For your reading pleasure!
Prozac Nation in the 21st Century – This particular story from The Guardian really hit home for me. With one in three women reliant upon anti-depressants to get out of bed, I feel this article says what so many other people, let alone women, have wanted to say. I never used to be open about my mental health, but these days I’m taking the honesty route. Having been on anti-depressants since I was 12 (yes, even before I hit the troublesome teen years) I was officially diagnosed with depression, and promptly put on Cipramil. I’ve been on and off SSRIs for 11 years, and am gradually starting to ween myself off. The thing is with anti-depressants, you become rather attached to them. They become a part of your body, like an arm or a leg or a treasured birth mark or secret mole. If you want the god honest truth, I don’t think I should have ever been put on them. I’m 23-years-old, and I rely on the highest legal dosage of Cipramil to keep me from hybernating. Whilst I have the luxury of being able to work through my issues on a cognitive level (whatever these ‘issues’ may be, I’m not sure. Sometimes I feel I have a natural predilection for unsubstantiated melancholy), I understand that some people just want to put their black dog to sleep, post haste. It’s so much easier to cover up your demons than trying to train your black dog. (The Guardian)
The doctor was right all those years ago when he told me to consider coming off them because “life gets harder, not easier”. But to sit and talk about depression when there’s so much else to do … children to raise, husbands to harass, homes to run, careers to cultivate, never mind a life to live… well, I’ve got a three-second window in between school drop-off, cleaning the toilet and sleep, so is 2.35am OK for a chat, counsellor? The invitation to “talk with tissues” also rather negates the widely-held scientific understanding of the chemical relationship between serotonin and depression. You wouldn’t tell a diabetic: “there, there, let it all out and forget the insulin”.
What all of us female glossy addicts/pioneers for fierce bitches are hoping for – an autobiography by Anna Wintour.
Does she really play tennis every morning? Did she really demand a staffer to purchase an unpublished manuscript of Harry Potter? Does she shave, or does she wax? Is she dressed by bluebirds in the morning? Will she shoot lazer beams out of her eyes when she removes her glasses? (Fashionista)
Lady Gaga’s wishful thinking – Julia is a sapphic sister. (Lesbilicious)
The preservation of the self online - Erica Bartle asks ‘should we encourage young girls to create a public persona’? Social media now the photo albums of yesteryear, and with last night’s party on display for mothers, employers and exes to see, it’s pretty obvious we need to practice some precaution. But how much precaution? In interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, brand manager Sharon Williams suggests that not only should young girls self-censor, they should also develop a public persona. A brand identity of sorts.
”It’s like a tattoo,” Ms Williams, of Artarmon, said. “Parents need to take control and be responsible for their personal brand because as a child, you have no idea that in 15 years’ time or five years’ time, the effects of what you’re doing today will be wide-ranging and have the most extraordinary repercussions.”
However, Erica suggests internet fame is just another way for girls to compete with one another. (GWAS)
There’s a distinction between guidelines and “branding”, the latter connoting a deliberate imagining and projecting of one’s ideal image at a time when that image is in development and vulnerable to external influences. In the process of grappling with the public/private self dichotomy, I imagine many teens could become quite confused in the process. It’s exhausting keeping up appearances, let alone two or more of them! But the last word goes to Eugenie: “Perhaps we need a reminder that not all of us are destined for fame. Or as Mother would say, sometimes a little mystery isn’t such a bad thing.”
Gertrude Stein gets her iPhone. Incomprehensible modernist poetry follows.
Beauty or brains? Scarlet over at Early Bird Catches the Worm asks which we would rather have, as well as which we would rather be known for. Whilst most people view the two as mutually exclusive, I think we can have both. Why not? (Early Bird Catches the Worm)
DREAM NERDBURGER
The general voice of my blog has been very much against the idea of those (or, in a way, any) standards for a long time, maybe not in so many words, but definitely in sprit. I once relished in an email I got saying I was an ugly boy because it felt like proof that I hadn’t given in to societal pressure to be pretty that girls usually feel affected by. I got all self reflecty on Tumblr about creating my own ideas of beauty. I wrote simply during September’s No Makeup Week that I never felt the urge to wear any. I used to dress much more frumpily and goofily, on here and in public real life. Which was great, and I loved it. But, as is the point of this blog, my style has changed a bit.I would be lying to say it ends at simply wanting to try a different aesthetic of dressing, though. With one’s freshman year of high school comes a new batch of insecurities and a new kind of self-awareness. Except…I would be lying to say it ends there, too, because I know I’m smarter than that, and I know I have a good bullshit filter when it comes to conformity pressure in high school and women’s magazines and men’s magazines and industries that thrive on their female demographics’ insecurities.
Harry Potter and the girls who weren’t the chosen ones. Because the final Harry Potter came out this week, I couldn’t resist digging around for some old articles regarding the super girls in Harry Potter. Most of the feminist readings about Harry Potter lambast J.K Rowling as anti-feminist. Like, why is Harry not Harriet? Why is Dumbledore head master and not Professor McGonagal (never mind that he is replaced by Umbridge). Why are wands so phallic? Why don’t they wave around flowers? Why does patriarchy extend to the wizarding world?! Not so, says this article from Bitch magazine.
Hermione Granger is Rowling’s feminist presence in the novel, of course. We’re continually hit over the head with how clever she is, and it’s Hermione’s intelligent thinking that so often saves the day. Hermione is always guided by a strong set of ethics: She cares about social justice, as particularly embodied in her commitment to house elf rights where most of the wizarding world wouldn’t think twice about their status. She nurses a passion for Ron, her best friend with Harry, but never loses her dignity for it. (Her “Just because you’ve got the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn’t mean we all have” line will never lose its punch.) And she’s brave. Hermione has a fierce kind of commitment to the fight for peace and justice running through the series, even when that means modifying her parents’ memories and sending them to Australia so they will be safe. She made it cool to be smart and forthright for a lot of girls.
BAM.
