#this is coming from a supposed guru of women's empowerment

[anonymoushouseplantfan]

Plant, have you read Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror? She nails it. Read this part and think of Meghan Markle. This is everything!

The two biggest families in politics and culture today—the Trumps and the Kardashians—have risen to the top of the food chain because of their keen understanding of how little substance is required to package the self as an endlessly monetizable asset. In fact, substance may actually be anathema to the game. And with that, the applause roars, the iPhone cameras start snapping, and the keynote speaker at the women’s empowerment conference comes onstage.

Sophia Amouroso’s brand of “Girlboss Feminism,” and Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In brought in an era of CEO capitalism as a type of feminism.] #GIRLBOSS is an extended exercise in motivational personal branding … [the memoir implies that] becoming successful is a feminist project. The basic idea here is that, for women, photogenic personal confidence is the key to unlocking the riches of the world. The Girlboss Rallies [pay to attend conferences] are supposed to work the same way: you pay to network, to photograph yourself against millennial-pink and neon backdrops, to take the first step toward becoming the sort of person who would be invited to speak onstage. This is meant to scan as a deeply feminist endeavor, and it generally does, at least to its participants, who have been bombarded for many years with the spurious, embarrassing, and limitlessly seductive sales pitch that feminism means, first and foremost, the public demonstration of getting yours.

A politics built around getting and spending money is sexier than a politics built around politics. And so, at a time of unprecedented freedom and power for women, at a time when we were more poised than ever to understand our lives politically, we got, instead of expanded reproductive protections and equal pay and federally mandated family leave and subsidized childcare and a higher minimum wage, the sort of self-congratulatory empowerment feminism that corporations can get behind, the kind that comes with merchandise—mugs that said “Male Tears,” T-shirts that said “Feminist as Fuck.” (In 2017, Dior sold a “We Should All Be Feminists” shirt for $710.) We got conferences, endless conferences—a Forbes women’s conference, a Tina Brown women’s conference, a Cosmopolitan Fun Fearless Females conference. We got Arianna Huffington’s Thrive Global, which aims to end the “stress and burnout epidemic” through selling corporate webinars and a $65 velvet-lined charging station that helps you keep your smartphone away from your bed. We got the full-on charlatan Miki Agrawal, who was regularly given media tongue-baths on the subject of Thinx, her line of period panties, until it was revealed that Agrawal, who proudly called herself a “She-E-O,” was abusive to her employees and didn’t know much or care about feminism at all. We got, instead of the structural supports and safety nets that would actually make women feel better on a systematic basis, a bottomless cornucopia of privatized nonsolutions: face serums, infrared saunas, wellness gurus like Gwyneth Paltrow, who famously suggested putting stone eggs in one’s vagina, or Amanda Chantal Bacon, whose company Moon Juice sells 1.5-ounce jars of “Brain Dust” for $38. On the wings of market-friendly feminism, the idea that personal advancement is a subversive form of political progress has been accepted as gospel. The trickiest thing about this idea is that it is incomplete and insufficient without being entirely wrong. The feminist scammer rarely sets out to scam anyone, and would argue, certainly, that she does belong in this category. She just wants to be successful, to gain the agency that men claim so easily, to have the sort of life she wants. She should be able to have that, shouldn’t she? The problem is that a feminism that prioritizes the individual will always, at its core, be at odds with a feminism that prioritizes the collective. The problem is that it is so easy today for a woman to seize upon an ideology she believes in and then exploit it, or deploy it in a way that actually runs counter to that ideology. That is in fact exactly what today’s ecosystem of success encourages a woman to do.

Heading out, but posting this so I don’t lose it.

[dearly]

Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult

[amadeatanner]

Feminism and the Fault of Facial Hair

Today we were introduced to the wrath of the the self-proclaimed Travel Nazi, who also happens to be one of the teachers leading this grand historical tour of a trip. He gave us strict instructions: under no circumstances are we to be late to any group events. Otherwise, our grade gets deducted a whole ten percent.

Aside from enforcing such strict (though understandably practical) rules, he’s actually a pretty nice guy. And he gave us some food for thought in a cultural, historical, and architectural sense.

