I tell you, there are some strange finds online, especially hanging around all-guy forums.
I have decided to increase my knowledge base about automobiles, which currently stands at exactly "What does that knob thingie do?", since I was raised by a completely car illiterate dad. It was inevitable then, that these hyper-macho sites would centre around that other male hobby: women.
One post certainly caught my eye, though. In the "for sale" area, a buxom Bronx babe of ironically similar name to me (!), was selling this.
Frankly, I could look at this photo all day, although not exactly for the same reasons why male Sundries readers might do.
It's just that I'm fascinated by (a) her sales pitch background (b) her artful presentation of the sale items (c) her iced out "jewelry" and general demeanour (d) her nails, and lastly (e) her potentially real boobs. Let's take that last bit first, shall we?
-- And there was great cheering throughout the land... --
First, I think they're real, but I'm such a duffer about such things. They have the naturalistic "smush" that err, mine have *blush*, so I'm fairly sure they're real and not the watermelon freakshow variety.
But her nails raise my antennae, since they are acrylic jobbies, not to mention that suspicious tan-in-a-can orange glow she has.
And would I want to buy a Ford Taurus door handle from George Hamilton? No, no I wouldn't.
I've been trying to figure out what her background is, by using deliberately obnoxious and rude stereotypes about ethnicities in New York, which I've carefully culled throughout the years by watching television shows like Kojak and The Sopranos.
Consequently, I've narrowed it down to Italian, Iranian or Russian. It's gotta be a people who make long black tresses into a fetish, but aren't afraid to look ridiculous even if they aren't fully aware they are ridiculous.
Like, you know, the Gotti boys.
The ice she's wearing is also fascinating. Fascinating because it's so fake, and therefore she must be aware that is bad sales practise. Rather like going to Saudi Arabia to close on a multi-billion dollar deal, wearing a fake Rolex from Guangzhou.
We can tell, get over yourself, sweetheart.
-- Actually, my mother wears paste jewelry because it's a time-honoured female way of mix-and-matching a fashion look. This gal, however, looks like she really thinks she's a female baller, like that delightful Kimora Lee. And by delightful, I mean utterly repulsive and venal. --
What is that charm around her neck anyway?
It looks like a cornucopia, or maybe even a leprechaun slipper? Who goes out wearing a leprechaun slipper around their necks! Sheesh. I ask you.
Having explored her jewelry, let's touch on the actual items she's trying to flog. It's like, instead of rummaging at the Goodwill store like normal middle-class people do, she decided to head to the local junkyard and solder off bits from Chevys.
What the hell kind of person does this! Sheesh. I ask you.
My God, is that a cigarette lighter? What is that! I must know.
In this last picture, we're even given insight about her surroundings. That's a mighty expensive Italian leather sofa...from Rent-to-Own.
Clearly, this vendor person decided to choose black because it would make a good background for her accumulation of car parts. But she added some Daisy Dukes for good measure.
I also like how she's daintily holding the items out for the viewer, like one would with a fragile orchid or a truffle. Voilà! she seems to be saying silently with her ginormous boobs, I mean, outstretched palms.
Careful, fellas. It's Crate-and-Barrel rules: you break, you buy.
Just so that you know, she doesn't have a good word-of-mouth from the guys in the forum, at least not about her stuff. She's forgetful, listing items long since sold to some sucker, I mean, buyer.
Somehow, though, I don't see a lot of men complaining. That used Volvo clutch isn't what is making their pulses race.
It's the certain knowledge they will get a sexually ambitious woman's digits cheaper than a dinner and a movie would've cost.
And if for nothing else, I applaud her and them both for their business acumen. A+++.
This is Hillary Rodham Clinton in the 1970s, back when she made herself to be bizarrely ugly, and badly-dressed. Unsurprisingly, it was during her aggressively feminist years.
This, on the other hand, is beautiful Hillary photographed by Vogue magazine (by orders of good chum, Anna Wintour, to boost the First Lady's image after the Lewinsky scandal).
Same woman. Same staunch feminist, no doubt. But two very different kinds of images being conveyed.
Observing physical qualities of women is not inherently sexist. It is sexist when that's all you notice.
To anyone who has been following my blog since August 29th, you know just how intensely I have been writing about the trajectory of Governor Sarah Palin.
After she failed to make a campaign appearance in Miami, and her ticket lost the presidential election, I thought it would be ages until I saw her in person. It was akin to withdrawal, though I wouldn't go so far as to say it depressed me.
