Voice Post: Coke Talk

I've been admiring Coke Talk since back in 2010. First she had her personal blog, which was a delightful shitshow following the world of the brilliant Los Angeles party girl who was "staggering through life with an eager nose and a sharp tongue." Quickly thereafter, readers started submitting questions to the wise Coke Talk, and she premiered her advice blog, "Dear Coquette." The tagline for this reads "Shady advice from a raging bitch who has not business answering any of these questions." In 2011 she ran a style blog, the sidebar explaining "a decadent orgy of materialistic delight in the pursuit of fashionable fuckery." She's designed purses and jewelry, and she's written the tongue-in-cheek book "Notes to My Future Husband: A Bitch's Guide to Our Happily Ever After."

Coke Talk is a direct woman. She's smart, educated, and painfully aware of the fleeting human condition. She posts something almost every day, whether it be on her personal blog or her advice blog, and she's not afraid to tell the truth. Several of her posts are named "On Fun-Sized Advice" and they contain quick bites of reality to the masses who write to her. A few examples

Why is it that I can look at a hot guy, want to make out with him, and know it would mean nothing, but it makes me feel sick to my stomach if I think about my boyfriend doing it? 
Because you are culturally conditioned to experience sexual jealousy.

Why do you say it’s important to have multiple relationships and/or sexual experiences/encounters? 
Because one day you’ll be dead.

I am really hung up on the fact that everyone I love will die. Just the thought of losing people hurts so much I cry sometimes. How do I cope with this fear? 
Quit whining and enjoy the people in your life.

Why do I feel the need for constant male attention?
It’s how you validate your sense of self-worth.

I really want to get my nose pierced, but all the naysayers always ask WHY. The truth is, I’m just a 19-year-old who thinks it looks cool with a bit of cash to burn. Do I need a good reason if I want it?
I’m not your mom. Stick whatever the hell you want into your stupid face.

Why are all philosophy professors such douchebags?
Because they spend their lives dealing with philosophy students.

If a guy routinely screws me from behind, does he not respect me?
Only if it’s a metaphor. Also, you’re an idiot.

How can i crush a man’s ego, rip it to shreds? 
Be better than him without needing him.

How to get your dignity back?
Fucking take it.

Will my girlfriend and I last? 
Nothing lasts.

These posts provide small insights into the mantra of Coke Talk without requiring her going into detail. Her voice is mature, confident, and direct. Through these simple sentence fragments she conveys a conversational tone, almost as though she were sitting at an interview in which questions are being thrown at her and she has neither the time nor the patience to flesh out her answer. She answers these quick questions with phrases, some of which, like "stick whatever the hell you want into your stupid face," she's used before. She's right. You're wrong.

The voice which Coke Talk uses depends heavily on your approach to her. If you are respectful and coherent in your writing she will answer your question in an understanding tone. If you ask a stupid question, she will be mean. Best of all, she doesn't care what you think of her.

At other times Coke Talk provides longer answers to her questioners. The following are from a post titled "On How You Look At It" in which she answers three different - but related - questions.

Do you think we’re a benefit to the Earth? Or unhealthy for it?
You would be wise to do two things:
First, don’t flatter yourself. We are of no consequence, and the Earth is indifferent. On a geological time scale, our measurable effect on the planet is a greasy burp.
Second, don’t separate yourself. It’s ridiculous to pretend that the concept of the collective “we” is somehow detached from the concept of the earth. There is no difference between the two.
What you’re really asking is whether our species in its current state of evolution is a benefit to the broader concept of life, and the only legitimate answer to a question like that is a Zen-like shrug of the shoulders.
Maybe we are. Maybe we aren’t. We’ll see.

