Tobi Vail has released a song called Free Pussy Riot in solidarity with Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich, the three jailed members of Pussy Riot who are currently serving two years in prison for performing an anti-Putin song in a Moscow church. Pussy Riot is an anonymous feminist punk collective who play unsanctioned concerts as a means of political protest. Pussy Riot started in Moscow but chapters are forming internationally in solidarity with group members'unjust imprisonment and continued state harassment.
Inspired by Free John Sinclair by John and Yoko, Free Pussy Riot was
written for Tobi's recent performance at Primera Persona at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona. Tobi continues to play Free Pussy Riot in her solo set, recently performing it live backed by The Pussy Riot Olympia Solidarity Band at Kitzel's Deli in Olympia, WA as part of an event held to rally international awareness and support for the Russian group. Pussy Riot Olympia videos can be viewed via Tobi's youtube
channel
On October 10 Pussy Riot's appeal will be heard by a Russian court. To
quote from Tobi's solidarity statement she reads at the end of
her song:
Pussy Riot is organizing in Moscow but the struggle for
self-determination of women, LGBTQ rights, gender justice and
political transparency is an international one. 'Death to Prison,
Freedom to Protest' Free Pussy Riot!
Photo by Sara Peté taken Live at Kitzel's Deli on Friday September 14, 2012
Free Pussy Riot was written by Tobi Vail in collaboration with Pussy
Riot Olympia agitator Henri Riot & New York based artist Amy Yao. Tobi Vail plays lead guitar & sings, Henri Riot plays bass & sings, Wild Man James (Spider and the Webs) plays guitar, Kanako Pooknyw (Broken Water) plays drums & sings and Bongo Randy (Spider and the Webs, The Family Stoned) plays percussion. The song was recorded by Dave Harvey.
I don't know if you will get this message but I want to write and say Happy Birthday from all of the (old and new) riot grrls and punks in Olympia, WA (who now live all over). We are thinking about you today and have been trying to figure out a way to support you through solidarity work and talking to the press.
I read your statement this morning in English and watched it live in Russian on the internet at 2am. It is incredibly articulate and clear. If anything this trial and your arrest are giving people in the west an education about Russian history, politics and culture.
It is tricky to give words of support without perpetuating the idea that the US is somehow superior to Russia. I disagree that our society is free. Our criminal justice system is racist, classist and punitive. We have one of the biggest prison systems in the history of the world. The death penalty is legal here. People of color are discriminated against and oppressed by the prison industrial complex. There is a prison abolition movement here, which I support.
Also, as I wrote about in my statement, sexism and sexist oppression exist here as does homophobia and heterosexism - so more than not - I feel we have a common struggle. It is terrible that you are in prison but your unjust imprisonment creates a moral basis for international solidarity. I hope this means the struggle will grow into an international one.
Happy Birthday Katya, we are thinking of you today and hope you will be set free.
“Under Putin we are up for another decade of brutal sexism and conformism as official government policies” -Tyura, Pussy Riot
At the end of 2011, Pussy Riot, a Moscow-based punk feminist collective, performed an illegal show on top of a building at a detention center where political prisoners were being held after participating in an unsanctioned protest of the recent election. Pussy Riot set off flares, hung a banner and sang their song calling for "Death to Prison/Freedom to Protest". This action was videotaped, eventually receiving over 60,000 views on youtube. In a later interview they named this as one of their favorite actions so far, explaining that, "Political detainees could see us from inside their prison cells and they chanted and cheered while we sang." They also claimed that the unit was put on lockdown afterwards because officials didn't know what to do when they realized they couldn't stop Pussy Riot from playing and feared they were about to takeover the prison.
In that same interview Pussy Riot discuss what would happen to them if they were imprisoned, suggesting that their anonymity insulates them as a group, regardless of what happens to them as individuals:
“We have nothing to worry about, because if the repressive Putinist police crooks throw one of us in prison, five, ten fifteen or more girls will put on colorful balaclavas and continue the fight against their symbols of power.”
In early March, just a few days before Putin's re-election, three women believed to be members of Pussy Riot were jailed for allegedly taking part in a "punk prayer" organized by the group at the largest cathedral in Moscow. This action took place on February 21, 2012 culminating in a videotaped performance of a song called Holy Shit. If internet translations can be believed, the song comments on the Russian Orthodox Church's ties to Vladimir Putin, comically calling on the Virgin Mary to become a feminist and join the movement to kick Putin out of office. The lyrics also point out the church's anti-gay, conservative agenda. One line states that "The ghost of freedom is in heaven, gay pride sent to Siberia in chains" another says "In order not to offend the Holy/ women have to give birth and love".
