Hating on Hath? The Anti-Anne Rampage Needs to Stop

I may have been blogging on Goats too much in the recent past to have noticed the ridiculous hate campaign that’s been demonising Anne Hathaway through social media and online press.  I caught up on this yesterday after reading about it in Look magazine (I was on a very long train journey and left my headphones at home, okay?).  But seriously, WTF world?  Where has this come from?  Last time I checked Hathaway hadn’t murdered anyone, committed any crime worthy of an international hate campaign or have psychologists analysis the shape of her face and conclude the following:

    “When times are good, we prefer actresses with rounder faces,” psychology professor Terry Pettijohn says. “They convey these ideas of fun and youth.” But Hathaway’s face is bony and slender! “As the economy improves, Hathaway—whose peak of fame, post-boyfriend, pre–Oscar hosting, came amid the 2008 crash—may just be a reminder of bad times.”  (Courtesy of the Daily Beast).

So we are to go on an anti-Anne rampage because her FACE reminds us of the recession?   Apparently Anne just doesn’t have the ‘likeability’ factor anymore either?  Well, I don’t really get this either when she’s just landed an Oscar and in my eye, and scored the best damn short cut money can buy.  At least Lena Dunham (guardian angel and Style & Then Some heroine ((I’m working on my Hey Arnold! Helga inspired Shrine to her as we speak)) stood up for The Hath on Twitter:

Sometimes, like right now to be precise, I have little faith in the intellect of the human species as a whole.  Don’t make me go all ‘Leave Britney Anne alone’ again.

Don’t forget | International Women’s Day

We have often dealt with issues of sexism and feminism here at Style and Then Some, so it should come as no surprise that we are excited about the 102^nd annual International Women’s Day today. IWD strives to highlight the plight many women still face to this day, but also to celebrate the achievements of various gallant ladies throughout the years – for instance, the Suffragettes – that have contributed to bridging the gender equality gap. Speaking of gaps…

Whether it’s the gender pay gap, or that age old double standard that allows men (if they choose) to sleep with whomever and however many women they want without so much as an eyelid bat from society, but God forbid a woman – also a sexual being – dares to do the same. To the more extreme end of the spectrum, let’s not forget, we live in a world where a young and extremely brave 15 year old girl, Malala Yousafzai, was recently shot in the head in Pakistan by a member of the Taliban simply because she openly expressed her desire to go to school and receive a good education. Again, how dare she.

With the likes of International Women’s Day continually raising awareness around the globe on the issue of gender equality, it gives you hope that stories such as that of Malala Yousafzai, could one day become a thing of the past, and sooner rather than later. Though it is clear there is still quite a long way to go.

James Brown said ‘This is a man’s world’ but more recently Beyonce claimed we apparently run it. Although we are evidently not quite there yet, I have faith we are getting closer. Happy International Women’s Day everyone!

Bare Faced: A Beauty Revolution

I never really make New Years’ resolutions; what’s the point of starting the New Year with pressure and expectations? I find it distressing enough embarking upon the first few dreary months of the year. But what if you made a resolution that doesn’t take any extra time or effort, makes you feel free, and promotes a healthier idea of female beauty in our personal lives and also in the media?

My resolution was entirely unpremeditated and spontaneous. I stumbled upon Darling Magazine‘s Beauty Revolution almost by accident, and as I read about how the women on the editorial team are starting 2013 make up free to try and change the face of beauty in the media, I was intrigued. The idea behind the campaign is similar, I suppose, to Dove’s Real Beauty campaign from a few years ago. It’s not suggesting, in any way, that make up is bad, or that women should feel bad for wearing it; on the contrary, their attitude is that make up is great and fun. It is only damaging when it gives women unrealistic expectations about what they should look like, and when we feel like we’re not beautiful without it. That’s the thing about the photographs that Adrienne Sandvos took of her friends without makeup – they are in black and white, yes. That’s cheating, you say? Well, not really. The point is to ease into this, to adjust your eyes to the sight of women in the media without elaborate eye make up and perfect lipsticked smiles. They look naked enough, even in black and white, and they look beautiful. The point of all of this is to make natural beauty desirable, after all.