To my slight astonishment, then, the week after the presidential election saw a continued burgeoning interest in the Governor -- if anything, given that she was now calling her own shots, minus the leash of Camp McCain, she was suddenly everywhere.
Then, in one of the most unbelievable strokes of luck that I've had in my life (and I confess that I have been unbelievably blessed, for which I thank God very humbly), it was confirmed that the Governor would be attending the Republican Governors Association at the Hotel Intercontinental, no more than 5-10 minutes away from my home.
I knew this opportunity could not be passed up.
So I gathered up my courage, and sans press pass (though a blogger colleague had kindly offered his), I went to the Hotel early in the morn, and with the self-assurance that I was born with, went past the two Miami police officers closely guarding the barriers into the Hotel. After valet parking my car, once inside, no one bothered me.
Here are tips to anyone wanting to crash one of the hottest events in town.
Dress very well. Be polite. But walk in like you own the joint. Also, don't ask too many questions. Pretend you know what you are doing, and suspicion is lessened. This has served me well the whole of my life, and you would be surprised just the types of people I have met using these suggestions.
I went up one of the two escalators, in a hotel I had been to several times before (knowing the layout certainly helped). In 1994, when we were not actually watching World Cup matches around the US during that amazing year, my parents and I went to watch matches via satellite in the same ballroom area Governor Palin was in today.
Unfortunately, the area around the meetings and press conferences were impenetrable. I decided to play it cool and go back downstairs, milling around the various reporters and journalists we all of us know so well.
Walking past William Kristol, I smiled and he graciously smiled back. I could've cared less about Dana Bash, and the other soberly suited reporters leaning over their state-of-the-art Macs, typing away their bylines or transcribing their notes -- I saw the son of my personal historian heroine, Gertrude Himmelfarb, and that made me happy.
The following are my impressions, and I will stand by them, even if they turn out to be erroneous as to the names of the people I saw. I'll correct them whenever possible, after checking the guest lists.
Incredibly, there was Governor Tim Pawlenty yet again, a man I've now seen three times in two days. He was certainly a media favourite, it seemed to me.
I wondered if the Franken-Coleman situation was why he was in such great demand, but given the interviews I heard him give (2), which were not exactly sour towards Governor Palin, but they were, shall we say, cool towards her, I wonder just how much he was bothered that there but for the grace of God for Palin, he would've been alongside McCain.
I have no doubt at all that he is positioning himself for 2012.
Speaking of which, I saw our own Governor Charlie Crist, some hours later. He is perhaps the most polished man I have seen next to President-Elect Obama. He gives off precisely the same kind of sleek svelteness, which is very difficult to describe. I noticed that his face is much more leathery than he even shows in photographs. You want to talk tanning beds, there's your guy.
He is not an excitable fellow, but it struck me that almost everyone milling around shared his...oh I don't know -- perhaps irritation, mixed with edgy competitiveness.
There was a definite undercurrent of tension there, which perhaps is common in the US political realm when so many high-powered politicians are congregated in a relatively narrow space, but it was really new to me.
I went to get myself my caramel macchiato at the Starbucks inside the hotel, as the conference was in full swing.
I turned around, and I do believe the person I saw was (of all people) ex-Senator Rick Santorum. If I am right, he was accompanied by an aide, both of them acting oddly. They seemed...self-important. He nudged his way past me, though clearly I was in the queue ahead of him. Then, after perusing the desserts counter, he ironically asked me if I was "standing in line", and with a dry retort, I said yes indeed I was (I have an allergy to people who are queue jumpers).
He and his aide started snickering as they went behind me, perhaps caught off-guard at my accent and formal tone.
In fact, I have to tell you something, my dear Sundries readers. The entire atmosphere of that conference oozed people who acted as if they are self-important. I am used to a certain amount of arrogance. God knows I just admitted I can be too.
But there is a fine line between thinking you're so important, that the basic rules of life do not apply to you -- and this Hotel was bursting at the seems with such people.
To me, this is utterly ridiculous.
Certainly, I am not talking about the actual politicians who were there, who perhaps one can excuse for thinking they are important people. If you're a Governor of an US State, heck yeah, you're important.
I am talking about the dark-suited aides, flunkies, and general gadflies hanging around the politicians. I include in this the reporters on their beat, but since this is a political meeting, I will concentrate on these folks.
Perhaps I caught them on an off-day, but it strikes me that if you are the Party striving to get back into the national discourse, and certainly looking to the Governors for leadership not just politically, but in terms of bearing, that it doesn't do your kind any favours by seeming toffee-nosed.