In my reading of this action, Pussy Riot were protesting the political agenda of the church and using humor, performance art and creative protest to call into question the relationship between the church and state in Russian society. The fact that three women allegedly involved were arrested and have been held without trial for the past month and a half shows that this action is considered a threat to the status quo in Russia. This story has remained in the news for several months, forcing a conversation about the role of religion in Russian politics and captivating the attention of an international audience.
Pussy Riot are organizing in Moscow but the struggle for the self-determination of women, LGBTQ rights, gender justice and political transparency is an international one. What can feminists living in other parts of the world do to show our solidarity with Pussy Riot? In thinking about this question, I want to think draw attention to what we have in common. Russia is still demonized in the west and I don't want my statement in support of Pussy Riot to feed into the post-cold war dichotomy of Russia=repression, USA=freedom.
I live in Olympia, WA. Thinking about Pussy Riot makes me want to tell people that there is a struggle against sexism and sexist oppression here. I am harassed on the street regularly by men I don't know. Men in my community are sexist towards women in my community. There is a struggle for access to birth control and abortion here. A local pharmacy refuses to carry Plan B, a legal form of birth control, because they believe that it violates their religious beliefs, which resulted in an organized boycott that led to a lawsuit that is currently in the federal court of appeals. In 2005, The Eastside Women's Clinic clinic was a victim of arson and subsequently denied insurance coverage, which led them to stop performing abortions. Today women who go to Planned Parenthood have to walk past anti-abortion right wing Christians who call women whores for going to the doctor. Sexual violence happens here and women who are raped do not have a criminal justice system that supports them nor does a viable alternative to the prison-industrial complex exist. Women don't have access to affordable childcare, healthcare, equal pay for equal work or wages for housework. Welfare and social services have been cut. Unfortunately this is just the beginning of a very long list.
I really like the fact that Pussy Riot are artists addressing political issues in the symbolic realm. I want to support them in this fight. They have invited us to join them; in their own words:
"Pussy Riot has to keep on expanding. That's one of the reasons we choose to always wear balaclavas—new members can join the bunch and it does not really matter who takes part in the next act—there can be three of us or eight, like in our last gig on the Red Square, or even 15. Pussy Riot is a pulsating and growing body. Do you know anyone who wants to come to Moscow, play illegal concerts, and help us fight Putin and Russian chauvinists? Or maybe they could start their own local Pussy Riot, if Russia is too cold and too far."
We are all Pussy Riot. April 15, April 19 and April 21 have been named days of action. Go to FREEPUSSYRIOT.ORG for more information. Death to Prison, Freedom to Protest!
Death to Prison, Freedom to Protest! Death to Prison, Freedom to Protest! Free Pussy Riot! Free Pussy Riot! Free Pussy Riot!
Go here to read an article I wrote about them for eMusic
April 19th, the day of the trial is the action day to show your real support and solidarity with the Pussy Riot and their three alleged members unfairly jailed in Moscow !
Take Action and Make Noise:
- protest in front of Russian Embassy in your country - phone Russian Government - call press - wear your balaclavas - organize a gig - post on FB / Youtube / Twitter - send solidarity letters - donate
Join Our Protest and Demand Immediate Release of Maria, Nadezhda and Ekaterina !
Those who support the dispensing of Plan B say it is a high dose of the ingredients of a birth-control pill that greatly reduces the chance of pregnancy if ingested by a woman within 72 hours of unprotected sex. The Food and Drug Administration in 2009 ordered that it be available over the counter for teens as young as 17, but with prescriptions for those who are younger.
The FDA also says the medication does not affect existing pregnancies, unlike the RU-486 drug, but that the medication might act to prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the womb.
This is poorly worded and misleading. As I noted in an earlier article (written in 2006 for a class I was taking and posted online in 2009), once again, science is being framed by "pro-life" ideology in our local newspaper.
The Olympian says "those who support the dispensing of Plan B say" it works like regular birth control pills. This is not a matter of debate. This is the established medical explanation of how the drug actually works. It is a form of contraception. It is not an abortion pill. This article makes it sound like the scientific definition of medicine is subjective. Consult the World Health Organization, the FDA, the CDC and current peer-reviewed medical journals for a more objective account. If you are anti-Plan B, you logically should be anti-birth control pill, it works the same way.