Do you think a quarter-life crisis is an actual thing? I’m 20 years old and I feel like my life is over.
Your life isn’t over. Your childhood is over, and you just don’t know the difference yet.
As for whether a quarter-life crisis is an actual thing, sure it is. You can have an existential crisis at any age, and it’s perfectly reasonable to freak out in your early twenties when you suddenly realize that life is one big grind.
That’s no excuse to wallow in it, though. You’ve only got a few years in your early twenties when it’s culturally acceptable to screw around trying to find yourself. Don’t waste them being filled with angst and ennui.

As an average American, what do you think about the middle class?
The middle class is a cultural cliché without an internally consistent definition. It’s just an idiomatic device used by politicians and those in the media who want to represent the broadest area under the socio-economic bell curve. When reporters use it, they mean “not the rich and not the poor.” When candidates use it, they mean “you and everyone you know.”
The subtle counterpoint is calling me an “average American.” That phrase doesn’t draw attention to class distinctions, and it also has nationalistic connotations, which is why you’ll find more Democrats using the phrase “the middle class” and more Republicans using the phrase “average Americans.”
And of course, that’s really what you’re doing with this carefully loaded cocktail-party question. You’re just trying to suss out my political leanings.

These posts are longer and go more-depth into analysis. She uses a specific technique when analyzing these questions. She lays the information out clearly in different sections, starting with more heightened language and ending the answer with a short punch of a sentence. As a bonus to elucidate her spectacular writing ability, she has previously discussed her disdain for emoticons.

Coke Talk is, quite obviously, my hero. Her grammar is impeccable, she's well-read, and most importantly she's complex. Each time that she posts she expresses her mood through her writing, meaning that the Coke Talk you get one day is different than the Coke Talk to read on another. Nonetheless, her writing is always clear and distinct. Coke Talk's writing is the kind of writing to which I aspire.

Profile A Blog: Hello, Tailor

Gavia Baker-Whitelaw, who goes by the pseudonym "Hello, Tailor," is a blogger from Scotland who writes reviews of popular television shows, superhero movies, and fashion shows. Her posts focus on the costuming of the characters and the effects that costuming has on the overall media content. As a feminist, she frequently writes reviews which include in-depth analysis regarding the female representation in these shows.

"Hello, Tailor" garners approximately 1,000 hits per month. Due to the success of her blog, she has gained freelance work as a writer, mostly for the Daily Dot. She is heavily involved in the online fan fiction community, and is a managing editor at Big Bang Press, a small publishing company that focuses on fandom writers.

Hello, Tailor updates about once every two weeks, usually commenting on recently released movies. Her recent posts have been a three-part review of "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," and she has a long history of posting about Marvel movies. She has also shown herself to be dedicated to NBC's "Hannibal" and MTV's "Teen Wolf."

Her strongest posts are those that combine fashion with feminism, such as her popular post about the H&M fashion tie-in with the American version of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. In this critique, she demonstrates an understanding of the ways in which marketing tie-ins with popular movies can undermine the intentions of the original characterization.

"Salander... dresses with explicit aim of coming across as scary and unappealing. She isn't part of any goth subculture, and she has no difficulty attracting a partner when she wants to get laid and therefore does not dress with the aim of being sexually appealing... As a physically small woman who is justifiably wary of abuse and attack, she goes out of her way give off as many negative signals as possible. The way Rooney Mara has been styled, however, doesn't quite match this. Firstly, her hairstyle looks expensive and trendy instead of home-cut and messy, and secondly, if ever there was a role for which an actress should "ugly up", Lisbeth Salander is it."

Baker-Whitelaw is a feminist, pointing out the ways in which women are treated as objects for visual pleasure in ways which don't agree with the character. Her main critique of the marketing for "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is that it turns Lisbeth Salander into a submissive, sexualized figure in order to appeal to an American audience. We, as movie-goers, are so used to this objectification of women that we rarely even notice it. When Baker-Whitelaw points it out, she does so as a feminist and as a media critic. Portraying Lisbeth Salander in this manner isn't just offensive to women, it's also offensive to accurate storytelling.