Having a few relatives in Washington, I have met my fair share of these hangers-on, individually; lobbyists, aides, speech writers, and the like. They are often irritating people, and seem to look down on people given who is in and who is out given that day's news cycle. There is an intensity to their "inside baseball" jockeying for knowledge.
That's precisely the idea I got from this assembly.
If they didn't recognise you (and I am not in the least speaking of me, but the little by-plays I observed), or you were not in the loop, your presence was not coveted. Poor Governor Heineman of Nebraska was practically a nonentity there.
You know another strange shock I got from these many black suited aides? That many of them are really effeminate. Not swishy, you understand, though I did see a few of those. But they behaved in a feminised fashion.
One such fellow was ordering Starbucks for a well-known Governor (he said the name loudly, as if the people overhearing it would be impressed, but I will not reveal it out of discretion), and I realised that the "bag men" tend to be young, handsome, well-dressed to the point of being fashionable (which is different from being elegant, of course).
Perhaps it's understandable that when you are in that position, you need to look well since you're representing someone of note. But I was reminded of the many Buckingham Palace staff I used to meet in the after-hours Ebury Wine Bar, near Victoria Station. The men were all exactly this type of effeminate man, and I think they were hired because they got off being so close to power, and loved being surrounded by opulence.
After a while, so as to draw attention away from my lolly-gagging around, I went to the Indigo restaurant downstairs. To my astonishment, as I sat near the bar, about 20 feet away, almost as if he were in a cubicle, there was I do believe Governor Bobby Jindal. He is much younger-looking than you can imagine. He looks like he's a college freshman, and actually, in profile looked bizarrely similar to a young JFK. He was utterly alone, and since I didn't want to stare, I am not sure if he was having a quiet moment to catch up with news, or if he were on his laptop or what.
What an ascetic air he has!
There is a problem with Jindal's chances to run for the Presidency in 2012, as I see it.
There are some people who give off a certain something (more on that in a bit). Jindal didn't at all give me that impression. He seemed utterly unmagnetic, and though not ordinary, perhaps I was expecting more. Frankly, he was nerdy-looking.
To become a genuine threat to run for the Presidency, especially given the adoration of his followers, and the presence that President-Elect Obama gives off (which is genuine, he truly is impressive up close), I believe you need to be a charismatic person. Jindal looks like a rather earnest priest.
After ordering my lunch, I went back upstairs since Governor Palin's remarks were supposed to be over by that time. I went up the escalators again, and a cop smiled as I went by. Whew.
There were two permanent news stations on either side of the circular area. One was busy interviewing Mike Duncan (hey, I finally saw our fearless RNC leader), whilst the other was getting impressions from an NBC or perhaps MSNBC reporter.
If you have gotten this far in my massively long, and somewhat gossipy post, you are about to be rewarded.
Because this is when I saw Governor Sarah Palin, not 10-15 feet away from me.
Before I tell you my feelings about her, let me just add that I think I have suddenly gotten some inkling as to why feminists, and particularly, feminist journalists dislike her so.
As I saw her speaking to a bevy of these black-suits, I realised a startlingly obvious point which hadn't struck me as fully before: she was the LONE woman of power in that entire area.
Though Governor Linda Lingle was there, I didn't see her. I don't think it would've altered my impression that Sarah Palin is doing the impossible -- she is a force in a profession of raw power which is almost entirely male.
In fact, she is not just a force, she is THE FORCE right now.
As she spoke, I am not kidding you when I say that every eye was either unabashedly on her, or trying to pretend they weren't flat out staring at her.
This was the conversation at the bar, as one overheard whispered conversations in snatches.
"Finally, then Sarah Palin went..." "Did you hear that Sarah Palin said..." "An incredible...Sarah Palin...finished"
Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin. The name was EVERYWHERE.
When I read Bekah's account of meeting Sarah Palin, and Bekah had a far more powerful encounter than my simple clapping eyes on the lady, I recall her saying that she had a glow about her. Well, Bekah, if you are reading this, I will tell you that I wondered if that was right or were you simply too moved that day to be able to read her correctly.
I also am aware that since I do genuinely like her, that I did not want this attitude to influence me either way. I want to give you as neutral an impression as I can about Palin.
But I have to apologise for thinking that, because you were absolutely right, Beks. Sarah Palin has an aura around her that is unbelievable. I have never seen anything quite like it in a politician. I used to scoff at the idea of "rock star" whenever Obama was mentioned, but truly, there are certain people in this world which stand out as super stars. It's like they are illuminated by their own personal spotlight.