Finally, Plan B will not work if you are already pregnant when you take it. Medical research does not back the claim that it will effect a fertilized egg that has been implanted. Plan B is a legal form of birth control. It is not an abortion pill.
If you believe pregnancy starts when an egg is fertilized (not when a fertilized egg is implanted in the womb) and this is a moral issue for you then, based on a scientific understanding of how emergency contraception works, your objection to the use of Plan B should probably extend to the use of regular birth control pills and *possibly* IUD's.
To make an informed choice, women must know that ECPs—like all regular hormonal contraceptives such as the birth control pill, the implant Implanon, the vaginal ring NuvaRing, the Evra patch, and the injectable Depo-Provera,41 and even breastfeeding42,43,44,45— prevent pregnancy primarily by delaying or inhibiting ovulation and inhibiting fertilization, but may at times inhibit implantation of a fertilized egg in the endometrium. At the same time, however, all women should be informed that the best available evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that levonorgestrel and ulipristal acetate ECPs’ ability to prevent pregnancy can be fully accounted for by mechanisms that do not involve interference with post-fertilization events.
Emergency contraceptive pills will not cause an abortion. EC is not the same as the abortion pill. There is no time when the emergency contraceptive pills available in the United States would end a pregnancy once it has started. Hormonal emergency contraceptive pills don’t have any effect if you are already pregnant. If you decide to use an IUD for emergency contraception, your health care provider would test you first to confirm you are not already pregnant.
It will be interesting to see what happens with this case. It is likely to go to the Supreme Court. I have not been able to shop at my neighborhood grocery store for over five years because I support the boycott. This is something that impacts me on a daily basis.
Here is some more info I gathered in my research on Plan B back in 2006:
The right wing campaign against Plan B is anti-birth control not just anti-abortion. They specifically see Plan B as immoral because they are worried it will promote promiscuity and sex before marriage, particularly among young people. These are the same people who argue against condoms and want abstinence only education.
Studies show that Plan B has the potential to prevent 700,000 abortions a year. If lowering the number of abortions is really the issue, Plan B should be made readily available.
A high percentage of rape victims use Plan B.
According to both sides of the issue, there is no medical reason to require a prescription for Plan B. The FDA ruled that it is medically safe. Lawmakers ignored the FDA advisory board in 2004 and were persuaded by anti-abortion politicians to keep it available by prescription only. This caused all kinds of controversies about science v. politics/religion that have been widely documented in peer reviewed journals.
In Washington State some pharmacies (such as those in Safeway and Fred Meyer) will give you Plan B without a personal prescription--they have a general prescription that can be used--you don't have to see a doctor first. This is called a "protocol".
If Plan B is legal but hard to get it is less effective. You need to take it within 72 hours after sex or it won't work: like regular birth control pills, it is MOST effective when taken BEFORE sex.
Only 60% of Americans know Plan B even exists as an option.
This project documents the bands, musicians and musical projects that were part of, or influenced by, the great burgeoning of cultural creativity generated by the Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM) of the 1970s and 80s.
During this era, women’s music, film and theatre groups, visual art, literature, performance art, street theatre and other activities proliferated, fusing artistic activities with politics to develop and express feminist ideas. Feminist bands and musicians were not solely about providing great entertainment but embodied a world-changing commitment to putting politics into practice and advancing women’s rights. Challenging sexism and stereotyped gender roles, their lyrics and style reflected the values of the WLM. They were a vital and integral part of the movement, yet are often omitted from or marginalised by the media and historical accounts. Many operated outside the commercial mainstream or alternative circuits – or indeed were oppositional to them – and are not widely known about. Most were self-funded, grassroots groups who worked on a shoestring and many were unable to create lasting material.
Concerned that this part of women’s history is at risk of being lost, Archive Co-ordinators Dr Deborah Withers and Frankie Green believe the achievements of these music-makers should be mapped and celebrated. This work-in-progress collection comprises testimonies and interviews, discographies, gigographies and memorabilia including photographs, videos, recordings, flyers, press clippings and posters, plus links to ongoing women’s music-making and feminist activism. The project is an independent, voluntary and (as yet) unfunded venture. Funding possibilities and a safe eventual home for the physical archive are being investigated.