We were paraded through the streets of Greater London until we reached the actual “City of London,” (AKA, the part of town every foreigner knows…sort of, because it’s filled with all the iconic landmarks). It was once blocked off by a wall built in the time of the Romans, which means, basically, that the place is pretty darn old.

For example, there’s a very large and very elegant brick building on the outskirts of the Inner City, a keystone of Victorian architecture. It looks like something out of a 19th century fantasy. A place where secrets were kept and mysteries revealed. And the place certainly is a historical relic.

But it’s actually a meat market.

Yes. The place where the stench of raw meat pervades the air, because that structure has been the site of a meat market for over a thousand years.

Ah, yes, London. It’s been around forever. And that’s only a slight exaggeration. For nearly 2,000 years this place has been a bustling city, taking on the name “London” from "Londinium,” as it was called under the Roman occupation. It occurred to me that my home, sunny little Sierra Madre, which just celebrated its centennial not so very long ago, is a mere hiccup of existence by comparison.  

Today was really a melange of past and present. It entailed attempting to understand the underground transit system and exploring the historic district of Covent Garden. It’s both strange and amazing to see high-end retail and restaurants like Christian Dior fashion and Chipotle Mexican Grill occupying the places of really really old and really really elaborate buildings. 

But if there’s anything I’ve learned about the European way of life, it’s that the past lives in harmony with the present.

It’s also apparent that there is a LOT to do in this city, but in retrospect, my little group was probably the most ambitious set of tourists London has seen in awhile. Today was filled with museums. Three of them, in fact.

The museum of London was a blast from the past. From its contents, I learned that there were hairnets in the 1400s and garters for men during that time weren’t uncommon either. It was also brought to my attention that the fire that ravaged London centuries ago was in 1666. Coincidence there? Not so sure…

My favorite part of that place, however, had nothing to do with the interior, despite it being the best city museum in the world: 

The second museum, The Photographer’s Gallery, had a showcase on the 1970’s Avant-Garde Feminist movement, and considering my group consisted of six girls, that stop was practically a necessity. Many of the pictures were both unusual and enlightening, but all the works were created by women who challenged assumptions about gender, and, of course, assumptions about art. Combined with the Museum of London’s exhibit on Woman’s Suffrage, there was a whole lot of women empowerment going on today.

The final museum was the National Portrait Gallery. It was full of…

Portraits.

I came to see the 18th century portraits in one particular room with a new perspective after eavesdropping on one art-guru’s particularly engaging conversation:

“This room is filled with emaciated old men who need a shave. Just look at that five o’clock shadow.”

I suppose he wasn’t wrong.

Facial hair seemed to be a hot topic among the locals this afternoon for some reason. While eavesdropping on two guys as they very exuberantly embraced each other, I heard the first one say to the second, “Whoa, I’m liking the new look! Is that a beard of style or a beard of convenience?”

“Style, actually.” Replied the second guy. And they continued to have a conversation about beards for no less than ten minutes.     

The highlight of the evening, however, was a spontaneous event in the heart of the portrait gallery.

An up-and-coming band, Cerian, put on a live performance in one of the halls. And while that was super cool in and of itself, the fact that the mini-concert was free was an added bonus. A large crowd of people huddled into the little hall, which had surprisingly impressive intonation. There were, however, too many tall shoulders ahead of my group, which prevented us from actually being able to see the performance, so we sat on the floor instead.

But hey, how many people can say that they were allowed to get cozy on an internationally renowned museum floor, underneath pieces of priceless art, while listening to some indie music with London locals? 

Good stuff.

The end of the evening had to end where all Friday nights in London seem to: a pub. Sort of because it was the only kind of place that was really open after 9:00pm, but also because the name “The Moon Under Water” was very intriguing, and also also because…why not?

Had I been more knowledgeable in the realm of Marvel movies, I might have revered one of the inhabitants of this place with much more acclaim. Apparently, the actor starring as the latest Spider Man is a London resident, and he was two feet away from us in the pub. So I guess today was by no means tainted with the fact that we were in the presence of a minor celebrity.

All and all, just another day in the UK.