Girls thread cont.

It came in the email.

I had no idea this thread was here! the new ud palette is out already but it also sold out already.
and I can totally relate to whomever said that they've been wearing lipstick more & people are noticing how grown up they are. I started wearing makeup regularly for a similar reason and last night I bought my first pair of heels. I feel like my 16 year old self would shudder at my 34 year old self.

Jenny! My offer was for $15 off of $50. WTF?

Sephora loves me the most, I guess.

Clearly.

I feel like this is the year I've discovered girly things. Or the year I shed my "I don't give a fuck" persona that I've had since the 90s. Maybe that's not entirely true. I gave somewhat of a fuck but now I'm actually making an effort.

In the Eighties, teenage girls didn't wear lipstick. Except for me.

I have a Sephora rewards card and I never ever get emails. :(

Wait I thought it was meant that they came out with like a second version of the Naked palette, I think I am confuse.

With 12 ***NEW SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT*** colors. I would buy it!

I have the sephora $15 off of $50 code if anyone wants it -- I'm not going to use it.

Are you guys talking about the UD 15 Year Anniversary Eyeshadow Collection? Half of those colors I like and half are Gothics Miss Piggy.

I remember asking you all a long time ago about how old teenage girls had to be nowadays before they were allowed to wear makeup, and you all were like, "Huh? I didn't start wearing it until my mother/my employer/my best friend told me I should be wearing it." I was playing around with my mother's makeup from the time I could stand up, and wearing it all of the time starting from when I was 12. Am I the odd woman out here (I've pretty much spent all of my life around people much older than I am), or are you all?

Nevermind I figured this out
Naked2
Can't wait until 2013 to get one.
xp

I think there is one repeat color from the first Naked, but the rest are new in Naked 2.

Ha, I like some of the gothic Miss Piggys.

Oh I like some of them too but now when I try to rock super bright colors I feel like one of my eighth graders.

I was allowed to wear makeup on "special occasions" starting at 13 and then whenever I wanted shortly thereafter because try and stop 13yo me from wearing makeup, Mom, I dare you. Before that I was allowed to "play with" makeup but not wear it out in public.

I had spots at 13 so wanted to use concealer and face powder to cover them up. I was woefully ignorant of so much about make up though. I also used mascara and some kind of eyeshadow when I was about 14. my mum didn't mind and bought me a few eyeshadows but I kind of wish she'd sat me down and taught me how to do stuff. She did let me raid her make-up bag though so I wore some interesting frosted lipsticks. I only ever wanted to wear 'natural' colours until I was about 16 when I met my BFF at that time and went a bit makeup crazy with blue glitter or red eyeshadow and the like.

my aunty was an avon rep, and one time she gave me a huuuuuge bag of all her old samples - it was the happiest day of my life. i think i was about 7 at the time? anyway, my mum told me i had to keep it put away, but i wanted to have it spread out on my dresser, like a beauty salon. so i did. and then my mum saw it about 5 mins later and said "that's it! you can't have it anymore!" and took it all away from me.

aw!
I actually went all day today in public with no make-up (except eye make-up) because I went to the dermatologist. and it wasn't so bad! (except at the dermatologist he decided to check me all over for moles so I thank God that I put on nice undies even though I badly have to do laundry). However I am making up (...) for it now as I am using PRIMER for the first time and have on lipstick for the first time in about 3 years. It's because I have to go out later and I'm bored. The primer is making a difference right now wrt how my make-up is going on, but it could all go horribly wrong. I could end up not being able to write...

Went to brunch w a few people yest, including someone nice, intelligent, talented, not a juicebox or an asshole, who is caring and respectful of all the women I've ever seen him with, and is by all appearances an ally, if that's a good way to put it, and he told me that the true force behind everything in the world is "pussy power."

He dates my good friend, who is very happy and holds her own, so I guess it's all fine and everything, but I just stared at the ceiling and said, "It's so INTERESTING to me when white middle-class men don't think they're the most powerful people in the room" and today I feel RAGE.

It's so disappointing when people turn out not to be very bright or nuanced and I wanted to like them as equals but...now we will have to not-discuss certain subjects, ever.