All women who were involved in women’s music – as solo artists, in bands, as DJs, MCs, in distribution networks, recording studios, photographers, journalists, events organisers, etc – are invited to contact and contribute to the project.
My name is Tobi Vail, and I am friends with a group of Olympia, Washington residents that started counter-protesting anti-choice protests at our local Planned Parenthood clinic in downtown Olympia, beginning about 4 weeks ago. The anti-choice protests have been going on for years. About 4 weeks ago my friends organized a couple fund-raisers for Planned Parenthood. At one of the fund-raisers, a Planned Parenthood representative spoke briefly and said the one thing they really wished for was counter-protests at the clinic on their regular procedure days (Fridays). The anti-choice protesters have huge horrible signs and a giant truck plastered with intense propaganda, address clinic workers by name as they head into work, heckle women going into the clinic, etc., etc. The usual harassment that wears people down and hurts women.
We are interested in connecting with groups in the area that support reproductive rights and might be interested in participating with us in the counter-protests. We are trying to stick to a very positive, supportive, and unified message that states, in essence "We support Planned Parenthood". The anti-choice protesters are so bitterly dedicated to their position and have been doing this for YEARS. We invite all local people from all walks of life that support the humane treatment of women and reproductive health and welfare to get involved and support Planned Parenthood.
• Here is a testament from a worker at the local PP on the effect of our counter-protests: Why I Work for Planned Parenthood - Amazing Supporters • Here is an ongoing event page created for the show of support: I ♥ Planned Parenthood Fridays!! • For this past Friday's event, a local shirt company screen-printed "I <3 Planned Parenthood" shirts so people could make donations from the street to get a tshirt - we raised over $400 for Planned Parenthood in one day! • My friends started a group for the Olympia Planned Parenthood on Facebook: I love Planned Parenthood
Sincerely, Tobi Vail This photo is from a post on Olyblog about Planned Parenthood Fridays
Girls To The Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution by Sara Marcus came out today. I read it straight through when it came in the mail without stopping. It took about six hours. I thought "oh I'll write a review, but I have plenty of time, it's not coming out for a few months". Then I got an email from Johanna Fatemen where she mentioned she was reviewing it for Book Forum, so I decided to wait. I'm glad I did. Jo is a really, really, really good writer. She's one of the smartest and more captivating writers-who-wrote-zines-in-the-90's for sure--definitely in my top five favorites of that era of feminist fanzine writers. If you ever get a chance to read her zines you totally should do that: Snarla, Artaud-Mania or My Need To Speak on the Subject of Jackson Pollock are the ones I remember, but she may have written more. I'm imagining you finding her work in a zine library or in a musty archive or perhaps in PDF format or maybe will get a shitty xerox sold on eBay for too much $. Please sit there and read everything she has written, you will be grateful that you did and your life will be altered and enriched and you will want to make art or culture or just plain want to make something happen.
Johanna's review of Sara's book is pretty favorable, but there is a hint of criticism lurking underneath the surface. That is the part I would have liked to have read more of, but I understand she is writing the review for Book Forum. If I was reviewing this book in a pretty mainstream publication with a wide-audience I would give it a good review too. I am giving it a good review now. I liked the book. When I was done reading it I wrote to Sara Marcus and said something like "Dear Sara Marcus, Thank You For Writing This Book. I Can't Imagine How Much Work It Took. Wow! You Really Did It! Congratulations!" and mentioned that there were some things I remembered a little differently…other things I didn't know about….but really the emotion I felt when I was done reading the book was appreciation and relief and while I was reading I was totally consumed by it, not noticing that any time was passing at all. So yeah, I like the book, some things I liked about it more than others. You should read it and make up your own mind though and post your review so that there are multiple feminist voices discussing this representation.
