Standard Issue Hag-Mag
Yesssss. A fourteen year old on the cover, eyes Photoshopped so far apart she seems to have fetal-alcohol syndrome, thighs the size of my arms, and plenty of idiotic headers surrounding her (The earring makes a comeback!). Yesterday, I bought my hag-mag for the year, wondering if fashion had finally gotten the word on rich-is-no-longer-in-style and being someone's arm candy is out. I can safely report a resounding No! What's between the covers are tight skirts and five inch heels, all the better to cripple you, my dear, and blouses that cost $1,600.
One of the most depressing parts of The Second Sex by Simone DeBeauvoir, written in 1949, is a chapter where she exhaustingly iterates all the work that goes into the acceptable female appearance: the mending, the hand-washing, the shaving, the trimming, the plucking, the curling. DeBeauvoir listed all that crap sixty years ago and I just spent three hours today, doing exactly the same stuff. Of course, the argument could be made that I chose to do this. The second wave of feminism certainly gave me the right and freedom to go about my business with hairy legs, a furry upper lip and Frida Kahlo eyebrows, while smelling like a wet dog. But having seen the societal acceptance of women who actually did this, I "choose" not to.
Anyhow, my quarrel is with a consumer culture that creates images which, in turn, foster a lifestyle that would be sustainable only if we had four more planet earths just for us ugly, overweight, fur-draped, Manalo Blanik-wearing, beef-eating Americans. Of which, hag-mags are only symptomatic.
I once counseled a younger woman about life choices, on an on-going basis. She had a college degree but seemed addicted to low-bottom office jobs. One night, she called me to report that she'd managed not to put a $2,600 designer suit on her credit card, but now she was weakening. It was a good investment she told me. No, I told her, it was not. Owning a suit like that would just make all her other clothes look like shit. She would be left with only unenviable choices. One, she could wear her fancy suit every day of her life. Two, she could wear her fancy suit only on the fanciest of occasions and be seen by perhaps twelve people, tops. Three, she could bankrupt herself getting the rest of her wardrobe up to snuff. She had already declared bankruptcy once. Why was she even thinking of charging this suit? Was she high?
No, she wasn't high. She was a hag-mag freak, who had tranced herself into believing that she was supposed to be wearing haut-couture clothes. And the belief that haut-couture was accessible to an eight dollar an hour office worker is a direct spin-off of a greed-head culture, that was never a reality.
And that's why I'm pissed at free-market Republicans tonight.
Makes sense to me.
One of the most depressing parts of The Second Sex by Simone DeBeauvoir, written in 1949, is a chapter where she exhaustingly iterates all the work that goes into the acceptable female appearance: the mending, the hand-washing, the shaving, the trimming, the plucking, the curling. DeBeauvoir listed all that crap sixty years ago and I just spent three hours today, doing exactly the same stuff. Of course, the argument could be made that I chose to do this. The second wave of feminism certainly gave me the right and freedom to go about my business with hairy legs, a furry upper lip and Frida Kahlo eyebrows, while smelling like a wet dog. But having seen the societal acceptance of women who actually did this, I "choose" not to.
Anyhow, my quarrel is with a consumer culture that creates images which, in turn, foster a lifestyle that would be sustainable only if we had four more planet earths just for us ugly, overweight, fur-draped, Manalo Blanik-wearing, beef-eating Americans. Of which, hag-mags are only symptomatic.
I once counseled a younger woman about life choices, on an on-going basis. She had a college degree but seemed addicted to low-bottom office jobs. One night, she called me to report that she'd managed not to put a $2,600 designer suit on her credit card, but now she was weakening. It was a good investment she told me. No, I told her, it was not. Owning a suit like that would just make all her other clothes look like shit. She would be left with only unenviable choices. One, she could wear her fancy suit every day of her life. Two, she could wear her fancy suit only on the fanciest of occasions and be seen by perhaps twelve people, tops. Three, she could bankrupt herself getting the rest of her wardrobe up to snuff. She had already declared bankruptcy once. Why was she even thinking of charging this suit? Was she high?
No, she wasn't high. She was a hag-mag freak, who had tranced herself into believing that she was supposed to be wearing haut-couture clothes. And the belief that haut-couture was accessible to an eight dollar an hour office worker is a direct spin-off of a greed-head culture, that was never a reality.
And that's why I'm pissed at free-market Republicans tonight.
Makes sense to me.
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