I began following "Hello, Tailor" almost two years ago, initially attracted by her compelling and conversational tone that she uses in her "Teen Wolf" recaps. These posts were far more casual than her posts about the Avengers, as she sounded much more like a fangirl discussing her obsession with an MTV show than a woman critiquing a multi-million dollar movie. These posts generally began as thought-out-but-still-initial reactions to the episode before devolving into bullet points using internet-speak. For example, her review of season three episode six ends in this manner:

• Luv the music in the final scene. SCOTT/STILES FRONDSHIP!!!!
• I feel like I say this every week (who am I kidding, I definitely say this every week), but SCISAAC/ALLISON THREESOME NEEDS TO HAPPEN!!
• How many thunderstorms does Becaon Hills have each year? 200?

"Hello, Tailor" is a special blog in how Baker-Whitelaw uses her critiques of media to bring about feminist understanding. Her audience is mainly women who are interested in this media, and these women are then more informed about feminism because of her posts. Furthermore, her conversational tone is admirable. The way in which she transitions between formal critique and carefree text-speak is something which I wish to emulate in my own way. My blog has more to do with theories of feminism, but it also deals with the everyday sexism that I face, and media of course plays into that.

 

Wangechi Mutu - The Bride Who Married the Camel's Head

My dad just shared this to Facebook from one of those absurd Facebook pages that only exist to provide syllables of laughter and miniscule ad-based revenue clicks.

As my parents used to tell me, "It's a good thing you're cute, because you're not too bright."

They were mostly kidding, but I've never reacted well to being teased. Micro aggressions, you know?

 

Hey there, sweetheart.

I'm the Boss - Part 2

Continued from Part 1

We can support women as political figureheads or CEOs while still being critical of their actions. Just because someone does some shitty things doesn't mean they have no redeeming qualities. We do draw the line somewhere though, and that's easy to do when it comes to rejecting women who support homophobia or restricting reproductive rights.

For something more complicated, take a look at the "Ban Bossy" campaign, spearheaded by Sheryl Sandberg, author of Lean In, and Girl Scouts of America.

Based on the criticisms I've read of "Ban Bossy," many people seem to be missing the point of the campaign. It's goal is not to ban the word "bossy" or criticize assertive behavior in young women; it's to eliminate the micro-aggressions that young women face every day. Those micro-aggressions have negative, lasting impacts on female self-esteem. Other criticisms point out that there's a difference between being bossy or rude and being a leader, and say that the campaign should have focused more on assertive leadership. That right there is a micro-aggression: it's repeating the message that young women have to be nice in order to get things done, avoiding behavior that might get them branded "bossy" or "bitchy" while the same behavior in a young man would be applauded.

Women are socialized to be nice. Being not-nice is an act of defiance. In my opinion, being aggressive on a daily basis is one of the most powerful ways to assert individual feminism. Then again, maybe I'm just a stuck-up cunt.

Just kidding. Don't ever speak to me like that. I will eat you and toss your bones into the Los Angeles river.

I applaud the "Ban Bossy" campaign for its diversity. Unlike the CoverGirl campaign, we have a variety of female role-models to choose from, both in profession and in race. I see no problem with little girls having singers and actresses as role models; the issue arises when those are the only role models those girls have. I'm not a fan of Condoleezza Rice for her political actions, but I respect her as an accomplished woman of color.

Still, both campaigns are selling you something. CoverGirl is obviously selling you makeup. Sandberg is selling you her book, and she's selling you a narrow view of female leadership that exists within the corporate structure. To quote Lierre Keith,

“People sometimes say that we will know feminism has done its job when half the CEOs are women. That’s not feminism; to quote Catharine MacKinnon, it’s liberalism applied to women. Feminism will have won not when a few women get an equal piece of the oppression pie, served up in our sisters’ sweat, but when all dominating hierarchies - including economic ones - are dismantled."

