Arbitrary rules for holiday parties

My co-worker A was considering buying a Christmas sweater last week. She called me over to look at a couple of sweaters online, one with reindeer and the other with--well, also reindeer, but smaller.

Dramatized here.

We got to talking about the sense in buying an item of clothing that you can only really wear for about six weeks out of the year: immediately after Thanksgiving up until December 26. Even if the sweater isn't explicitly Christmas themed--snowflakes, for example, instead of Santa Claus or a Christmas tree--it's really only suitable for the Christmas season.

This is holiday party arbitrary rule number 1.

Warming up to the topic, we discussed the context in which one would wear a Christmas sweater. You can wear a Christmas sweater to a holiday party, but you can only wear it to more than one holiday party in a season if the parties aren't frequented by the same people. For example, you can wear it to the office party and then to your family's home for Christmas dinner, but you can't wear it to the office party and then wear it again to a bar get-together with some folks from work, because the same group of people will see you in it. Arbitrary rule number 2.

"No pictures! They'll be up on Facebook!" Matt cuts in at this point.

"And you can't wear the same party outfit to the same party two years in a row," I said, stating arbitrary rule number 3. "You need to wait at least three years between parties to wear the outfit again."

I guess at this point, Matt just couldn't handle any more feminine nonsense. He stood up and said, "I love how you just make up this arbitrary rules, but you say them with such an air of authority and confidence, as if they were real, actual things that people do!"

And we all had a good laugh.

BUT--allow me to describe my wardrobe saga of the holiday season thus far, since I went to three parties this week and will be hosting another one tomorrow. I wore my 2012 Holiday Tea dress at the President's Party last Thursday. I'm going to wear my 2012 President's Party dress to the Holiday Tea on Monday. I wore my 2012 Valentine's Day dress to Thanksgiving 2013. I'm going to wear yesterday's post-Hanukkah party outfit to Valentine's Day 2014, and 2009's Christmas Day outfit to 2013 Christmas Day because it's time again.

Choose, unless you wish to stay here for evermore, To help you in your choice, we give you these clues four: First, however slyly the poison tries to hide You will always find some on nettle wine's left side...

I'm never going to wear last Friday night's party outfit to another party again, because I didn't realize I was going to be the most casually dressed person there, BF. 

I know to some, these rules and distinctions seem arbitrary. Lots of things women have to do probably seem arbitrary to men. Hell, they seem arbitrary to me sometimes! But that doesn't make them any less real. And it doesn't mean that other women aren't watching to make sure you follow the rules. "The Simpsons" did a whole episode about it, so you know it's true.

That's arbitrary rule number 4.

And it's the most important rule of all.

Station Identification

We pause now for station identification.

You are reading Big Island Rachel on bigislandrachel.blogspot.com. I'm Rachel and I'm from the Big Island of Hawaii. I live in Brooklyn now. Most of the people who read this blog are my family members and they already know all this.

I have a book review blog over at bigislandrachelsbooks.blogspot.com that I update on Saturdays. I have a college radio show called the Rodent Hour. We broadcast at 8PM Tuesday nights and you can listen to us online anywhere in the world. Local New York bands play a live set, we interview them, we each some chili, and everyone goes home happy and has trouble getting up for work the next morning.

Recurring characters on my blog are my boyfriend, the BF; his brother Big Scientist, BS; my friend R; Mum, Sister and Daddio; and co-workers designated titles like A, M, Tall Boss, and Big Boss. Recurring themes are feminism, comic books, and life in Brooklyn, New York.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

I like Catwoman.

My 7 favorite things about New York ComicCon 2012

My last post about ComicCon wasn't really about the Con itself, but more of an end-of-the-Con gush of emotion. An emotional oil derrick, if you will. I felt sappy, melancholy, and maybe a little defensive of the vaguely subversive and tawdry things I'd said and done. I think we've all had weekends like that.

I'm looking at you, Hedonismbot.

My sordid personal life aside, I did have a great time, so great that I'm going to count down my top 7 favorite things about my trip to ComicCon 2012.

7) The layout of the Javits Center.

When I went to the Con in 2010, it was the first year that New York ComicCon and New York AnimeFest had a shared event. Regular readers may remember that I went to the AnimeFest in 2009 when it was still it's own separate little convention, tucked away in the basement level of the Javits Center to prevent any high-falutin' ideas in attendees' minds regarding their social acceptability. This tradition continued in 2010, when the AnimeFest show floor and artist displays were crammed into a single hall in the basement while ComicCon got the entire top floor for their show floor and artists, with sunlight and everything. There was some definite stigmatizing of the anime-fans going on that year. And grown-ass adults dressed as cartoon characters shouldn't be casting stones at other grown-ass adults dressed as cartoon characters.

