Whitely

Dear The Body Shop,
I like you. I really like those tiny delicious-smelling pots of lip gloss. And I really really like that you are into ethical business. So, friend, what’s up with these?


Sadface,
KK.


I found these in the Queen Street branch in Auckland, New Zealand.

Seriously, two out of five words that is the name of this product involves the word “white”. The packaging is white too, in case we missed the point.

According to the Australian website for The Body Shop (there is no New Zealand website, and I could not find the product on the global one), it “reduces early melanin-making signals even before the hyperpigmentation process and melanin production cycle starts – helping to prevent uneven skin tones, brown spots and freckles” (http://www.thebodyshop.com.au/Product.aspx?Id=962 ).

O sorry, my mistake. This whitening whitely white product is for uneven skin tones, brown spots and freckles. That sounds OK, I guess. Not out of the ordinary, in any case.

Waaaait. Do you mean the same melanin as the thing that determines skin colour? The same melanin that PREVENTS SKIN CANCER? THAT MELANIN?

O SHIT.

Not only is this product inherently racist, it is possibly carcinogenic. But I’m no scientist, and cannot comment on the latter. (Can anyone confirm or deny this?)

But as a woman of colour, I find this product offensive. It equates whiteness with beauty, and as such, it is not an ideal that any woman of colour can achieve naturally. Whiteness is privileged. Conformity wins over diversity.

The thing is, The Body Shop has excellent moral principles and policies to reflect that(http://www.thebodyshop.com/_en/_ww/services/pdfs/AboutUs/Policyonexternalmarketingandclaimslayout.pdf). At heart, there is goodness. This is one of the major reasons why people patronise The Body Shop. But this product blatantly contradicts those priciples and ignores the policies. The excerp from the policy below clearly states that beauty is “regardless of… skin colour”, and that there is a “stringent copy approval system”. By selling this product, The Body Shop is not only transgressing its own moral boundaries, but also deliberately lying for profit.
What is the most constructive step from here? Dear Reader, please help me with suggestions. There will be a follow-up post on this.

Veganised Happiness Risotto (adapted from Nigella's Happiness Soup)

This is my favourite easy winter meal. I had it for dinner tonight, and there is more than enough leftover for tomorrow. I think it would serve 3 people, or 2 people like me. It is warm and delicious and the yellow cheers me up on rainy days. This recipe was adapted from a soup recipe with chicken stock, but it is delicious this way. A little less vegetable stock makes a lovely vegan risotto instead, that is also a one-pot-meal.

1 cup short grain rice - or whatever, I think risotto rice works best
2 zucchini - yellow ones, if you have, but green ones will do
stock -  I used one cube of Oxo vegetarian stock, or use equivalent
1 lemon - zest and juice
pepper
olive oil

Chop zucchini into whatever shape you fancy. Gently fry in olive oil until soft. Add generous amount of water. Add stock and lemon zest.

When the mixture has boiled, add rice. Stir and cook until soft (~20 min). Add water as needed.

When a good consistency is reached, add lemon juice to taste.

Serve with freshly ground pepper, a drizzle of olive oil and a lemon wedge.

Does anyone else have a easy wintery recipe for me to try? I am always scouring the internet for good ones.

Snuggling up with risotto and Firefly,

KK.

Saturday Morning Media Watch: the North Korean Edition

Like the freaking Titanic.

The Weekend Herald, whose bones I pick the most because it is a Saturday tradition of mine, has an article in the World section: Grimness in the details of life in North Korea. Pictures by AP and written by David McNeil from the Independent.

The article itself points to “soldiers [who look] shrunken in their oversized hats” and concludes that the “country’s best-fed men seem to be the two who dominate”. These are the only gendered reference in the article about the people in North Korea.

I do not even bat an eye at these things normally. Gendered pronouns are a battlefield, and I am a veteran. There was a study (citation forthcoming) that showed that when people read male pronouns, even if they mean it as a universal one, they imagine male people with their mind’s eye.

Perhaps the soldiers were the most poignant to the said journo, which I understand. They are the arms of the state, especially for states like North Korea. But the conclusion about “men” was annoying.

What made it so conspicuous for me were the photographs. Whilst the article did not mention women and children, the pictures did. In fact, it was only women and children in the pictures. It was a mixture of a cool, rational appeal mano-a-mano in words, with emotive appeal to “save the women and children” in pictures.

Men are the subjects, women are objects.

So what I want to know now is: who chooses these pictures? I imagine some poor person in deep dungeons under the Herald building choosing pictures from a massive AP database. Or the dungeons of the Independent building. Whatever.

And they want to help. Why else go into journalism? These are honourable people, who want to change the world. They choose pictures that will appeal to us. They imagine that when we see the pictures of women and children, we will rise up in our rage and demand change. And we do.

Poverty and war affects women and children differently to how they affect men. They suffer the consequences of actions initiated and perpetuated by men.

But we know better. A solution will never be good enough if it is only thought of by men. Women are not just the problem, we are part of the solution.  And we are powerful.

Rawr,
KK.

Space Politics

I wish I was writing about gender politics of Alpha Centauri too. Alas. (Read Contact by Carl Sagan. Or The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russel. Or watch Firefly.)

Instead, I am hailing from Womenspace! It is totally a rad place, with a microwave and a kettle and Kalashnikovs. What? For the revolution, of course! It is really a not-so-secret terrorist cell. We do all the things that some boys fantasize that we do here. We have pillow fights and naked mud wrestling, which we actually secretly like. We talk about the inadequacies of the penis. We say penis a lot. We have wild lesbian sex, and some of our best biologistas are working on how to procreate without the penis. After we sate ourselves with our Sapphic love, we oil our Kalashnikovs and organise the revolution, which, by the way, is immanent. We may keep Ryan Gosling as a pet.

Not really. It is so sad that that is what some people think we do here. Mostly we go about our lives, reading or eating lunch, feeling just a little bit safer. There are no Schrodinger’s Rapists here. I know that men are actually in more mortal danger in public spaces, but women are more likely to imprison ourselves. We have been warned over and over again how we are always, always in danger. But our brave sisters venture out into the world every day to do what needs doing. But some of us need respite.

For now, we need Womenspace. We freaking need it.

There is no Menspace. People grumble about this. I personally do not think that there should be one, and here is why.

We already have Menspace. Actually, we are up to our necks in it. Really, everywhere is Menspace. Everywhere, sexist messages pervade our very pores. In public and private spaces. In schools and in our homes. In our brains and our hearts.

I have a Doctor friend, and she is such an awesome woman. She told me that when she started her training, there were only two changing rooms: the doctors’ and the nurses’. Because, you know, all doctors were male and all nurses were female. She said that this made for some awkward moments, but overall she was glad. She too could partake in the jocular bonding rituals, however gross they may have been. Women desperately need this kind of “relationship capital” for their careers.

I miss Allie MacBeal, and the unisex bathroom where everything important on the show actually happened. This is my vision of Utopia.

One day, women and men will both utilise the same space, and feel completely safe doing so. Actually and within their hearts. And we will all be friends, laa laa laa.

Laaing again (Do you really want me to stop?),

KK.

The Ivory Tower

at boundmaus.wordpress.com
My other home! With the amazing, lovely people who I can't remember whether they want to remain anonymous or not.

Kill All Men

Er, no thank you. As they say, some of my best friends are men. Nevertheless, this seems to be the imagery that some people associate with when it comes to feminism. I read an article in the Business Herald today (OMG, why?) about compulsory quotas in boardrooms. As I understand it, there are some countries, Norway for one, that enforce by law that a certain proportion of executives be female. None of these laws dictate that this proportion should be over 50%. But the picture that the Herald put in with the article…

A woman trampling men. To death. Excuse moi? What is happening here?

Just so we are clear, I do NOT want to kill all men, nor do I want to kill any man. Yes, feminist sci-fi writers have dabbled with this idea, but only as a thought experiment: What would the world look like if there were no men? Tragically, fantastically beautiful, according to some. Most interesting read, but hardly a political polemic, and certainly not a reality.

The article argued that it had been proven that quotas do not benefit the economy – some study had shown 18% decrease in worth, which I cannot begin to decipher. It does go on to show barriers that keep women from fulfilling their potential, such as their lack of confidence and shy use of “relationship capital”. But I cannot help but think that this is a ruthlessly economic view of the world. Certainly, economic interests are of the same tapestry as social interests. But what of the humanitarian interests? Surely, this should weigh as much as, or even more than, the economic ones.

I like to think of men and women coming together in boardrooms all over the world to co-operate. Is this not what they are meant to do anyway? Work together to earn profit for the companies and shareholders? What is their job if it is not this?

What it is not is a war of the sexes. What it is certainly not is a war of the sexes that women are winning. Women still get paid less than men, men still far outnumber women in executive positions. So why the hate? Make love, not war, people. We have been through this already.

Reading is Fun,

KK.

What I did in the last five years since my last major depressive episode

Made myself and everyone else around me miserable. Failed lots of papers at University. Made money, then spent it.

What a waste. I am sooo glad I am on antidepressants now. I have not been this happy or productive since 2004.