I wanted to join in, somehow, and while I didn’t make a conscious decision not to wear make up throughout 2013, I made a decision to ditch the mascara and eyeliner and go bare faced as a general rule, saving make up for glamming up on special occasions. At first I felt naked. I looked in the mirror and my eyes looked tired. I guess I am pretty tired a lot of the time, and the beautiful thing about this resolution is that it breaks you out of your routine and forces you to actually look after yourself. If you can’t put concealer on the bags under your eyes, you’d better start getting more sleep.

As Tina Fey points out in Bossy Pants (my favourite Christmas present this year!), there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with makeup or even Photoshop. We all want to look and feel good; it’s empowering. But the flesh in photos should be left on, the pores in skin should still be visible, and we need variety more than anything else; variety in size, shape, skin tone, hair colour, you name it. It’s okay to shave our armpits and put mascara on our eyelashes, but we shouldn’t be disgusted by unshaven armpits and natural eyelashes – women shouldn’t have to do these things all the time if they don’t want to. There are ways of portraying beauty that allow it to be admired without making anyone feel insecure, jealous, self obsessed, or objectified. If we lived in a world where women were portrayed in the media as a bunch of interesting, real, beautiful, quirky, and diverse people, the rest of us would be more likely to feel like we are capable of amazing things, beautiful and noticed by others for who we are and what we think. I’d like to live in that kind of world.

Darling’s Beauty Revolution is a gentle reality check. Do you feel ready to try life without makeup? Even if you don’t feel ready to give up makeup altogether, maybe you could try swapping your foundation for some tinted moisturiser, or just cut back on the eye makeup without ditching it all? Try it, even if it’s just for a week – and see if you start to see yourself differently.

Helen’s Favorite Things of 2012

Despite my desperate cries for a David Guetta shaped Christmas present under the tree last year not materialising – apparently its still illegal to kidnap famous DJs or something – 2012 turned out quite nicely thank you very much.  So here, in the spirit of our anti-Christmas wish lists, here are the things I am thankful for in 2012…

 1.  The big move.  After bleating on about how awful the commuter life is, how much I wanted to stay out all night in London rather than getting the poncy 22:30 last train back to sticksville and generally sitting around grumbling about my life, I packed up, shipped out to East London and finally became a fully fledged independent adult.  I still haven’t registered to vote or anything, but maybe that will be next year’s adult life aim.  Baby steps guys, baby steps…

2.  Getting published.  My one resolution this year was to try to have an article published and I not only managed to recently have a piece go up on Hellion Magazine, but will be getting my very own by line in the forthcoming third edition of the incredible Moda De La Mode magazine in 2013 (which I will be shamelessly plugging, so here is your pre-warning).

3.  The Vagenda. The first time I read The Vagenda, I finally felt something click.  Here was a blog, and online magazine, where real women weren’t being paid to push some PR’s tat and actually had opinions (like us I like to think!). And who are FUNNY.  And thanks to them I’ve kicked my waste-of-money magazine buying habit, and in actual fact haven’t purchased the likes of Cosmo, Grazia, Company etc in months now.  And I feel hella good for it too.

4.  P’Trique saved us from our Fashion Sins.  I basically found my all time favourite idol this year.  Sorry Vicky B, Cher, Beyonce & co, but there’s a new star at the top of my Christmas tree and its shaped like P’Trique (c’est Chic!) and here is why:

5.  I learned what feminism means.  Turns out you don’t actually burn your bra, not shave your arm pits and want to cut every man’s penis off.  It is just simply the ‘radical’ notion that men are equal to women.  And in today’s society, it is still mind blowing how far we still have to come to achieve equality.  I am grateful especially to Caitlin Moran, Vagenda, @EverydaySexism and the lovely Style & Then Some girls for opening my eyes and mind up to bigger, more important issues women face rather than the fluff that was flling my brain before…

Get your sledge hammers out, ladies – we need to smash through that glass ceiling!

I don’t know, I guess I had kind of just assumed that the gender wage gap was a thing of the past, but learnstuff.com created this rather striking infographic, which hits home the fact that there still is something to make a noise about. So let’s keep making noise!

Boobs aren’t news. Join the No More Page 3 campaign.

