I wish we don't have to wear high-heels

I absolutely detest high heels.

Give it five minutes and walk, they're painful they ruin everything and they're effing scary when you're walking down or up steep stairs imagine falling on your head, breaking your front teeth, etc. I made my husband wear a pair I have that's only an inch high, apparently quite short for women's standards, I made him stand on it for only a minute and try walking. He said these things are unstable and dangerous. I agree.

And yet, high heels are like so a must for porn, either men actually like seeing women in pain to see power OR they're engendered to see women in such a light.

Then I'm thinking about fashion, sure fashion can be pretty empowering for women in the upper echelons, i.e. Anna Wintour, but they're very oppressive as you run down to the bottom.

In short, NO MORE HIGH HEELS!

p/s the red shoes is actually a sculpture but that's the closest picture I could find that was similar to a porn actress. Other than that try watching free porn on xvideos.com, LOL.

Meet The Natives

Although this show was made in 2007 it was only recently that it came to Discovery Asia, it plays on Sundays at 11pm due to the 'nudity' that Asians extremely despise (???). Anyway, despite the hullaballoo of criticism I would have to admit that it had generated more positive comments and criticisms that it did not. Other than that you could watch it on youtube and subscribe to the uploader, one of the guys who actually went to the trip, his username is VanuatuVeritas. I have to admit that the show was very good, very enlightening, very kind, I suppose some editing has been done to cut off chunks of the show as they never showed the process of translation as the chief said things to the people so we don't know although at some point it was translated literally to the English middle class farmers that they considered Prince Phillip as the son of God. This runs on the same theme with another show on Discovery about displacing western families in very localized situations but on the reverse. I was glad about the chiefs' reaction to the pig farming and the insensitivity of artificial insemination disregarding the sexual pleasure of animals (I wonder if PETA thought of that hmm?). Much as the Wests' disgust of so-called 'natives' eating dogs so too the Vanuatu people's disgust of artificial insemination. A very very good show, hopefully somebody watches it lol.

Sita sings the Blues

I watched this film the other day - Sita sings the Blues, sung by Annette Hanshaw and produced by Creative Commons, drawn by NINA PALEY. And the best part is - you're free to pirate it!!! Yes, you are, and not just that, you can remix the music, as she said, the culture belongs to us all. Of all independent cartoon films I've watched, this takes the top prize. I did love Dreaming Awake, or was it Awake? It was about a boy who gets into some sort psychotic dreams meeting philosophy professors and celebrities explaining to him about how we perceive the world. Anyway, not that Sita herself is a female protagnist, I did have a rankling about the female shadow puppet which was actually Sita making a lot of mistakes explaining the story in the beginning but later on the female shadow puppet which was Sita becomes the better narrator than the Hanuman or Rama shadow puppet. Not to degrade the Hindu religion, I did a whole course with Prof. Walker to know that!!! As the avatara of Lakshmi, Sita was on earth to show diligence and uber-patience and good. Even though it might seem sexist but the three female goddesses are complementary to the three male gods. They are one and the same together.

Yes, it did break my heart when Sita gets swallowed by BumiDhevi. BUT, she was free from being in love with Rama at last. Interspersed with the storyline was the life of the artist, Nina Paley and how she broke up with her boyfriend. We can all relate to being dumped - honestly it seems that ALL women are dumped, they play the cards not us. Rarely do women get to play the cards and win - and dump them. They might say oh, yeah that's what you want, but the truth is? Anyway, my kids all three of them sat down quietly to watch it from beginning to end, then dragged the movie thing at the bottom of WMPlayer and watched it again. An adult movie that appeals to a 5 year old, a 4 year old and a 2 year old? Must watch. Like Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle and Princess Mononoke. By the way, my kids watched five minutes of Transformers 2 and walked away. I agree - dumb movie, even a 2 year old can identify that.

The other thing that I watched was DOUBT
and I didn't know that it was a play before this. Amazing superb performance, I especially liked the climax during the conversation between the boy's mother and Sister Aloysius. It's one of those movies that keeps you guessing what? Like The Banquet - what?

I thought I had to...

I thought this was a nice comparison...

Dear Caster Semenya

Even if this post never reaches you, which I doubt will, I would like to share a story. Once upon a time, a child was born, as intersexed as you, in a country called Malaysia. She was registered as a boy and her name was Zulkifli Ahmad. In a world where homophobia and xenophobia exists, she became a beacon of hope. She, like you, too identified herself as a woman.

A lot of stupid, heartless people liked to make fun of her, they liked to hurt her, but she did not care and she went on to make a lot of films that showed the problems in which the Malaysian society faced. Recently, she had passed away, leaving a large spot for people to fill in, which is almost impossible. Not a lot of people understood her vision and yet she became one of the most celebrated icons of her time, and her name was Yasmin Ahmad.

So you don't NEED to feel inadequate for who you are. What you need to do is raise your feet to this hostile world and give them a BIG FAT FUCK YOU.