And Palin in that group of macho egos, waspish young men and resentful career women was most definitely a rock star.
Her head of hair is enormous, leonine even, giving her very slight body a top-heavy look. She was slightly stooped, and wore a shiny kind of black top which I didn't think flattered her, but she still looked utterly beautiful.
She is not that tall (a running joke on Sundries about her height) so my first jolted thought was, Katie Couric must be a shrimp.
But my second thought was 'wow'.
I kept wondering, was she always like this? Does her recent run as the Vice-Presidential nominee somehow make her stand out from those around her, giving her a glamour they just don't have? I would've loved to have known this woman before 2008.
I remember writing a blogpost after her roll-out called "Sarah Palin Does That To People", where I wrote that she has this force which draws her to some people (like Adam Brinkley, who launched that website about her vice-presidential prospects after her gubernatorial win in 2006) or like Ruth Anne Adams or Benning, both of whom mentioned her to me back in May.
We all of us were dealing with the idea of Sarah Palin, but nevertheless, she clearly had the same effect on people who saw in this small-town girl with the funny regional accent, someone to definitely keep an eye on.
Here is another interesting fact, which in fact, was mentioned by a few commenters, those self-same angry feminists, and Dennis Miller on O'Reilly the other night: Palin is sexy.
Not just sexy, as in she is shapely and cute, but the lady oozes a really startling raw sexuality.
I think this is yet another piece in the puzzle of why she is disliked by so many people, or why Sandra Bernhardt and other lesbians found themselves appalled and yet obsessed by her. There is something of the unattainable about her, which must frustrate them tremendously. One has to be very careful when talking about this aspect of her femininity, because it can be misconstrued. It's a chicken or the egg argument, at that.
Most women traipse a fine line between feeling the need to hide their gender in the workplace, to be less fecund, all in the hopes they will be taken more seriously in their jobs. And in walks Sarah Palin, her five children, the product of a happily married state. It must be indescribably frustrating to them that she doesn't play by other kinds of women-determined 'rules'.
Also, they feel that she should, by all rights, be rather ordinary -- I mean, Wasilla, the town of 7,000 come on, they think. This disappoints people who want her to be mundane, which would allow her to be easily dismissed by them.
But she's not, and they, therefore, cannot. This is the Sarah Palin problem for them: she cannot be torn down so easily. They just don't understand why. She keeps popping up, undeterred, confounding every type of received liberal wisdom.
Another thing is that of all the people in that room, one never got a conceited vibe from her.
She kept leaning into people, rocking back her head in laughter, not just listening to what the guys around her said, but paying attention to what they said. This is probably why many people call her "gracious". Her people skills, in the brief time I saw her working them, were exceptional.
Finally, I would say she also gave off an ambitious vibe.
This is hard to describe because obviously it requires personal knowledge of the woman, which I clearly lack.
But if you've ever seen a person on the make, then you've seen Sarah Palin. I understand now why Lyda Green (her Alaskan nemesis) so dislikes her, and thinks she's "sneaky". She was working that room in no uncertain way.
The Plenary Session started up a bit later, so to buy time, I decided to treat myself to a spa visit upstairs.
The beautifully appointed spa was awash with older ladies in the provided cloth bathrobes, waiting for their massages and manicures inside the Relaxation Room. I have no doubt that I was probably seated next to Governor This or That's wife. For all I know, I could've been next to a future First Lady.
Of course, I asked if Palin had been to the spa, but my attendant was "not interested in politics" as she quietly told me. She pronounced politics like many Spanish people do, incidentally, Paul-LEE-ticks.
No worries. I understand. Not everyone is crazy enough about politics to crash a conference to which she was not invited, for the express purpose of posting a very long, chatty, and perhaps at times inchoate blogpost for her readership.
Because I didn't go there and then write about it just for me.
If that had been the case, I would've taken up that kind of offer from the blogger to get a press pass and do it properly. I no doubt would've written up a more professional post, full of wonkese, and less rambling.
Instead, I wanted to be a fly on the wall for you.
As I said, I stand by my impressions of each of the situations I wrote about, but I have the sensation that if you had been there with me, you would've shared my opinions as I wrote them about each person.
I have only one regret, which my mother (who comically surprised me later by actually crashing the event herself...I guess I know where I get my moxie from) told me continues to be a source of frustration to her.
"Why didn't you take a photo of her??"
"Oh mum, come on. I couldn't do that. I was too embarrassed."