‘George Alagiah doesn’t say, “And now let’s look at Courtney, 21, from Warrington’s bare breasts,’ in the middle of the 6 O’ Clock News, does he?” is the question posed in the No More Page 3 petition on change.org.

Obviously, the answer is no.

And that’s why Lucy Anne Holmes started the petition, in an attempt to rid The Sun newspaper of something that is definitely not news. More than that, it’s outdated, sexist and demeaning.

Holmes decided to write the petition, as she explained in The Independent, after picking up a copy of The Sun during London 2012. Seeing no bare breasts on page 3, she thought the age-old practice of placing a topless teen girl behind the front page might have ended, but, no, it had just been relocated due to the Olympics coverage.

“I got to page 13 and there she was, a beautiful young woman in just her pants. And it made me feel incredibly sad. Hers was the largest image of any woman in this issue. Much larger even than those of Jessica Ennis who had just won a team GB gold for her tremendous hard work.”

Holmes believes that Page 3 is there purely for the sexual gratification of men, thus it objectifies women. With upwards of 300,000 women being sexually assaulted every year, and 60,000 raped, Holmes thinks it isn’t wise to ‘be repeatedly perpetuating a notion that women are sexual objects.’

Why The Sun in particular? Why not target any of the ‘lads mags’ like Nuts or Zoo, whose bread and butter is scantily clad young women? It’s partly because The Sun has the second highest circulation for a printed publication in the UK, at 7,084,000 copies, behind the Tesco customer magazine’s 7,221,000. While one could argue only teenage boys and men who should know better read Nuts etc, but the Sun has a huge reach across a wide demographic range. What’s more, it claims to be a ‘family’ paper, while peddling such obviously adult-only content.

The campaign has been gathering speed lately. The petition has attracted more than 60,000 signatures (including high profile support from the likes of Caitlin Moran, Jennifer Saunders, and Glamour magazine), campaigners petitioned shoppers outside the four major supermarkets in November and two of those, Tesco and Morrisons, agreed to meet with the NMP3 team in the last week to discuss their advertising in The Sun.

The petition calls on Editor Dominic Mohan to, ultimately, ‘stop conditioning your readers to view women as sex objects.’ I’ve already signed it, and I hope you will too.

Sign the No More Page 3 petition on change.org and sign up to receive email updates. Visit the Facebook page.

Get your white ribbon on for International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on 25th November?

Next Sunday, 25th November, marks the thirty-first International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. The day is designated by the United Nations as a day for governments and NGOs to organise activities to raise awareness of the problem of violence against women.

In the UK, that means the pinnacle of the White Ribbon Campaign (WRC), which urges men to wear white ribbons as visible pledges never to commit, condone or remain silent about violence against women.

This year, on White Ribbon Day, you can show your support on social media too, with a virtual ‘twibbon‘, designed by Stella McCartney, that can be added to your Twitter profile picture. Or you can order a real ribbon online, and upload a photo of yourself wearing it as a pledge.

To me, supporting this campaign is a no-brainer. While we’ve come a long way in terms of gender equality in the last thirty-one years, violent and sexual crimes against women continue to occur with an alarmingly high frequency. In case you needed reminding how bad this problem still is, here are some frightening UK stats from the WRC website:

• At least 80,000 women suffer rape every year.
• On average, two women a week in England and Wales are killed by a violent partner or ex-partner.
• Domestic violence is estimated to cost victims, services and the state a total of around £23 billion a year.

So wear your ribbon, virtual or otherwise, with pride this White Ribbon Day, and do your bit to raise awareness for this hugely important cause.

Visit the White Ribbon Campaign website or download your white social media twibbon.

What’s in a name? Feminism meets practicality…

Image by ComellMare

I was in the hospital with my dad the other day, and the nurse asked my mum and I to fill out next of kin forms. Mr Caldecott, Mrs Caldecott, and Miss Caldecott: a family unit, proudly bearing the same name. And then my mum cracked a joke about how I wouldn’t be Miss Caldecott for much longer, and I felt a sudden pang of grief. ‘No man would ever get me to change my name,’ the nurse retorted as she took the forms from us and walked away. It’s easy to say, and I have toyed with the idea of keeping my name before, but it hit me clearly in that moment: if mum hadn’t taken dad’s name, we wouldn’t be that neat little family unit with matching names. I treasure the fact that I have the same name as both of my parents, but someone has to be willing to give up their family name and take on a new one to form a new family identity.

