Women Appreciation Week - post 2
I should be in bed - and for once I *feel* like I should be in bed . . .
Day 2: women-centric art/artistic creations
Beauty Secrets: Women and the Politics of Appearance
by Wendy Chapkis
The website describes it as a "provocative exploration of the links between appearance, gender, and sexuality. Discusses beauty and ugliness, racism and beauty standards, and the role of class in shaping images of beauty."
I particularly enjoyed the book because the chapters are presented in personal stories of several very different women rather than essays or dry facts.
Asleep
by Banana Yoshimoto
(Joan: not manga)
Other people's words, have them: Yoshimoto narrates each piece from the perspective of a strong, central female protagonist. In "Night and Night's Travelers," Shibami tells the story of her sleepwalking cousin, Mari, who is mourning the death of her lover (Shibami's brother, Yoshihiro). In "Voyage to the House of Sleep," Fumi describes her difficulties with Haru, a woman with whom she had once shared a male lover who, although now deceased, haunts her in her sleep. And, in the title work, readers meet Terako, a woman with an unusual penchant for sleep, who must deal with the recent death of her best friend, Shiori, while at the same time struggling with her trying relationship with her boyfriend (a married man whose wife is in a coma).
Critics think that much of her work is superficial and commercial; her fans however, think it perfectly captures what it means to be young and frustrated in modern Japan. Yoshimoto herself identifies her two main themes as "the exhaustion of young people in contemporary Japan" and "the way in which terrible experiences shape a person's life."
As Cool As I Am
Dar Williams | lyrics | download
I first heard and truly appreciated this song when I was dating the boyfriend my friends and mother refer to as 'Jackass'.
There were many "yeah, she's really blonde"*-type moments.
*see lyrics - I don't mean the usual blonde association
http://www.lililicious.net/
(manga)
Yuri/Shoujo-Ai/FemmeSlash . . . whatever you want to call it, it's pretty damn woman-centric ;)
When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, of a wise woman selling herbs, or even a very remarkable man who had a mother, then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet. . . indeed, I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.
- Virginia Woolf
Day 2: women-centric art/artistic creations
Beauty Secrets: Women and the Politics of Appearance
by Wendy Chapkis
The website describes it as a "provocative exploration of the links between appearance, gender, and sexuality. Discusses beauty and ugliness, racism and beauty standards, and the role of class in shaping images of beauty."
I particularly enjoyed the book because the chapters are presented in personal stories of several very different women rather than essays or dry facts.
Asleep
by Banana Yoshimoto
(Joan: not manga)
Other people's words, have them: Yoshimoto narrates each piece from the perspective of a strong, central female protagonist. In "Night and Night's Travelers," Shibami tells the story of her sleepwalking cousin, Mari, who is mourning the death of her lover (Shibami's brother, Yoshihiro). In "Voyage to the House of Sleep," Fumi describes her difficulties with Haru, a woman with whom she had once shared a male lover who, although now deceased, haunts her in her sleep. And, in the title work, readers meet Terako, a woman with an unusual penchant for sleep, who must deal with the recent death of her best friend, Shiori, while at the same time struggling with her trying relationship with her boyfriend (a married man whose wife is in a coma).
Critics think that much of her work is superficial and commercial; her fans however, think it perfectly captures what it means to be young and frustrated in modern Japan. Yoshimoto herself identifies her two main themes as "the exhaustion of young people in contemporary Japan" and "the way in which terrible experiences shape a person's life."
As Cool As I Am
Dar Williams | lyrics | download
I first heard and truly appreciated this song when I was dating the boyfriend my friends and mother refer to as 'Jackass'.
There were many "yeah, she's really blonde"*-type moments.
*see lyrics - I don't mean the usual blonde association
http://www.lililicious.net/
(manga)
Yuri/Shoujo-Ai/FemmeSlash . . . whatever you want to call it, it's pretty damn woman-centric ;)
When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, of a wise woman selling herbs, or even a very remarkable man who had a mother, then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet. . . indeed, I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.
- Virginia Woolf