"Don't be weak! I didn't raise you to be weak!" (P.S. my mother hates weak people)
"I didn't want to look...like I didn't belong."
(angry) "You were born belonging!"
Perhaps. Interestingly, this is the moral of this quixotic blogpost about the first time I saw Sarah Palin.
Some people were born belonging. When they have a goal, the idea that it cannot be done doesn't cross their mind. But that's not Sarah Palin's destiny. Palin wasn't born belonging. She made it by sheer brute force of her personality, her will, and ambition to belong.
It struck me that being an outsider is sometimes a blessing in disguise. Whilst others preen themselves on how much of an insider they are, how much more they know than the "little people", and just how important they are because of it, Palin stands there amongst them aware that she is the perpetual outsider.
Outsider because of her gender. Because of where she comes from. Because she doesn't play by the rules she was born to.
Sarah Palin just didn't crash an event. She crashed an entire career.
P.S.: Well, once I came down from my pampering, when the joint had cleared out for their Art Deco tour, I did take some photos. Come on now, I have to be good for something!
ON MY WAY! What a gorgeous 85F sunny SoFla day.
The entrance of the Hotel Intercontinental. Traffic homicide? All hands on deck.
A view of our new skyline. Previously the Freedom Tower, now dwarfed by those downtown condos, was the tallest building to the Northeast of it.
Coast Guard Patrol carefully inspecting the waters. A lot of governors needed to be protected inside.
The CNN station where Sarah Palin was interviewed yesterday by Larry King.
A view of the lobby from above.
You can see some of the "blue-suits" lounging around the atrium. That limestone is very neurotic.
I needed to chill out in the Relaxation Room.
As I left, this policewoman's horse cast me a dirty look. It's like he KNOWS.
Tell me, fair reader, why is it that female anti-Palin protesters (such as these here in a Dallas, Texas protest at Friday's campaign stop) hover between 50 and death, look like Lilith Fair rejects, and have really crappy signage?
These harridans remind me of that anti-Palin protest in Anchorage the other day, graced by an Army of Amy Carters (pace Instapundit).
Senator Hillary Clinton and Vice-Presidential nominee, Governor Sarah Palin, were supposed to have attended the same anti-Iran nuke protest in New York City, next week. Hastily declining, Senator Clinton's staff said she had been "blindsided" by the fact that Governor Palin would be attending as well.
Of course, Senator Clinton must be seen to be 100% on Senator Obama's side.
But you don't suppose there could be other reasons, for not wanting to appear next to the Alaskan, do you?
Author and playright, Eve Ensler, whose "The Vagina Monologues" was a hit one-wymyn show, adds to her collection of spirited diatribes when she recently wrote about Governor Sarah Palin.
She starts regretfully. She's having nightmares these days and she doesn't like it one whit.
"I don’t like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists."
She continues. Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God’s name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.
She ends.
If the Polar Bears don’t move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, ‘Drill Drill Drill.’ I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.
I needed to highlight the word rape in context, to show you the imagery these women have in their minds when speaking around the topic of feminism.
Maybe it is not true, but every time one hears from a self-described movement feminist, they speak of rape, which is basically a primordial fear of the powerlessness they feel when confronted with men.
As a woman, you are given two choices as a feminist: either you combat this power men have over you, or you enable it.
I believe for many anti-Palin feminists, they see her as an enabler of men's darkest longings of enslaving women, particularly regarding men's raw sexual power.
It's worse because the Govenor is still fecund, and when faced recently with a situation which requires "choice" (read, of rejection of man's visible dominance over woman in the form of pregnancy), she didn't opt for abortion. That's just not how she thinks of a child: a flawed "thing" to be discarded as if an inconvenience.
Surely, they would dislike her even if she were pro-Choice, due to her strong conservatism. But it's the abortion issue on which they hang all their hatred towards her.
Of course, the existential crisis that Sarah Palin has provoked in feminists would be interesting, but it's sadly all too predictable with the most outspoken ones -- one therefore gets screeds like Ensler's.
Most of the feminists I know, including my mother, love Sarah Palin. She is their kind of feminist -- one not internally scarred by their struggle, and unaware they are historical dinosaurs because of it.
To echo Lynette Long's viewpoint piece in the Baltimore Sun this weekend:
"If Democratic women wait for the perfect woman to come along, we will never elect a woman. I will vote for McCain-Palin. I urge other women to do the same."
So really, it depends what kind of a feminist you are. Are you the kind which is comfortable dealing with all women, from all walks of life, or just the ones who advance your world view?