Yes, there’s the option of double barrelling your name with your spouse’s, but if everyone did that it would get out of hand a couple of generations down the line. (Also, ‘Caldecott-Lippiatt’ is a ridiculous mouthful in itself – what would our children do when they got married and suddenly had a four name long surname?) In Spain there’s a tradition that women keep their maiden names, which seems like a perfect feminist solution at first glance. As Wikipedia explains:

‘In Spain and in most Spanish-speaking countries, the practice is for people to have two surnames. Usually, the first surname comes from the father and the second from the mother but it could be the other way round. A child’s first surname will usually be their father’s first surname whilst the child’s second surname will usually be the mother’s first surname. For example, if Señor Smith Adams and Señora Jones Roberts had a child named Paul, then his full name would be Paul Smith Jones.’

But in reality, this still means that the woman’s name dies out after a few generations.

It’s hard giving up a name that carries with it a large part of your identity; all the family history and the outward sign of relationships that have been unspeakably formative and important. But if someone doesn’t do it, you’ll either have a different name from your children and partner, or end up getting tied up in all sorts of complex knots trying to merge multiple names – and what you were trying to protect in the first place will get lost a few generations down the line, anyway.

The ability to give up a name isn’t an inherently female quality, though. We weren’t born or raised with less of an attachment to our name and family identity than men. I believe that someone in the relationship has to make that sacrifice, and to do so is a beautiful thing; marriage is all about both men and women giving themselves completely and becoming part of one another, after all. But I would like to see a situation develop where it isn’t automatically or always the woman who changes her name: we need a new generation of feminist men to start bucking the trend and taking on their wives’ names. It’s not that I think women should never change their names when they get married, but more that I think it should be a choice, freely made.

I’m going to change my legal name, but keep my family name for writing. It’s scary, but also rather exciting: having the same surname as each other will mark us out as a new family, a team. And, as my dad told me, I’ll still be a Caldecott. What’s in a name, after all?

What about you? Would you ever consider changing your name?

‘My Perfect Bitch’ – Kanye West’s oh so romantic ode to Kim Kardashian

Reports of the Russian feminist punk-rock group Pussy Riot and their quest for justice continue to dominate the news this week as they face up to seven years in jail for simply daring to speak out against their President, Vladimir Putin, and what they claim is his “anti-feminist regime”. Although this particular case was more a serious violation of human rights than blatant sexism, it did thrust the subject of feminism back into the media.

Someone else hitting the headlines this week who appears to have forgotten feminism ever happened is Hip Hop sensation Kanye West after the title of a song he had written for his girlfriend, Kim Kardashian was revealed as the rather misogynistic to say the least, ‘My Perfect Bitch’. An attempt at a love song would you believe, how sweet. Oh to have been a fly on the wall when he announced that one over the dinner table. I find it very doubtful that she would have thrown her arms around him whilst beaming with pride and would hazard a guess it was more a scene involving some uncomfortable wincing in a bid to salvage a smile, followed by a panicked call to her Mother and Manager to discuss any possible implications.

I think Mr West should take a leaf out of his mentor and right hand man’s book, Jay Z, who shortly after the birth of his first daughter earlier this year announced he would no longer be using the ‘B’ word to refer to ladies. Apparently his wife and partner of over ten years, Beyoncé, wasn’t a big enough incentive to ditch the derogatory term before, but hey, better late than never right?

There was some light at the end of the slightly sexist tunnel this week though. In the run up to the release of their debut single ‘Wings’ we have been seeing a lot more of last year’s X Factor winners, Little Mix in the news looking great yet surprisingly covered up. They have simply stuck to their guns after vowing to not sex up their image in order to sell records, therefore keeping it all about their music and talent, painting the group as refreshingly good role models for the younger generations. Good on the girls I say.

My New Addiction: Vagenda Magazine

Something’s been happening to me of late.  I never assumed I would morph in to this, but somehow, it IS happening, and my appetite for it is becoming somewhat insatiable.  Now, I’m not too sure what initially triggered my new vested interest off.  Perhaps it was work colleagues, friends…but I do know that the discovery of Vagenda Magazine  online is the main source of my new FEMINIST addiction.

