on torture and fashion and couture and fasting...

I may have been a bit hasty in my comment to Thursday's post, responding to my post, about fasting... even though I meant everything I wrote.

But, shortly after posting my comment, I followed a link from Broadsheet to this MSNBC story about the link between couture and torture. There's even a website called coutorture. Really.

Diane Mapes writes:

First, it was the corset. Now, the fashion industry has brought back skin-tight jeans, disco leotards and 7-inch platforms. And for accessories? Look for corns, bunions, sprained ankles, bruises, yeast infections and chafing.

Yes, for many of us, beauty and pain often walk hand in hand. But how far are we willing to go for fashion? For some, it’s all the way to the emergency room.

She continues with a litany of broken bones in feet and ankles and torn ligaments, and concludes with this:

What can be done? For some women, like Renee Sedliar, a 35-year-old San Francisco editor who blames a pair of 4-inch red leather sandals for her sprained ankle, it’s a matter of making the tough choice.

“After years of heels, I’ve become almost exclusively dedicated to flats,” she says. “Let’s face it, there’s nothing like walking around in really sexy, fabulous shoes, but if you can’t hide the grimace of pain or oozing blood or swelling toes…”

Although I rarely wear high heels and may not even own a reasonably fashionable pair as of this moment, and I abhor the idea of wearing a thong, or anything restrictive around my mid-section, including tank tops that are "too-tight," (forget about corsets!), I recognize there is a least a grain of truth in the article's comparison of our relationship with clothing to Stockholm Syndrome. Whether I like it or not.

Following that line of reasoning, one must then really question the value of a site like Lyssa Strada, where we exhort women to quit shaving their armpits and legs as a protest against the war, to withhold their uteruses from men--another war protest-- even if they cannot bear to give up sex themselves, and yet-- really stretching the envelope here-- to breastfeed in public as often as, and wherever, they can, if they should prove equally unsuccessful in withholding their uteruses-- just to keep mothers from becoming so invisible, and therefore, less powerful.

Perhaps Aristophanes' play had some effect on that war he was criticizing, but it really did not do much to advance the cause of women when he equated our fair sex with his society's lower creatures in order to make his point. So! Must that mean that a site like Lyssa Strada really cannot hope to be more effective in challenging the current status of women in the world than its ancient counterpart was?

Nooo waaaay!!!

We shall continue to suggest that women really can have fun and be subversive, that we would merely be following the lead of such impressive women as Dorothy Parker, Molly Ivins, Roseanne Barr, Katharine Hepburn, Tina Fey, Gilda Radnor, Joy Behar, Katrina vanden Heuvel, Arianna Huffington, Jane D. Schaberg, Pippi Longstocking, Jane Austen, George Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Penny Marshall, Marge Simpson, Ellen Degeneres, Phyllis Diller, Paula Poundstone, Kate Clinton, Wendy Wasserstein, Helen Thomas...

[tick-tock, tick-tock-- still adding more names-- check back later]

[stiletto heel boot: wikipedia]

I clicked on a link at Broadsheet, and sent the following...

To Rep. Curt Weldon:

We live certainly live in crazy times when the government expects a woman my age (50+) to consider herself pre-pregnant-- since most pregnancies are considered suprises-- just because she hasn't yet reached menopause.

And you can imagine that it seems especially ironic to me, because of when I came of age, that groups who say their main goal is to prevent abortion are now attacking women's rights to proper reproductive health care, including access to contraception, and that hugely controversial boon to women, Plan B, (which is NOT an abortifacient, but really, according to the SCIENCE, just emergency contraception).

And, finally, imagine the plight of a poor woman who has already fallen through the cracks, either because of the lack of access to contraception, or because she was in the small percentage for whom her method failed, or had an uncooperative partner.

She sees a billboard offering help to women in circumstances such as hers (poor? too many children already? a high-risk for pregnancy? alone? under-age? over-age? etc? etc?) and decides to call for help in getting her pregnancy terminated, only to find herself in a Kafka-esque episode:

[NOW]: Fake pregnancy crisis centers attract women to their clinic through deceptive advertising.

Once the women arrive at the so-called "Crisis Pregnancy Center" they are provided with biased and inaccurate information designed to persuade them not to obtain an abortion. Women deserve unbiased complete medical information about their pregnancy and their reproductive rights. In order to achieve this I am asking you to support Rep. Carolyn Maloney's bill referred to as "Stop Deceptive Advertising for Women's Services Act" (H.R. 5052).

The Maloney bill would direct the Federal Trade Commission to create rules that prohibit any organization from advertising with the intent to deceive the public into believing an organization is a provider of abortion services if they don't in fact provide abortion services. Please help ensure through your support that this piece of legislation makes it to the floor. Women deserve to hear the truth.

It's the right thing to do, Congressman Weldon.

Sincerely,

Karen M


[original post at Broadsheet]

[I decided to embellish NOW's message, figuring that the target audience must get tired of reading the same things over and over.]

a carbon-based fast... would you participate in one?

Earlier today, when I was discussing CodePink founder Diane Wilson's planned fast via email with Lyssa Strada contributor laughingcat, I began to think that perhaps I did not give enough weight to Bush's fascistic tendencies... Following are a few paragraphs from his email [emphasis mine].

Having studied Gandhi and his techniques for years, I doubt a fast will work to achieve its stated ends, because of the callous indifference of Bush and those in his circle. Remember, Gandhi said nonviolent non-cooperation only worked against the British because they were a civilized opponent; he openly admitted they would NOT work against Nazis and Fascists. And unfortunately, Bush IS a Fascist, in that he is totally committed to state-sponsored corporatism. Bush, a narcissist if ever there was one, probably won't care if someone who doesn't agree with him dies. And being so freakin' mean spirited, would even gloat, unless I misjudge the extent of his pathology.

I also hope these women use Gandhi's techniques for fasting, i.e., oranges and orange juice. He never did a total fast. He always took a little orange juice, to stretch out the time and therefore effectiveness.

And they need to find a voice in the national media so that one of the networks follows the fast, day by day, keeping the nation's attention on it. That's how Gandhi did it. Kept the world's attention on it. Only then will they get any notice that might make it effective. They also need to have talking points ready through spokespeople to counter the RWNM that will inevitably attack the fasters for all the wrong reasons, state lies and inferences, and resort to character assassination through mockery and derision. (I believe one of the only reasons the Iranian hostage crisis became a crisis was because "Nightline" kept it in the news all week every week).

[Editor's note: what about Helen Thomas? Wouldn't she be the perfect journalist to cover this story?]

They need to send daily, or weekly press releases to every major news outlet and wire service, nationally and internationally, so even if they're ignored by our own media, they can get the story in the news overseas. If Reuters picks it up, we'd have a chance that other US media would cover it as well.

HOWEVER: If I were to organize a nationwide "fast," I would recruit everyone I could to begin a conscious boycott of the oil companies that give money to Repubs, and engineer a massive letter writing campaign to let them know we are consciously going to choose to drive less and walk or bike more for the set period of the fast so they'll get the message the only way they care about. I would keep a record of everyone who volunteered to "fast from oil," and tally the numbers and extrapolate for those who said they would participate. Coordinate it with MoveOn and any other progressive org who has the connects.

That way, America would use millions of gallons of gas less than average, and with constant barrages of emails to the boards of directors, they would wake up to the reality that millions do not support the war or Republicans, and therefore we won't support their company.

Laughingcat's email made me wonder about the possible impact of two parallel carbon-based fasts-- a more traditional fast of food, and one that boycotts oil-- and whether either one would be successful, given that our own culture is not as civilized as the British empire that Gandhi so successfully humbled.

By laughingcat's measure, an oil fast would likely be more successful, since corporatists are motivated to change only by potential financial loss. Still, I'm not totally prepared to give up on GWB's potential for both psychic and physical revulsion when confronted by fasting, grieving women. After all, with so much repressed grief of his own, he must be ready to burst.

At a minimum, I predict he is going to need some therapy... but will he get it?

[Ribs & Corn by Epicurious]