In other words, are you for women, full stop? Or just the ones who please you...as if you were men?
Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska electrifying the crowd at Dayton, Ohio. She graciously mentions the lady politicians who came before her.
(Via P. Rich)
Simon's and Ruth Anne's Bogglefied "Calm in Panic" video now looks visionary.
I will have many more comments about this historical day in American political history, later.
Allow yourself to be amused by this BBC News poster's views, for now:
She's female; what else is there to say? Oh and she has added FIVE new carbon producers to the western world so just the right person to tackle the world population and global warming problem! -Mike
There's nothing like a quirky little story to enliven one's breakfast, don't you find?
I was reading the New York Times on the Kindle at my local bistro just now (choc-a-bloc as it is in the mornings with rushing execs of both sexes, eager to get a steamy croissant from South Florida's tastiest French bakery), when I chance upon this amazing tale.
Albania, the homeland to such disparate luminaries as Mother Teresa and Enver Hoxha, has an age-old custom in the more rural Northern areas:
Women swear off their womanhood and become men, a custom known as being "Sworn Virgins".
Now, I know what you're thinking. I thought the same thing too.
But this is apparently much more complicated than anything found on the steps of San Francisco City Hall.
Pashe Keqi recalled the day nearly 60 years ago when she decided to become a man. She chopped off her long black curls, traded in her dress for her father’s baggy trousers, armed herself with a hunting rifle and vowed to forsake marriage, children and sex.
Pashe Keqi, 78, took an oath of virginity when she was 20 to become the family patriarch after her father’s death in a blood feud.
For centuries, in the closed-off and conservative society of rural northern Albania, swapping genders was considered a practical solution for a family with a shortage of men.
Women posing as men is obviously nothing new in this world.
When Hatshepsut proclaimed herself pharaoh, confounding her contemporaries by insisting "on being portrayed as male, with bulging muscles and the traditional pharaonic false beard" (something which made her very very hated), she was echoing this arch Albanian custom.
When Wilhelmina of the Netherlands was proclaimed sovereign, she was officially hailed as "King of Holland" not Queen, and her doughty subjects didn't bat an eyelash.
Same goes for these strapping ladies below.
These Hohenzollern princesses were Viktoria-Luise, the Kaiser's only daughter, and her sister-in-law, Crown Princess Cecilie, both of whom were Colonels-in-Chief of their respective regiments (as were almost all royal ladies at the time, continued today).
These mutative gender assumptions may strike some as contradictory, even bizarre, but they're all too common in history. These arise from need to replace the traditional protective characteristic of the male in society, and have occured in almost all cultures.
This is what the post-structuralist writer Judith Butler calls "performative" binary gender roles in her seminal book on the topic, Gender Trouble.
But even Butler didn't think that gender could be assumed willy-nilly; yet the Albanian custom of sworn virgins is just that.
Like Vestal Virgins of old, a woman enters a pact not just with her immediate family, but with society itself: in the Roman case it was to preserve their purity on pain of death, in exchange for maintaning the holy fires of Vesta.
In the Albanian case, it is by borne by need to protect kinswomen who would otherwise be at the mercy of men, with their base desires and all sorts of naughtiness of that ilk, in exchange for being given all the rights and respect of men by real men in their villages.
The sworn virgin was born of social necessity in an agrarian region plagued by war and death. If the family patriarch died with no male heirs, unmarried women in the family could find themselves alone and powerless. By taking an oath of virginity, women could take on the role of men as head of the family, carry a weapon, own property and move freely.
They dressed like men and spent their lives in the company of other men, even though most kept their female given names. They were not ridiculed, but accepted in public life, even adulated. For some the choice was a way for a woman to assert her autonomy or to avoid an arranged marriage.
Of course, in a society where women still look like this...
...this usurping of gender roles might not seem that much of a stretch on the imagination.
But irrespective of their looks, in the case of the Vestal Virgin and the Sworn Virgin of Albania, there is a price these women pay for their earthly honours.
Not surprisingly in both cases it is their overt sexuality, perhaps the single-most alluring yet threatening part of being a woman.
To become a man in these rural villages of Albania is as simple as swearing off one's sexuality, but more curious is the ease which others readily accept this casting off of gender.
Instead of giggles, side-glances, or even condemnation one might intuitively expect in such a Muslim land, the Sworn Virgin is immediately treated as a man by all who know her -- itself a commentary on the importance of maleness in their culture.
That was the case with the waspish Pashe Keqi.