I guess I'm p dumb for being surprised by that. I keep ascribing ilxor-level qualities to people I meet irl and they keep turning out to be not very informed or able to discuss ideas or movements or w/e, and to believe repugnant things.

i...don't know how to say this without sounding like an asshole but a lot of smart men i have known have been dumb about gender. eventually i had to kind of realign my image of smart.

^^^
also "pussy power"...really?

that's that thing where men turn all their angst about the chicks who never slept with them into a phantom "power" without thinking for even a second about the experience of being a woman.

Yeah. I will...think about that, hs. I tried the angle "Don't you see that you're continuing to define male success by access to/possession of female sexuality?" but it had no effect, he says this is the way the world works, very sorry to break it to me, not arguing that women don't also have challenges vis a vis dealing with men, but this is simple reality.

But I don't think chicks have ever refused to sleep with him!! He's smart and cute and has options! And is dating someone by his own choice who doesn't subscribe to any of this nonsense!

I guess I don't feel rage as much as bewilderment and agitation at finding myself again in this Teflon box with the walls closing in, at least as far as reaching out to & connecting with this person is concerned.

yeah i know exactly the feeling you're describing.

even if chicks always sleep with him when he wants, that kind of comment indicates his only way of viewing women is through the lens of his own access to sex with them.

the thing a lot of smart men do is the thing that was happening in the wooing thread the other day...they are smart and they know they are smart and they have been encouraged all their lives that their opinions are important and that everyone wants to hear what they have to say on every subject. while the smart women i know are more likely to hang back in coversations and listen and respond to what is said, especially on a topic that they may not know as much about as the other people speaking (i.e. as a white straight woman i would not chime in with my opinions about what it is like to be a black lesbian woman, because all i can really do is listen/try to understand/be an ally).

i was trying to write something very much like that post, bell, but failing completely. when i mentioned that i had to realign my image of smart i partially meant preemptively stopping myself from thinking of dudes like that as automatically smarter than me. anyway, otm.

Completely unrelated: I tried applying crazy super-red lipstick with my finger yesterday, just to see how it looked. Within 10 mins of leaving the house the coffee barista said "wow look at you! love your lipstick!"

!!!! :D

Sometimes I feel like a complete alien you when you guys talk about these things. It's not that I don't agree with and/or understand what you're saying. I think that maybe I willfully ignore certain things or choose to look at things through lens. Either that or I don't encounter as many assholes* I don't think I could (or would want to) walk around that angry or bitter or threatened all the time. I literally wouldn't want to leave my house.

* highly unlikely

"pussy power" is pretty inexcusable though

^^^ this (xp to E). i have a hard time participating in these discussions bc i haven't really experienced a lot of sexism, and also because i have seen the effects of sexism towards men (i won't go into that here, bc it is sort of long and probably boring and probably too personal for ilx). it's not that i disagree with the overarching arguments put forward by ppl like laurel and hs and jenny et al., but it's just that my personal experiences don't leave me very well-informed on the subject.

veggrrrll: i know, right??? it was truly a revelation to me. p.s. i might be in sac next sunday if you have a spare hour or two for a coffee? not sure yet, going up to meet with artist about book we are making, which might take all day.

It kind of sounds like you're saying that feminist (or patriarchy-aware, if you prefer) women are angry, bitter, and threatened? Which is the humorless feminist/feminazi stereotype in a nutshell?

I didn't mean that to sound dismissive of anyone's experience btw. More often when I read these discussions and feel alienated I wonder why I'm not more angry, threatened etc because I realize that probably should be. That said, I think that's where the ignoring a lot of stuff comes in. I don't know. I might not be making any sense.

It kind of sounds like you're saying that feminist (or patriarchy-aware, if you prefer) women are angry, bitter, and threatened?

NO! That's not what I was saying at all.

I am a feminist through and through and resent the insinuation that I'm not tbh.

Hang on, brb. Will write more. That was just - pretty obnoxious imo.

ENBB, the friend of mine that he's dating is sort of like you, in that respect: She never thought about it, because she never noticed anyone abridging her rights, because she just did what she wanted, cheerfully, anyway, and thought, aww wasn't it nice of that person to look out for me? Meanwhile hypothetical possibly-lechy older guy or whomever is left in her wake feeling lucky that she smiled at him so glowingly and asked for his help.