Keith has a standard of feminism that excludes corporate feminism. She's an activist and a revolutionary, just as environmentalists often are. She doesn't buy what Sandberg sells.

Feminism is a varied subject, with different flavors those all kinds of lifestyles. Who we label as feminist has to do with how we relate to our own culture. What we prioritize in feminism has to do with what we prioritize in life. In acting as a feminist, be aware of the effects of your actions, be critical of the media you consume, and do your best to not be an asshole.

I have survived for this long
On gravel and sand
Tasting of my blood
Showing veins.

And
I will make it till the end
Drinking vinegar
Spitting in your grave
Standing tall.

(I sweat poison. You will never touch me again.)

This blog is supposed to be for a class, but that's a fucking joke. The actual posts for class are 500 words more than what my professor asks for and everything else is weird poems and prose I write to express my anger/sadness/existential ennui. The only reasoning I have is that these are me trying out different writing styles and different voices. Also, music videos.

I dream of punching him in the face. My fingers will tighten around my keys and the metal will smash into his cheek bones. Blood will escape in a hot line just above his stubble. I'll scar his face. He'll never forget me.

"I'll never forget you. There will always be a part of me that loves you."

I spit on the ground, vomiting the word back at him. Ladders of bile in my stomach. Go to hell and take your love with you. I want you dead. I want to see you bleed.

He nods. "Hit me." He fakes at nonchalance. He always gives me what I want. He will give me his pain if I ask.

I want to hit him. It is not enough that we have lied. It is not enough we are fat with guilt. It is not enough that we have dirtied our souls. We must also bloody our fists.

"I was good to you. I gave you what you needed."

I am here and I am not here. I am flexed back muscles and extended claws and sharpened teeth. I am wild. I am the glint of sun reflecting off the fence. I am the wind moving the leaves. I am made of unfinished sentences. I am somewhere else.

He hears me. He will never hear me. He will leave me alone. He will never leave me alone.

I am in my house. He is driving away from my backyard. I can feel myself expanding, bloating, growing larger than this room. I am somewhere else.

He is burning me. I pick the skin off my legs and dig my nails into my face. My lips are chapped. My thighs are red. I gasp each time a hand pulls at the hair closest to my scalp. I realize the hand is mine.

I can tell I am alive because the skin grows back. The red calms down. There's never a shortage of strands between my fingers.

Human cells die and duplicate constantly. They regenerate with such frequency that after approximately seven years a human is completely replaced with new cells. Think about that. Every seven years there is a new person.

How lovely. One day there will be a me that he has never touched.

On repeat.
ZZ Ward - Overdue

I'm the Boss - Part 1

Remember a few weeks ago when I ranted about that CoverGirl "Girls Can" video? I came across this project on tumblr back in February and it wasn't until recently that I made the connection between the two works.

This project was posted on tumblr on February 18th, and the CoverGirl Campaign video was posted on YouTube on February 21st, so I'm not suggesting a creative theft here. (Although I don't put it past advertisers. Remember when this art was turned into this ad? Yuck.) "Girls Can" is also the name of an empowerment program for young women in Richmond, Virginia, so I guess it's a popular phrase.

Regardless, the project succeeds where the CoverGirl ad fails. Instead of painting girl power with one bubbly brush, it examines societies perceptions of women in positions of power.

There are some strong criticisms of the above work, namely that the chosen picture of Cleopatra upholds historical whitewashing and that Aung San Suu Kyi is overseeing a massacre of Muslims in Burma. The author admits that not all these women are feminist icons, but points out that the project is more to show how our perceptions of the capabilities of women are fucked up. In my opinion, this makes the work more interesting. Not only is this project more diverse than the CoverGirl ad in terms of women of color and the jobs the women do, but opens up a great dialogue about how we define feminism, who we choose as our feminist icons, and how we reach for feminism in a corrupt and difficult world.

When we were little we thought all feminism was Spice World and Hillary Clinton. Then we grew up, put on our big girl panties, and started learning that hard lesson that not all women in positions of power are feminists.

A very clear example of this is Sarah Palin. During the 2008 presidential campaign Palin was at times paraded by the GOP as a feminist in an attempt to pander to women voters, presumably because she was a women in a position of power, gearing up to a women in a very high position of power. But any women who denies reproductive rights to other women is not a feminist.

TERFs (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists), women who don't believe that transwomen should have rights and actively work to deny transwomen those rights are not feminists.

Queen Rania of Jordan, who is loved in the West for being fashionable but disliked by the people of Jordan and compared to Marie Antoinette? Not really a feminist.

Katy Perry, who fetishizes Japanese women and appropriates their culture? Not a feminist.

Racist women? Not feminists. Women who slut shame? Nope. Homophobic women? Nah. Biphobic women? Fuck off. Women with so much internalized misogyny that they victim-blame? Sure as fuck not feminists.

Sorry. You're kicked out of the club. You don't get to play with the big kids. Change your viewpoints or get the fuck out, but don't you dare try and steal this movement with your bullshit.

(Maybe I'm hating on women too much. You know who else isn't a feminist? Creepy dudes who think that if they show up to a Women's Studies course and talk about how they're phylogenists they will get laid. We see you, and we know you're scum.)
In our daily activities, the guidelines for How To Be a Good Feminist sort of go along the lines of How To Not Be an Asshole. Think a woman is wearing too much makeup? Upset because someone won't sleep with you but will have sex with other people and you have an urge to call this person a slut? More upset with women who take nude pictures of themselves than the men who distribute and profit from those pictures? Have a desire to go into a lengthy debate about how abortions should only be performed on women who really need them? Want to use the terms "welfare queen," "fag hag," or "tranny?" Shut up. You're being an asshole. No one cares about your fucking opinion. No one.

But being in positions of power is more difficult than  It's one of the ways in which feminism and international politics studies come to clash: it is near impossible to maintain perfect feminism in a capitalist society. The standards to which we hold individuals acting on behalf of themselves are different than those to which we hold individuals acting on behalf of countries or corporations. The standards of ethics are different because we expect that politicians are acting not as themselves, but as figureheads for international diplomacy. (Read the play Aunt Dan and Lemon by my boy Wally Shawn if you want to get fucked in the head on that front.)


Continued in Part 2

I don't give a fuck about your Cabo diet.
No one gives a fuck about your Cabo diet.
You don't even give a fuck about your Cabo diet.

You could be so much better than this, but every calorie you count is a brain cell you kill. There are stretch marks on your brain where it used to be fat. Now it's thinning out.

Being thinner won't make anyone love you. No one is going to look at you and be overcome with the majestic beauty of your thigh gap and want to be with you. Hell, no one will even fucking notice because everyone spends all their energy focusing on themselves.

You look the fucking same whether or not you eat the fun size snickers. So do me a fucking favor and shut the fuck up about your fucking Cabo diet.

I was supposed to be doing some Her-level hipster shit in Catalina with my boyfriend this weekend, but he was shipped off to storyboard IBM ads at some midtown hotel in New York until who knows when.

Keely's on a flight to Minnesota, Sydney is in the throes of new love, and Stephanie is at a conference in DC. I'd ask my sorority sisters if they wanted to hang out, but most of them are gone too.

The guy at work who tells me he loves me - you remember him - is having a party tomorrow night. I'm considering showing up and causing some trouble, but we fought Tuesday night because he likes to gaze into my eyes and tell me I'm Special and he just wants me to Be Okay. I tell him that I am Okay when he leaves me alone. We will leave each other alone.

To be honest, I've never really cared about spring break. I've got a Coachella habit to fund and some parking tickets to pay off, and it's not as though I don't party and bullshit enough when school is in session. I just don't think I'm prepared for the extrovert's nightmare.

