What Kind of F**kery Is This?

Picture it: Charlotte, North Carolina.
The median years in the first decade of the new millennium.
A young and eager Natty sits in a conference room with mismatched office chairs in various degrees of hard plastic. It's the yearly newspaper brainstorming session, and ideas for cover stories and articles are ricocheting about the table.
"What about ... " a voice says from the sidelines, "a story on gold-diggers? There are SO many of them trying to steal our boys. I see them. I know them."

The voice was that of a freelancer, a girl who took a singular interest in the local pro-sports players. NFL. Our boys. Possessive.

"Gold-diggers! Yes!" Agreement from a few.  Kayne West's song was already a few years old at this point, but what could be more relevant to an alternative newspaper than the most popular game in lazy media: Finding a Stereotype of Women and Endorsing it fully. Profit. Subject to this game are: Soccer moms, desperate housewives, Sex and the City caricatures, pop stars, wives of famous men, wives of famous politicians, Baby Mamas, any type of woman of colour (your basic Welfare Queen/ Ghetto/ Loud/ Angry/ Uneducated trope), hippie chicks, feminists, any vagina-carrying individual, etc. You'd think perpetuating negative stereotypes of women was a pinata, and the more lazy media bashed it, the better the candy. Delicious, delicious candy profit.

At the time, I had been mulling over the idea of a feminist deconstruction of Amy Winehouse songs. And to quote the lady herself, "What kind of fuckery is this?"

Evidently, It's Quote Day on FitC

“So, why do you write these strong women characters?
Because equality is not a concept. It’s not something we should be striving for. It’s a necessity. Equality is like gravity, we need it to stand on this earth as men and women, and the misogyny that is in every culture is not a true part of the human condition. It is life out of balance and that imbalance is sucking something out of the soul of every man and women who’s confronted with it. We need equality, kinda now.
So, why do you write these strong female characters?
Because you’re still asking me that question.” 

— Joss Whedon, Equality Now

Via http://edmangoodrich.com/

Mull It Over

“When we complain about men raping, abusing, harassing, and refusing us our human rights, and you come back angrily with, 'But some men aren’t like that! How dare you imply that I might be like that.' Do you not think that the problem might come from the very fact that you are angry at … us for complaining, rather than angry at your fellow boys and men for this enduring misogyny? Instead of being furious that we point out that many men do act this way -- including men these women trust completely -- be angry that there are men that will treat your mother, sister, daughter, friend, girlfriend badly purely because they are female. Not only that but they are giving you a bad name, not us."
— Unknown 

Found via Sady Doyle's tumblr.  I wish I knew who originally wrote this so I could give proper credit.

Weekly Flâneur: City Seen

A new feature I'd like to play with: Weekly city/town/urban scenes to fully capture the experience of a flâneur. Since I tend to veer away from the titular promise of this blog to dive into political discourse (and make no mistake about it -- feminism is personal and political), a weekly photo from different places in the world may add some balance. Or at least distract from the constant barrage of Bowie.

As Susan Sontag says of photography being the tool of those who walk the world over: "The photographer is an armed version of the solitary walker reconnoitering, stalking, cruising the urban inferno, the voyeuristic stroller who discovers the city as a landscape of voluptuous extremes. Adept of the joys of watching, connoisseur of empathy, the flâneur finds the world 'picturesque.'"

If you have a photograph you'd like to see here, please email me at flaneurinthecity at gmail dot com.

This week (click to enlarge photo):

Rainy sidewalk outside The Cambridge Pub, Soho, 93 Charing Cross Road, London.

In Which Anecdotal Saying is Evidence for Larger Social Problem

"That's just like a man. When I get into a car, I adjust to the settings of the car. When he gets into a car, he makes the car adjust to him."

My mother says this while moving the steering wheel into a lower position, and then fumbling to slide the seat forward. Dad moved her car to back his out of the driveway, and in order to move it 10 feet from one side of the pavement to the other, he had pushed the seat back, raised the steering wheel, and reclined the headrest.

It's true that we are family of tall people. My dad towers at 6-foot-holy-cow, myself a modest 5'10 1/2  in flats (6-foot-Godzilla in heels) and my mom is the shortest in the family at a tiny 5'7. (My Brit/International mates can convert this at their own leisure -- I believe "Godzilla" is the same measure of height in the metric system as it is in America. That is: F'n tall, yo.)

Adjusting a seat to a comfortable driving position is par for the course when you're tall. But to move from one side of a narrow drive to the street? You'd think it was an unnecessary distraction. Yet my father does it every single time.

Which of course, could reason that this is a Man Trait, rather than a Dad Trait. It's anecdotal, but aren't most generalizations on gender anecdotal? After all, studies have proven time and time again that women are no worse drivers than men -- in fact, the majority of studies conclude that women are the safer drivers. But that damn stereotype lingers -- women are bad drivers. Someone has an anecdote to prove it.

The problem with this of course, is that people tend to believe anecdotal evidence as god-given truth. Right now, someone is arguing with one of the studies I have linked, pointing out how their neighbor's sister is the worst driver ever, having hit a school bus full of orphans and puppies twice. Twice! And besides, the wimminz can't drive because of all their periods and hormones and baby-making parts and make-up applying while driving. (It is fairly annoying when I get behind the wheel only to discover that my period and baby-making parts are growing arms and steering my car right into a telephone pole while I twirl my hair and giggle. Silly me.)

I suppose it's been on my mind lately, mostly because I've been spilling out my thoughts on stereotypes in the media in that long-ass post/essay I've been working on. (See my Meta-blogging posts for this.) There is some truth to my mom's saying -- men are taught to take up room. Women are taught to sit "properly" -- ankles crossed or legs crossed. Take up as little amount of space as possible. Be compact. Men are taught to spread out -- if the legs are crossed, it's with the ankle on the knee, leg jaunting out like a pier into their neighbors harboring space. Look around you the next time you're on a bus or in a coffee house. How are people sitting? And why?

