Girls thread cont.

the samples police

I love my bumble & bumble surf spray. It smells like the beach!

My stylist (and her predecessor) always insists that a B&B conditioner, the volumizing one, is the only conditioner for me so I bought some and I hate it. I like the cheapass Suave coconut better. I love B&B super rich conditioner and the coconut one, though. I just need a heavier conditioner than the person who cuts my hair thinks I do, I guess.

I found out I am having a baby girl, I already had feeling like by week 6 or 8. She is due very close to my birthday, actually has the exact same due date I had but I arrived two days later. It got me to thinking of how I don't want my daughter to be a cookie cut-out of me and I don't think she will but I started to go over my life with a fine toothed comb to try and figure out why, what I want her to know, what I hope she doesn't have to encounter etc...

One thing I hope she finds is female buddies. I was always the girl who had one best girlfriend. The bestie was always just like me and we isolated ourselves from other girls. I preferred guys as friends because they were always straight with me, funnier, more interesting, no fighting, name calling or weirdness ever transpired just fun. In my teen years we all shared a love for vinyl and vintage things. As an adult, males continued to provide a stability in friendships that I rarely found in females.

I have a very small group of female friends who are all part of other very small groups of female friends, very small. I never liked the girly parties, always got made fun of, always got hurt or insulted, bullied. I would like my daughter to have a healthier relationship with females, equally with males. I will try but ultimately she will be who she is. My sister is the complete opposite, has a huge network of females, had like 15 bridesmaids and was in a sorority. I feel in order to cultivate an environment where my daughter can have a chance to form healthy relationships with other little girls, I have to get out there and hang out with other moms? The idea of hanging with a group of women just makes me...ugh! gag.

Congratulations on yr babby!

i'm sorry about this:

always got made fun of, always got hurt or insulted, bullied.

that sucks. but if you approach interacting with other women like this:

The idea of hanging with a group of women just makes me...ugh! gag.

nothing good will likely come of it. women are people, you know, just like you. i don't entirely understand what you're concerned about, wrt your daughter-to-be. i guess it would be nice if you knew some kids for her to play with, but she'll figure that stuff out for herself eventually. definitely i would try not to model an aversion to hanging out with other women. is it that you feel sort of wistful you haven't had more female friends? there's still time to make some.

congratulations, by the way!

I'm pretty sure if you polled the wimmens of ilx, nearly 100% of us would say they were bullied and shut out by other girls in their respective youths. I totally was, girls were horrible to me (boys were too, but y'know, in different ways).

But it's not that hard not to turn out like those people, and once you grow up and get to choose your own friends out of larger circles, you can cultivate people of any sort you like. You don't have to be girlfriends with the same kind of woman forever and ever! Just pick different ones to talk to and make friends with next time!

Be friends with dudes too, by all means, it's not like one is at the expense of the other! But for the love of cheese, enough already about how WOMEN are so hard to be FRIENDS with. You're a woman. I'm a woman. We're friends (probably). See how not-hard that was?!

i think it's more challenging to find the people who will be your good friends than to actually be friends with them.

think other parts of skin care are way less important to men than shaving.

^i use the udder balm on my hands post-climbing fwiw

I would never argue with that, it IS hard to find really fast friends who grow with you over years or decades and who uphold yr trust and give back. And sometimes you have to go looking for them, or really grab them when you see one? Also a big thank you goes out to the internet, because it has brought me A TON of the people I love and who love me.

I'm not even trying to hear this "ugh gag" business. It's hard to find friends no matter what gender you are and if you think a room full of women is more ugh gag than a room full of men, consider this

http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/graphic/xlarge/08_30_05%2815-29-12%29_108th_xl.jpg

the league of women voters has spoken

The idea of hanging with a group of women just makes me...ugh! gag.

i would say that you definitely owe it to yourself to cultivate some friendships with women - not just for your daughter but for yourself as well. we are pretty cool as genders go!

connecting with other moms would be potentially really good for you...there is nothing easy about being a mother and as supportive as they may be, your male friends/partners/etc. will never REALLY know what it's like to give birth and be a mother. and being friends with people with shared experiences will give you access to information and support you may not have had before - recommendations for childcare/doctors/etc in the community, approaches for dealing with difficult child behavioral issues, etc.

i think it also depends where you live, though. i know my mom had trouble making close female friends when she & dad moved to the town where i grew up, which was a lot more conventional and uh, republican than where she had grown up and where my parents had lived previously. and I have at least one friend from college who is married w/kids who lives in a midwestern suburb that regularly feels frustrated and fish-out-of-watery when hanging with the other moms.

