This image shows a girl wearing the lolita style of fashion. She’s wearing pink and white with ruffles, bows and petticoats. Her pink skirt has the writing ‘this is what a feminist looks like’ on it; with white symbols representing women. Her white socks have the same symbols in pink.
Beside her there is a quote by Betty Friedan saying “And we had considered ourselves the vanguard of the working class revolution, feeling only contempt for dreary bourgeois capatalists like our fathers - though we still read Vogue under the hair dryer and spent all our money on clothes.”

I’m on a bit of a creative bender. Been doing a lot of programming at university. Hard cold logical stuff. I come home and I find I just want to make things.
This piece here is me critisizing myself for not really acting out on my thoughts that femininity is harmful. Like the last post I made was in no way deep. I really do like lace, hearts and ruffles and I really do hate femininity and it causes me to have these weird conflicting feelings.
I don’t know how other people will read this and I’d be happy for people to take their own meanings out of it, but I want to clarify that whilst I’m taking a jab at myself for claiming a radical label whilst surrounding myself in gendered things, I don’t mean to take a jab at any other woman for her choices.
I’m just exploring what I think of my own choices.

The girl in the picture is a representation of me.

Here’s the real me, for reference:

Fuck Femininity

Women who don’t wear makeup to work aren’t “putting in the effort” and look “unprofessional” meanwhile men who don’t wear makeup to work don’t need to worry about this shitty shit.

Ehh. I just came across this article which says that in a survey %64 of directors think that women not wearing makeup look unprofessional and %18 say they look like they’re not putting in the effort.

The effort that men don’t have to put in, by nature of their being born men in this sexist society.

Urgh.

The article goes on to say that because of this women should perhaps hire an image consultant, or a stylist. Money to hire a professional that men wouldn’t have to pay.

Oh yes - it says men should consider makeup if they have blotchy skin, or they need to appear under bright lights for stage or television or something, but you know. As it says:
“It is a fact that women who wear make-up in business generally get better jobs, get promoted more quickly and get paid more.”

Somehow I think mens careers don’t have the same “wear makeup/be attractive, but not too attractive because if you look too sexy thats unprofessional too” shit that women have, and it doesn’t say affect their promotions, their jobs and their pay.

Even those people who don’t believe in patriarchy, or hierarchies, or structures of oppression have got to look at this and say “Well thats sexist” don’t they? It’s bloody obvious. This isn’t in depth stuff.
Women have more expectations. They must put more time and effort into their presentations then men, they need to buy the products spending more money then men, if they want to do it “right” they should hire a professional paying money men don’t need to pay, they have to wakeup earlier then men do to prepare themselves - just to reach a point where they look “professional” where men basically just need to make sure their suit is ironed, and that they have a nice enough tie.

The sexism is pretty blatant.

Miss Atom

http://miss2007.nuclear.ru/eng/

So, there’s a contest on that has been running since 2004. Miss Atom.

It’s a beauty pageant for girls working in the nuclear power industry in Russia, or students researching in the field. The admission is only for girls between 18 and 35 years of age. You can win neat (girly) prizes for entering.

Wait? What?

Why are women in the nuclear sector being judged on their beauty? Does this seem strange to you? I mean, wouldn’t it seem more on track if women (and men) in the nuclear sector were I don’t know… judged on their ability to do their jobs, without being turned into commodities?
I couldn’t find the statistics to tell me how many men vs women are working in that sector, but I’m going with the assumption that it’s a male dominated sector.

Why are women working in a male dominated sector, being judged on their beauty?

I mean…

What is beauty anyway? and why is beauty an important trait in a Russian nuclear sector student/worker? Why is it specifically important in female Russian nuclear sector workers/students?