While I disagree with using anecdotal evidence as a basis to judge the gender of half the population on the planet (because anecdotal evidence is 9 times out of 10 against women and used as justification for continuing sexism), it does indicate that there is a problem with the way men are raised and the way women are raised.

Girls are told to adjust. Boys are told to conquer. That passive attitude does more to harm women than help them.

What do you think, my dear readers? 

More Meta-blogging

That story I spoke of earlier this week? The one that combines Amy Winehouse and Gabrielle Giffords and lazy journalism?

It's reached 3,000-something words now; waaaaay too long for a blog post. When it's edited down to nice thousand or so, I'll post. Or keep adding to it until I have myself another book to submit to publishers. We'll see.

In the meantime, I've got a reputation to uphold, so here is the requisite David Bowie picture that my dearly loved readers (all 5 of them!) have come to expect from FitC. It also ties into the pop star discussion that I used to jump-start my glorious return to the world of blogging. Relevance! Go Natty! (Well, kinda relevance. Pretend it is. For me. Please and thank you.)

Raz This

The Razzie Award nominations were announced on Monday, the predecessor of the Oscar announcements Tuesday morning.

Not to take these mock awards as prestigious honours, but isn't it funny how in nearly every category and nearly every movie nominated is a film that falls under that ridiculous label of "chick flick"?

It's almost as if movies aimed at women are treated as oddities without significance and without the same clout as "regular" movies. You know, the real movies. Those real movies that are always good, without a doubt, because they star dudes and shit. Like Grown Ups. And Due Date. And It's Kind of a Funny Story. And Jonah Hex. The real Oscar contenders.

Because if a movie is aimed at women, it's got to be bad. Teenage girls read Twilight. What do they know? Who cares if it is perhaps the singular mainstream franchise that is aimed at/for teenage girls that does not involve Justin Bieber, and therefore, no matter how bad the source material is (see Reasoning With Vampires or Cleolinda for this) the passionate and financial endorsement of this series may be in part due to the fact that there is nothing else available.

If you're given stale bread, while your male counterparts ages 13-29 are given a full-course buffet with varieties of filet mignon, French cheese and rosemary olive oil croissants, you're going to love that stale bread, damn it. That stale bread is yours and yours alone. Sure, sure, you'll try to steal a bite or two, maybe even enjoy a glass of wine from the table labeled Die Hard but you know it wasn't made for you.

Hate chick flicks? Hate Twilight? Hate Sex and the City and Katherine Heigl?

Then demand wine and meat and brie cheeses. Demand something other than stale bread. And if you are one of those who believes that all chick flicks suck, no matter what, consider the source and count yourself lucky. Because you must be one of those who already ate from the buffet table.

Welcome, Lovely Weirdos

Here are the top search keywords that brought traffic to lil ol' FitC today.

In case this image cannot be seen on your screen or mobile device, some of the highlights of this Search Keyword screengrab include: "oldie porno," "gay monster dudes porn video," "puppy screaming at a man," and "romeo and juliet 1968."

Flâneur in the City: The place that meets all your dominatrix puppy, Franco Zeffirelli, gay porn needs. Oh, and some feminism.

Gratuitous Blog Post

 I have spent the past hour or so writing a post on Amy Winehouse and Gabrielle Giffords and Stereotypes, but it's turned into one tl;dr (too long; didn't read for us old folks who aren't into the Interwebs slang) mini-novel that needs some massive editing, quality time and loving care. But I desperately wanted to update my blog tonight, so here's a GIF of Lucy Lawless flopping down on a bed. Give it a click and watch.

Surprised it's not a Bowie GIF, aren't you?
Mixing it up. That's how I roll.

In Which I Am Completely Uninteresting and Entirely Useless Company to a 9-Year-Old

Nine-year-old: "Are you a teenager?"

Me: "I'm 29."

Nine-year-old: "That's old."

Me: "Yes. Yes, I am."

Nine-year-old: "Do you have kids?"

Me: "No kids."

Nine-year-old: "Oh. Do you like High School Musical?"

Me: "I've never seen it."

Nine-year-old: "Do you like Justin Bieber?"

Me: "I'm 29."

Nine-year-old: "Oh."

Me: "Yeah."

Nine-year-old: "Can you hip-hop dance?"

Me: "Not like Justin Bieber."

Nine-year-old gives exasperated sigh of pity, and in the way only children can, meanders off without another word.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Bowie!

8 January 1947: The day this beautiful man entered the world.

Natalie and Flâneur in the City love you, you crazy bastard.

Katy Perry vs. Lady Gaga

Also known as:

In Which I Return to Blogging for a Very Important Compare and Contrast of Pop Stars and Their Bras.

On Sexuality

Katy Perry:

"Teehee! I kissed a girl, and I liked it! But, not too much. I mean, as long as my boyfriend doesn't mind. It doesn't count as cheating with a woman anyway. It's not like I'm one of those dykey girls. Gross! That's not what good girls do! And I'm a good girl! No, I totally kissed a sexy girl like me! In lingerie! Sexy-sex lingerie! But not on camera. That's icky. People might think I'm gay! I'm not! I totally like boys! Cherry chapstick! Do you like me now?"

Lady Gaga:

On What Their Boobs Say

Katy Perry:

"Your Oedipal fantasy come true! Only better, because my boobs are used to creamy white liquid shooting all over them! Do you like me now?"

Lady Gaga:

"Force me into sex that I do not consent to and I will fucking kill you."

Also, this: