The target market for the 21st-century cult of domesticity may include everyone from Brooklyn makers to Salt Lake City sister wives, but, up until recently, I never thought it would include me. All of my cooking involved a George Foreman grill, and I honestly didn’t understand what one would possibly do with a whisk or, for that matter, an iron. When I heard about some efficiency-obsessed San Francisco programmer who invented a food(ish) product that could provide all of your daily calories and nutrients, I immediately checked the price. (It’s $65 a week in case you’re interested.) So I wasn’t a domestic goddess or even a domestic cleric. I was more like the stock photo of a single girl used in every article about America’s declining birth rate. But then I embarked on a search for an oatmeal-colored sofa, and everything changed. Continue reading “Pinterest Is the New Vibrator”
Emily Matchar’sHomeward Bound articulates many of the thoughts that run through my head whenever I read a New York Times trend piece on urban chickens—a topic that reappears with surprising frequency. I get the romance of waking up at dawn to play farmer, but I grew up in a Midwest town lousy with farmers. So I’ve seen chickens. Now, some breeds of chicken might be beautiful, and some breeds might be especially tasty, but all breeds of chicken are two things: noisy and likely to shit everywhere. So if you’re in a NYC-sized space and you’re able to keep chickens without violating every imaginable health code, you must be spending thousands of dollars or thousands of hours cleaning up after your winged friends. Raising chickens isn’t so much a hobby then: it’s a career.
Which brings me back to Matchar. She may be a devotee of DIY lifestyle blogs, but she also acknowledges that many of the women running these blogs—who often pose as reformed professionals who’ve given up high-stress positions for more fulfilling lives in from-scratch homes—aren’t “regular” women at all. They’re talented professionals and brilliant marketers with valuable skills who’ve discovered that sometimes you can advance in the new freelance information economy by pretending you aren’t working at all.
Wasn’t it only last week that Lena Dunham was the Internet’s favorite body-positive darling? When she calmly responded to a television critic who objected to the presence of her insufficiently titillating body, she was lauded in a hundred feminist think pieces championing her rejection of television’s no-thigh policy. But apparently all that good will was shot when she had the audacity to have the bags under her eyes digitally removed. The horror!
After Dunham’s rather pretty Vogue spread was published on Wednesday, Jezebel posted a $10,000 bounty for the release of the unretouched photos. Was it because they didn’t believe she could look that glam? Of course not! Was it because they thought she’d look heavier in the originals? Certainly no! Was it because Dunham haters would flock to Jezebel in order to see unflattering images? Never! See, Jezebel was just trying to attack the harsh beauty standards propagated by the fashion industry and promote body acceptance. Clearly, because nothing screams “love yourself!” like pointing tiny arrows at the “flaws” in a woman’s face and figure. Continue reading “Leave Lena Dunham Alone!”
A surprisingly good year for female directors, 2013 featured well-received work on film and television by Jane Campion, Lake Bell, Jenji Cohan, and Maggie Carey. But if you don’t live in New York or Los Angeles, your independent theatre was probably busy showing Blue Jasmine for three months, so you may have missed the excellent crop of smaller films women released this year. This is why Netflix exists.
Although marketed as a piece of feel-good agitprop, Wadjda—the first film by a female Saudi director—is not a PSA. It’s a deceptively simple and rather lyrical take on one of film’s favorite symbols of hope: the bicycle.
Despite what the horrible English title would lead you to believe, this debut film from the ultra-Orthodox Israeli director Rama Burshtein isn’t about rock climbing or space exploration. It’s an intimate portrayal of women in ultra-Orthodox society that doesn’t attack or defend the community but simply tells a surprisingly erotic and complex story of female desire. Also, bonus points for having one of the best film posters of the year.
Exploring the history of her own parentage, Sarah Polley plays with the documentary form—mixing found footage with reenactments—as she questions our preconceived notions of narrative and memory. And it’s one of the sweeter depictions of a father-daughter relationship on film—genetics be damned.
In the follow-up to her innovative documentary The Arbor, Clio Barnard once again reveals the harsher side of contemporary English life that somehow never makes it onto the pages of The Daily Mail. Although the film is based on an Oscar Wilde short story, don’t expect any Lady Bracknells to show up. This is tough viewing.
The winner of the Chicago International Film Festival award for Best Animated Short Film, this debut by Kenyan director Ng’endo Mukki combines mutiple styles of animation to explore the politics of race and beauty. Good luck finding it online, but hopefully it will be streaming soon.
Should we believe the recent New York Post assertion that Brooklyn women are the nation’s pickiest? I’m suspicious if only because this claim manages to cram three of the trendiest of all trend topics—single women, online dating, and, of course, Brooklyn—into a 250-word article. I was shocked that they didn’t manage to squeeze Miley Cyrus in there as well. That was a missed opportunity. But the brief article does offer the standard picture of outer-borough dating with entitled women, lazy men, and the obligatory use of the word “artisanal.” Lurking beneath this generalization is the assumption that single women are a problem and that this problem is the result of our heightened expectations. Why won’t we just respond to the dudes sending us unsolicited dick pics on OKCupid? Why won’t we be chill and engage in a commitment-free non-relationship with a guy who takes voting advice from Russell Brand? What’s wrong with us? Don’t we know that our ovaries aren’t a renewable resource? Haven’t we read the statistics about marrying after 40? Yes we do, and yes we have. But, perhaps, shockingly, some of us would still rather be happy than be married. Continue reading “Why I’m a Picky Single Woman in Brooklyn”