Here's a breakdown of how the next week will go:

• Take care of business
• File taxes
• Pay fines
• Take care of the apartment
• Buy paper towels
• Buy cat food
• Buy human food
• Let most of the human food go bad
• Order $35 of LA Cafe
• Throw out roommate's old food
• Eat what might still be good
• Go to work
• Ignore the boy
• Do your homework
• Write the fucking play
• Buy cigarettes
• Don't smoke them
• Talk to men
• Be mildly interested in them because they're cute
• Consider having sex with them
• Consider dating them
• Realize they're dumb and not that cute
• Do not have sex with them
• Do not text them back when they ask you out for dinner
• Think about your boyfriend
• Drink
• Call him
• Talk about Mad Men
• Talk about North Korea
• Talk about anything other than how much you love him
• Try to plan out your career
• Asses what skills you have
• Realize you have no skills
• Realize your degree has done nothing for you except made you aware of how awful the world is
• Figure out who might want to hire you
• Become entrenched in an endless spiral of job search websites
• Realize you're not good enough
• Feel a pressure build inside you
• Drive to the beach
• Scream into darkness
• Cry about all the nothing
• Grab a fistful of hair and pull
• Slap yourself in the face
• Not too hard
• Run into the ocean
• Baptize yourself
• Pray to all the nothing
• Drive home
• Do your homework
• Go to dance class
• Smile when your teacher asks how you are doing
• Smoke the cigarettes on the drive home
• Call your father
• Tell him you're fine

Social Bookmarking Soulmate

My social bookmarking soulmate is Lauren Marks over at Diigo.

I like to walk alone at night
On beaches and through forests and
around underground parking lots.
Without keys clutched between my fingers.

I don't need to defend myself from the man in the shadows.
I am not afraid
Because there is no man in the shadows.

There are men
Telling lies in well-lit rooms
Touching thigh under candlelight
Grabbing breast beneath fluorescents
Smiling in the sun.

I used to be soft.
But I was pinched
and poked
and burned into hard metal.

I am a bullet escaping a gun.
I will shatter, I will explode
into so many pieces that
my dust will rest in the air.
And you won't catch me.

I am a knife.
I will cut into skin and reach through muscle
Lick the blood from my handle
It will burn your mouth.

I will break myself.
But first
I will destroy you.

Thoughts I Have Had Today

Will my boyfriend text me back?

Group texts are the worst. I'm getting a new text every five minutes and the light on my phone makes me anxious and I don't want to talk to any of these people right now and none of these texts are from my boyfriend so I don't care about any of them.

Should I take this Xanax? Why aren't I drunk right now. Fuck, I could be drunk right now. There's beer in my fridge. I could drink it. But then I would be tipsy for work tonight, and I'd be tired. And then I definitely couldn't take this Xanax. Don't want to die.

Am I an elitist snob, or am I actually smarter than these people? I confer with Keely, and she confirms that we are elitist snobs. I am comforted in our mutual snobbery. We then discuss romantic versus minimalist literature. Snobs. We should have stayed up North.

Keely writes screenplays. They are diverse and complex and witty. I write plays. They are heavy and violent and sad. Keely writes love poems to girls she meets in France. I wrote a love poem once. My boyfriend will never read it, but I recited lines from it to him once when I was drunk. Keely read it. She said it was funny to see me showing an emotion that wasn't anger.

Where's my cat? Is she peeing on things again?

This play I'm working on isn't passing the Bechtel test. Should I add another women character? How would that play into the world I'm creating? If I add another woman character it will just be one of my friends. What purpose would she add? I don't want to have her distract from the action of the play or have the scene be commentary on other action, but it might be good to show the main character in a scene where her behavior is not defined by the men around her. The play is passing the Mako Mori test though, because it's all about the behavior of a woman. Is my life passing the Bechtel test? That might be a good Facebook status to post. "Make sure your life is passing the Bechtel test." Should I post that? No, it sounds kind of douchey. Don't say that.