Ms. Keqi lorded over her large family in her modest house in Tirana, where her nieces served her brandy while she barked out orders. She said living as a man had allowed her freedom denied other women. She worked construction jobs and prayed at the mosque with men. Even today, her nephews and nieces said, they would not dare marry without their “uncle’s” permission.
When she stepped outside the village, she enjoyed being taken for a man. “I was totally free as a man because no one knew I was a woman,” Ms. Keqi said. “I could go wherever I wanted to and no one would dare swear at me because I could beat them up. I was only with men. I don’t know how to do women’s talk. I am never scared.”
What is less fascinating to me, than the assumptions of what it is to be woman (everything to do with housework, childcare and lack of bravado), is the natural deference accorded to her even today.
As she later says, Sworn Virgins are no longer necessary in Albanian society.
It has progressed from both its tribal blood fueds, and Communist repression into the modern age of MTV and "discos", but still the younger generation treats her as a man, with a man's rights over the family's well-being.
Sure, she dresses as a man, she has short hair, and wears a fez-like hat, the qeleshe, to denote her male status, but curiously, save for the fez which I left at the cleaners, that would describe my workout shorts seated-self at the computer at this moment.
Yet I am all-woman, and have long since abandoned any pretense at virginity (shh, don't tell my parents).
Being male holds no allure for me at all. It is not necessary for me to renounce or sublimate my sexuality to be respected. The only social convenant which governs me is that of ladylike behaviour, which however is completely voluntary on my part. Should I break it, though, I won't lose any rights or privileges since those are tied to my humanity, not my sexual expression.
It is this awakening which modernity offers women which accounts for the odd reaction such Sworn Virgins have towards their younger counterparts.
Instead of happiness that it is no longer necessary to cast off their feminity to be respected or for their families to be protected, these she-males lament the olden days.
Ex-Communist officer, Diana Rapiki, who still wears a military beret wherever she goes, says "women do not know their place."
The intriguing bit is not that they are saying this as women who believe they are men in all but name, since many women believe that too without so much as donning a fez, but that they see this modern liberation as a negative.
For a Western woman today, it is enough to have the flexibility of a man, without needing a dramatic renunciation of their gender, least of all their sex lives as women.
And yet curiously once again, their society accepts that new role, perhaps if not with ease, at least with resignation.
But accept it they did the Sworn Virgin, and the Modern Woman, both.
That may be the real shock and moral lesson of this story: no matter how restricted throughout history, women have always gotten away with more than many feminists would have one believe.
By now, most people in the US are well aware of the Snickers Super Bowl advert.
It showed two car mechanics who somehow lip-locked whilst eating each end of a Snickers Bar, and to mask their gay overtones embarrassment, they decided to rip their own chest hair out, in a show of masculine bravado.
Here's the commercial on Youtube, which incidentally has three alternate endings.
The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and the Human Rights Campaign complained and got Masterfoods to withdraw it (after it played during the Super Bowl). I wonder if non-activist gay people and gay-friendly non-gay people are offended by that ad. I think it's funny. It makes fun of guys who are afraid of being gay, which isn't endorsing homophobia. It's mocking it.
Something quite palpable to anyone who watched the ad, during the game.
(Note to The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and Human Rights Campaign: try to get a snappier title. Writing, let alone saying this, is about as accomodating as Margaret Cho is about President Bush. Maybe 'Gays Against Disses'? That works)
In the day of the Borat Phenomenon, which pokes fun at both gays and homophobia in such starkly satiric terms, you'd think that maybe Masterfoods could get away with this ad, without raising a hullabaloo, right?
Nope. We're not there yet. I mean, we're not back there yet. I mean, oh God, you know what I mean.
Anything vaguely touching on the gay angle is not appreciated by those who don't anoint the source as noble in intentions, beforehand -- like a guy who likes to make fun of beefy, working-class, white Southern men, ironically the kind inferred in this commercial.
I personally tittered when I first saw the ad, but it quickly became silly on second showing.
But then that's when it hit me.
Hey! Didn't we have a similar outcry about a candy bar advert in Britain, back in the day (2001)?
That's the year that Nestlé UK came out with their new ad campaign for the venerable Yorkie Bar, featuring the unforgettable tagline:
Woo, it's not for me! Waaaaait a minute. No, no. That's okay. I don't like candy, remember, so woo, yeaghhh! High ten!
As you can imagine, the feminists in the UK, and a good deal many other women besides, had a field day with the situation.
