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Idol Worship: Ten(ish) Questions About Camp with Julie and Brandy
Welcome to Idol Worship, a biweekly devotional to whoever the fuck I’m into. This is a…
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Black women are, it seems, damned if we do and damned if we don’t. Our collective singleness, independence, and unsanctioned mothering are an affront to mainstream womanhood. But a high-profile married black woman who uses her husband’s name (if only for purposes of showbiz) or admits the influence her male partner has had on her life is an affront to feminism.
Wilson says that in the context of pathologized black womanhood and black relationships, Beyoncé and the Knowles-Carter clan “counter a narrative about our families that has been defined by the media for too long about what our families must look like and how they’re comprised.” Black women’s sexuality and our roles as mothers and partners have been treated as public issues as far back as slavery, even as family life for most citizens has been viewed as a private matter. Our nation’s “peculiar institution” treated human beings—black human beings—as property. And so, black women’s partnering—when and whom we partnered with and the offspring of those unions—were at the very foundation of the American economy. According to Jackson, “People would talk about black women’s sexuality in polite company like they would talk about race horses foaling calves.”
Like critiques of her sexed-up performances, response to Beyoncé’s recent pregnancy illustrates that black female bodies remain fodder for public gossip. Even with the devotion of mainstream media (especially the entertainment and gossip genres) to monitoring female celebrities’ sexuality, “baby bumps,” and engagement rocks, the speculation about Beyoncé’s womb stands apart as truly bizarre. Almost as soon as the singer revealed her pregnancy at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, there was conjecture—amplified by a televised interview in which the singer’s dress folded “suspiciously” around her middle—that it was all a ruse to cover for the use of a surrogate.
The HBO documentary, which chronicled her pregnancy, failed to quiet the deliberation. Gawker writer Rich Juzwiak proclaimed, “Beyoncé has never been less convincing about the veracity of her pregnancy than she was in her own movie…. We never see a full, clear shot of Beyoncé’s pregnant, swanlike body. Instead it’s presented in pieces, owing to the limitations of her Mac webcam. When her body is shown in full, it’s in grainy, black-and-white footage in which her face is shadowed.” There is, in this assessment, a disturbing assumption of ownership over Beyoncé’s body. Why won’t this woman display her naked body on television to prove to the world that she carried a baby in her uterus?
The conversation surrounding Beyoncé feels like assessing a prize thoroughbred rather than observing a human woman, and it is dismaying when so-called feminist discourse contributes to that. Feminism is about challenging structural inequalities in society, but the criticism of Beyoncé as a feminist figure smacks of hating the player and ignoring the game, to twist an old phrase.
Tami Winfrey Harris, “All Hail The Queen?” Bitch Magazine 5/20/13 (via racialicious)Posted on May 20, 2013 via Racialicious with 372 notes
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all i want is you
(via quirkyrican)
Posted on May 20, 2013 via these words with 52,657 notes
Source: hopingicouldbesomeone
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Pre Camp Crazy.
It just hit me that tomorrow after I push the paper, answer the phones, and play office b*tch I am going to camp. Camp is finally here. I am so excited. I need to go pick up some more stuff and re-pack my bag and try to remember to breathe.
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You Need An Autostraddle Hoodie, Can Buy One Right Now
Just in time for summer! HOODIES!Y’all have been requesting an Autostraddle Merchhoodie situation…
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Spanish Pipedream by John Prine
From the album John Prine (1977)
Download from Amazon.comPosted on May 19, 2013 via A Song A Day with 1 note
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Chloe Moretz in Hick
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(via nyghtphyre)
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Things I want to tell people, that I wish people had told me:
- You don’t have to achieve great things by the time you’re 25
- You have intrinsic value above and beyond your perceived utility to other people and society at large.
- You don’t have to have sex, or have sex in any way that you find uncomfortable or unpleasant, to keep anyone’s love or good opinion of you. They didn’t love you or think very well of you to start with if they demand it.
- You don’t have to stay with someone who isn’t meeting your emotional or sexual needs because they need you, or you’ve been with them for awhile, or you need to be in a relationship. You need you. Your time is your own and it is finite.
- It’s ok to work at a job you enjoy that doesn’t make you miserable even if it’s not a career and it won’t “lead to anything.”
- Your life is not a narrative. It is not leading to anything, there is no overarching thesis, it does not have themes beyond the usual shared cultural experiences of your time and place. This is ok. It does not mean that your life is without purpose or meaning.
- It’s ok not to like or get along with the vast majority of people you encounter, so long as you afford them the same respect, courtesy and dignity that they afford you.
- Expensive is not always better.
- Failure is temporary if you’re still alive.
- People are both much better and much worse than you’d suspect, but usually not all at once.
- Stop thinking of your future self as a different person and it will be easier to prevent money and health problems.
- Let people help you, lean on them when you need to, and be available to help, but don’t swing too far in either direction. Try to carry your half of the life basket as evenly as you can.
- Set boundaries, and do not be afraid to kick people out of your life who disregard them. You will not end up alone and unloved. People who love you will be ok with your boundaries.
- Your power does not come from money or beauty, but from seeing life steadily and wholly, from a curious and thoughtful mind, and from your ability to say no when you want to, and yes when you want to, and I don’t know when you don’t know.
- There will be bad times, maybe lots of bad times, but not only bad times.
- Love will not heal the wounds in your soul, but love can give you the impetus to begin the work of healing yourself.
- Life might be a long series of starting over, and that’s alright.
- You’re really cool, you’re really beautiful, you’re really special. Really. Not to everyone, but to a lot of someones sometimes.
This is lovely.
(via enchanted-dystopia)
Posted on May 18, 2013 via I Will Arise and Go to Thedas with 58,222 notes
Source: sehnsuchttraum
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Plays: 1,191
Posted on May 18, 2013 via $weet Lime $$ with 593 notes
Source: sweetlime144
When it hasn't been your day, your week, your month, or even your year!