Argh, no ‘FEMINIST’ she says!   All man-hating and bra-burning and the rest of that stereotypical crap. Well, no actually.  Unfortunately, the word ‘feminism’ is immersed in negative connotations these days, and for many women, it can even be an embarrassing word to declare in public.  A view I even loosely held until quite recently.  Now I don’t really give a shiz.  And why should I?  Or you for that matter?  Did you know that the inventor of Wonder Woman, Charles Moulton, declared himself an early feminist?  And that in the 1940s, his fictional creation was held in such high regard and has since been praised as a beacon of hope by lady figures from Maggie Thatcher to Hilary Clinton.  Thanks to Wonder Woman, women could see themselves for the first time standing NEXT to Superman, and even surpassing him, rather than at home baking him a non-kryptonite pie for his tea.  Moulton also invented the lie detector but that’s a different story…

Someone actually got paid to come up with that…

Growing up never even thought about how women are viewed in society.  Now I look back and think is this because modern day women are so desensitised to blatant male objectification (Nuts, Zoo, I blame you) or was it because I was lucky enough to be brought up by a strong independent woman? Or because the main male role models I had were pretty effing awesome (my grandad still treats my Grandma like a Queen after 65 years of marriage, and why shouldn’t he?).  But having entered my young adultness, I have finally been awoken to how painfully patriarchal main stream culture truly is, and how much it is treating future generations to freely objectify women to the point where it is universally accepted, even by WOMEN.  Take Grazia, More! Magazine, Cosmo…all these fluff filled rags do is teach young impressionable women how to please a man.  Is there a male equivalent? Is there fuck.

So I implore you, male or female, give yourself over to Vagenda for at least a quick glance.  I promise it is more than just feminist shpeel, and guarantee you will be pleasantly surprised, and maybe, just maybe, it might open your eyes too. 

Leslie Knope – feminist, inspiration and future President of the USA

I just read an essay called The Ontology of Performance (to help my sister with a presentation) in which there was a lot of talk about speaking men and silent women and the problems of how women tell their side of history.

It was dense. On the other hand, here’s Amy Poehler as Leslie Knope in my favourite new silly American sitcom, Parks and Recreation – about the Parks department of Pawnee, a standard American town. If you wished the funny women got more screen time in The American Office, watch this.

In this clip, Leslie is pretending that she accidentally shot Ron Swanson, her boss, on a hunting trip. In thirty seconds, she captures a lot of what’s wrong with how men view most women.

In another episode, Leslie pays for a stripper to give her co-worker Tom Haverford a lapdance and tries to convince the stripper to choose another career path at the same time. And elsewhere, she cannot believe that Ron’s ex-wife Tammy would rather be Cleopatra – and manipulate men for her own personal gain – than Eleanor Roosevelt, one of Leslie’s heroes.

Women aren’t going to get on board with championing their own equality if everything written/ produced about it makes our heads hurt or is created by annoying warts’n'all female personalities. That said, Leslie is really desperate for a date/ relationship in most of the episodes I’ve watched – more honest than aspirational.

More Girls Running the World on Style & Then Some
The New Year’s Very Fashionable Honours List

Is it ladylike to watch men fight? S&TS’s second Telegraph London guest post

Pretty girls pretending to be unattractive | New Girl

Andrej Pejic: A wolf in sheep’s clothing

Image by Sabine Villiard (Photo France March 2011)

The young Serbian-Australian, Andrej Pejic, has been causing a stir on the fashion scene for a while now. We are all fascinated by how he looks just like a beautiful slip of a flat-chested girl, the ultimate conclusion of a society obsessed with androgyny.

Something about it all disturbs me, though. Before you jump to any conclusions, I just want to prefix what I’m about to say with the qualification that I’m not making a comment about Transgendered people in general or anyone’s lifestyle choices. What disturbs me about a man modelling women’s clothes is, simply put, this: haven’t women been trapped and pressured into eating disorders and body image issues by society for long enough by skinny female models? Isn’t this just moving the attainability of our ideals of beauty just another dangerously distant step too far?