O_o

i can't speak for Laurel or Jenny but 1) i get mad like 20 times a day and 2) i like to have some big-picture framing for my experiences; patriarchy or whatever you want to call it works beautifully for this purpose. (don't want to overstep but i think Jenny has this overarching systems thinking habit of mind going on, too.) both of those are basically personality traits, and i wouldn't wish either of them on others, particularly the rageball one. they're not right or wrong they're just the way i am. i know it can be alienating to people and i am sorry about that in this thread because i love this thread and all the contributors to it!

xxxp!

Not insinuating anything. Just clarifying bc it sounded out of character.

I mean luckily for my agreeable friend because she's thin and pretty and capable of glowing at people. I love her but I could roll my eyes out of my head when this comes up.

well, i mean, feminism is right, but i think both macro and micro approaches to it are valuable and neither is better.

ENBB The question marks were supposed to soften my post so it read as inquisitive and not accusatory - I shouldn't take shortcuts in such discussions and I'm really sorry for not being more clear.

ENBB, the friend of mine that he's dating is sort of like you, in that respect: She never thought about it, because she never noticed anyone abridging her rights, because she just did what she wanted, cheerfully, anyway, and thought, aww wasn't it nice of that person to look out for me? Meanwhile hypothetical possibly-lechy older guy or whomever is left in her wake feeling lucky that she smiled at him so glowingly and asked for his help.

O_o

― Making like Melusine (Pyth), Monday, December 5, 2011 1:49 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Permalink

Laurel - can you elaborate on this a little more? Like what kind of situation are we talking about here? I'm just trying to understand your example/mindset.

a lot of smart men i have known have been dumb about gender.

otm. the wooing thread was making my head all splodey last wk. i hang back when talking about relatively safe topics. when there's Men Telling Women About Sexism (or why women are misunderstanding womens' common experiences in this culture) i get really agitated and have to disengage. this happens a lot.

i really admire jenny and others who can speak up to others' privilege and ignorance. i wish i had that confidence.

xp--it's completely understandable to distance yrself from some of this stuff. i've been reading more feminist blogs and such lately, and awareness of this stuff is draining. it's like anything--you keep informed on what you can handle. i don't read much current events stuff because it's just too draining. i go thru phases where i tune out the feminist writings for the same reason.

xp again oh hai i take a long time to type. back to read more carefully.

sometimes i feel like women feel a lot of pressure to respond to things in similar ways but we needn't!

horseshoe go ahead and speak for me bc you're smart and that 20x per day rage sounds about right.

Although I do wish this on everybody, if I'm being honest, since I think we'd get more done about the 10000000s of social injustices (firm believer in intersectionality here) with more angry people.

i guess it can be hard to disentangle agreeableness as an innate (and perfectly lovely) personality trait and agreeableness as obligatory social conditioning for women. i am not sure who i am responding to now nor whether that's relevant.

can you elaborate on this a little more? Like what kind of situation are we talking about here?

Well, for one instance: You know the way men say, "Smile, beautiful" and in that and other ways try to make you interact with them as a happier/more agreeable person than you feel like? When that happens to her, she thinks, "That was nice of that strange man, he wants me to have a better day. I guess now I *do* feel like smiling!"

Also she just doesn't realize people are flirting/hitting on her, because she's that way to everyone all the time. So she gets passes made at her even though she was married AND WEARING A RING, but she never never stops anyone from being over-friendly or familiar with her before it gets that far. So she lets herself be OOOZED over and hugged and have her hand clasped for long periods and doesn't notice that it might be GROSS until someone LICKS HER HAND in public. True story.

I usually do. But shopping for them is still a pain in the arse.

is it that what you want doesn't exist or that what you like doesn't fit?

i don't like shoe-shopping either

I love it. I go to Nordstrom Rack sometimes just to try on shoes... with no intention to buy.

What I want exists, it's just that I hate having to go into town because London sucks and I'm annoyed before I even get to the shop because, tourists, and then be given the side-eye by shop assistants because I'm shopping in the wrong section, and then try on at least 3 or 4 pairs because translating sizing between men's and women's shoes is unreliable and it might be a 6 1/2 or a 7 or an 8, and get given the side-eye again for wasting their time and I feel like a cow if they don't fit my calves because mens calves are skinnier, then looking in all those mirrors I start to feel fat and unattractive and hate myself which is not something that I really like to feel and just ... ugh. I will wrap plastic bags around my feet and carry on wearing the shoes with holes in them.

i guess the one positive thing about shoes - for me - is that i am at peace with my feet: they are wide and flat and look like flesh-covered rectangular robot feet, but finding shoes is mainly a functional issue as opposed to an aesthetic/self-esteem one. Sometimes i feel that way about clothes, makeup, the other adornments -- but not as consistently as i do about feet/shoes.

