. Rather than accept gender distinction, the point is to redefine it. Along with playing out clichés, there is the decision to live out the alternatives, even to change one's sex, which to me is the ultimate act of autonomy." - /The Ballad of Sexual Dependency by Nan Goldin/
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The contents speaks fairly enough. /He's a Stud, She's a Slut and 49 Other Double Standards Every Woman Should Know by Jessica Valenti/
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/text on clipping from Discover magazine/ "My Vagina Was My Village", from The Vagina Monologues: My vagina was green, water soft pink fields, cow mooing sun resting sweet boyfriend touching lightly with soft piece of blond straw. There is something between my legs. I do not know what it is. I do not know where it is. I do not touch. Not now. Not anymore. Not since. My vagina was chatty, can't wait, so much, so much saying, words talking, can't quit trying, can't quit saying, oh yes, oh yes. Not since I dream there's a dead animal sewn in down there with thick black fishing line. And the bad dead animal smell cannot be removed. And its throat is slit and it bleeds through all my summer dresses. My vagina singing all girl songs, all goat bells ringing songs, all wild autumn field songs, vagina songs, vagina home songs. Not since the soldiers put a long thick rifle inside me. So cold, the steel road canceling my heart. Don't know whether they're going to fire it or shove it through my spinning brain. Six of them, monstrous doctors with black masks shoving bottles up me too. There were sticks, and the end of a broom. My vagina swimming river water, clean spilling water over sun-baked stones over stone clit, clit stones over and over. Not since I heard the skin tear and made lemon screeching sounds, not since a piece of my vagina came off in my hand, a part of the lip, now one side of the lip is completely gone. My vagina. A live wet water village. My vagina my hometown. Not since they took turns for seven days smelling like feces and smoked meat, they left their dirty sperm inside me. I became a river of poison and pus and all the crops died, and the fish. My vagina a live wet water village. They invaded it. Butchered it and burned it down. I do not touch now. Do not visit. I live someplace else now. I don't know where that is.
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"Why do a play about vaginas?" is a common question to The Vagina Monologues. After watching the play years before I also asked this to myself. Is spreading the message of stopping violence against women and liberating women through a play based on a female private body part necessary? After thinking, I thought, yes, it is necessary. And appropriate. From silence on topics such as rape and sexual abuse to everyday avoidance of mentioning the body part and occurrences to it indicate the lack of preparation for us to confront the problems. Behaviour and speech reflect thoughts. If we cannot speak the word and talk about it, not only the word remains a taboo, but also issues concerned. In this play, vagina represents women, vagina speaks for women. The success of this play at different states and around the world is probably a result of a connection with the biological structure. For women, what we have. For men, what they may be intimate with. The body is universal. It speaks in all languages that people of different types and nations can relate to, despite specific cultural contexts of different stories. Reading the book, I understand more about their (author Eve Ensler, director Karen Obel and student and different parties who support V-Day and spread the words of TVM) intention to make a difference, to clear the ignorance of the subject. /femininity/
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