Glass fucking houses, nerds.

Social commentary aside, the arrangement also made for terrible traffic flow in the Javits Center. This year, the organizers wised up and had a fully-integrated Con. There was one show floor on the top level, one Artists Alley on the ground level, and the basement level was only for panels and screenings. Even though over 100,000 people attended this year, traffic flow was kind of okay. I only had one panicky moment where I was afraid I'd be crushed into a fine red paste on the show room floor, and that was my own fault. I should have never tried to get into the most popular part of the Con during peak hours.

6) Archery.

First thing we did on Saturday morning after changing into our costumes. I didn't have my glasses on, so my first two arrows didn't even hit the target. I pulled low and to the left, which is actually the same problem I have when I shoot guns. My third and final arrow I WAY overcompensated and hit the bulls-eye.

Like a boss.

I won a limited edition Tomb Raider print, which thrilled me a lot less than getting to keep my target. Incidentally, does anyone want a limited edition Tomb Raider print? I don't play Tomb Raider and I try to surround myself with art that doesn't depict fiery doom.

Just screams relaxation. Or maybe just screams.

5) Kill Shakespeare: A Live Stage Reading

Second thing we did on Saturday. "Kill Shakespeare" is a comic written by Anthony Del Col and Conner McCreery, and drawn by Andy B. They projected panels without word bubbles on a screen behind a table of actors, who provided the dialogue. There was also one very busy prop man making all of the sound effects with plastic wrap, spoons, and buckets of water. The story is about a bunch of characters from Shakespeare's plays, some of whom believe Shakespeare to be a god, and some of whom want him dead because of the threat he represents to their power. It was a good story with memorable characters, and it's always fun to see something in one medium make the transition to another.

The best part, though, was that R won a copy of Kill Shakespeare: Volume 1 by answering a Shakespeare trivia question, and it was a doozy. "What Shakespeare character has the most lines in a play not named after that character?" R's hand shot up so fast she almost knocked my mask off. She was in there like swimwear. "Iago!" Iago in "Othello" has the most lines of any Shakespeare character in a play not named after him. Now that is some hard-core nerd knowledge. In my opinion, R definitely won the Con for Saturday.

4) ComicCon Comedy

In 2010, I only saw one stand-up comedian, doing just a single 15-minute set. It was great. This year, there was so much comedy to choose from that I didn't get to see it all. First was the Nerdologues, "a comedy show that explores nerd culture through hilarious sketches and personal stories." Then we saw an hour-long set by Uncle Yo, seen here leering from behind a monocle.

Classy, Yo.

It's pointless to recap a comedy routine, firstly because I don't want to plagiarize the comedians, secondly because I don't want to make you laugh using someone else's material, and thirdly because I don't even think it would be that funny. You just had to BE there, man!

3) Saga panel

"Saga" is a comic written by Brian K. Vaughan and drawn by Fiona Staples, and it's currently the best-selling independent comic after The Walking Dead, in addition to being my favorite comic on the stands right now. I was on the fence about whether or not to go to this panel. Panels with creators are hit-or-miss. Just because you're good at writing or drawing doesn't mean you're a great public speaker, and nothing makes me cringe like seeing some poor creator bomb on stage because s/he can't work the crowd. But Brian K. Vaughan killed it. I laughed almost as much as I did at the actual stand-up comedy. He was charming, friendly, foul-mouthed, cheeky, and just humble enough to be endearing.

Not even trying to hide the bald.

My favorite quote: "I remember asking Fiona not to make Alanna [the heroine] a redhead, because I thought there was a glut of redheads in fiction right now. And she said to me, 'You know, she doesn't have to be white.' And I said, 'Of course, I'm an IDIOT!'"

My other favorite quote: "I had an idea about this guy and his monkey being chased by women with one boob on motorcycles and I thought, Did I just shit myself? Or was that a real idea?"

Fiona was nice enough, but Brian K. Vaughan owned that stage. Cool for him, slightly problematic for her (see number 1 on this list). Plus I got some artwork!

My copy smaller.

2)  Geek Thoughts panel: Top blogs discuss writing about science fiction, fantasy, and fandom

This is the meat-and-potatoes stuff of conventions. Writers from Tor.com, Boing Boing, The Mary Sue, The Beat, and Bleeding Cool talked about what it means to be a fan and what it means to be leaders of fans and fan forums. Honestly, this one is a bit of a blur because it was late in the day and I was really tired, but I remember feeling like I was more informed about the way information is disseminated through my community, and that made me feel smart.