At "The F-Word" British feminist site, one writer actually notes that there are not one, but TWO candy bar ads making the rounds then, which featured anti-woman overtones; the other being the Echo Bar.
Catherine Redfern then says:
Nestle claims to be taking a stand for the “British bloke” and says that by making a chocolate “just for men”, they are offering men something just for them in a changing, confusing world. They have actually used the word “reclaiming”, as if women have “taken” chocolate away from men - despite the obvious fact that chocolate is mainly marketed to women by the people who create it.
But from the ads, they seem to be targeting not “British men” but British, large, bearded, macho, builders. That’s gotta be a limited market, guys.
Hey, that's actually sound argumentation.
Capitalism is not about alienating potential spenders of dosh. It's about targetting the largest common denominator so everyone gets rich, yay!
And then this blogger in America recently pounced on the candy bar, making her muse about what men are entitled to have these days, just for them.
What I want to know is what don't men have left to claim for themselves any more? The remote? I got my own, I don't need yours. Sports? Have at it fellas, I'm truly not interested unless there is a good story. I don't have cable and even if I did I will not be watching ESPN and dang sure not Fox Sports Network.
Hummers? either the automobile or the other kind? Which last I heard (unless you are in the 10% club) you still need a woman. Or some kind of suction device.
10% club? Is this a Shortbus reference I'm not getting? You know, that scene. Anyway.
So I checked the Nestlé site, and found out that indeed, their advert campaign did hinge on making a gender-exclusive statement.
YORKIE - "IT'S NOT FOR GIRLS"
In 2001 the Yorkie "It’s Not for Girls" campaign was launched because, in today’s society, there aren’t many things that a man can look at and say that’s for him.
The 'Not For Girls' campaign theme for Yorkie uses humour, which resonates with today’s British male and simply states that Yorkie is positioning itself as a chocolate bar for men who need a satisfying hunger buster. With five solid chunks of chocolate, it’s a man sized eat!
You know, I kinda had more sympathy and allowed myself a giggle at my own sex' expense BEFORE I read this disclaimer by Nestlé.
Here they just sound rather like schoolboys caught leering at the girl's soccer team, and then claiming they were just doing so because boys will be boys, and anyway, they were there to make fun of the girls playing soccer -- as if such a ridiculous thing as girls knowing about soccer existed, pfff.
And though of course, the emphasis is to draw attention to their product, even bad attention, to increase sales due to exposure, that "man-sized eat" ending hung there like a limpid flag of protest.
They backtracked, soft-pedalled, and went out on the offensive, all in one. How dorky is that?
Without further preamble, here is the Youtube ad featuring the Yorkie Bar "It's Not For Girls!" tagline.
Judge for yourself if it was offensive, or silly, or funny, or "all of the above", that uniquely post-modern response to every ticklish question.
And yes, the ad campaign and chockie bars' wrapper did get axed.
Are you kidding me? Who wants to have a Yorkie Bar, when you can have Wine Gums instead?
P.S.: Remind me, since I am too young to remember, did feminists or outraged males have a collective cow, when the roll-on Secret deodorant was being flogged on the airwaves?
"Strong enough for a MAN, but made for a WOMAN"
My tell-me-if-it's-sexist-or-not Glora Steinem 8-ball just doesn't know what to say about that.
Can you think of other examples of these "for one sex only" advertising campaigns?
And can you imagine the outrage in America by disparate groups, if Nestlé USA were to use the Not For Girls campaign for their candies here?
My dears. We would never hear the end of it.
I guess the only extanct one is, Swanson's Hungry Man TV dinners.
Dudes, if you want to eat one pound of Salisbury Steak, knock yourselves out.
IN THE COMMENTS: Ruth Anne looks forward to gender-neutral tampon ads; Christine clarifies that the 10% is the Kinseyian percentage attributed to the amount of homosexuals in the population (doh!); Ron remembers a saucy Irish Spring soap ad; whilst Pastor_Jeff reminisces about the allure of Enjoli and Charlie to women of the 1970s, who were starting to live lives outside the home, and wanted to smell right for the occasion, so to speak.
But for those who were still stay-at-home mums, Charlie spoke to a life more sophisticated and fun, as well.
I just thought of another advert, with quasi-sexist-feminist overtones.
The much loved "It's not nice to fool mother nature!" margarine ad.
I vaguely recognise that actress. It's not Bea Arthur of Maude fame, is it?
She's got that same low timbre to her voice, and looks a bit mannish, as aging women did during those burning bra times (vide Bella Abzug).