Love,

Liyana T

Abandoned

An abandoned baby was found - at least, alive . Not that I'm surprised. Most likely in this case it's an underaged mother afraid of persecution, or was raped, etc. etc. Unfortunately, cases of baby abandonment is even more rampant in highly patriarchal/conservative communities. In this case, the Middle East (all Abrahamic faiths), Greek islands, Russia, heck, anywhere where patriarchy can be found. In Brunei too, in a year there are about two or three abandoned infants. What I don't get is this, why in the world would it be better to kill an innocent infant in comparison to what other people say? Why do YOU think that being criticized by other people who do not care nor feed nor wish you well is important? Is it some sort of sociological conditioning component? An instilled fear of others' judgements? Sigh.

3 a.m.

sitting here made me realize something. My husband's family are working class people, most of which actually work as infantrymen in the army. Last year when my senior class graduated, some of my friends (I'm proud to say WOMEN and men) joined the army and automatically became lieutenants, this was in lieu (pardon the pun) with the fact that they owned bachelor degrees. Hearing them talk I also realized that they would not be the ones who wold be battling in the fields. They would be, if there was war, within closed quarters under air-conditioning, as consultants as to how best they could win the war. They would not be involved in the trenches, dying. They are considered the 'educated few' whose values and resources are much prized over other people'. But knowing this bothers me. I look at these infantry men, they work hard, they suffer more. Stories supplanted to me by my friends who quit the military showcase that they as leaders were forced to instill discipline and in the course of doing so, break their own souls. They quit because they did not have the heart nor the soul to punish people over something trivial all in the name of discipline. They are people, whose worth I'm sorry to say if it upsets the middle and upper class, equally as worth in life, in death. And yet from the evidence we know this not to be true. The middle and upper echelons will always be protected. Their lives more cushioned and satisfactory, than those below. Their knowledge, albeit fucked up as it were is considered as gold.

There is something wrong with all of us.

Over-capitalism

A very good article that I've found talking about how much of the stuff that we buy we don't really need or use at all. All that excess and waste. I'm not a religious person myself but I think I would have to agree with the pope that excessive wealth is a sin. Not just spiritually but financially, emotionally, psychologically and everything else in that bandwagon.

Dibo the Gift Dragon

Given that I have the opportunity to watch closely how children are socialized and I believe at some points and some parts I almost have the power to control what the children think and feel at this point. It becomes obvious that gender assignation between femininity and masculinity in childhood is so strongly reinforced, thus producing children with the ability to see the world in those said eyes. Although the world of children are not made up entirely of television, nevertheless they contain bits and pieces of the mechanism that helps children to 'understand' the world. Added to that formula, the prejudices of teachers and parents too make up a child's perception. However, this could work on the opposite case for instance myself and a friend of mine who had a mother and an aunt respectively who were extremely prejudiced (my mother prejudiced and sexist, her aunt xenophobic) whereas herself and myself turned out exactly the opposite, and its not even about 'revenge' at all or 'acting out' (its possible as well to assign such symptoms to women, this is because in the Asian and Muslim world women are considered half of a man, or an incomplete man).

In this case I wanted to talk about Dibo the Gift Dragon. Fascinatingly, there are only two female characters in Dibo the Gift Dragon, Annie and Bunny. Annie in the theme song was 'I'm Annie, I'm kind and I love to cook'. The 'other' female was Bunny, she is the archetypal 'bitchy woman' who stands up for herself and love to make herself pretty, on the other hand Annie (who incidentally is the only human rag doll) only wishes to help others and is very well-liked. For one thing, Bunny is a pink doll, I'm not sure why she is not any other color but its obvious that pink is associated with frivolous womanhood whereas in Annie's case she wears a chef top hat (constantly) and an apron and is constantly cleaning up for everyone else including Bunny (the rest of the cast is an all male cast). In addition to that the clever and the stupid characters are male. Even in this childrens' show it seems that there is already a delineation of the sexes and apparently the spectrum of womanhood is only two, the bitchy Bunny and the subservient Annie.

Chopping up female body parts

What makes youth equal to beauty? Has anyone ever wondered that?
I had a cousin who thought that he hates Fergie because for him she looks old and wrinkly. In my opinion I thought Fergie was smashing. He explained (not to stereotype gay men) that gay men generally believe that looking wrinkly is OUT OF THE QUESTION!Why is there an obsession of youth and equalizing it with beauty? What happens when women and men become older? Are they less attractive? Do they not deserve sexual or emotional gratification? The odd thing with this is that there is a new market for the 'Slutty granny' and the 'Dirty Old Bastard' type of fetish pornography. This in turn sexualizes mainly older women rather than old men (but in turn shows that they are ahem virile).

Lets look at a few examples from North America (the U.S.) and Europe.

Note that Dame Judi Dench and Maggie Smith kept their wrinkles whereas I assume Cher would be in the same age group as Judi Dench is sans wrinkles, so is Goldie Hawn who looks fifty rather than sixty.

Including this parody of womenhood in a anti-WYSIWYG kind of tagline




And also,




Is it noticeable that the object of focus is womenhood MUST = to BEAUTY. Whereas Older Women are considered 'Stale' 'Uninviting', "Not Sexually Appealing'. And yet Judi Dench was hailed as sexually appealing by Adam Brody.

But why stop there?

Why is it necessary for womenhood to be equivalent to sexuality? Whenever womenhood are bereft of it (Note: The Hottie and the Nottie) it is considered a social stopper. Why? Is it possible that this form of thinking (thank you radical feminists) have somewhat stopped women from becoming wholly and completely in an equal standing with men?

I rest my case