Smart enough to finally make the connection that the guy who ran a website called Bleeding Cool would, of course, be British.

1) ComicCon Women

So I attended two panels, back to back, by and about the women of the nerdly underground. The first was GeekMoms: Raising Young Padawans, held by the women who write Wired's GeekMom blog. I only caught the second half of this one, and it was entirely by accident. I wanted to attend the panel right after GeekMoms, which was being held in the same room, and I was so tired after two days of walking the Javits Center that I decided to just to the room and sit through whatever was there, just to SIT. And it turned out to be a very interesting discussion about how these women were passing their interests along to their children. They talked about what properties were appropriate for kids in terms of gaming, books, comics, and movies, and how much the landscape of childhood has changed since they were nerdy little girls who had to hide their interests from classmates, both because of their gender and the actual interests.

I'll just say I'm into leather. No one will suspect a thing.

I had a moment where I drifted off because they were discussing how to pick the right schools, and suddenly heard one of the panelists mention the Girl Scouts, so I whooped and clapped and completely threw her off track. I don't think she was expecting that much love for the Girl Scouts, but gang, I loves me the Girl Scouts. I loves them a lot.

The second panel was even better, Getting Graphic with Girls: Empowering girls and addressing issues through paneled pictures. This was a younger set of panelists whose moderator cancelled at the last minute, leading to a lot of very funny "Unmoderated!" jokes.

Look how unmoderated they are. Scandal!

Something magical happens when you get some confident women in a room together and ask them to talk about their careers. There was so much confidence radiating from these individuals, and they all had so much respect for each other, it was mesmerizing. Maybe they all knew each other already, maybe they all happened to be great public speakers, but they were far and away the best panel of the Con in terms of flow, diversity of topics, humor, intelligence, and exuberance. They were just so much FUN. One of the presenters even said, "Girls writing comics just have more fun with it. Guys feel the need to be all dark and gritty and serious, but maybe because we're outsiders in the genre, we can just have fun with our comics and not have to worry about that."

She doesn't give a damn if you like her duckies or not.

All of the other panels I'd attended to had just one or two women presenting, and while I wouldn't say they were drowned out by the men, the men spoke a lot more and there was a slight hesitation on the part of the women when it was their turn. It wasn't obvious, and I may even be imagining it in hindsight. I don't think anyone is surprised that a woman who spends her weekends like THIS can mistake fantasy for reality every now and again.

Sh! I'm feeling the curvature of the earth.

But dudes, DUDES, the contrast between the way women spoke on the panels where they were outnumbered and the way the women spoke on the all-women Graphic Girls panel--you can't witness that without feeling both empowered and stripped of power, all at the same time. Empowered, because hearing women talk about their art and passion is awesome; and stripped of power because you don't really get to see that when you add men back to the equation.

And I swear I'm not making this up. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that her colleagues will sometimes just straight up ignore her comments during conferences. "When I will say something -- and I don't think I'm a confused speaker -- and it isn't until somebody else says it that everyone will focus on the point." Women are ignored. My Big Boss commented as I revved myself up for the Con that he always thought the BF was the one who got ME interested in comics. A student worker followed up with a comment about how you don't meet a lot of girls who are interested in comics. And this wasn't about the comics, not really. Cultural and political movements are almost always dominated by men. Democracy: "Oh, women want to vote, too?" Art: "Oh, Virginia Wolfe, you want to write, too? Oh, Frida Kahlo, you want to paint, too?" Girls can be geeks, too?

Do we need to see the evidence again?

If something is important and destined to have impact, women have to scrape and scramble to make certain they're a part of it, and everyone is always surprised to see us there. They shouldn't be. ComicCon is amazingly diverse. There's an even 50-50 gender split, and a huge range of ages, races, and level of mobility represented. Sadly, you wouldn't know it to look at the "Special Guests" list for New York ComicCon: a bunch of middle-aged white dudes with a scattering of Asians and women shuffled in at the bottom. I'm not saying that those people didn't work hard to get where they are or that they aren't talented. I'm just saying that the people who consume the product don't have much of a voice in the group of people who produce the product.

And it's that sort of dense brain-food that makes the ComicCon Women my number 1 favorite thing about New York ComicCon 2012.

Next Sunday, I'll count down the list of my least favorite things about New York ComicCon 2012.

