Not Even Wrong!

Feministing posted this today. I'm linking to the article at Gawker.com. Terror meets fashion, indeed. Brava to Gawker for getting the blurb right! ---- Look, I know patriarchy is ambivalent about beauty and women's sexuality. Jack loves it, and hates it. He loves/hates beautiful women becuase he equates beauty with the power he gives it over himself. But, Holy Mother of God!, people, you seriously want to sell me a dress by building a narrative in which I wear that dress and get my ass kicked by security forces? Woman maybe the eternal irony of the (male) community, as Hegel had it, and she may be the single most transformative force on the planet, capable of genetically scrambling Jackdom, and that "may be" and the fear of that "may be" are right here in these photos. ---- Why offer that reading of this pics? Because it's the only one that isn't completely sickening. ---- Why, when there is so much else not even wrong, bother over some fashion photos? 1 in 4 in the US. That's why. And that's JUST sexual assault, not including other kinds of gendered and sexualized violence, affecting more than just cute white chicks. And in Iran, or Afghanistan, or _____, the Vice Squads can beat a woman for letting a strand of hair or too much wrist show in public. Because for Millenia, Jack has made us responsible for his sexual pulsions, refusing to take responsibility or ownership of his own sexuality, and then punishing us when he feels out of control. ---- And given what went down in Bosnia (see MacKinnon, Are Women Human), this is simply beyond the pale. ---- Vogue, you need to back off. You need a reality check. You're in ITALY. It's not like the Balkans or the MidEast is far away and hard for you to imagine. But, this is a pattern, my dear Jack-Vogue. A pattern. Just a few years ago, I recall a spread in which a Very Expensive Dress was advertisized on the body of a model splayed out, unconscious, hose ripped, skirt hiked, face buised, In A Stairwell. Thanks for the all the help internalizing the violence as my due. Thanks. You're sweet, Jack. ---- Listen, I've heard you defend your fashion "aesthetics" as aspirational, as a dream factory, as merely fanstasy intended to give women something to want or wish. This? Really? On top of the anorexia? The model with the jackboot on her throat isn't physically strong enough to fight off a twelver year old. This is not aspiration. This is abjection. Plain and simple. ---- And Airport Security, in response to another of Feministing's recent posts, the gel bra on the breast cancer survivor ... that is not a bomb. Given that terrorists are not idiots, and know that we are looking for deluvial dangers, give these women a break. ---- Thanks, Kali.