On the one hand, this does not seem like an original point, and I feel like it must have been said time and time again before now, but on the other, the fashion industry seems strangely quiet on this fact at the moment. It’s as if mentioning it might make you look overly conservative and anti-progressive. But is it really that wrong to suggest that designers should be designing for women’s bodies, that they should be celebrating and not repressing femininity? Male misogyny at the heart of the fashion industry is no new thing. After all, Cecil Beaton called the stunningly curvaceous Elizabeth Taylor a ‘great thick revolting mass of femininity’, a heinous insult spat out in disgust at the feet of all woman kind.

I should come clean about something here: at 5 foot 10″ or thereabouts I have always had a rather ‘boyish’ build, and rather than feeling pressured into losing weight growing up, I’ve wished again and again I could gain it and have a more feminine body. It horrifies me that so many of my female friends feel dissatisfied with their beautiful curves. In the Andrej Pejic debate, people have suggested that it’s a good thing for a man to model women’s clothes instead of emaciated-looking women. Perhaps this ideal is just so unattainable that women will finally give up on trying to look like models, they say. This argument seems utterly stupid to me. When we see Andrej Pejic in women’s clothing, it does not matter whether or not we know that he’s a man. We see a stunningly beautiful, other-worldly woman, and we – whether consciously or subconsciously – aspire to that ideal. Perhaps I should just calm down and accept the inherent disconnect between reality and the catwalk, I hear you say. Okay, fine – but try telling that to a woman whose life has been dogged by eating disorders. Seen in this light, there’s an intense glow of irony in the flash of those bulbs at the end of the runway.

Do you think I’m over-reacting? Let me know your thoughts, below.

How do you plan on changing the world? A speech every woman should hear

Admittedly, I’m a bit slow on the uptake with this one, since it was delivered in May, but Sheryl Sandberg’s speech is essentially listening if you ask me. Watch it below.

Addressing the graduating class of New York’s Barnard college, Facebook COO Sandberg focuses on gender equality, and the lack thereof, which she calls ‘this generation’s central moral problem.’ She urges the all female class that in order to close the gender gap, particularly in the workplace, they’re going to have to be ambitious and believe in themselves. Hardly groundbreaking advice, but some of the studies she quotes from are astonishing e.g. evidence that women will attribute their success to external factors but men will believe it’s because, basically, they’re awesome. She also answers the question I posed back in April, do girls really run the world? You’ll never guess – it turns out they don’t. Yes, it’s a little bit cheesy at times, but ultimately this is an incredibly inspirational speech that every woman (and man for that matter) should hear.

Do girls really run the world Beyonce?

I must have watched Beyonce’s new single ‘Run the World (Girls)’ on YouTube about 20 times this week. Visually, it’s faultless, but am I the only person who think the supposedly empowering lyrics are actually anything but?

If you haven’t yet seen Beyonce’s performance of new single ‘Run the World (Girls)’ at last weeks 2011 Billboard Music Awards then I’d do so quick smart, because it’s brilliant. She interacts with virtual drum sticks, globes and a flock of birds via a huge screen behind her, brings out an army of scantily clad backing dancers and does a mesmerising jerky shoulder dance that I’ve been trying to emulate without success. You can watch a ten-minute version below, preceded by a rather unnecessary show reel of sycophantic comments from the likes of Stevie Wonder, Lady Gaga and Michelle Obama. The music video for the single is great too – more girl armies, more shoulder dancing and a killer Alexander McQueen dress. Watch it here.

However, I’ve got a bit of a problem with the song, or more specifically, the lyrical content. You see, Beyonce asks the rhetorical question ‘who run[s] the world?’ and gives the answer ‘girls.’ OK, so far, so empowering. But later lyrics belie the supposed feminist message. ‘My persuasion can build a nation…you’ll do anything for me,’ claims Beyonce. So it seems that what she’s really saying is not that girls actually run the world, but they control the men that do, using their feminine wiles. Which is hardly the stance of an independent woman is it now?

Don’t get me wrong, I realise it’s just a pop song, not a political manifesto, but if you’re going to write a song called declaring that girls are ‘taking over the world,’ it seems a bit disingenuous to suggest that they’re only doing it by influencing men. Why can’t girls build their own nations?