Whenever one of these books comes out, I get a little nervous about how I will be represented. I felt a little odd about that in this book, but I tried not to let my self-image issues get in the way of my perception of the work as a whole. My own relationship to riot grrl is complex. Riot Grrl would not have happened without Bikini Kill for example, but I identified as a riot grrl for only a short time, when it had two "R"'s instead of 3 maybe. Who added the third "R"? This is a real question?! Riot GrrL/GrrrL started in Washington DC in June 1991. But it really started the year before that in Olympia, WA. Girls To The Front explains that history really well I thought. I moved back to Olympia (from DC) at the end of 1992 and the third "R" had been firmly established. It was at this time that I finished writing Jigsaw #5, which documents a pretty hard year, Fall 1991-Fall 1992. By the way if you are 23 years old and you think you should write a fanzine about everything in your brain you might regret it later because it turns out that fanzines are not ephemeral art after all, they actually last forever! I guess if you are that age now (or way younger even) then you have no illusions about anything being temporary because you grew up with the internet and you don't care about privacy. Well, I made 10 copies of Jigsaw #5. Yes, 10 copies. I am serious. It's about 92 pages long. I couldn't afford to print them. I sent them to 10 people. A few years later I printed 25 more copies. At the end of the 20th century I published Jigsaw #7 and printed about 20 more copies of Jigsaw #5 to send to friends and that was it. So even though that fanzine seems like it may have been written for a lot of people to read, I tried to keep it a secret.
There are a lot of reasons for that deliberate decision, but I think the best explanation is that the overnight success of Nirvana changed everything. I had been going to shows in Olympia since 1983, so when Riot Grrl (with one R) was formulating- pre-Nirvana success story-we were still thinking in that 80's mindset. The 90's hadn't happened yet. We were living in an underground culture that was being turned into a commodity and sold back to us, which was really disorienting. It is impossible to explain this, because it was so different, but if you use your imagination maybe you might understand a tiny bit. So when everything changed, it felt natural to take a step back. It was confusing. I was confused. Bikini Kill was confused and suddenly "riot grrRl" had a media created-definition and that was not the sound of the revolution because the media was sexist and all about selling shit and we wanted to destroy society. (Later it became obvious that the media had a positive impact as well as a negative one, but that was not clear at the time.)
Jigsaw #5 basically kind of says "fuck you" and "get away from me" and "we don't need you" and "we go with the kids yeah yeah yeah yeah" over and over and over again, in an attempt to navigate the distance between the 80's underground idea and the early 90's pop culture crap that was for sale at the mall. I was trying to say, "hey let's not all become capitalists, let's try to make something revolutionary happen." But I was also freaking out and fluorescent lights were shining on us and we were naked and lots of flashbulbs were going off and people were being exploited and no one had any money. Ok, well some bands on major labels did, but nobody in a "riot grrrl" band was getting paid, but a lot of money was being made off of our image. It's fine to make shit for free, but to make shit without a profit motive and to see something you helped create being used to make money for corporations without your permission totally sucks. So Jigsaw #5 uses terms like "squares" a lot, to try to set up the idea that if you are against capitalism, you are not interested in "the square world", you want to create an alternative, where making money and being successful in those terms is not the point of art or music or whatever it is you do.
I feel like I need to explain this, because Sara Marcus quotes Jigsaw #5 in her book. In fact, she kind of uses a quote from me in her book in a pivotal way in the story arc. I wrote a long-winded Gertrude Stein-meets-Jack Kerouac inspired rambling girl of an essay that tries to address this 80's underground mindset collision with the still emergent 90's pop culture reality where I say that I do not identify as a riot grrrl anymore and say some kind of insulting sounding stuff about "well intentioned hopelessly enthusiastic isolated young girls who still feel that label is meaningful to them". Looking back on this now, it sounds really harsh! But I am me and I can remember writing it and I know what I meant at the time. I was ready to give it up and start something new! I wanted to move things forward. I thought that it had become meaningless and that we needed to start the next era. It had seemed miraculously easy to make riot grrl happen, so why couldn't we just re-invent punk rock feminism again and again and again? In fact, isn't that what we are still doing over and over and over again even now in the year two thousand and ten?!!! We are still making things happen, creating independent culture, self-representing, making work, participating in community life, sharing ideas, listening to each other, disagreeing, discussing, making mistakes, learning and living our lives with our eyes and ears and mouths and hearts open. Right?
History is tricky. For instance now everyone calls that whole time period of punk feminism "riot grrl" and it has a much broader definition than it did back then. There is a market for "riot grrl" history, so we have to be suspicious of that economic factor but we shouldn't let this stop us from documenting our own scenes. Nostalgia is the enemy. Just look at what happened to the baby boomers. 60's radicalism was actually radical, but you have to unearth that radical history, it will not be handed to you. Read Marissa Magic for more on this theme.