I was looking round the sale section of a shoe website earlier, and had specified some other search term which took away the choice of men's vs women's, and everything I liked enough to click on turned out to be a man's shoe, and therefore only start at size 6, whereas I'm a size 5. Hmf.

(and because of my wide feet I am actually a size 3 lengthways but a 5 width-wise or something, so going up another size = bad fit. and also the skinny man-calves thing, my fat ankles often don't even fit into women's boots. and argh etc.)

i have similar boot issues -- i look for boots that lace up.

I have exactly one pair of boots that I can actually lace up over my fat calves. It's so frustrating. But at least I have big feet, it must be so annoying that they're all just one size too big.

Which is why I'm so annoyed that my original pair of motorcycle boots died - they were German manboots for fat old man bikers which actually fit my calves! And then the heel on one of them got all squishy and weird after breaking on some sharp Cornish rocks. I have tried cutting the other heel in the same way to get it to collapse down so at least they're at the same height, but no dice.

German biker boots sound awesome. Actually I'm reminded that the army surplus shop has sturdy-looking boots in a wide range of sizes. I think I even tried some on before and found that they fitted. Must go back.

yeah, try there! - i got mine at military surplus stores

Actually I should go to the FORUM MAN SHOP, which sounds like it should be a gay baths, but it's not, even thought it's right next to a gay baths, it's a shop selling steel toed boots and high visibility gear for ppl who work on actual trains and construction crews and the like. THEY probably have boots that will be indestructible, though I do get odd looks / completely ignored by sales people if I go in there.

that also sounds like a good bet! i had good luck in a similar type of place in finding sturdy work pants for doing construction that fit me.

Oh god I hate shoe shopping. I went in the posh shoe shop and they had ~beautiful~ brown engineering type boots, but they were £135 which is too steep for my blood. But then I went to the FORUM MENS PROTECTIVE FOOTGEAR shop which was brilliant, loads of amazing shoes in the more reasonable £30 - £60 range and I was just trying to figure out which kind of steel toed boot to buy when the little man at the desk announced he was closing for lunch and I should come back in an hour. Sigh. Which I might not do, I might just lie here and look at that bottle of whisky until I give in and start drinking it.

Problem is, what I really really want is an "engineers boot" or "motorcycle boot" with buckles or steel hoops and straps for pulling up by. And I saw the PERFECT pair in Penzance for only fifty pounds!!!!! but I didn't buy them because I didn't want to have to lug them home on the train.

But these are all either lace-ups or chelsea boot style with the elasticated web on the sides - now I love me some chelsea boots, but I know those elasticated webs get holes in them and give way after about a year.

re: SHOES/boots, i just need to say that i bought Blundstones in the fall and they make me wish i'd been wearing them my whole life. i wore docs very often from age 14-26 (plus more girlie shoes occasionally) and docs are far less comfortable than blundstones (apparently there is some even 'better' similar shoe that can only be go in australia but i don't know what that is). anyway, what i'm saying is that if you want a black boot and walk a lot and have wide feet you should get these boots because they are awesome.

the elastic webs on the sides of blundstones take forever to fall apart - i know people who have had their boots for 10+ years

and they are unisex.
that is my sales pitch! lol

Well, I ended up getting a pair of very chunky charcoal brown suede lace-up steel-toed work boots of some brand I have now forgotten. I had to try on about 3 different brands to get one that was the right length for my foot without being *too* wide (which is a problem I'd much rather have than too narrow.) But the funny thing is, it has been so long since I bought a pair of proper boots (i.e. not rubber boots or stupid flimsy vegan boots made of hemp and cardboard) that I forgot, with steel toed boots, you don't break them in, so much as they break you in, and my ankles got ripped to shreds before I taped them up. I know this will pass. So I'm pretty happy.

Might still go to Camden and see if I can find motorcycle/engineers boots, or I might persist with trying to break the heel of the left boot of the pair I have.