Yeah, very possibly. Was true for me when I lived in smaller or more conservative/homogenous places. But then...the internet!

Or there's also the chance to BE the woman you want to be friends with, if that makes sense? Because maybe some other women would like to break out of the mold too but don't see any examples of it? The challenge is to be authentically ourselves, whatever that entails, right? Maybe by showing our own struggles to be authentic, and expressing patience w other women in their struggles, we can make a little space for other women to share, if they choose?

That is a lot of questions! Sorry.

totally otm - that was along the lines of my suggestions to my friend in the burbs. Like "what if you just started talking about the things that interest you or make the weird jokes that you think about?"

I frequently fail at the "patience" part of that, obviously.

it's not as if guys are better at being friends - there are plenty of guys who have mostly female friends bc for them women are better friends.

it's not about gender, it's about context/situations.

my mom said something to me that was kinda </3 the other day -- she said that she didn't think she was a very good friend, but that she was a really good employee. It reminded me of that "emotional TMI" thread started by the league of women voters.

I don't approach a group of women with that attitude, I try not too. I have gone to baby showers and bridal showers where I only know the woman of the hour and with the idea that maybe I will meet someone, sit next to a nice person since we all share this mutual friend. What happens is I smile a lot, I try to start conversations but then the groups start forming and there have been times that I put myself in one of those circles but ugh...that is when it gets awkward. Then later, days or weeks, the woman I am friends with will mention in passing or make a deal out of how she didn't truly love everyone in the room but so and so was invited because so and so was etc.. I feel better.

Sometimes I feel it is a natural thing for women to be stand offish, cliquish and just not all the way cool with each other. I saw this in my backyard flock of hens. They are social animals that create communities and set boundaries. But when I see a warm female face or smile or feel that vibe of hey you can talk to me I do approach. I have to say I have been more successful at meeting and having cool conversations with woman who are several years older than I am.

My ugh is that fear of rejection and maybe a bit of ptsd with being with women around my age, ten years younger maybe. I can spot a female vinyl lover and will gravitate to them anywhere, I love any sort of passionate collector, reader or classic movie watcher, photo/camera enthusiast, livestock lover, bunny owner, burlesque and roller skating ... I have many interests and generally find people interesting. But I have to admit, at this point, it just doesn't take much to get turned off by a female. Patience is right.

But no, I do not plan on letting my child see this aversion which is why I am prepared to give it a good try and hang with other women. I just hope it goes well and I get lucky. It is a scary thing for me, something I am trying to get past. I have a wonderful circle of female friends, small as it is and they have and are in the process of having children. We travel though so I will not be around them, therefore, have to go out into the world and find new ones wherever we are stationed.

how old are you?

if i may ask

40

i was just wondering -- it doesn't really matter, and then i felt rude for asking

But I have to admit, at this point, it just doesn't take much to get turned off by a female.

what i really want to know is why it's so easy to get "turned off by a female" but men are given a wider berth to...be assholes? be not like you? be appealing in some other way? i just don't get it. doesn't make sense to me whatsoever. the world is full of people of all genders and orientations who are different and interesting. if you're traveling, might as well get to know some of them. who cares if they become part of your inner circle. give them a chance to get past the giant ogres guarding the door.

when you say you have ptsd do you mean it literally or is it hyperbolically?

My two ex-husbands are a testimony to the fact that I have met male assholes. No, I do not give them wide berth either. But on average I do have more casual run-ins with snarky female strangers than with male strangers.

Last week I had a pleasant conversations with a record store clerk about Mexican 78's and a label called Kicks. He was not a dick about what I didn't know and let me pay for my purchases with a credit card when they only take cash. He was nice.

Tonight I met a nice female and we spoke about records and music. It isn't like it just doesn't happen, it is just really rare to find. In fact in our conversation I brought up how in feminist class in college a majority of my classmates would have nothing to do with Beat Poets seeing the entire movement as male based only and took huge offense to it but that I wish they had given them a chance. She said she was not of that mindset and scored huge brownie points.