The Poetry Beat

One of my favorite writers is Diane di Prima. You might not have heard much about her. She was a Beat Poet--still is, I guess, does a person stop being part of a movement when the movement has moved on to other things?Anyway, you wouldn't have heard much about her because all of the other famous and "important" Beat Poets were dudes, and she was writing at a time when there wasn't really any societal or artistic freedom for women.

I'm considering Diane di Prima today because last night, my poetry teacher took me to an event hosted by her feminist poetry collective at the Dixie Club in SoHo. (There's no part of that sentence I don't like.) They showed a 26-minute indie short film called "The Poetry Beat," about the life and work of di Prima, which included interviews with women who knew her back-when, women who were influenced by her work, and di Prima herself, now living in San Francisco with her poems, watercolors, and little yellow dog. There were poetry performances by di Prima at all stages of her life, from when she was a well-titted young woman with golden-red hair, until today, still well-titted at 77 but a bit grayer in the hair.

My favorite anecdote was from a woman who hosted di Prima at a commune in Maine one year. The commune had 8 children under the age of 2, so when di Prima got a bit of royalty money from one of her books, she celebrated by buying the commune women a crate of Pampers diapers (until then, they'd been using and endlessly washing cloth diapers). The women loved it, but the men complained about how much waste disposables created. "It was an easy way for them to be down on Diane without calling her a pushy woman," said the commune manager.

I like that story because it illustrates the problem I have with the Beat movement. On the one hand, I like the writing that came out of it, but on the other hand, some of its more celebrated figures were raging misogynists. Jack Kerouac can go hell as far as I'm concerned. His book On the Road made me cross-eyed with rage. It's supposed to be about these guys who are all hip and free and not tied down by societal bonds, but they're constantly getting women pregnant and then abandoning their families to hitchhike across the country. Freedom bought for the price of a woman's suffering. Disgusting, I say!

Diane di Prima really gets it, though. I wish I had time to find some of her poetry to put up here, but my break is almost over and I guess I should get back to working for the Man so I can earn my cheese and waffle money.

New Business Model: More Tits!

I'm a feminist and I read comic books.

(Up next, Sherlock Holmes and the Case of No Shit.)

I read comic books and I enjoy images of perfect physical specimens running around in tight clothing as much as the next nerd. But as a feminist, I recognize that this art form has a long history of objectifying and marginalizing their female characters. When Wonder Woman first joined the Justice League, she wasn't allowed to go on missions with the male heroes. She was the Justice League's secretary. Seriously.

Female characters eventually rose to prominence in the comic book universe (though they still have a nasty tendency to get raped, de-powered, or dismembered and stuffed into refrigerators). My two favorite titles right now, Birds of Prey and Gotham City Sirens, star all-female superhero teams, and the new Batwoman comic, debuting in September, is the one of the most hotly anticipated titles coming out of DC's new mega-relaunch of their entire line.

Which brings us to my current feminist rant. DC Comics is relaunching all of their superhero comics (or rebooting, or renumbering, or whatever you want to call it when management says, Screw it, we're starting over). When the new comics hit the stands in September, there are going to be a few changes to my favorite super-women. Gotham City Sirens will be discontinued, with Poison Ivy moving to the Birds of Prey, Harley Quinn joining the Suicide Squad, and Catwoman getting her own solo title.

This is all fine. Catwoman is my favorite character and her last solo title was pretty good, and anything is better for Harley Quinn than just being the Joker's abused girlfriend.

And then I saw the artwork for the new comics. Please keep in mind that this is not fan-art--these are the actual, official DC Comics covers for two of their most prominent female characters.

Here is Catwoman.
Here is Harley Quinn.
Again, official artwork.

Harley Quinn's corset is held up by nothing except the collective horror of female comic book fans. Catwoman looks like she just fucked that condom full of diamonds. The jewels are spilling out onto her cleavage, for chrissake!

THIS is why it's so embarrassing to be a comic book reader. This confirms every negative stereotype of the socially maladjusted mouthbreather drooling over anatomically impossible bimbos in a dark basement that smells of hopelessness and corn chips. It's a corporate slap in the face to every woman who has ever had to endure the leers and condescension of said mouthbreathers at comic shops and conventions. And it's a chilling reminder of what people in power really think about women.

I feel like my 20 years of loyal patronage of the DC brand has just been repaid with a big, steaming pile of "fuck you and your opinions, you useless bitch, go put on something slutty for the fellas and maybe jiggle around a little." I couldn't even go to the comic book shop this week. I was so pissed off at the company that I didn't want to give them any more of my money or support. Instead, I sat down and wrote DC an angry letter, the contents of which are similar to this post, but with a lot less swearing.

