About hairy legs

For many years now, I have been following one of Sweden's biggest blogs. A girl who calls herself Foki writes it.

For every year, even though I feel like people should get smarter when they get older, I am struck by how stupid this person is in her opinions. She really lives in a tiny beauty bubble where everything else is laughable and weird. She has even written a post once about how quirky we hairy feminists, we are so extreme and embarrassing you know...

Anyway.

China recently released these leggings. The purpose of these is for a women to be able to take these on and avoid being flirted with.

Just the thought of that bothers me. Why should we keep pushing on how unattractive it is for a woman to have hairy legs?

But what angered me more than the leggings themself was the comments Foki received from her readers. 

As my sister said:

So many faces to punch.

I will hereby translate the worst comments into English to show how crazy this world we are living in is:

1. I almost threw up when I saw the picture.

2. God, how nasty, even as a woman I would flee from such a caveman if I didn't know it was leggings! 

3. Yes, there is something for people who want to be forever alone.

4. Thanks for the picture. My breakfast was just destroyed.

5. So ugly! I would rather be persecuted and molested by guys than to walk around in those.

Why why why?

If a man has hairy legs, it isn't considered neither disgusting or repulsive? People do not tend to loose their appetite when they see a man in shorts. When do we women get to have hairy legs without feeling constantly observed and evaluated?

Nora Roberts - sexism and preconceptions

I started a serie in three books from Nora Roberts and are now on the second book.
I had never read anything by Nora Roberts before and will probably not do it again either when I'm done with this series because the author herself is a sexist from head to toe!

Each and every page describes what is typical male or female, and usually it's really nasty things like for example "all men share the same brain and that's why are they can't think very far" or that "women can not handle furniture construction because that's a job for a "real man". Comments like this from the characthers are not unusual:

- Come on boys, we do not need a woman with us today, let the girls have their women's talk and we'll do the real job.

I just puke in my mouth a little everytime something like that comes up. It's really a shame because otherwise the books are well written and exciting, but Nora's view of masculinity, antiquated ideals and femininity really shines through too well for my liking ..

Do any of you read her books and have you noticed this?

Boy or girl

I was 9 years old when I persuaded my mum to cut my hair short.
I was pleased. It was easy to take care of and not in the way.
I had short hair for 2 years.

Then one winterday on the schoolyard 2 children I did not recognize came up to me..
They asked me if I was a boy.
- Nooo, I replied suspiciously and began to walk away.
The kids went after me and shouted;
 - But why do you look like a boy then! You have boyish hairstyle and you dress like a boy. You're weird, why do you want to be a boy?

I was confused.
My favorite actris had the exact same hairstyle and she was a girl.. people probably thought she was a boy too. I did not want to look like a boy, so embarrassing.

I began saving my hair and the next winter I asked for a new winter coat because my other one looked like something boys are wearing.

Today, 16 years later, it's easy to see that it's still not okay for a girl to be unfeminine and boys who are wearing pink and like Hello Kitty are in the riskzone of being bullied.
I really hope that this will change before I have children.
Children should be allowed to just be children and find their own personality and style, regardless of gender.

It's a sad sad world

Today I ended up in a discussion about gender and homosexuality. This happens quite often because I can not keep quiet when people are narrowminded, but today was a pretty unique situation because I have never in my life outside the internet have been met with such a genuine hatred against my thoughts.

This person talked about how scared she was when her daughter found interest in Spiderman. She was afraid that her little girl wanted to be a boy, or worse, a lesbian!
Yes indeed, not only couldn't she see the purpose of allowing children to play with the toys they want, she even thinks that homosexuals are simply disgusting. She even did vomit noises to emphasize the feeling of disgust she feels.

None of my arguments was logic to this person and I felt sort of empty after our discussion.
How is it possible to feel that hate? I get so sad thinking about everything she said and how many people out there who is sharing the same opinions as her.

Why did men stop wearing high heels?

Many people believe that men and women are so different to the point that, we women for example cannot LIVE without things like makeup, the color pink and high heels because it's traits that we are born to like.

Those people couldn't be more wrong and I hate the fact there are many things we are supposed to like and wear because we are a specifik gender.

I found a very interesting article about it.
Because men are certainly not born with a hate for some clothes and neither are women born with a wish to wear those clothes.

So this is an article about when men used to wear high heels:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21151350

Women in advertising

Yesterday I watched a really good documentary!

It's created by a woman who since the 60th century have collected ads, and this is now her fourth film about women in advertising.

I've thought about it a lot and I wanted to say a few words about it because I actually think it's crazy that this is year 2013 and it's as bad as it was in the 1960th when it comes to how women are portrayed.

As objects.

If you compare ads with men and women it's easy to see! Men are aloud to take more space. 

What I found most scary is when I think about how I myself are affected by this.

So I actually tried to take some pictures of myself to compare, doing typical "men in ads" poses and "women in ads" poses.

I actually feel myself automatically do these typical female poses everytime I'm being photographed and it is because I daily see these advertisements on how women is supposed to pose to look pretty and I'm totally brainwashed like many other girls and women.

And it's not just that. We women have so much pressure on ourselves when it comes to appearance.
I was 12 when I shaved my legs for the first time, and it was not because I wanted to, I had not even thought about it before but my classmates began to point out my hairy legs more and more often in gymclass so suddenly I got tired of it.

I was 16 when I started picking my eyebrows. And that after my friends for 3 years already laughed at my bushy eyebrows several times.
I think it's horrible that we women do that against each other, we should support one another instead!

And of course there is nothing wrong with wanting to look sexy and pretty, but I think it's important to at least be aware of this difference between the sexes, and think about why it's like this.

I suggest to watch this documentary here: http://vimeo.com/20024751

It will only take 40 minutes from your life!

Go BR!

I became so thrilled when I looked in this years christmas toy catalogue. :D

The toycompany BR has really done well.
Instead of putting girls on the "typical" stuff and the boys with the usual cars the children in the catalogue are playing together. Great job!

Children should not have to believe that there are special toys you have to play with ONLY because you happen to be a specific gender.