There's the cat. She's scratching at the furniture and meowing. She wants to be fed. She's a brat, just like I'm a brat. She wants to be scratched all the time.

What if I use up all my good material in this play and then I can't write any more good plays? And people want me to write more plays because my first play is a success and then I can't write any more plays, but everyone knows I'm fucking weird because I wrote this play? What if my boyfriend breaks up with me because he reads this play and realizes I based a character off him? Not just based a character off him, but pulled bits of conversations about his mental health from our real life and then typed them up.

Will there be food at my office tonight? The guy I work with who tells me he loves me will buy me food if I ask. Almost all the food in my fridge right now is food he has purchased for me. That's not a lot, though. My goal was to be so demanding, so awful, that he would stop trying to make me love him. It isn't working. He does whatever I say. I like it, but mostly I hate it.

I went to the health center to get my annual STI check and pap and the gynecologist tried to push hormonal birth control on me again. She said some statistic about condoms only being 80% effective even when used correctly. That doesn't make any sense. She asked how long I'd been with my current partner, assuming that because I'm sexually active I have a sexually monogamous partner. I didn't like that. I said seven months.

One of the light bulbs in my bedroom is out. I could text the maintenance guy. I don't want to text the maintenance guy.

These fucking group partners keep texting me. We keep fucking up our projects.

I'm going to take this Xanax.

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

The first few posts were mostly me ranting about feminist theories. Now I'm going to rant about feminist theories in international relations.

Surprisingly, I am not a gender studies major. My degree is in international relations, and I have emphases in gender and cultural issues and international political economy; I like studying women and I like studying money. Let's go back to IR 101 and go over some concepts of international relations and how this applies to feminism.

The discipline of international relations was created largely to understand the action of nation-states during war; thus the main international relations theories are realism, liberalism, Marxism, and conservativism. We also have neo-liberalism, neo-conservativism, and all that. In my option, international relations theories without feminism fail to recognize the contributions of women. As an international relations feminist, I am mainly concerned with the largely unseen work that women do.

Ann Tickner is an international relations feminist scholar who drew on Morgantheu's truths of mankind, widely used to describe the international relations realist perspective, and wrote the feminist realist perspective. Such a perspective challenges the realist assumptions that human nature has masculine characteristics, such as autonomy and desire for power. A feminist realist recognizes the many dimensions of dynamic nationalism, collective power, and moral political action.

Cynthia Enloe has written entire books about the work that women do to facilitate international affairs - as diplomat's wives, as sex workers, as laborers, ect. Her view of IR comes from reflectionist ideas, which are ideas that reposition the thinking of politics to understand them from different points of view

In studying international relations it is tempting to pay attention to only western politics, but IR provides a strong framework for understanding the complexities of other nation-states. Examining international women's rights helps us avoid the trap of becoming too focused on our view of the world as Western women. For instance, did you know that women make up more than half the members of parliament in Rwanda? Or that Tunisia just signed a new constitution that promotes women's rights? Or that Venezuela pays pensions to full-time mothers?


Women do 66% of the world's work and own 1% of the world's property. From a Western perspective, it can seem as though all women have the same goals, which exist in a capitalist society. Initiatives such as Lean In cater to this Western definition of success. But the world is a diverse place, with more cultural variation that could be easily understood by an outsider. Honoring those differences through international relations theory and feminist theory is crucial in making gains to enhance the power of women internationally.

 

My favorite part of the Nicki Minaj "Lookin' Ass" backlash is the guys on World Star Hip Hop (where the video premiered) complaining that this is the awful feminism bullshit. Stay thirsty. Nicki wrote this largely in response to Gucci Mane claiming that he had sex with her, and you can check out the meaning being her lyrics over at Rap Genius. Meanwhile, I have been blessed with a new response for the scrubs who hit on me:

I don't want sex, give a fuck about your ex,