I think we are all in search of like mindedness to some extent. I appreciate empathy as well. I feel I am at an age where I no longer have to put up with what I don't want in my life and seek out what I do. I was only stating that now that I am having a girl, I will have to explore the female world again so that my little girl has a chance to make her own decisions. I am willing to do that for her but it will not be easy. I am willing to start with a clean slate on plenty of things for her sake.

You know, you could always ask a friend of yours to be your daughter's honorary auntie and send her nail polish colors and stuff? It seems like a tall order if you're planning on being yourself AND someone you're not, and tho I am not a mom, I don't think that's required?

Your daughter will probably let you know what she's into, as she gets into it! (Judging by all the blogs by ex-punks and riot grrls etc etc whose daughters have asked for Barbies and tutus and princess dresses, much to their mothers' dismay.)

(Not trying to derail, but posting this here so I don't forget about it: http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/12/04/behind-the-perfect-body-models-and-bodybuilders/. Thank you. Carry on.)

Pyth, what you say makes sense too.

The Aunties have already started.

I got my models of women's friendships and support networks from watching all the women of my family interact at gatherings. Even though they came from difft places and were wildly difft people, the warmth and good sense in the house on holidays & parties was tremendously comforting to me and made a huge impression.

As long as yr daughter sees you having healthy friendships w both men and women, in whatever quantities, I'm sure she'll catch on.

yeah that seems otm.

You have managed to cast away anxieties, Pyth. Thanks!

2/3 of the young women surveyed for this study employed "vocal fry"

it sounds like this http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/vocalfryshort.mp3

or alternately, as an example ke$ha uses it when she says "i love your beard" at the end of whatever song that is where she says that

read more here http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/12/vocal-fry-creeping-into-us-speec.html?ref=hp

The researchers also plan to test students in high schools and middle schools to learn why young women creak when they speak. "Young students tend to use it when they get together," Abdelli-Beruh says. "Maybe this is a social link between members of a group."

lol olds

"We have hypothesized that this technique allows the subjects to communicate non-verbal content to others of their species."

yeaaaaaah, soooooo

more about vocal fry and gender

... but this tiny bit of evidence is certainly consistent with the traditional view that vocal fry has long been a common feature of sentence-final low pitches in American English, and that it's commoner among female speakers than among male speakers. Whether there's a generational effect (which could be due to life-cycle effects or to some overall cultural change) remains to be seen.

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3626

OMG this has a name! I was trying to describe this recently when I overheard this pitch-perfect, just, PARODY of Valley Girl talk all the way home on the Muni. (It wasn't a parody. But it was the first time in 2 years I have heard such an exaggerated way of speaking). I feel like people have to squish their necks way down when they do this.

Can we discuss a fashion matter?

Soooo, when did it become the thing for women to dress like eternal teenagers? And guys, too... for that matter.

I was watching some 80's movie, and realizing that women back then would dress a bit older than their age. I'm bringing it back. Dressed like a total cougar today. AND IT FEELS EMPOWERING. Sharon Stone would be so proud.

There was a great article about this a couple months back. I'll see if I can find it.

I fucking hate shopping right now. I feel like a lot of stuff in dept stores or whatever is either way to young and cutesy or too old and matronly. Gross.

Caught myself doing a little vocal fry at the dry-cleaners last night, for some reason. Thought of thread, smiled.

MANDEE, you will be unsurprised to hear that I couldn't agree more. I'm glad we have the freedom to dress however we like, but I way more enjoy actual tailored clothes and shoe choices if I have to look at people all day.

I can't get that sound file to work for me so I have no idea what the vocal fry is or whether or not I do it. :/

Mandee what does the cougar outfit consist of?

laurel does this well

i would love to mark an end to the cutesy over"styled" modcloth aesthetic for grown up women as well.

Its a silky-satiny black and white patterned top with shoulder pads that I got at a thrift shop, a big red belt around the waist, black trousers, high heeled boots, big cougar hair.

i kinda resist the "cougar" label though because back in the day, that well dressed attractive adult person wasn't overtly considered a predator.

(only understood to be one by the look in her eye -- zow)