Bringing up the question: Is punk rock feminism dead? No. Is "riot grrrl" dead? Well I will not make that claim now because in retrospect, it was certainly not dead in 1993, it had relevancy to all kinds of girls then, even if I no longer felt it was a useful term, and I think the same is probably true today. In fact I know it is true, because I get letters (ok emails) from girls all over the world all the time who tell me they are riot grrrls and love Bikini Kill and that they believe in "The Revolution, GRRL STYLE NOW!" By the way, I still think that the emphasis needs to be on "now" and "revolution" rather than on "grrl" or "style", but if you disagree, please let me know why! But if you are a Riot Grrl then own it! Don't get all caught up in early 90's retro crap. Start a fucking riot!!!!
Riot Grrl belongs to whoever needs it and believes it has the power to give their lives meaning and change things. That is the reason for all of this. Change the world. Don't accept things "the way they are now". Create your own meanings. Make your own definitions. Use culture as a tool. Just know you will have to be quick and constantly on your toes and maybe it's harder than ever to create something ephemeral, to live in the moment, but maybe it's even more than necessary now. The now of now.
If you are interested in starting a young feminist movement rooted in your generation, my advice to you is not to let anyone stop you. People will laugh at you. Ignore the sound of their voices and listen to your own. Scream if you have to, even if you think that no one can hear you. If you are actually threatening the status quo you will not have the approval of the status quo. Call it whatever you want, the point is to fuck shit up. This is true for feminists of all ages and eras by the way.
And never forget what Ari Up taught us: silence is a rhythm too.
so, the prospect of another fashion show at the capitol theater is about as exciting to me as getting another tooth pulled...it is reminding me of 8th grade cheerleading tryouts...and while i am used to being alienated by the world at large and the mainstream of indie rock, i don't like it that the thing that the women in my town work so hard on these days is centered around the buying, selling, making and wearing of clothes. i recognize that fashion is considered an art form, and (as previously stated) yes, sometimes i like wearing outfits too, but i am not someone who thinks owning a business or being crafty is in-and-of-itself radical. so while i am hesitant to present my harsh critique here (what i really think would probably offend you) i have to say, no i will not be attending the fashion show or dying the gray out of my hair or putting myself on display any time soon. i am glad that women are being creative together, but sad that i can't relate...oh well i guess. maybe it's time to re-evaluate what feminism is. hmmm.
as an afterthought I should probably mention that i do think a political usage of style, especially with regards to youth cultural movements, (see dick hebdigesubculture the meaning of style or the writing of stuart hall) is viable and can be potentially liberating, though when it comes to girls, focusing so much on appearance is always going to be a double-edged sword...and fashion, as an industry, "diy", boutique or mainstream, is not compelling to me...to each her own i suppose...i know we all have to pay the bills and...i won't voice my critique of the music industry here either, but rest assured i do have one...yep.
when I was in middle school my mom told me I didn't need to shave my legs or wear a bra or make up unless i WANTED to. in high school I found that these "choices" were less than free--if you didn't conform to traditional grooming habits for women, there were consequences. as a young woman, I resisted this programming in different ways, only conforming when I felt it was really a choice or when it seemed to make sense to comply, i.e. job interviews or whatever.
in bikini kill we tried to make the construction of femininity--and resistance to it-- visible as part of our performance. we used style politically. unfortunately this 'style' was commodified and entered the market place in weird sanitized versions...somewhere along the line, "fashion" became "hip" and the trendsetters became trendy.
as an adult woman who will be turning 40 this year, i find myself thinking a lot about what my mom told me in middle school. when i realized i was spending a bunch of money dying my hair because it was turning gray and women are supposed to try and look young forever, i stopped doing it. when i dye it next time it will be because i WANT to, not because i HAVE to if that makes sense.
in all this worrying about my appearance, the fashion show doesn't make me feel happy, it makes me stressed out. fuck it. i want to read books and try to create a world free from war, racial injustice and poverty. that to me is what it's all about. i don't give a shit what you wear. sure it's better to buy local, but do we really have to think about it so much?
I am bummed that the feminists I know are so into fashion these days. I value personal style as a means of expression (sorta) and understand that it is considered an 'art form' but wonder what it means that most women//girls spend so much time on what we look like in comparison to most men/boys in a world where we are still judged by our appearance to a greater degree than most men/boys are. It's something I think about a lot but don' t have much to say about yet, though I will probably write about it at some point. There is a double standard at work that needs to be interrogated before this is just a matter of "personal choice". This doesn't mean I am giving away my berets or beatle-boots anytime soon by the way. I enjoy wearing 'outfits' sometimes too, but I try not to focus on it too much.