So first time I write a letter to the editor, it's about pretend people who dress up like cats and homicidal clowns. I don't know what that says about my priorities. At least I can rest easy knowing that my priorities are still better-placed than whoever approved that artwork up there.

Emily Dickinson's Frilly Vagina

I do loves me some feminism. It's the only thing that will get me up off my couch and into a museum on a weekend, and I suspect the BF knew this when he turned to me on Sunday afternoon and suggested we visit the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum. Torn though I was between feminist art and my comic book about a woman made of pure electricity, I had to say yes.

The centerpiece of the Sackler Center's permanent collection is Judy Chicago's "The Dinner Party," a massive installation that took her five years to complete. It's a triangular table with place settings for 39 influential women throughout history, and the floor in the center of the piece is covered with the names of 999 other women, so all together that's 1038 famous and infamous women. "The Dinner Party" is bigger than my apartment and includes a wonderful "herstory" exhibit explaining who all of the 1038 women were and how they shaped Western thought.

The spellchecker on this website, by the way, just told me that I misspelled "vaginas." I didn't. The program just doesn't recognize the plural of vagina, which speaks volumes about why "The Dinner Party" is still such an important piece. At the time Judy Chicago was creating it (1974 to 1979), there was almost no scholarly interest in women's history. From the Brooklyn Museum website:

"There were no archeologists working seriously on the history of goddess civilizations and imagery, or the all-female Amazonian societies that dated back to the 3rd and 2nd-millenia b.c.; there were no Egyptologists yet interested in the power of the female pharaoh Hatshepsut; there was certainly no real scholarly interest yet in the Baroque painter, Artemisia Gentileschi."

As the BF noted, "The Dinner Party" details a secret history running alongside mainstream Western history--the kind you learned about in high school--where the "Dark Ages" was actually a period where women excelled artistically and spiritually in thriving convents, and the "Enlightenment" was distinguished by massive legal and creative setbacks for women. Of course it's a Western-themed piece. One can imagine that in a time where women's history was seen as revolutionary, there wouldn't yet be much room for multi-ethnic studies.

Still--Emily Dickinson's frilly vagina!
Thanks, feminism. You're all right.

Happy Women's Equality Day!

On August 26th, 1920, the United States passed the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote. And in 1971, Representative Bella Abzug (D-NY) started Women's Equality Day, also on August 26th.

So, if you're a woman and you engage or have engaged in any of the following behaviors:

1) Voting

2) Working outside the home

3) Wearing pants

4) Getting painkillers during childbirth

5) Earning a living wage

6a) Getting divorced

6b) Giving birth out of wedlock

6c) 6a and 6b, and still educating your children

Then you, my friend, are a feminist in the style of these brave, strong women with fabulous hats. Take a moment to reflect on all of the freedoms American women enjoy thanks to them, freedoms that are sadly still unavailable to many of our sisters overseas. We in America, who have voted, gone to college, and raised our children under the banner of "liberty and justice for all" for several generations, sometimes lose sight of the bigger picture. We forget that feminism isn't about beauty pageants, nipple slips, or who gets to open the door for whom on a date. Feminism is about the the Afghan schoolgirls who get battery acid thrown in their faces, and the 95% of Malian women who undergo genital mutilation. It's about bride burnings, honor killings, rape as a war tactic, and gender-specific abortions. And ultimately, it is about hope: hope that someday, every woman everywhere can speak her mind, get an education, marry if and whom she chooses, have control of her own body, and make her own destiny.

Nicolas Kristof, one of my favorite NY Times writers, and Sheryl WuDunn wrote a wonderful article, The Women's Crusade, making the case that achieving equality for women is the solution to far-reaching and pervasive global problems, from poverty to economic growth to terrorism. An expert:

"IN THE 19TH CENTURY, the paramount moral challenge was slavery. In the 20th century, it was totalitarianism. In this century, it is the brutality inflicted on so many women and girls around the globe: sex trafficking, acid attacks, bride burnings and mass rape. Yet if the injustices that women in poor countries suffer are of paramount importance, in an economic and geopolitical sense the opportunity they represent is even greater."

It's a fascinating article, and I urge all *let me think, one, two, three* four of my readers to check it out.

And don't forget to get your daily dose of girl power at my favorite feminist website, feministing.com. Catch the fever--vagina fever.